Hey folks! I had this tale buzzing about in my head since I saw AWE months ago. It started yanking me away from the Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic so I figured I better give it some time in the light too. I wrote this mainly cause I really didn't like what they did to Norrington, he deserved better dang it!

Prolouge

"No doubt you've discovered that loyalty is no longer the currency of the realm as your father believes."
"Then what is?"
"I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm."

Beckett and Elizabeth from Dead Man's Chest.

When the soldiers came she wasn't orginally afraid. She did find it odd that they came so late at night baring torches especially in one of the nastiest storms she'd seen in her life.

"Michael." She whispered as she creeped into his room. At two years her senior surely he'd know what was going on. "Michael wake up."

"Oi...sis I was sleeping. Oh my head..."

"Michael why is there soldiers here so late?" She asked ignoring his grumbling and cursing. She knew he'd been out late drinking with friends, he really needed to stop drinking so much.

"Soldiers?" Michael said in alarm and hoped out of bed. He looked out the window and swore more still.

"Your never going to get a wife if you keep talking like that." His sister scolded.

"Right now I hope I live to get a wife." He replied and grabbed his boots.

"Why? What's going on?"

"No time, go get dressed quickly. I'll call for Doc." He told her and pushed her out of the room.

She snorted at the door in annoyance. Once again no one would tell her anything. She was going to be eighteen in a few weeks now. She was an adult but her family was refusing to treat her like one.

Well if they won't tell me I'll just find out myself.

She'd lived in this house her entire life. It was second nature to creep to the top of the stairs silently. Not that she needed silence with the soldiers pounding on the door.

"And what do you think your doing my little wild child?"

She almost jumped when her father pulled her away from the stairs. "Papa, we should answer the door. We have company."

Her father just shook his head. "Not good company I'm afraid. They're not here for tea."

She openned her mouth to ask what he meant but he pushed her towards her room. "Get your warmest clothes together in a bag and grab a cloak. Hurry!"

While she could and often did ignore her brother's orders, she never ignored her father's.

The apprehension in her brother and father's voices make her hurry to pack while common sense ordered her to pack light. She didn't waste time with anything fancy and kept everything servicable.

"Miss are you ready?" Someone called from the doorway.

She looked up and saw Doc. He had been her father's surgeon on one of his merchant ships and her tutor in the school room for years. "Yes I...oh wait my neckalce!"

Doc looked down the hall in apprehension. "Please hurry Miss they're breaking down the door."

"What about Cook and the rest of the household?"

"Your father has been sending them home at night."

She found her necklace and quickly tucked it into her bag. She didn't have time to play with the clasp on it. "What is going on Doc?"

Doc grabbed her hand as she grabbed her bag. "No time, we have to leave now!"

He took her down the hall to the back stairway. A way she and her brother had used a number of times to sneak out for a lark. She heard the front door crash, soldiers yelling, and booted feet stomping.

This is all wrong. We haven't done anything wrong!

She followed Doc's example and dashed through the garden. Clinging to shadows and hunched down like a thief as they made their way to the barn.

"About time." Michael sneered. "Git yer butt in."

She stuck her tongue out as she climbed into the back. Doc and her father sat up from with Michael driving. She considered herself lucky that there was not alot of bags or she'd have been cramped.

The reins snapped the rear of the horse and they shot out of the barn, startling a number of troops that had been going to check it.

She couldn't help but look back. Their home was burning to the ground even as soldiers shooted at them. She couldn't help but tear up. Why is this all happening?

When she noticed the rider chasing them she couldn't help but think of the bible passage about the pale horse. Who could death be if not a man almost as white as his wig, with murder in his eyes and a naked saber glinting from the fires behind him.

"Papa! Papa we're being chased!"

Her father let out a number of good irish curses, in gaelic no less as a bullet whizzed past. A tongue she hadn't spoken since they moved when she was five.

"Faster Michael!"

"I can't! I got one horse pulling 4 and a carriage! He's got one horse pulling him!"

The man gained fast and was soon even with her. A sickening smile on his face as he raised his sword.

Her father reached back and smacked the man's arm away. The sword sunk into the wood inched from it's original target of her head. A cut on her cheek ran red with warm blood.

"Leave my little girl alone ya brute!" Her father yelled at him.

The man struggled for a moment. Her father seemed to be trying to pull him off his horses but balance and speed countered the attempt.

She grabbed her father's bag and rooted through it. Certainly there was something to help in the fight.

A gun shot rang in her ears. Her eyes wide as she watched Doc dive for her father who tumbled lifelessly from the open air carriage. She even felt the wheel under her lift as it ran him over.

She was paralyzed as Death pulled his sword from the wood by her head. Michael was screaming something and she could almost feel Doc lunging for her.

With a war cry that would've done her ancestor's proud she lifted her father's bag and flung it with all her might.

It crashed into the man's face with more force then she would've thought. His weight fell backwards and with the reins in hand his horse reared, dumping him to the ground.

She could've sworn that as he ripped the open bag from his head he stared at her with a look that promised a slow, agonizing, death. She didn't particularly care though.

"Papa!" She yelled.

She felt Doc grab her around the waist and hull her into the seat with him. She could even hear Michael tell her they couldn't go back and that her father was dead. At that moment though she was a little girl who wanted nothing more then her father to defend her from the big bad world.

"Papa! PAPA!"