Jack Sparrow prided himself on knowing everything that went on aboard the Black Pearl—every whisper of mutiny, every last drop of rum gone missing. So, it came as quite the surprise when he discovered, far too late, that the lean, sharp-eyed young deckhand he’d picked up in Nassau was, in fact, a woman.

Not that he’d noticed. Nor had Gibbs, who—despite decades at sea—seemed to have lost his sense for certain obvious anatomical clues. “Thought she was just a wiry lad with no taste for sun,” Gibbs had muttered, rubbing his beard as if that explained everything. Jack wasn’t convinced. Still, he’d let her stay; she worked hard, climbed the rigging like a monkey, and didn’t ask many questions.

That changed the night everything went sideways.

The crew had cornered her in the hold after catching wind of a strange signal she’d lit under the moonlight. Her hat fell, her braid unfurled, and the glint of gold at her throat—normally hidden—flashed in the lantern light. A pendant, shaped like a “B”, hung from her neck, glowing faintly with something more than simple magic.

Before Jack could even speak, she was off like a shot. A quick dive off the gunwale and she vanished into the dark sea, leaving only ripples and the faint sound of mocking laughter on the breeze. And that pendant—burning its image into Jack’s memory.

“Barbossa?” he whispered, frowning as if the name tasted sour on his tongue.

—

Later, back in Tortuga, with the taverns noisy and the docks thick with smoke and salt, whispers of her resurfaced. Rumors flowed faster than the grog. A fiery girl with wild brown hair, eyes like embers, and a temper to match had been spotted at The Siren’s Fang, serving rum with a scowl and a blade tucked in her boot.

Jack leaned against the doorframe of the tavern and watched her.

Barbossa’s daughter.

It sounded like a joke. The idea that someone so alive, so full of heat and steel, could be born of that cold-hearted bastard was almost laughable. And yet, there she was—clearly his blood, yet unmistakably her own force of nature.

She didn’t look up, didn’t notice him. But he noticed her. The necklace was gone now, tucked out of sight, but the fire in her spine told him everything he needed to know.

The girl had secrets.

And Jack Sparrow, more curious than cautious as usual, wasn’t about to let her slip away again

The Siren’s Fang was half full, rowdy as ever. Rum sloshed across sticky wooden tables, a drunken accordionist wheezed something vaguely musical in the corner, and the salty scent of brine and sweat clung to every surface. But amidst the noise, Jack Sparrow moved like a shadow with purpose, weaving through the crowd with the grace of someone too drunk to fall and too sly to be stopped.

She was behind the bar, swiping spilled rum off the counter with a rag and scowling at a pair of leering sailors. He approached casually, one hand resting on the hilt of his cutlass, the other spinning a coin across his knuckles.

“Fancy seeing you on land, darling,” he said, voice smooth, too smooth. “Last I saw, you were flying off my ship like a siren with a stolen tide.”