#captain smith!verse

“Wherever the tides take us, Merlin,” Gwen chuckled, leaning on the balustrade by the Cutlass’ bowsprit and watching the dawn break. The great fiery orb of the sun painted the waves in pinks and oranges as it rose over the horizon.

Gwen’s knees hit the deck with a thud, followed by five subsequent thuds as her crew were shoved to the wooden surface with her. Their weapons had been taken, and their hands tied in front of them with sturdy rope. Her ship, her beautiful ship, which had been her home these past years, the Cutlass, had been hitched to the stern of the Navy ship upon whose deck she knelt. They had been captured. In the years since she and her brother Elyan had gone from being privateers to pirates, alongside their four closest friends, they had never been caught. Until now. The pirate captain raised her head, dark curls escaping from her braid and blowing about her face in the salty sea breeze, and glared defiantly up at the man who stood before her. A man as golden as she was dark, whom she assumed was the commanding officer of the Navy ship. How ironic.

Gwen likes to sit on the bowsprit or lean on the quarterdeck railing of the Cutlass at night when no one else is abovedecks and watch the stars and the moon reflecting on the sea. It’s calming and beautiful, and it reminds her of why she became a sailor in the first place.

Guinevere Smith is the captain of the Cutlass. Formerly part of the Camelot Royal Navy, she and her brother Elyan, who served as her Quartermaster, broke away from the service of the Crown when King Uther Pendragon refused to recognize her letter of marque after five years of serving as his privateers. With a crew made up of their closest friends--Gwaine, Percival, Lancelot, and Merlin--Gwen and Elyan turned from attacking enemies of the Crown to attacking Royal Navy ships as pirates to reclaim what they had lost and make their own way upon the seas.