This is my second fanfiction. thankyou for reading this and please enjoy. Please Review/ favourite/ follow. I love feedback :) I am trying to be as accurate as i can to the time period, so please tell me how im going. This was quite Mulan Inspired so im trying to make the female character physicaly a female and not some kind of kick ass girl superhuman :)Hope you enjoy

My life so far, if you truly look at it, had been quite dismal at that point. I lived in an old shack of a house in the outskirts of London, almost in the country at the coast. My life was a mixture of unpleasant crowds and fog and smells and fish. The one bright patch in my life was a small stone church that was just down the road from my shack. It's warm lights always shone, welcoming me in on cold nights and offering me a safe place to sleep when my uncle was in a drunken rage.

My uncle was an old man and a dreadful alcoholic. He was my Mother's older Brother by an incredible 30 years, rendering him as an old man by the time my mother was even able to have child. I'm not sure how I came to be exactly but I was an unwanted child. My father fled into the night before I was born and my mother died soon after, either from a broken heart, hopelessness or starvation. I was gifted as a tiny child to my uncle who couldn't have refused me if he wanted, but my life on the street wouldn't have been too much different. It was a miracle actually that I was raised, but most nights I slept hungry and afraid. Afraid of my uncle, of his rage and of what he could do, but even more afraid of what I would do without him. Without his meagre supply of income from working at the docks, I would be forced to find my own cash, a task almost impossible for a girl who refused to bend to dishonourable means such as prostitution. But at the end of the day dishonourable translated smoothly into desperate, and that was what I was afraid of.

The night my story started was warmer than most, and I had found my way into the old church. I sat in a pew, praying to the one reliable thing in my life. How could I refuse faith when it was the only bright spark that kept me going? The preacher was a younger man, only in his thirties who was named Mr Write or Reverend Write by some. His thick brown hair bordered on orange and was thick, sticking up in the front, but tied back fashionably. The 17 year old me looked at him like a big brother and his sparkling blue eyes showed a lot of kindness. He entered the church, smiling sadly as he saw me, his eyes creasing in the corners, "Your uncle at it again?"

I nodded smiling. The subject barely affected me now, "Yeah. He found an entire bottle of ale somewhere and he's determined to drink himself unconscious."

He shook his head, "Dreadful stuff. He should look after you better, Isabelle."

I nodded, but he could tell something was wrong. I explained the situation to him but he didn't have a solution except to pray, but that was what I expected, should a preacher know the plans of God?

I smiled at my own religiousness. If my uncle knew I'm sure it would serve as enough of an excuse to give me a beating. I made my way home that night, expecting to find my uncle asleep but I was wrong. He was sitting in an old wooden chair in the dimly lit room, staring at the bottle in his hand, his old, ugly face twisted in a scowl, "Where 'ave you been love?"

He spat the words sarcastically. He was very drunk, but not drunk enough obviously by the large swig he took of the jug. He turned his head suddenly like a parrot, glaring at me, "What do'ya say? Been complaining? Been speeching about how I don't take care of you?"

I moved forward soothingly lifting my hands, "its fine uncle. I just went for a walk."

His eyes grew wider, "Am I not good enough for you? Are you not safer under my roof than scampering around London at night? I never wanted you here! You know you ruined my life! You and your whore of a mother, getting herself pregnant with you!"

I snapped, "Maybe if it wasn't for you being so stuck in yourself she might be alive!"

This challenge made him slowly rise to his feet, but I was going and I was going to finish this, "I didn't ruin your life, you big oaf! It was your stupid booze that did that! Maybe it is safer out there, but you aren't exactly welcoming a prodigal son home right now. Were you waiting up to see if I'm ok? No! You could care less!"

I saw the hand crash into my face before I felt it, blood and stars, leaving my mouth tasting like copper. He stood over me quivering in anger, by some miracle restraining himself from killing me there, "Don't prance all over me with your religious jargon like you're the perfect saint! You don't want my protection? Fine! Get out of here and go earn your living like your mother did… On her back!"

I might have run to my small room and slammed the door or returned to the church till morning and that would have been the end of the matter, but I was sick of waiting for face to knock at my door with injury or death because that was the only place my life was leading. I left into the night, the fog encasing me. I did head to the church, but that was only to find some help. There was no respectable way for me to earn my money, but there had been an idea forming in the back of my head for some time that until now I had been far to afraid to take. Now with the adrenalin in my veins and nothing to loose I was ready. My uncle had always worked at the docks so I knew more than I ought to about ships and sailing. Some idealistic part of me that longed to be doing something worthwhile admired the navy, but it was an impossible thought, not even a dream it was so unrealistic. But I was waiting to die at home, so why not take a wild fling at a life on the sea.

I went to the church and woke Reverend Write who had fallen asleep in the pews. I told him my plan, and although he objected and argued, tried to convince me that it was the worst idea I had ever had, he eventually helped. I suppose I must have convinced him that I was going ahead with the plan with or without him, but without him I wouldn't last 10 minutes, so he agreed to help. He supplied me with clothes that must have been for a considerably younger him. I dressed as best as I could. I am lucky I suppose that I was not a skinny girl, because that guise wouldn't have held, but I was more solid, being more curvy, but I found I could disguise it well enough if I wrapped my chest in a bandage and wore slightly baggy clothes. The reverend gave me a haircut and looking in the mirror I could well believe I was a 15 year old boy, staring back with satisfied eyes.

It was almost dawn when I thanked the reverend and he bid goodbye and good luck. I ran down to the docks to find the nearest enlistment office. There was a man there who I knew, who almost might have recognised me, but he didn't and although the man seemed surprised that I wasn't drunk, he accepted me. It was only an hour later when I was boarding a small rowboat to bring me over to the ship did I realise this might not be a good idea. But I was enlisted and I forced my feet onto the boat and helped the other boy row us over. It wasn't until I saw the bright golden letters of the ship Justinian that I realised that for better or worse I had sealed my fate. I was a small terrified girl wearing the guise of a small, terrified and utterly alone boy, now called Isaac Bell.