A/N: Okay, so this is a properly flowing story with full length chapters (except this intro chapter is a bit short but nevermind!) telling the tale of a teenage Annabella Sparrow looking for adventure. There will be Sparrabeth, but mostly there will be Bella. Hopefully all those that voted for me to write this (and maybe a few more besides) will read, enjoy, and review as well! :)

Disclaimer: All recognisable PotC characters belong to Disney and other important people that aren't me. Any new characters are mine!

Chapter 1

Years from now, they would be talked of in legends, that's what father always said. A notorious pirate and the daughter of the governor, an unlikely match that worked better than any ever seen, and led to the birth of two perfectly pirate children. The Sparrow family sailed the seven seas aboard the Black Pearl with a crew that dare not think of mutiny anymore.

Captain Jack Sparrow was as much loved and feared as any pirate before or since, and his much beloved wife, the Pirate King, Captain Swann-Sparrow was none the less admired for her beauty and her piracy both. Everyone knew she had borne two children, a daughter named Annabella, and a son, John Teague III. They were the heirs apparent to the great Pirate throne, two generations down the line from the infamous Captain Teague, Keeper of the Codex. From the outside looking in, Annabella knew she was to be envied by many. She had a family many longed to be a part of or just connected to, that some believed was myth, they were so great. Yet Annabella Sparrow was unhappy.

It was not that she did not love her family or wanted more treasures than she had. She had friends enough amongst the odd and ramshackle crew, and it never once bothered her that she and Johnny were the only youngsters. There were occasions when mother would help her dress up in a fine gown and she didn't mind at all, and most of the time she was allowed to run around in scruffs, doing just as she pleased. She had the freedom of the open sea aboard the Pearl that had always been her beloved home, and yet something was missing.

Two weeks since her sixteenth birthday and still Annabella felt she was treated like a child. She was never permitted to be left alone aboard the ship or to go ashore without a parent or crewman at her side. She was not trusted, as far as she could tell, and never allowed any independence at all. Father would not even let her stay at the helm alone, though he seemed to think the ever so short Marty or decidedly aged Gibbs could cope just fine. To Annabella, it made no sense.

So many years waiting wasted, or so it seemed to the pirates' daughter who still at the age of sixteen was allowed to do nothing of interest that she really wanted to do. She had tried to understand when she was younger, as Johnny tried and often failed to do now. He was still not quite fourteen and must suffer the fact that he was a child and therefore must be treated as one. Annabella did not see why she should have to feel this way now she was sixteen. To her, she was grown, able-bodied, and far clever enough to be out in the world alone a while. She could cheat Pintel and Ragetti out of a weeks wage playing Pirate dice, and there was scarcely a person aboard ship that was better with a sword since she had been training in some form or other since she was but ten. Only mother and father outranked her in such ways, and yet she was only a babe in their eyes still.

All these things she had shouted at her parents just hours before, screaming at the top of her lungs as tears came to her eyes, disproving all her valid points about being adult and all.

"My ship, my rules, luv" Captain Jack had told his daughter calmly, "Best you remember that" he said sharply, before walking away.

Perhaps it seemed as if he didn't care much, Annabella sometimes wondered if that was just what it was that made him wander off the moment she got upset. It never did seem to occur to her that as tough as her father was, it was her tears alone that could break his heart.

"Darling, your time will come" Elizabeth had promised, trying to reach to the daughter that might've been a perfect copy of herself, were it not for the fact her hair was dark and wild as Jack's own.

"My time has come!" Annabella protested, pulling away, "Why can no-one see that but me?" she yelled in frustration before bolting away, straight up the rigging.

She always hid here, up in the crows nest where few would dare or bother to follow her. Of course, there was one that was never quite willing to leave her be for long.

"Go away, Johnny!" she told him when he was still several feet beneath her and without ever looking down.

He either didn't hear her over the rush of the wind or didn't bother to listen, the latter of which was more likely somehow. John kept on climbing til he reached his sisters side and propped himself up beside her, even as she turned her face away.

"You should come down from here" he told her definitely, "Mother cried you know"

"You think I don't cry, Johnny?" Annabella snapped at him, "Does nobody on this ship think I have any feelings at all? Because I do, I have feelings enough, and hopes and dreams and ambitions. Nobody seems altogether interested in any of them" she concluded grumpily, folding her arms over her chest and looking out across the ocean that seemed to darken with her mood.

John only wished he knew what to say to her to make it better. He loved his sister dearly, of course he did, and he tried to understand her, but he just couldn't find a way. The dreams and ambitions she spoke of, that she had waxed lyrical on before now in the form of tales and stories she wished to live out, they were fantasies he did not share.

John Sparrow was content to bide his time, to read his books, to learn his skills. He was happy to be a child for now, happy to be his mother's little boy for the most part. Sometimes his father almost despaired of him, but was equally as grateful that his boy did not have a want to get away too soon, to be a lone adventurer before he was old enough or wise enough to to so.

Annabella had always been different, always been the free spirit, looking for her own adventure, her own horizon to go after. Their parents would not hear of it, and John was glad. The last thing he wanted was for his sister to go out alone and get into trouble. So many dangers existed across the seven seas, and though here aboard the Pearl they had family, friends, and crew to ensure their safety, out in the world alone there was no telling what horrors could befall the children on the Captains Sparrow.

"I still don't understand why you can't be happy here" he complained, pushing his hat up higher on his head as he stared past his sister and out to sea, "You used to be"

"I used to eat porridge and dribble as well, but some of us have grown up!" said Annabella grumpily, immediately regretting her harsh tone when she glanced at John and saw his expression turn more sad than before.

It wasn't his fault, but he didn't understand. They had played at being adventurers, talked endlessly of the places they would sail to as Captains of their own ships. It seemed Annabella was planning a future whilst her brother was content simply to play games. Now she was older, and the young Miss Sparrow wanted to see the world for herself in her own way, without her overbearing, over-protective parents who seemed not at all concerned that she was unhappy here now.

"I'm sorry, Johnny" she said softly, "You just... You don't understand" she shook her head sadly.

"Sorry, Johnny. Sqwuak!" Cotton's parrot made a lot of noise as it soared up and sat on the rigging beside the two of them, "Sorry, sorry!"

Neither Johnny nor Bella could keep a straight face at such a sound. Far beneath them, the young ones could see Mr Cotton waving for his bird to come down, whilst their own father made threats to 'shoot the bugger down'. He had hoped the damn bird would be dead long before now, but it kept on going. Annabella had her own theory that it was waiting until its purpose was through, that when one day Cotton died, the parrot would die too, and not a moment before. She had no idea how old the man or the bird was, though she suspected Cotton was the oldest crewman of the Pearl, and yet on he went, fit to outlive them all.

"The worlds and adventures they have seen" she said dreamily, thinking of so many men she had been told stories of, "I want to see them, experience them" she sighed.

Annabella longed to live the tales she had heard from her parents, their own adventures and those of so many other pirate Captains - Teague, Barbossa, Turner. Though she knew she must wait to govern her own ship, that did not mean she could not experience the world and all its seven seas in her own way. Under the shelter of her father's arms and mother's skirts was not how she wanted to live, not anymore. Ten years ago she was fine with it, perhaps even five, but now was different. Now Annabella longed for a freedom that not even the Pearl could give her.

"I'm going down" John said with a sigh then as he swung himself over the rigging and began the climb towards the bottom, "I'll see you later on, when you get your head out of the clouds" he told her, speaking both literally and figuratively at the same time it seemed.

Annabella repressed the overwhelming urge to poke her tongue out at him for a silly attempt at a joke of some kind. Her baby brother was just that in her eyes, a baby. She did not object to his loving his parents or the ship they called home, she did too, but it was not enough anymore. If they couldn't understand her want and need for more, then she would not wait for them to change their minds. She was grown enough, she could have her freedom if she wanted it, without asking for the permission she was sure she would never gain until she was too old to want it anymore.

"I shall have things my way" she said with determination, eyes on the horizon she wanted to meet for herself as she sat up straight on her perch, "I shall have my own adventure, just the way I choose" she said sternly, sticking out her chin, "Nothing and no-one can catch Annabella Sparrow"

Perhaps if her father saw her in that moment, he would have been prestigiously proud, but then he still would not have known the plans inside her mind. She was going to run away, the very first chance she got, apparently unaware of just how very dangerous that idea could turn out to be.

To Be Continued...