Suddenly A Succubus Ch. 44 - Reflection

Oh man, have I been excited to write this chapter. It's one of the first times that I pay off something I set up ages ago. I mean, Amara got her wings in Chapter Six. Six. We've spent about a year and a half with Amara being unable to fly, and I haven't been nice about reminding her of that.

However, that doesn't happen until later in the chapter, so let's simmer down for a bit and enjoy all of Tessa's drama before we get to the big showcase.

We open with Amara very politely not breaking down Tessa's door, which is pretty nice of her. Honestly, I'm a really big fan of showing dialogue exchanges in situations where there aren't any tags to confirm who's speaking. It doesn't come up very often, but I love when dialogue is evocative enough on its own that we don't need additional text to confirm who is who.

Cards on the table, Amara's feelings in this scene were, in my initial outline, a far bigger part of the story. My initial plan was for Amara's arc in the first part of the book to be entirely about her refusal to accept that Chloé was dead. She was going to over-examine every little detail, looking for any possible proof that Chloé was still out there. This didn't end up happening, of course, and I think I'm happier with this version of the story.

Amara isn't an idiot, she saw what happened just like everyone else did. There's definitely some wiggle room because magic exists, but not much. I think the story stands better with its current focus; Amara dealing with overwhelming anger and frustration from the loss, but not having anyone to take it out on.

Of course, her behavior seems to be rubbing Tessa the wrong way. We saw shades of this earlier, when Tessa was complaining that Amara wasn't helping with the students, as well as actively scaring many of them. There's a big difference between "not being very helpful" and "actively barging into Tessa's house and making bold declarations about Chloé still being alive."

Needless to say, Tessa isn't Amara's biggest fan right now. I'm sure that won't go anywhere.

Still, we get to spend a bit more time with Tessa as she gets coffee. This was a really nice scene, as we haven't gotten a truly relaxing scene from Tessa's POV in ages. I mean, we only started jumping into her POV in the third book, and things were already pretty hectic by then. A lot of my favorite scenes, often the really chill ones, were from the first two books.

Then, as a bonus, we get to spend a bunch of time with Imani! I'm really happy with how she's translated to the page. Since she's not part of our core cast, we only get to see her from other people's POV's, and that means we tend to get pretty skewed looks at who she is.

Amara only really cared about being angry, which wasn't super helpful. Thankfully, Tessa is more than willing to hear Imani out, and through that we get to explore what she's interested in. Personally, I think it's really exciting to give Tessa other witches to bounce off of. Her skillset has always existed in a vacuum, and it gave the audience a chance to develop their own opinions about how Tessa interacts with her abilities. Here, we have multiple other Coven members that are making a point of how impressed they are with Tessa's knowledge, which I think throws her academic disinterest into a more dynamic light.

Though, Imani seems to have some interesting thoughts about Amara. It kinda seems like she knows a little bit more than she's letting on, doesn't it?

However, once we're done with Imani and Tessa, we get to the real meat of this chapter. I've been building to this scene for ages, constantly keeping this goal in mind whenever I wrote relevant passages. Most obviously, we get prior scenes with Vee where she tries to convince Amara to fly, but fails. We also see her complaining to Nick about this failure, and he points out that she's approaching the problem from the wrong angle.

Thus, the stage is set for this scene. How do you trick Amara into flying? How do you push her into getting out of her own head and just going for it? Well, if you're Vee, you jump off a cliff.

Is this scene a little tropey? Hell yeah it is. And I LOVE it. I love how this scene serves as the payoff for multiple books of conflict and drama. I love how I've had plenty of time to explore that both Amara and Vee have hangups about flying, yet they both seem locked out of that life for whatever reason.

I've mentioned in earlier Reflections for this Book that I'm really happy with the way I'm telling the story right now, specifically in a "show don't tell" context.

This is another perfect example. I've always known exactly why Amara can't fly, and I've tried to write the last few books to stress that reason. It's not a surprising reason, but motivations don't have to be complicated to be compelling.

Amara can't forgive herself for nearly killing Vee.

Even after mending her their friendship in Purgatory, even after Vee explicitly forgives her, she still can't find a way to forgive herself.

One reason I think this scene works so perfectly is that I build up to it from a completely difficult angle, and leave the actual reason a bit more obtuse. Yes, Vee is pushing Amara to act on instinct and not get bogged down in her own insecurities. Personally, I think the more important piece of the puzzle is much more direct.

Vee creates a situation where Amara has to use her flight to save Vee's life. Not only that, but in saving Vee, she then creates a situation that Vee absolutely falls in love with. She's thrilled to be flying around, the wind in her hair, and I tried to make that really obvious. Despite being an angel, and knowing how important caution is, Vee is the one pushing Amara to take the fun, daring risks. Instead of landing to reposition, she challenges Amara to figure something out, as a perfect example.

And, speaking of figuring something out, Amara's solution is easily my favorite part of the scene. Flying high into the sky, breaking through the clouds that have been taunting her since the very first book, then pausing to simply talk with Vee. I love the tiny bit of banter here, with Amara asking Vee if she trusts her, because I think it shows that Amara still hasn't completely let go of her insecurities.

But then they fall. I've had a mental image of the two of them falling through the sky, circling around each other while rainbows dance through Vee's halo, for the better part of the last two years.

I can only hope I did it justice.

If I were significantly wealthier (Don't forget you can gift subscriptions to your friends and family!), I would absolutely commission art of this moment.

Everything that came after was honestly a bit trickier. I knew I wanted to spend a bunch of time with Amara and Vee exploring the sky, but that's easier said that done. I needed to capture the joy of soaring through the sky, miles above the earth, and keep that excitement going for 4k+ words. That's a pretty tall order.

I tried to give them lots of little experiences while they were flying around. The easiest example is to explore what the wind feels like, how Amara adjusts to flying and what she notices in the air around her. I actually did quite a bit of research for this chapter, reading up on flight mechanics, weather patterns, and the actual jet stream to try and make this section a bit more believable. I'll admit, it never occurred to me until I had sat down to write this scene that Amara's heat abilities would be perfect for flying, as she can simply create warm pockets of air at will.

I also did a bunch of reading about clouds; what specifically are they made of, and what would it feel like if you fell/flew through one. Fun Fact! It's illegal to skydive through clouds, which makes finding footage of someone doing so a bit tricky.

Once the basics were out of the way, I wanted to push her a little further. I wanted Amara to be a bit more playful as the chapter continued, which is why she starts diving through rings of fire just to playfully tease Vee. Of course, this whole thing was Vee's idea, and didn't she just figure out her own version of fire? I'll admit, that section felt a little video game-y to me, but I still think it works perfectly for what I envisioned.

I also let Amara play around with her shapeshifting, pushing the limits of her control over her body more than she ever had before. I'm really happy that Vee got to share in that experience as well, offering Amara a framework through which to mentally picture her abilities (pun intended).

I also did my best to give them interesting thing to see. This is the chapter where I officially reveal that Aurelius University is based in Illinois, somewhere near-ish to Chicago, which means I got to describe the city as they flew over it. However, being in Illinois means there's very little to see outside of the city and Lake Michigan. It would have been neat to show Amara soaring through mountain passes and deep canyons, but sadly, Illinois has nothing anywhere near that interesting.

The fun can't last forever, though, and soon enough the girls have to head back home. I really enjoyed describing the sunset, especially over the Lake as they approached Chicago. I also got another chance to show Amara messing with her powers again, this time to create something I've dubbed a flight mirage to surround her.

After landing, however, Vee remembers that they've now accidentally ditched her car at the quarry.

This part, dear readers, has been even more embedded in my head than the two of them falling through the sky. Amara holding Vee close, holding up her wings and summoning a small bit of fire for Vee. It's such an intimate scene, and it came out exactly how I envisioned it. I knew that Vee wouldn't be making the return trip with Amara, and that gave me the perfect chance to revisit how Amara was able to re-frame flight in her head. She takes off again, and nearly flashes back to Halloween, but the sound of Vee's laughter chases away the trauma.

I'm gonna brag here for a sec, but I fucking knocked that part out of the park.

Once Amara leaves, though, the chapter keeps going. We follow Vee as she heads back inside, her thoughts still with Amara on that roof. She's having some weird thoughts though, isn't she? It's not very angelic to imagine yourself kissing a demon, that's for sure.

Anyways, we end the chapter with her panicking over a pretty big revelation. I'm sure most of you picked up on the subtext of the scene, but just in case, I figure I might as well spell it out for you. I mean, you read through this entire Reflection, didn't you? Surely you want to know what's really going on with Vee in the end, right?

Well, I tried to be pretty overt with my hints, but... right at the end, Vee remembers that she left her oven on.

Crazy, right?

The stuff people think about when they get back from a flight.

Nyx ♥