Jessica's Breakdowns

Our heroine has it tough in my book, On Black Wings, and it's a place I wanted her to be. I wanted to drag her though misery and heartache, having been there myself a couple times, it was so therapeutic to write and cry, suffer with her, and just pour out raw emotion on the page. It's a tough book, she loses it all, loses herself, and wanders aimlessly in a body she frankly hates.

She hated her teenaged self, which I think is a unique perspective for a heroine to take, she actually likes her older self and despises her younger self. Well, she's stuck that way, so she's battling what's happening to her along with her negative view of herself.

It contributes to her first breakdown, which we can see come crashing down the moment she goes back in time to try to save her older self and family. She fails miserably, and her future husband attacks her, blaming her for the entire event. She retreats, and then gets angry, and then she just loses it in the next scene. She uses the wings' power to leave, but she doesn't know where to, and she falls into the arms of the bad guys.

She's staring at her tombstones in a scene very familiar to something the Ghost of Christmas Future would conjure up. Only the ghost here is the black horseman Heinrich, the king of the merchants of war, and he's not really too patient with her mental state. He instructs her on her new role, and she's confused, lost, and you can tell she has no clue of what's going on by her blind following of the man. He also starts planting the seeds of doubt in her mind, and he is the first one to tell her why she has changed, why she is younger now, and why she has to give up on trying to change the past.

He gives her a good mental raking over the coals, and she shows a couple signs of recovering as she pulls things together in her mind, and she starts wondering if there is a way out or if she is truly trapped in some sort of nightmare. She begins piecing together her sanity at the end of this scene when-

War enters the scene, and all hell breaks loose.

She doesn't have much of a chance to recover, and she must will herself to stay alive. She is being setup for her eventual encounter with King Tanas, the white horseman, and that should be the complete extent of her brainwashing. Only she has other plans, and the four horsemen find it is a pretty difficult job shaping her to their wills.

She breaks down another time on the jet where Azrael tells her this entire event is her fault. Everything, the end of the world, the releasing of the horsemen, everything is of her doing. Azrael doesn't do her a big favor by being so casual about it, but he has a way of discussing things and telling people their fates that is just so straightforward and blunt - it's just his style. The man sends billions of souls on their way, he has this air of not appreciating the finer points of negotiation and letting someone know their fate softly.

She turns this moment and breakdown around. This is the point where she shows a little selflessness, and she realizes her role in this - that it can be undone, that there is a chance, and that she is the one who will make it happen. This last moment that someone tears her down will be the moment she turns, and she takes on the role of the heroine.

There is a final breakdown, when Tanas has her confined to the hospital bed as her older self, sick, mouth sewn shut, and basically his prisoner for all of time. There is a reason why I abandoned the 'past tense' mechanic here, she is one person now, and she is negotiating for her freedom by agreeing to do what exactly she was trying to stop from happening.

She has to agree to end the world.

And she does. Yet, she holds out in her mind she is going to end it, and undo it all in one stroke of a pen with her actions. She doesn't say so, but she surrenders with a silent knowledge that she will definitely and absolutely turn on the forces of evil, and get a little sweet revenge on the four of them in the process. In the end of the book, for all they have put her through, for all of the suffering and trails she walks through, she gets revenge on them and turns everything back in their faces.

Oh yes, there's a little empowerment and revenge written in here with her acting as the new angel of death, and when she takes on her true role, she discovers she can fly.