A/N: At the risk of wreaking upon myself the wrath of every Storm Hawks fangirl, ever... Here's the third chapter... Don't kill me. (cringe)


:the road to damascus

- or, a book of spells

…but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything.

-

:stork

When you rub your eyes, extremely hard, there is that moment of pure whiteness, during which you can't see a thing. Other than the whiteness.

And that is what going through a portal looks like.

It's a suffocating white. It's an emptiness. It's what death must look like.

It took us six hours to get to the Far Side, yet only seconds to get back through to Atmos, but I'm not so surprised. Time screws you up in all these weird ways you just stop questioning it eventually.

All this time, I have been craving life, craving the pulse that slides so easily from within us to fade. And every word and every action I am responsible for is one more futile pin to keep the living in place.

It is easy to be a hero. Being the coward, over and over, letting everyone down, but knowing you're going to die, you're going to the Big Empty, the blank whiteness, no matter what, it is more than enough motivation to elude, to hide, to run, and so I ran.

I ran for years until finally this group of children, this band of dysfunctional siblings, stopped me, and now I'm standing at the helm of the world's most beautiful ship, breathing in Atmosian air, and yet I'm still being chased.

She's in the hull. She's in the hull and she's death, but she's also alive.

And she's following me, wherever I go.

-

She had several items on her when we caught her on the cliffs of the Far Side. Her staff, her cloak, the Binding crystals, and a book.

The things she grabbed on her way out of a crumbling palace.

The things are in the safe, the safe is in a closet, and the closet is in my room.

It isn't often when I just have to look through something, but today… Today I want to know what's in that book, and my fingers are itching. Ever since I took it from her limp, incapacitated hands and placed it in the box, I've been wondering what she would need a book for. What she wrote in it. What she learned from it. Is it the source of her power, I wonder.

It's a control issue.

So I dial the combination and I take the small volume from the steel jaws of my little box. It's new, shiny, slick, definitely no heirloom that has been handed down through generations of witches and overlords. It is hers, and hers alone, of her making, of her keeping, of her use.

I should give it to Piper.

But I don't.

I open it. I hate myself and I open it despite this loathing of my organic, biological curiosity, this desire.

The witch's book of spells is open before my very eyes, and in it are all her concoctions of crystals she has used to unleash mass destruction upon Atmos.

The Storm Engine. The Enhancer Crystals. And her portal to the Far Side, the charts she used to find it, the key she used to unlock it, everything, it's here, on paper, in her flawless handwriting, and the letters are arranging themselves like they're dancing.

This is death's delightful handbook.

My breath has disappeared.

I slam the thing shut and throw it into the safe and then I close the door. I feel a little like Pandora, but with one exception: I shut that lid in time.

-

It's haunting me, that book, itching at my insides. It's settled languidly on my heart but I don't want to scratch it.

I'm afraid of what might come leaking out.

I so want to run, the way Aerrow has, just jump on a ride and never look back. But how can I leave my home? And these people, I owe them something, we are a team, but all I want, all I want, is to no longer be brave, because I can't take this responsibility, this weight, any longer.

And you can call me selfish but it won't matter.

I can still remember how those pages felt beneath my fingers, that soft smoothness of thin paper, and me, smearing the graphite with my sweaty hands, as I turned through it, absorbing her darkness…

That book. I should burn it.

Just take it to the engine room and burn it in the incinerator.

I would adore watching it spiral up into smoke.

Yes. Burn. Fire will cleanse it.

I slam down the autopilot button and sprint to my room, retrieving the volume from the safe and biting my lip to keep from opening it; why do I so want to open it?

I'm not like her; I'm not a killer.

Somehow, without my brain realizing it, I'm now standing before the yawning jaws of the incinerator, and the flames are licking the burnished metal, and I'm ready to throw this little book inside, but I… I…

The hot coals, the delightful fire, which will rid the world of her evil, this final piece of her that needs to be destroyed, it's up to me, me, me, always up to me, I killed Repton, I liberated Bogaton, I flew my ship into a parallel dimension, I can toss a book into a fire.

I don't want to run anymore.

But three rooms over, in a cage, she's there, and I cannot hide.

She's scrutinizing me through the walls, and she's daring me, she's cajoling me…

Stork, keep it. What's the hurt, Stork? What's the rush?

No, no, no…

We're alike, you and I, neither of us truly human, truly accepted, understood…

What? Alike? I'm not you, I will never be you…

But I understand you. You're out of breath from running, but it'll end if you just stand still and pocket that little notebook.

Will it?

Be brave and do the wrong thing for once.

That makes… That makes no sense…

Hahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa…a….

Oh god Oh god Oh god… No, no, no, no…

My hand is sliding the book into my pocket and I'm turning from the fire and the sweat on my forehead has dried and now?

Now I'm in front of her cage.

-

"What do you want from me?"

She smiles at my question. Perpetually knowing something I will never know.

"I see you've got something there. In your hand. Looks familiar. Wouldn't be mine, by any chance, would it?"

"N… no."

"You're a very bad liar, Stork."

"I…"

"Can I please have my book back? It means a lot to me. Sentimental, you understand."

"No!"

"Stork, it's not going to help me in any way. I've no crystals, no weapons… I'm not a magician. I can't simply fabricate something from nothing.

"Only god can do something as meaningless as that."

She laughs. I despise her laugh. It cuts more than any weapon. I want to turn around and walk away, but something tells me I should remain and listen.

"You didn't read my book, did you? Well, of course you did, otherwise you wouldn't be blithering as you are… So you see how I can make no use of it. I would simply like my property to be returned."

"I can't… Can't do that…. It's a part of you, if it survives, a part of you survives… Can't have that happen. It's not right."

Pandora… Pandora closed the box, didn't she?

"It is like denying me a priest or Last Rites; it simply isn't done by those who believe in the true power of justice."

"You don't deserve my justice."

She chuckles lightly, saying, "You amuse me, Stork." Then holds out her pale hand, her pale and scarred hand, soon to be run through by crystals, so what's the harm in—

"Never!"

And I'm running up the stairs. With the book. In my hands.

But I don't feel like I've won anything.

-

"Piper, there's something I need to show you."

"Not now, Stork." She's bent over papers, all sorts of papers, I don't recognize a single one, they look like blueprints for some contraption…

"It's important. It's very important."

"Stork, wait until after I'm done here."

"Piper, if you don't let me show you, bad things will happen."

"Stork! I don't need your paranoia! Not now! Besides, I thought you were over all that 'doom' crap." And she pushes me out into the hallway. Then closes the doors behind me and… Well, I guess goes back to her "important business."

Yeah. My doom crap. I'm totally over it.

I go back to my room and set the book down on my bed. I'm waiting for it to explode or something and save me the trouble of having to go back to that incinerator and actually burn it.

Pandora closed the box in time.

No. No she didn't. She let all the evil out.

I've opened the bloody book. I know everything that's in it. I just do. The matrices, the instructions, the intricate designs, embedded on the gray flesh of my brain, burrowing inside, the greatest disease of knowing, and this… this is what it must be like, to stand on that brink, between good and evil, this knowledge…

And I know what has been holding me back.

I can't just destroy the book.

She's in me, do you understand? I read it and now a part of her has burrowed under my skin. She's there. And we have to kill all of her, every last inch and millimeter, every last thought. Idea. Notion.

I'm a bit of her, now.

I must go.

-

I don't want to jump into the Wastelands, and who's going to pilot the ship when I'm gone?

But after she dies, there will no longer be a need for me. For the Condor. For the Storm Hawks.

So I might as well save Atmos the trouble of mailing me a pension and just die.

But first things first.

Burn that damn book.

The sweat on my brow has reemerged, thick and soupy. And the incinerator is hungry. So I feed it. I fling the book inside and I swear I hear something scream as it dies, a grand death rattle, oh I'm so pleased with myself. I laugh, laugh, laugh. All this delightful laughter; I want to cry, too.

Maybe I should write a will. But there's nothing worth leaving behind.

Piper can have everything; how's that?

-

There is wind, sweet Atmosian wind.

Of course I don't want to die, you only want to die if you're crazy in the head. I'm hungry, though, hungry for the darkness, or the light; either way, it's going to be empty and cold. There's nothing warm about departing.

I jump, over the balcony, feet grazing the Condor's metal hull, and this is it, all the charts and the letters, rearranging themselves in my head to form the meanings, if I wanted to, I could have ruled the world and killed the world, but killing me, it's enough, isn't it?

It's all the control I'll ever need, all the control I'll ever have.

I do believe I'm done with running.

Ha. Ha, ha.

Who's laughing now, Master?

Pandora closed the box in time; she locked in hope.

Hope remained.

Aahhh…

I'm breathing in the emptiness and it tastes—

-

And suddenly a light from heaven shone about him.



A/N: Hoo-kay... Hee... Hee? Have mercy.