Reality Check

Playing With Fire

Coming Home (by Sheppard)

"Don't wanna spend my whole life catching my breath.' Cause I've been running 'round and 'round and 'round, and I've got nothing left . . ."

___

A pirate ship. He'd crash-landed onto a pirate ship.

Of all the places to accidentally fall into, this might be the worst. Other than, of course, a math book. Or a horror book. Or a mystery book— okay, there were a lot of bad genres to fall into. But at least if he'd landed in a math book, Owen told himself, he wouldn't be crouching on the ground, a real-life sword dangerously close to his body. If he wasn't in danger of getting well, stabbed, he would've thought getting pointed at with a sword was something out of a fantasy. But now that he was actually experiencing it, he could feel himself hyperventilating.

The only thing he could hope for was that the ship was filled with friendly pirates, but then again, what pirates were exactly friendly? He racked his brain for all the books he knew about pirates, which were only really as many as were in his mother's library. And he'd only read a few— the original Peter Pan, of course. Then there'd been Peter and the Starcatchers, In Deeper Waters, The Dust of 100 Dogs, How To Be A Pirate (the second book in one of Owen's favorites, the How To Train Your Dragon series) . . . the list stopped around there.

Nothing he'd read about, though, seemed good enough to prepare him for something like this. In books, the main character might say a few jokes while being threatened with a sword. And maybe if they were lucky, they'd swipe the pirate's legs out underneath them, catching their sword in the air and threatening the villain with it instead. That was what Kiel would do, if he were in this situation. But Owen had no idea how to do that without embarrassing himself, and wasn't about to try, so he stayed put, eyeing the sword on his chin with growing horror.

Slowly, Owen forced himself to look up, meeting the eyes of a very unhappy man. If there was an award for most stereotypical-looking pirate, this man would've gotten it. Granted, pirates tended to have the same look across stories — unruly beard, an eye-patch, a tricorne hat, and (for the pirate captain) usually some kind of elaborate coat. And of course, he couldn't forgot the missing hand or leg, which seemed to be a popular trope. All things considered, the pirate in front of him fit easily into that category.

"I won't ask ye again," the pirate growled, and Owen detected an accent to his voice— another thing that pirates seemed to share universally. Or maybe it was just a bad use of grammar. "How does a boy such as yourself wander onto my ship?"

Owen gulped. "It wasn't my fault! It was this portal, it just appeared out of nowhere and I ran straight into it!"

Then, one specific part of the pirate's sentence struck Owen. Wait, he'd said "boy". Not boy and girl. Did that mean . . . had Moira not gone through the portal, after all? An emotion hit him, and he wasn't sure if it was more relief or panic. Because on one hand, her not being here meant she was safe, and maybe she could pull Owen back through the portal. On the other hand, if she was here, she probably could've tasered the pirates, allowing them to escape. Owen had no weapons, no powers, nothing.

That was when he noticed there was more than one pirate on the ship. The other people on deck — who must've been none other than the crew — had started to crowd around Owen, looking shocked by his sudden appearance. He didn't blame them. Unless they'd experienced dealing with other people coming out of other portals, too, it must've seemed completely out of the ordinary. Unimaginable. And unfortunately for Owen, that meant getting interrogated by an entire crew of pirates, none of which looked particularly friendly.