"I don't know how you expect to live on that while you're on board," Charles says, gesturing to Hok's dinner: a kind of soup brimming with vegetables and the remainders of a bowl of rice.

Hok eyes the pile of pork on Charles' own plate and then looks back at him; raises one graceful eyebrow in retort, and says nothing.

Distantly, the boat rocks as it pulls out of the port; the sway of their bodies is near imperceptible.

She gets used to looking out over the railing and seeing nothing but endless water; of listening to the slap of the waves against the hull, following her even belowdecks, into her dreams.

She learns to be comforted by her father's renewed presence at her side, touching her shoulder when she'd done an excellent job rigging the sails, or just because they'd been apart for so long that each wanted to make sure that the other was real.

She does not adjust to Charles' eyes on her, watching her careful movements on deck and among the crew, arms bent and tucked against her sides like the folded wings of a crane.

He believes he clipped those wings by asking her to stay with him, she thinks.

Whether he did or not, she doesn't like those eyes.

She'd like to know how her father met her mother. Not as a reference, of course, because Charles is her friend, no matter how her father and the other mates tease them, but out of curiosity.

It sounds rather romantic: two people from opposite sides of the world coming together, falling in love, and in the end deciding that they would do anything to stay together - even trading in land for sea and wings for sails.

But the more Hok thinks about it, the more it mirrors every other epic romance she's ever known, and it gets less and less interesting until she decides that she doesn't need to hear it after all.

(She'd rather write her own story, anyway.)

"There is little difference between the sea and China," she says to him one night when they're perched high in the rigging, swinging their feet and searching for constellations in the night sky.

(Isn't it inappropriate behavior for the cabin boy, she'd teased him when he'd asked her to come, to disappear with his captain's daughter?

Charles had flushed and laughed nervously.)

He pauses in his search for the Hunter, and looks at her instead. "What do you mean?"

"They're both home to me," she replies simply.

He smiles. "Yes, I suppose so," and then he chuckles and adds, "You are the captain's daughter after all."

I'm also yours, she wants to say, but just takes his hand instead.

They go on; she shows him the rabbit on the moon, and he teaches her the Dutch names for the stars, their hands intertwined all the while.

A/n: Pickle and I really needed some Hok/Charles, because it's only another century until the next book comes out. D:

(Disclaimer: I don't own the Five Ancestors series.)