Summary: Spoilers for and based off of Rob Kidd's young Jack Sparrow series, specifically volume nine- Dance of Hours. Catching a ride on the pterosaurs doesn't go quite to plan. Gore warning.

Saved By An Aristocrat

Jack Sparrow waved his hat at the hundreds of creatures flying above them, Fitzwilliam shining the light of the sun toward them off of his sword. The creatures- prehistoric pterosaurs that the cursed watch of the aristocrat's had accidentally summoned one of the several times that they'd stopped time with it- circled the volcano, their various greens, yellows, and oranges covering the split sky.

Soon enough, two pterosaurs broke up from the main flock- school? Jack really needed to stop asking himself that- and came swooping down toward them. Neither boy noticed the fact that one of the beasts was chasing the other.

"Jump!" Jack shouted.

He heard a cry of triumph as Fitzwilliam grabbed the claws of one and vanished over the ledge of the volcano. He quickly grabbed onto the other one, feeling the ground disappear beneath his feet as he was taken from it.

"Ahoy, permission to come aboard?" He asked it, though the question was quite pointless to ask as they'd already left the safety of land.

The pterosaur didn't seem to care about its unexpected passenger. Instead it let out a screech and slashed its beak out at Fitzwilliam's creature. Jack felt a pang of horror, realizing that they'd jumped right into the middle of a prehistoric dinosaur fight.

The aristocrat's Uglybird somersaulted in the air. The look on the boy's face was so comical that Jack would've laughed had the situation not been so grim. They came up directly under his own beast, screeching and clawing. Jack's Uglybird beat its wings backward to hold steady against the attack, head whipping to and fro as it looked for an opening in the other's attacks.

"Hey! Control your beastie there, Fitzy!" He cried out to his crewmember.

"I believe, Jack, that it was your pterosaur who started it!" The other boy shot back, pulling his legs away from the beak of Jack's pterosaur as it snapped at anything moving.

The prehistoric beasts locked in deadly combat, and the boys found themselves doing all they could to avoid the slashing claws and beaks. Jack tried to think of a solution to their current predicament. Letting go wasn't an option- they'd fall to their deaths. Only one idea presented itself to him.

"Hold on!" He shouted.

He gave Fitzwilliam a moment to adjust his grip. Jack shifted his weight into his shoulders, swinging his legs upwards. He forced all of his strength into his legs as he kicked his friend's Uglybird. It screeched, getting pushed back a couple of feet. It redoubled its attack efforts, absolutely furious. The aristocrat held on for dear life.

Jack slammed his feet into the prehistoric beast a second time, feeling a jolt of pain shoot up his left leg as his ankle twisted against the creature. The recoil wasn't nearly as much as the first time.

Impatient and not wanting to waste any more of their twelve hours than they had to, he gritted his teeth and kicked a third time, this time unrelentlessly so. This time, the Uglybirds finally got the hint to stop fighting each other. Only...Jack's decided to attack the stowaway hanging from its claws.

"Oh, no." He said as he dodged a snapping beak. "Not good."

Jack had to release the pterosaur with one hand to swing left and avoid an attack that surely would've sent him crashing down into the jungle surrounding the volcano. The claws he'd let go of scored across his cheek, drawing blood. Then they clamped shut on his free arm and pulled hard. His other hand was jerked off of the claws he'd been holding.

"Please don't drop me, beastie." He told it. Then he raised his voice to call to Fitzwilliam. "Fitzy, a little help would be nice!"

The Uglybird's other claws gripped his thigh and it released his arm. Jack howled when claws tore into his stomach, ripping away at the skin and trying to scratch at his insides. A salty tang rose in his throat as blood was forced into his lungs and it became harder to breath. He coughed painfully, hacking up blood that disappeared in the wind.

He weakly curled in on himself, wrapping around the claws best he could. His leg was released, but only for the claws to scratch at it in attempt to scrape him off. Hurting out of his mind, fatigued, and nauseated, he felt himself get ripped from the creatures claws. He was vaguely aware of the sensation of falling, but he was hacking up too much blood to think straight. He wrapped an arm across his stomach to keep anything...important...from sliding out.

"FITZY!" He screamed, painfully aware of his voice cracking. "DO SOMETHING!" He caught a glimpse of the ground. Horror filled him, but he pushed it aside with disappointment. "This isn't a very heroic death now, is it? Out of everything I've gone through, it really has to be from falling? Come on!"

Suddenly something swooped down under him. His back slammed down onto something, knocking the wind out of him. It took him a moment to realize what had happened- that Fitzwilliam had just saved him with a pterosaur. Jack held his free hand to his heart to calm his racing heartbeat, spitting blood.

"You are welcome." Fitzwilliam's tone was neutral, worry cancelling out any smugness he may have felt.

"Yeah...thanks." He mumbled uncomfortably, unable to think up a witty remark.

Jack lay back on the broad torso of the Uglybird that no longer looked ugly. His chest rose and fell heavily as his body refused to let him collect all of the air it needed back. His senses felt dull, even the whistling of the wind in his ears becoming distant. A ragged sigh escaped him.

"Look, over there, a field close to the port." Fitzwilliam called, pointing somewhere that Jack couldn't see. "I will set us down there."

"Good." He replied weakly, not bothering to look at the landing destination. All he wanted was to reach land- any land.

The aristocrat urged the prehistoric creature to slow down, which it did, before circling the field and coming to a stop in the grass soon after. Fitzwilliam murmured his thanks to the beast, patting it, before sliding off of it. Jack, too weak to get up and walk properly, found himself tumbling off the thing's back, catching himself on his hands and knees on the flat ground.

One trembling arm lifted to protect the contents of his insides as he hacked up more blood into the green below him. He groaned, head pounding, chest heaving as he fought for air.

"Jack?" Fitzwilliam couldn't keep the horror from his voice.

"Can't breathe...too much blood." Jack coughed, vision swimming.

Then he collapsed.

*X*

The first thing Jack was aware of when he woke up was the ever growing pain in his gut. He groaned, curling in on himself. He could make out soft voices around him- the voices familiar. With a jolt, he realized that the voices were his former crew of the Barnacle; Arabella, Tumen, and Jean. Upon that realization, he sat up to look around at his surroundings. He was in a cabin on a ship- most likely La Fleur de la Mort, laying in the bed.

The faces of his crew lit up upon his sitting up. He noticed that Fitzwilliam wasn't among them.

"You're awake, mon ami!" Jean grinned at him.

"And I officially hate birds." Jack added. "Especially the big ones."

"A bird saved you." Arabella reminded him.

"One of those birds almost killed me in the first place." He pointed out, rubbing a hand over his now-stitched up stomach. "Where's Fitzy?"

"He went to find Tia Dalma."

"Did he take the watch?"

"Watch?" Tumen asked.

"Nevermind." Jack said. "Did he leave me a ride at least?"

The other three exchanged glances and Constance's ears flattened to her skull.

"What?" He asked, confused.

"You should see for yourself." Jean told him nervously.

Jack got up and followed his old crew out onto the Fleur's deck.

"Oh, no." He frowned. "You have really got to be kidding me."

Sitting on the main deck of the ship, chained the the mainmast, was the same pterosaur that had gotten him into this mess.