Childhood (

1690-1704, age 0-14 )

Jack’s childhood is a tumultuous affair in which interaction is not courted – headcanon may cover matters, but for the most part this portion of Jack’s life is utterly untouchable. These are the formative years and all that he went through – both good and bad – are the framework of who he became.

Jack is intimately familiar with abuse; he was thrashed within an inch of his life three times by his grandmother, locked in her brig when he was eight, and knows the nature of her violent temper all too well. He is intimately familiar with both her cane and the sword within it, and from her wrath there was no protection.

What is, perhaps, most notable about this was although she was called Grandmama, Jack did not know if this was due to them being related or due instead to her venerable age and insistence upon the matter. As far as he was concerned, Grandmama was a title, not an indication of familial relation.

Jack wondered if Captain Teague was his father, but did not know for certain and had no evidence to prove whether he was or he wasn’t. Internally, Jack saw him as the man who might be father, and obeyed him primarily because not doing so was costly, but also because Teague was the only one who took any sort of responsibility toward him – in a manner of speaking.

Jack was Teague’s cabin boy, he learned the life of sailing alongside the man, memorizing terminology and learning his way around a ship from the time he was just able to clear the man’s boots in height. There was no fondness between them, no obvious care on Teague’s part beyond brisk corrections that would, eventually, prove to be lifesaving skills once Jack was old enough to understand the lessons.

Only rarely can Jack recall Teague doing anything fatherly, though in each instance the act was one of protection that Jack dismissed less of a matter of the man caring if Jack was harmed and more Teague being offended that someone would dare lay a hand on his property. This sense of thinking was made all the stronger in later years, but is important to note was registered early on – Jack did not believe he had parents, but he did know he belonged to Teague by some measure.

The violence of his young life was compacted by the violence all around him. Growing up among pirates and within pirate cities, Jack was exposed to so much of it that in many ways he was desensitized – but in every other, he was angry. He hated this life, was enormously bitter about his own treatment, and yearned for something better. He yearned for freedom – a concept he read about, and understood in his heart as the way men ought to be. He used what he knew of the Pirate Code as an excuse to run away from home – and in so doing, begin a life of adventure that would forge him into the man we eventually come to know.

Important Notes:

• Jack learned to read at a young age; he was taught fundamentals by various parties, and figured the rest out on his own. By the age of seven, he could read most anything he got his hands on ( which while not much, is notable considering both his lifestyle and how uncommon such education was in the times. )

• By the time he was seven, Jack was able to identify ships based on their size and design as well as determine the amount of guns they were carrying, to the point he genuinely impressed Gibbs so much the man complimented the boy to Teague.

• By the time he was fourteen, Jack was fluent in English and had a passable understanding of Cantonese, French and Swedish. He cannot yet speak Spanish, but he can understand if it is spoken slowly, the general gist of an idea. He has a rudimentary understanding of Bantu – very rudimentary, but more than enough to insult people in it.