Author's Note: Hello everyone! This is Arwen Tinuviel, and some of you may know me as the author of "The Peacemaker," my only other story on this site. Well, as of July 9th this summer, I've become just a wee bit obsessed with Johnny Depp. I fought the urge as long as I could, but eventually I found myself writing yet another fanfic. So here it is, I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do. Please read and review!

Prologue

            The floor was slick with sweat, booze and grime. The entire place reeked of rum. A fist swung wildly through the air as one staggering drunkard tried to hit another, forcing me to duck out of the way quickly to avoid being struck myself. I picked my way carefully around sleeping bodies and empty tankards, trying not to step in the puddles of filth that seemed to seep out of the floor itself. I straightened my knapsack on my shoulder and wondered how I had managed to get myself into this predicament.

            It was my uncle's fault really. My Uncle Roland, the one who had begrudgingly looked after me since my real parents died, had been my only family for the past twelve years. When I was eight, my mother and father had been killed in one of those freakish, almost comically impossibly-sounding accidents that no one who wasn't involved really believes: One night they had been invited to a dinner party at an obnoxiously posh mansion, along with several hundred others. One of the female guests was wearing a very elaborate hairstyle – one that reportedly didn't suit her nearly as well as she seemed to think it did. Another guest was smoking a cigarette through a long-stemmed pipe which she held out at odd angles throughout the night. Now, at one point both the hair-do and the long-stemmed cigarette were situated near a tall French window dressed with heavy velvet curtains. Somehow the two made contact, and at first the hair-do merely smoldered a bit, but it soon caught fire. When she realized what was happening, the poor woman beneath it began shrieking like a banshee and flailing her arms around and batting at her head in a desperate attempt to put the fire out. In her hysteria, she backed up against the window dressings, and then the flames licked out and caught the velvet curtains. At the same time as all this was happening, the cigarette woman got such a shock that she jumped back, causing her cigarette to fall from its long-stemmed pipe to the carpeted floor. The fire raced up the curtains and through the halls by way of the carpet, causing guests to leap out of its way and make for the door as quickly as they could, dropping their champagne glasses as they went. The champagne, of course, only helped the fire on its way. And on it went, spreading and spreading until the palatial mansion had burnt to the ground. Some of the guests were unable to escape in time, my parents among them. The only reason I escaped is that I wasn't there to begin with: I hadn't been allowed to go the party because I was too young. So afterwards I was sentenced to live under the care of Uncle Roland for the remainder of my youth.

            Roland was a grouchy, asocial old man who had never married or had children because he was too selfish to be bothered looking after anyone other than himself. He resented me for invading his privacy, and I resented him for not being anything like the parents I wished were still with me. We hated each other equally, and so we got on splendidly. The minute I turned sixteen, he began badgering me to find a suitor so I could marry and move out. I would've been all too happy to oblige him – my leaving would do us both a favor – but none of my would-be fiancés were good enough for me. It may seem presumptuous for me to put it that way, but it's true: Every last one of them was either oafishly stupid, hopelessly shy or more interested in himself than in me. I put up with these useless suitors for four long years, and when no Prince Charming appeared among the throngs of toads I resolved to take matters into my own hands. One night in late October of the fourth year, I packed everything I deemed valuable, along with clothes, money and a small store of food, into my knapsack and walked out into the chilly autumn air. I didn't bother telling Roland goodbye, or even leaving a note saying what I'd done. It plagues my conscience sometimes, but I'm fairly sure he didn't miss me much. I didn't look back.

            Somewhere along the sixth road I crossed I realized I had no idea where I was going. I kept walking to keep my joints from going stiff from the cold, and then pulled a flimsy idea together and hatched a plan: I would head west to America, to seek my fortune as so many others had done. It sounded crazy inside my head, but terrifically exciting. First, I would need a way to get there, and that meant a sailing ship and someone to sail it. I wasn't interested in buying my own ship – I hadn't nearly enough money anyway – but I could surely buy myself a place on a ship that was heading in the direction I needed. There were several taverns on the oceanfront that were rumoured haunts for sailors, and a few that were specific to world travelers. I glanced up at the night sky, found the North Star and headed towards the place I thought would suit my needs. And so I found myself in that slovenly tavern, ducking the misguided swing of a drunken brawler, and suddenly unsure that I had made a wise decision.

            I shifted my knapsack on my shoulder and made for a cluster of tables towards the back of the tavern, hoping to find some dark corner in which to hide myself for a while.