Chapter 22: The Sky Mother's Judgment

The mountain sighed with mist.

Far above the rainforest — where the cliff walls of Mount Virellia split into ledges wrapped in orchid vines and breathing moss — a shadow loomed across the sky.

The Sky Mother circled once, her wings slicing clouds in half. A titan of the heavens, her leathery span cast a moving eclipse on the jungle floor. Her golden eyes locked onto a speck on the cliff’s edge.

That speck?
One-Hand Jack.

He didn’t see her at first — too busy scrambling up a slope, his one hand clutching a length of root like it owed him gold.

“I know there's treasure up here,” he grunted. “No way this climb’s for nothin’. Better not be another map to a map or—”

The wind changed.

And suddenly, the clouds tore open with a scream from the sky. A rush of wind and wings — the Sky Mother dived like lightning in leathered form, talons out.

He had just enough time to shout, “Oh, not again—!”

SNATCH.

The world turned to blur and howl. Trees and mountaintops spun beneath him as he was lifted higher and higher, air rushing past in a storm of feathers and fear.

Then — he was dropped.

Not into gold.

Not onto stone.

But into a nest the size of a tavern.

Twigs the width of barrels. Bones woven with vines. Patches of damp, oozing moss. And in the center — six enormous eggs, humming with life.

Jack scrambled to his feet, peg legs clunking against a curved rib-bone.

He turned slowly in the silence.

“...Well. Bugger.”

No escape. The ledge was sheer on all sides. The Sky Mother perched just above, glaring down like a silent warden. Jack was stuck — the lone, cursed guest at a nursery in the clouds.

Minutes passed. Then more.

And then — crack.

The eggs began to hatch.

Sharp claws poked through. Snapping beaks followed. Baby pterosaurs pulled themselves free, screeching in concert like an orchestra of tiny devils. Beady eyes scanned the nest. Nostrils flared. Hunger awoke.

They turned.

They saw Jack.

“Oh, come on now—”

They charged.

One bit his left peg leg. Chomp. Crunch.
Another gnawed on the right. Splinters snapped off. One tried to swallow a chunk and gagged.

Jack screamed and swung wildly, kicking like a drunken goat.

“GET OFF MAH LEGS YOU AIR DEMONS!”

One hatchling shrieked and hacked — and then spat him out.

Another did the same.

And like some ancient, choreographed rite — the entire nestful of disappointed, disgusted hatchlings grabbed him, squawked in unison… and hurled him over the edge.

He flew.

Spinning, yelling, arms flailing, a pirate torpedo tumbling from the sky. He passed waterfalls, startled birds, and one very confused macaque.

And then — SPLORCH.

He landed legs-first in a swampy bog, both peg legs plunging deep into the thick, bubbling muck. His fall was broken. So was his pride.

Stuck waist-deep in mud, covered in moss, he blinked. Around him lay the skeletons of others — likely past offerings spat out from the nest above.

Silence.

Then…

He laughed.

A mad, rising cackle echoed through the mist. The Sky Mother circled above, already forgetting him. The hatchlings screeched in their high aerie.

And One-Hand Jack, spat out, chewed, and flung down by prehistoric babies, howled with laughter.

“THAT’S IT!” he shouted, raising a muddy fist. “I’M WRITING MAH OWN BALLAD! ‘THE PIRATE WHO TASTED FOUL!’”

The swamp answered only with croaks and the distant cry of monkeys.

Entered by: 0xe9a1…78d3