CHAPTER ONE: ARRIVAL

Jack Sparrow was not particularly good-looking, even for a pirate. His teeth were yellowed, and some had been replaced entirely by gold. His brown hair was in dreadlocks, his beard braided. He was clad in a seaman's coat, a red bandana, and a black tri-cornered hat. All of his other earthly possessions could fit on his person: a compass, a seaman's knife, a flintlock pistol, and a curved, wicked-looking cutlass. And, of course, a small flask of rum.

He was in good spirits as he surveyed the small island harbor that lay before him, breathing in the salt air, feeling the ship rock beneath him. He loved that feeling—he loved the sea, almost as much as he loved himself.

Of course, the vantage point left something to be desired. The Jolly Mon was an old fishing boat, barely longer than Jack was tall. It was leaky, it was slow, it was inelegant, and it was really no way for the man who'd taken Nassau Port without firing a single shot to make an entrance. He really missed the Pearl right about now.

Still, the view was nice. The sun was just rising, the rich pink and orange of the sky contrasting nicely with the lush green of Port Royal, Jamaica. About half a dozen ships, ranging from small clipper vessels to merchant ships and man o' wars, floated in the harbor. The city was one of the most prosperous in the whole of the Caribbean; if you were looking to be a cane farmer, trader, sailor, or slaver, you could make a good living there.

Jack had come on another venture entirely.

He heard a slopping noise from below, and looked down. Water was yet again filling the hull of his ship. "Bugger." Jack leapt down from the small mast of the boat, picked up a bucket, and began bailing. Really, he would have thought Anamaria had better sense when it came to buying fishing boats. As it was, the theft of it had been probably worse than useless; he now had a boat that was likely to sink at any moment, and he could add yet one more to the list of women in Tortuga who were livid with him—six or seven by now, he thought.

He was getting near the docks now. As the Jolly Mon passed by a small spit of land jutting out into the harbor, Jack caught sight of a very gruesome scene—three skeletons hanging from a bar of wood. Next to the swinging corpses was the legend PIRATES YE BE WARNED.

Jack sighed. Why couldn't everyone just learn to get along in this world? He stopped bailing for a moment, doffed his hat, and saluted. "Bad luck, lads."

The moment's distraction cost him. Water was now lapping his ankles. "Bugger!" He grabbed the bucket and frantically began bailing, hoping he'd at least be able to get through this with his dignity somewhat intact.

— — — —

If one had been on the Port Royal docks working that particular morning, as the docksmaster was, they would have seen an unprecedented, unexpected, and overall quite extraordinary thing.

There was nothing out of the ordinary at first—just a stray bucket floating by towards the harbor. Then they might have looked up to see if the bucket had fallen from a nearby boat. They would have seen the last vestiges of the battered hull of an old dinghy as it was lost to the sea. However, the boat wasn't giving up without a fight. A mast had been fitted to it, sail flapping in the breeze, a small crow's nest on top. And standing in this small perch was a dreadlocked man in a seaman's coat and a black tricorn hat, looking straight ahead, totally at ease with his situation, and rather extraordinarily dignified about the whole matter.

The mast continued to sink, and he continued to stand, and the docksmaster continued to stare, until the crow's nest was level with the dock. The stranger stepped right off of his perch, grabbed a rope, tied the little bit of boat he had left to the dock, and began marching off, dignity rather lost now due to his almost drunken swagger.

The docksmaster recovered from his shock just as the man was about to leave the dock. "Oi!" he thundered after the stranger, who turned around and examined him quizzically. "It's a shilling to put up your boat here." The stranger glanced at the now vanished boat and back at the docksmaster a bit reproachfully. Indeed, he had a bit of a point, but the docksmaster would not be swayed, not when his profits were currently all of four shillings and a sixpence. "And I shall need to know your name."

The stranger gave him a significant look. "What d'you say to three shillings," he replied, his voice slightly slurred, "and we—forget the name?"

The docksmaster looked first at his purse, then at the stranger, then back at his purse again. "Welcome to Port Royal, Mr. Smith."

The stranger gave him the shillings and made a sort of bow. The docksmaster then turned back to gaze at the sunken boat, shaking his head at the queerness of it all.

He was so busy with this that he didn't even notice when the stranger walked off with the money-purse in his pocket.