{ Spring 1718 }

"Hurry up, Eleanor!" Briony hissed at me, somehow managing to maintain her elegant posture even as she turned to face me.

I refrained from scowling at her, lifting my skirts slightly and following her and father through the busy town center back towards our carriage.

A sound to my left caught my attention, and I stopped, turning to spot a man stood in the shadows. He didn't look like the ordinary man one would find in a town like Port Kingsmead, ordained in various trinkets and clothes that didn't look like they all came from her, with an air of mystery that hung about him.

Dark eyes met my own for a moment, before Briony's hand on my wrist pulled me away.

"What are you doing?" She muttered, dragging me towards the carriage.

I adjusted my skirts as we settled down, the carriage beginning to move with only a gesture from Father, glancing out of the window in the hopes of seeing the strange man again, but of course, he was no longer there.

-*-*-*

That night was warm, almost too much so, which was probably why I found myself wandering the empty halls of the Manor in the very early hours of the morning, unable to sleep.

The peaceful quiet was broken by a thud and the sound of muffled cursing coming from somewhere behind me.

I froze, turning slowly on my heel and frowning when I saw no one in the hallway. Unmistakably, there was someone in the house, but I had no clue where they were. Grabbing a vase from the nearby table, I crept towards the dining room, peering around the doorframe.

No one there.

I padded through the grand room to the next room, the kitchen, and stopped in my tracks when I saw the same man from earlier stood in the middle of the room, a bottle in hand.

The first thing I was drawn to were his eyes, oddly enough, of all his features. They were dark, I knew that from earlier, and in the moonlight I could see that they were outlined in kohl. His skin was tanned, a moustache and a beard lining his mouth, his hair a mass of long dreadlocks, with beads and trinkets hanging from it, kept away from his face with a red bandana that looked as though it had seen better days. He was soaked through, water dripping onto the floor.

He was frozen in place too, staring at me, and I stared steadily back at him, vase still in hand. A moment later I found myself staring down the barrel of a gun.

"Don't move, or I'll shoot."

I stared at the gun for a moment longer and then took a breath, hoping that I sounded more confident than I felt. "You can put that down, I wasn't planning to."

The gun lowered from my face to my chest, enough to still wound me if necessary.

"Who are you?" I continued after a pause, and he smirked at me.

"I'm Captain Jack Sparrow, love, y'heard of me?"

I had, his wanted posters were up in town.

"I have. You're a pirate."

"Indeed I am."

"And what is a pirate such as you doing in a house such as this?"

Sparrow held up the bottle in his hand, and then gestured to the raging storm outside. "Can't a man borrow a house for refuge in a storm? And borrow some rum while he's at it," he added as an afterthought.

"Most people prefer to be informed that they'll have a guest. Father might have had a room done up for you."

His gun lowered further, and he tilted his head, observing me. "You're a funny woman, love."

"Don't call me that. You don't know me."

"What would ye rather I called you? I don't know yer name."

"Eleanor Fernsby," I said with distaste. "But no one calls me that aside from the people in this house."

"What do they call ye then?"

"Stormi, I haven't the faintest why."

"Perhaps it's because of your stormy attitude." His gaze drifted from my face to the vase that I still held in my hand. "Not many fancy girls like you would threaten the scary pirate in their house with a vase."

"I didn't threaten you," I murmured, setting the vase down. "It was a precaution."

Sparrow's ever-attentive eyes followed the vase as I placed it on a table and then back up to me. "Y'ever met a pirate before, love - Stormi?" He corrected himself quickly.

I shook my head. "Why would I have?"

"You don't seem very worried."

"Forgive me Captain Sparrow, but you don't look very threating."

He looked mildly offended, lifting the gun again slightly, and I mirrored his action, reaching for the vase. Although he was clearly a pirate, what I had said was true - he looked more like a bedraggled animal with his sopping wet dreadlocks and slightly sheepish expression.

Sparrow hummed after a moment, lowering his gun once again and tucking it back onto his belt, picking up his bottle once more and beginning to wander around the kitchen.

He had an odd way of walking, a slightly drunken gait so it seemed, but it matched everything else about him. Whenever he spoke I tried to figure out where he was from, for his accent was English and he sounded somewhat educated, but not nearly refined enough to come from somewhere like upper class London like I had.

"Ye've not got anything to eat in here, eh love?"

I decided to ignore his use of 'love', coming to stand beside him and look over his shoulder at the cupboard he was staring into. "Not in here, try the pantry."

"Oh, the pantry?" He was mocking my own accent, and I tapped him on the shoulder with the vase that I was still holding.

"Might I remind you, Captain, that this is my house that you're in, and that I could at any moment choose to call out for help?"

"If ye wanted to do that, you would have done so a while ago."

I narrowed my eyes at him, slightly irritated at the way he was attempting to read me, and even more so that he was right, to an extent.

"Don't pretend to know me, Captain Sparrow, you've only just met me. How do you know I'm not just waiting until your guard is lowered?"

He sighed, poking his head out of the pantry to look over his shoulder at me. "One, because you're asking questions like that, and two, there's something about you."

"Something about me?"

"Mhm. You've got this... This look in yer eyes. You're bored here, and any taste of freedom you can get, you'll take it."

I threw him a reproachful look, and he smirked at me, turning back to the pantry, before re-emerging with a bread roll in hand, tossing another to me. I used the vase to knock it back at him, hitting his head.

"You know nothing about me, Mr Sparrow -"

"Captain," he corrected, and I glared at him.

"I'm perfectly content with my life here."

He snapped his fingers at me. "Now that's a lie if I've ever heard one. You're still speaking to me, and clearly I'm the closest thing to the outside world that you've ever had."

I turned my back on him and left the kitchen, the robe that covered my nightgown billowing behind me as I climbed the stairs. Sparrow was following me, I could hear his own footsteps in time with my own. When I stopped in front of a window, he did too.

"Y'know love, it's alright to ask for that taste of freedom, if ye want it."

I let out a breath, turning to face him, alarmed when I realised just how close he was to me. "Where's your ship, Captain?" I asked, abruptly changing the subject.

His eyebrows raised. "My ship?"

"You're a pirate, pirates have ships, no?"

"She's waiting for me."

"She?"

"The Black Pearl, most beautiful vessel I've ever laid me eyes on, let me tell you. Could never love any woman in the world more than I love me Pearl."

I gazed up at him, enthralled by the way he spoke about his ship, sounding so enthusiastic and so spellbound as he did so.

"Tell me more about her."

He looked down at me and grinned. "What would ye like to hear?"

Yay, chapter 1 of the new storyline! I decided to start earlier so that they've known each other for longer by the time the main part of the story kicks off, and to add some length. I've got no idea when Curse of the Black Pearl actually takes place, even though I tried to find out, so I decided that it happens in 1730, just to make it a nice number.

Hope you liked the first chapter, there's many more to come!