(because we all wanted the love songs to be true and we did love dinosaurs once and we wanted the stars to hold our hands, to lick the teeth, to make love to us, but they wound up screwing us.)

It took Lynn one month to get back home.

One month of skipping meals in order to have enough money for crystal fuel, because god knows changing the paint job on a Switchblade doesn't make it any less of a gas guzzler. One month of sleeping on the ground, dodging Cyclonian border patrols, grimy, grueling travel without even the barest dream of actually being able to shower every day...

...to go home.

I probably won't end up leaving again, she mused to herself halfway home. Pa's got the flight complex now- as if he didn't have it already.

But that idea bothered her less than the welcoming feelings of stepping onto soil she grew up on, the acres and acres of scrubby grasslands and herds of grazing skoaks. Even if said skoaks were all asleep and everything was like someone threw a black veil over her eyes, covering everything she saw in the silky fuzz of a moonlit night.

(Because every breath I give brings me a second closer to the day that my mother may die / Because every breath I take takes me a second further from the moment she caught my father's eye)

But everything was wrong. She knew it the way the birds know which way to fly in order to head north. She knew it like the spawning salmon in the rivers. She knew it… like the kid who knows they most definitely should not have taken the shortcut through the dark alley to get home.

Cause that's where little children like her get hurt.

Lynn knew her father would have been alerted to her presence by the sound of her Switchblade's engine roaring. He would have been at the screen door already with a gun in hand to judge the intruder and how much trouble he might get into for opening fire. Living on the border between Atmosia and Cyclonia, this was pretty commonplace, but the ex-Talon was pretty sure her father would have been the same if he lived in the heart of the free capitol of the world, Terra Atmosia.

As it was, they lived on the border, and her father had justification for being a trigger happy redneck.

She started to jog towards the front door, having parked her Switchblade out by the skoak pens ('cause she just knew her father would gripe more about the tire marks on the ground than rejoice at the return of his prodigal son- or rather, youngest and only daughter). She started to jog and with every step came awareness like a slap in the face.

The scorch marks on the fences.

The broken crystal defenses.

The blood on the floor.

The broken screen door.

She broke into a sprint and crashed through the family room into the kitchen, pulling her spear from where it was wrapped in dirty white canvas (not like that does anything- everyone know what it is, everyone knows who uses red spears this side of the Atmos…) strapped on her back, pulling it free and charging up the striker crystal equipped to it.

Slam.

"Ma!"

Anything. Anything would have been better than this.

("Feet are smarter than an engine / And dreams are stronger than thighs / And questions are the only answers we need to know that we are alive, as I am when I have the mind of a child, asking why is 2 + 3 always equal to 5 ? / Where do people go to when they die?")

The Nightcrawler was in her kitchen, one hand clutching a curved, wicked dagger; one hand holding the woman who gave birth to Lynn fifteen years ago by her upper arm, keeping her close to his hollow, broad chest.

"Oh, good," the assassin said. "You're here. Finally."

The scream that was ripped free from her mother was raw and bloody and would echo in her mind for the rest of her living days on this plane of existence. "Lynn! Run, Lynn! Oh god, Lynn, run! RUN!"

(See Lynn. See Lynn run away from home. See Lynn join the Cyclonian Army. See Lynn defect. See Cyclonia get revenge. See Lynn run. Run, Lynn, run.)

("It's not often I choose favorites. So… tell me what I want to hear, little Randilynn." "Yes." "Yes, what?" "Yes… Master Cyclonis.")

("What did she want?" "Nothing." "Nothing?" "Yeah." "She do anything to you? Hello? Atmos to Lynn?" "She… she didn't do anything. Why do you ask?" "Oh. Cause… well, she has a reputation… I mean… well, never mind." "A reputation like what?" "Just drop it, Lynn. Drop it. You ask too many questions, you might end up like the others." )

("You belong to Cyclonia now.")

("Better put these on or you'll rip your hands to shreds. I'm Lynn." "It's… It's you!" "Heard of me, huh? The hot shot rookie that was busted back to basic training for chickening out against the Storm Hawks?" "I'm here to help-" "Obviously. These spiny spuds aren't peeling themselves. If you really wanna help, get me a rematch with those stinkin' Storm Hawks." "Ah… um… right.")

("Don't you ever think about what you'll have to do as a Talon? Do you really want to harm innocent people?" "N-no… but I can't go home now. I don't have a choice." "What if… what if I told you that you did?" "…I'm listening." "I'm Piper, of the Storm Hawks. I saved you once when your parachute failed, and I want to save you now.")

("You were right, Piper… there is another way. I want to be just like you… I wanna be a Storm Hawk!" "Well, we could always use a reserve team." "Really? Heh… maybe after some time at home first? Now that I think about it, herding skoaks isn't all that bad.")

("Ma!")

("Oh, good. You're here. Finally.")

("Run, Lynn!")

The Nightcrawler silenced the woman with a blade to the heart, and when Lynn awoke in a hospital bed on Terra Gale, two days later, she could not remember anything that transpired after that point.

("What made the beauty of the moon? / And the beauty of the sea? / Did that beauty made you? / Did that beauty make me?")

OoOoOo

Two Days Later.

Terra Gale.

(ay, cool as the proverbial cucumber, that one)

From two doors down, Piper could hear her young friend shouting and cursing in her hospital room on Terra Gale. She winced as she heard things clatter and break, a few nurses shouting in rapid-fire Galeian, and over it all the constant deranged noise of her unfortunate friend, the ex-Talon Lynn. She wondered if her friend would ever be the same. She wondered how long the shock of whatever-it-was that threw her over the edge would last. Piper's throat tightened when she remembered the sassy girl with whom she bonded while peeling spiny spuds and doing laps and obstacle courses in the navigator's short time undercover at the Talon Academy, and she feared that the raving monster in the other room would never fall asleep and wake up as Randilynn again.

Dove, the Sky Squire of Terra Gale, had no such concerns. (cool as the-) She unpacked her lunch from a brown paper bag which contained one of those white foam containers you use to store leftovers. Inside was a half-cooked steak and boiled potatoes and, of course, some famous Gale cheese. Digging in, the squire would sometimes take a swig of watered down wine with her dinner as Piper fidgeted in her seat.

"Would you care for some?" the squire asked the Storm Hawk, holding the fork laden with a bite-sized chunk of steak to the other girl, gesturing that she would feed her the bite. Some small part of Piper realized she was starving, and the scent of onions and butter wafting from the steak was almost enough to make her nail-biting concern for Lynn disappear.

(Almost is almost and almost is not enough. Almost won't bring her friend back.)

Dove shrugged, taking another bite before she spoke again. "I have never in my short time on this earth seen such a severe case of post traumatic sky shock as in your friend over there."

("I 'ave… zees earse… yeeuur fah-rend over zere…" Her Atmosian was so thickly laden with accent Piper told her they could speak in Galeian, since they were both comfortable with that language.)

"She's currently in the third stage," Dove told her.

"…Delusions," Piper finished, face grim.

"Yes." Dove paused to chew and swallow. "She seems to be under the impression that we are all Nightcrawler assassins out to kill her and her family." For the first time, an expression of true sorrow crossed the squire's face, and she said, "I believe that is… what tripped her over the edge. Cette petite fille malheureuse…"

Dove's knife flashed into the meat, into the cool red center where blood oozed up to the surface. She took another bite, and licked the red from her lips with a sharp, pink tongue. "There is nothing you can do for her now," she said, suddenly professional once more. Stern beyond her years, the guerilla fighter and espionage master on the border between Atmosia and Cyclonia, a knight in a land where knights were killed for trophies. She'd also seen her parents murdered- but in these dark days, who hadn't? Surely not the Storm Hawks, with their hand-me-downs, broken homes, broken equipment, (Wanted: Dead Or Alive) posters with their faces on them…

"Time is the only cure for PTSS."

(Time doesn't heal wounds, you naïve little fool.)

"She just needs time."

(It just lets it rot.)

Piper could only nod, and listen to her friend scream in fear, rage, and despair.

"Also," Dove said, as thought it were of no importance, "She's likely to go through military trial when she snaps out of it. PTSS or not, the fact remains that she is a Talon."

"Was a Talon," Piper corrected her, perhaps a smidge sharper than she had intended to.

Dove merely regarded her with cool, dark green eyes half hidden under greasy, dark green bangs. "Is a Talon," she repeated, under her breath. "You don't know much about your friend, do you lapin?"

"I know she's not a Talon anymore!" Piper said, standing up, hands flat on the table and body quivering.

"Or so she says." Done with her meal, Dove shoved it all aside and reclined in her chair, putting her booted feet up on the table, crossed at the ankles. "Listen carefully to me, Piper of the Storm Hawks. There are three things you must know about this friend of yours, this… this Lynn. I know them because I am often working behind the enemy lines, but you who are at the front doing the bloody fighting, you often miss these things, yes?

"Firstly, she possesses an unusual amount of strength. They have a nickname for the kind of person who grows violent with their PTSS when it is of an unusual severity. I trust you know what a berserker is?"

This side of her has been unleashed with this condition, this PTSS. It is not unheard of. It is just unusual.

"Second, she is wanted by Nightcrawlers. Nightcrawlers." Dove's hard eyes bored into hers.

Piper, however, was not easily intimidated. "I can handle Nightcrawlers," she said with a disdainful toss of her head, a swish of midnight blue hair, a fiendish, childish triumph in her tangerine eyes.

"…As you say," Dove murmured. "But now I come to the third point, and the one that causes me worry. She apparently was the favorite soldier of Master Cyclonis herself."

That, that right there? That made Piper stop in her tracks.

"And her favorites, of course, are generally turned into Nightcrawlers themselves."

Dove stood up.

"I'm simply warning you."

Piper was thinking about Master Cyclonis- which was more often than not an exercise in thinking about herself, since the two girls were undeniably similar in just about everything except for obvious physical concerns, such as Piper's dark skin as compared to Cyclonis's milky white complexion- and so she almost missed the next thing Dove had to tell her.

"However… this will not stop young Randilynn from mysteriously vanishing from the premise as soon as she is well, and it will be only coincidence that this day coincides with the day the Storm Hawks decide to pack up and leave Terra Gale on their next mission. Me comprenez-vous?"

Piper blinked. "Ah…" She mentally rewound everything Dove had just said, and then stammered out: "Ou- Oui. Oui, je comprends."

"Good." She walked around the table, clapped both hands to Piper's shoulders, and looked the other girl in the eyes. "Good luck with your friend, Piper."

(Dove thought as she left the room: "I'm not sure who to feel more sorry for- the girl, or the Nightcrawler after the girl went berserk on him…")

OoOoOo

The Next Day.

Terra Gale.

The day Lynn took her first wobbly steps out of the hospital and onto the Condor was a cloudy one, but it was a good one nonetheless. Because when she stepped onboard Piper was there waiting for her, to clasp her tightly against her chest and hold her as the tears began to flow.

("Will that make me something? / Will I be something? / Am I something?")

"I have brothers," Lynn said to her. "They're in danger. Cyclonis probably is using me and the others who defected from the Talon Academy as an example to others."

"We'll help them. Don't you worry about that." Piper pulled back, grinning an admittedly forced grin at the smaller girl. "And we'll get those Nightcrawlers, too."

Lynn's aqua eyes seemed sunken into their sockets, a cold, terrifying energy deep inside them where it had not lain before, certainly not before, not when they were just two girls who happened to be friends. "Not get," Lynn said to her, voice low and feverish. "Kill.

"We're going to kill them."

(Is it possible to be morbid and optimistic at the same time?)

(And the answer comes: already am, always was, and I still have time to be)

End Of Flight Complex: Chapter One.

"Here Am I."