Skylark // By Melannen

Timothy glared balefully up at his captor through the lattice. "Just what do you think you're going to do, now you've caught me?"

"Well, that's the question, isn't it?" Captain Jack Sparrow glinted at him, his baubles among the few spots of light in the _Black Pearl_'s dark brig. "Now, one of me crew's asked to have you as a trophy, and I'm almost half inclined to grant 'is request."

Timothy tugged ineffectually at the ropes binding his hands behind him. "You don't dare. If you harm me in any way, even through inaction, Captain Wayne will see to it you're hanged from the highest gibbet on Murderer's Point."

"Be a bit of a question which of us is the murderer, then, wouldn't it," Sparrow replied, head tilted to the side. "I'm tempted to keep you for myself. Good Sir Bruce does know how to pick the pretty ones, doesn't he? Have to say I've a weakness for dark-haired lads myself. And he's sailin' after us like the bat out o' hell that he truly is, though any pirate worth his ship knows that them what fall behind are left behind."

"Captain Wayne is no pirate," Timothy said through clenched teeth. "He's a privateer, duly commissioned by the Governor of Jamaica himself! He *fights* your kind."

"Well, I've been known to fight my kind too, lad, when circumstances required it. Not that there *is* any more like me." He grinned. "An' for someone who's not a pirate he's got a right heap o' Spanish gold weighing down his holds. His tub'll never catch the Pearl, of course, but I can't help wondering how much of that gold he'd be willing to part with in exchange for one ... slightly used ... cabin boy."

"He won't give you *anything*," Timothy said. "But please do stand down and wait for him to catch up -- I'll enjoy watching the expression on your face when he sinks your precious ship out from under you."

"See, now, lad, I'm thinkin' it's not too likely that will happen. As it would be a bit of a risk. Seein' as I have a certain amount of leverage," Sparrow said, leering at him. "As it were."

****

Timothy spent most of the day doing his best to look sullen and useless. Around midday a large pirate brought him a meal of ship's biscuit, mango and grog, and the parrot on the man's shoulder said "Pretty Bird," over and over while Timothy ate, until he finished and shoved the cup back. A few of the other pirates stepped in from time to time to peer at him and make ribald comments, and he would tug at the ropes and glare and occasionally spit an insult back as if he'd been provoked.

By the time the moonlight that shone through cracks in the planking showed it several hours past midnight, things had gone quiet above decks. Chances were the pirates had mostly passed out for the night-- Timothy had been hearing the sounds of revelry since the sails were taken in at dark, but nothing for awhile except the ocean, and the creaks of a well-trimmed ship at sea. It seemed that Sparrow had decided to meet Captain Wayne's _Nightwing_ on his terms, and with typical pirate notions of discipline he'd let the crew at the rum while they waited. He judged most of them were quite beyond this world by now, so he let the ropes slip free and stood up, quietly stamping circulation back into his feet.

It was the work of a few seconds to free the slender blade which had been sewn into the back of his red waistcoat, and very little more work to open the cell. He stepped carefully out into the corridor, staying close to the bulkhead for stealth. There was a guard at the hatch, a dwarf, but he was snoring, and beside him an empty flask was rolling gently back and forth through a puddle of rum. Timothy stepped over him, then paused, and very carefully knelt down and relieved the pirate of his cutlass, which went on his belt alongside the dagger and the rope. Then he thought again and picked up the flask, too.

Up on deck it was entirely -still. The gibbous moon silvered the rigging and the black sails and illuminated the scattered lumps of sleeping pirates. If he recalled correctly the Pearl had been towing a jolly boat, so he headed carefully aft while trying to get a bearing.

A few hundred yards to the southwest he could see the silhouette of a tiny island against the sky; the _Pearl_ was anchored just off the shallows. With his best calculation from the moon and stars they'd made a truly impressive run to the south or south-southeast today, on course for St. Kitts, maybe?

Timothy stopped short under the mizzenmast. There was something wrong with the topsail yard; and then he almost smiled when he realized what it was. One of the men was sleeping on it, stretched out away from the mast. And he only knew one seaman so comfortable in the rigging, even for a sailor, that he could pass out at topsail height and never a possibility of falling; and that man was his predecessor on the _Nightwing_. Dick Grayson, born in a crow's nest and raised among the flotilla of tiny ships that traded around the coast of Jamaica. At least until a pirate raid on Port Antonio had decimated them eight years ago.

Timothy had only been a boy that day, visiting the docks with his nurse and his mother, but he remembered the smile on Dick's face when he'd offered to take Timothy up to a crow's nest to see if there really were angels-- and the terror a few hours later, when the cannon started booming and the first powder magazine went up and the Navy was nowhere to be found. And the way it had felt as if his heart would fly too when the Nightwing came sailing in like a graceful black bird and sent the pirate vessels into sudden retreat. That was when he'd decided sailing was the more noble than anything on Earth.

Timothy paused again, by the shroud, and looked up. Should he . . . ? That was the reason he had . . . No. It was his responsibility to make it off the Pearl before the _Nightwing_ arrived. That was the only important thing at the moment.

The jolly boat was right where he'd remembered, and he went nimbly over the side and down the rope with no sign that anyone on the ship was aware of his escape. He was setting about casting off when a sudden noise made him look up.

Dick was swinging over the side on another line, and had landed with perfect poise on the gunwale, his sword in hand, before Timothy had time to do more than stumble back and draw the borrowed cutlass. "You didn't really think we'd let you off that simply, did you?" Dick said, with an exploratory swipe. Timothy blocked it easily and leaped up across from him, out of easy reach, neither of them allowing the boat's resulting lurch to set them off balance.

Dick seemed to have taken to the pirate's life well enough, at any rate. He'd grown out his hair and he wore a ragged blue Navy Officer's coat, a black shirt and breeches, and loop after loop of gold chains around his neck. Probably looted from some innocent merchant ship. He looked nothing at all like the neatly-trimmed, gypsyish boy in the portrait in Captain Wayne's cabin, except for the mischievous smile. And the way he moved; Timothy ducked another swipe and just managed to tear his coat.

"You're better than I expected," Dick said cheerfully as they maneuvered cautiously around the small confines of the boat, keeping out of each others' reach mostly by ignoring the threat of gravity and the water below. "So is it true what I heard, that you let yourself get captured just so you could talk to me?"

Timothy didn't answer; instead he kicked a grapple across the boat at Dick, who jumped easily over it, and raised an eyebrow. "I must say I'm flattered. You know, Bruce could have sent a letter if he's finally decided to talk."

"He doesn't talk to pirates," Timothy replied, circling warily, and narrowing his eyes. "How could you, Dick? Pirates killed you parents!"

"My parents were working *with* pirates, too," Dick replied. "Convenient of Bruce not to tell me that, wasn't it? Anyway, what did he expect me to do when he kicked me off his ship? Become a blacksmith?"

"You could have joined the Navy," Timothy said with a breath a he dodged another sword-thrust. "Or an honest merchant vessel."

"Sure," Dick said, grinning and parrying Timothy's return. "Just like you could. Tell me, does your father know you're sailing with Bruce?"

"My father" --swipe-- "traces his title" -- twist -- " back to Admiral Sir Francis." Stumble and recovery as a swell rocked the boat. "He'd be proud of me" -- thrust -- "for carrying on the family tradition."

Dick jumped out of reach again, his off hand gripped in one of the ropes. "In other words, he still thinks you're at school in England, and if he found out you're really off swashbuckling with pirates, he'd drag you back by your ears and not let you out of his sight until you're safely married."

"You're a *pirate*!"

"I can do more good with Captain Sparrow than with the Navy. Or, god forbid, some under-armed and under-manned merchant ketch. Jack's a good man, Tim. I know you know the stories about him as well as anyone. He fights by his own honor just as Bruce does, and he knows who the bad guys are. You can tell Bruce that even if he won't listen to anything else."

"He shot Captain Desmond. An unarmed prisoner."

Dick's expression went dark for a moment, but he moved from it into another flurry of fighting and Timothy was hard-pressed to keep up. "Captain Desmond," he said a few minutes later, as they were both catching their breath, on opposite sides of the ship again, "Needed killing. Some sorts do. And I know Bruce will never admit to that, but there's more rules on the sea than black and white. *You* didn't have to look into the faces of his crew."

"Captain Wayne," Timothy said, "Is a good man."

"I wouldn't have sailed with him if I didn't believe that."

"So what did he do to deserve Captain Sparrow's enmity? If it's as you say, and he's a good man, there's no reason for the Pearl to be dogging us for years."

"Oh that." Dick grinned a little. "I think it's the sails, actually."

"The sails?"

"Black ship with black sails used to be Jack's signature, until Bruce showed up with his shiny new ship and whole Dark Avenger of the Night thing. I think he's a bit jealous, really."

Timothy raised the cutlass again. "He's annoyed because our *sails* are the same color? That's enough for him to declare the Nightwing his archenemy?"

"Why not?" Dick asked. "You *really* need to stop taking things so seriously, kid." He raised his sword again and Timothy moved into a defensive stance, but instead of resuming the fight, Dick cut all the lines and in the same motion, swung back up to the Pearl on the last rope, in a single gravity-defying arc. The jolly boat began to drift away immediately, and Timothy realized that at some point in the past few minutes, the Pearl had raised sail.

Dick's head appeared over the gunwale, still grinning. "Jack says the Nightwing should be here by dawn or a bit after. I recommend you beach on the cay and get a fire lit. Oh, and Tim?" he called back, just before the Pearl sailed out of range. "Tell Bruce he picked a good one."

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