Reflections: Vincent’s Descent

Vincent’s Descent is a 26 part story (16,022 words total) that began on April 1st, 2023. If you are interested in reading it, after slogging through the below reflection, I suggest you start HERE. Comments are always read and welcome.

Vincent’s Descent began as a writing prompt.

It was generated during A Prompting of Writers, a group I created and moderate that meets on Saturday mornings (10 am EST/EDT: contact me if you are interested). The prompt I gave the writers was to use any creative figure that they truly loved and knew. Flash Fiction, just under an hour of writing, and then we share with some feedback. The idea stemmed from The Pale Blue Eye show on Netflix (Edgar Allan Poe as the MC) and a few other uses of literary figures as characters.

Vincent Van Gogh was my choice for the piece. I enjoyed what I wrote, and when I decided (extremely last minute) to join this year’s AtoZ, that story was what I used as my jumping-off point.

Van Gogh remained the base foundation for Vincent’s Descent: his color palette, how he applied his paints, the swirls, the golden fields, the starry nights, and his madness. It all influenced many aspects of what I wrote over this challenge.

Almost every title of my AtoZ was based on Art terminology, primarily fine arts but also architecture. I plumbed the online FreeArtDictionary for title ideas when nothing immediately came to mind. Some of the posts (Yosti in particular, but others as well) gave me the clues I needed to complete that day’s posting.

The whole thing with the birds came about with the letter B, and The Beatles song Blackbird got stuck in my head. “Take these broken wings and learn to fly” led me to Vincent breaking one of his attackers wings. With his teeth? Well, horror/brutal, y’know.

Also, I’m not a huge fan of birds.

People have asked me about how I name my characters/places. Usually the name must have a meaning that fits the story. Vincent seems obvious, but beyond that it means “Prevailing.” Humi, Vincent’s late addition father, means “Twilight.” “Oralee,” Vincent’s mom, means “My Light.” I chose Maria as that was the name of the daughter of Sien Hoornik, the only woman Vincent is known to have lived with. As to Ms. Faye Smythe (the only character with a surname): Faye was a play on the Fae (elves) and Smythe came about from looking at my bookshelf, seeing my copy of Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, and boom! Faye Smythe.

As to anything disjointed or lost over the month, my apologies. If you’ve followed my writing at any time, you know I am a Pantser. I write daily (well, um, yeah, a few days I couldn’t write; I don’t pre-write, seeing that takes the challenge out of this being a challenge.) without an organized schematic, no notes, no plans. The characters/story take me on a daily journey, and then by the end of the month I’m trying to pull it all together and plug up all the holes, big and small. Sometimes it works out.

I’ve mentioned this here and there: I look at the AtoZ as my First Draft Plus. Previous years have had wider followings, and I’ve been asked to take the work, add to it to novelize it. The Abysmal Dollhouse series is one I continue to work on. It keeps alluding me.

I want to thank everyone who did follow along and left commentary and likes. This was my least visited year with AtoZ, but the point is that I so truly appreciate those of you who did follow along. The comments were extremely helpful. Some made me laugh, others had me twiddling my fingers and doing my best villains laugh. Chilling.

Taa Daa! We can now tie a bow around the 2023 AtoZ Blog Challenge.

What did you think about Vincent’s Descent? This Reflection? Tacos?

Yasti Pinnacles: Vincent’s Descent -atoz blog challenge

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 25: Yasti Pinnacles

            “I’m tired, Maria. Faye.”

            “I know, Vincent.” Maria nodded, staying on the couch but leaning in toward him.

            Impatient, Faye left the living room, returning with a fresh bottle of whiskey. She placed it next to her empty tumbler, keeping her back to him while she opened the top.

            “Enough with the ‘I’m tired’ BS, Vincent.” She turned, having refilled her glass. One hand rested under her elbow while she raised her wrist, taking a long sip. “You didn’t kill your mother, and you didn’t kill the guard.”

            He shook his head.

            “So? Explain.”

            Vincent looked to Maria, pleading.

            “No. You tell her.” She looked at Faye. “She knows enough, now.”

            Vincent hung his head, chin digging into his chest. He sucked in a deep breath, letting the air seep through tight lips. He startled both women with the abruptness of his getting to his feet. Feathers began to poke out of his forearms. Vincent looked down at his plumage, willing it to recede.

            Three remained on each arm.

Faye’s drink sloshed over her thumb. She licked it, moving a step back. Maria reached over and gently pulled her back onto the couch to sit beside her. She placed her hand on top of Faye’s knee.

“You see?” Vincent looked at both of them.

“When I first portalled, I had so little control. That old bastard,” Vincent left out naming his faux-grandfather by designated name,” was brutal. He left inner scars and kept pushing, pushing. He…it…never explained the why of it all. It just drove me, the first guide, the first to punish in both worlds, the blackbirds and this one.

My father pushed me to be with it. Said it was his father, and I should follow its lead. I did as he said. I was afraid of the two of them, Humi and Cat-Grandpa.

I thought I was doing well, but I would get lost and need to be retrieved. The verbal, emotional, and physical beatings grew worse with each ‘mistake’ I made. I always retreated from the blackbirds’ world when I was young, searching for safety.

It was my mother who made the difference.”

“Oralee,” Faye blurted into her glass. She turned to Maria, who nodded back, shushing her.

Vincent nodded.

“She gave me my first snow globe as a child. I loved it for all its simplicity. A house in a field, a grove of trees, and when you shook it: winter in my hand. We kept it by my bed. Nighttime was nightmare time, so with a nightlight ready, I could reach over, shake the globe, and the nightmares dissipated.

Until they didn’t, that was when the birds appeared in my room, at home, or its cabin. My mother would ‘know’; she knew they were in this world. She’d rush in and place herself in front of me, encircling me.  

That was after I had first traveled, maybe the third time? I’m not sure now.

Mom was having a hard time of it. The birds were pecking at the two of us. She was batting them out of the air, speaking in what I now know as their language, but they kept coming. One scratched her deeply, and another dove into her chest, pushing her back. She dropped beside me on the bed.

I had been frozen during all that, but she jostled me. I reached over, grabbed the snow globe to throw at one of them, the bigger of the three, and

It began to glow yellow.

Then it deepened into a warm gold.

My mother placed her hands over mine, put her forehead on my forehead, and the golden light spread over us. She shone like the sun.

The light was warmth and safety. As it reached what I learned later was its pinnacle, it dimmed, and the swirling material in the snow globe settled. The birds were gone, it was just us, and we went to the kitchen for food. We were both ravenous.

And she explained what she knew, that we could affect the axis of realities, the universe. Different planes of existence that living portals can easily travel. The portal stories I’d read were hidden messages disguised as fiction. She taught me how to safely travel, where the Condor was vicious in its agenda.

“Which was, what? Mating with that thing?” Faye again.

Vincent shrugged, nodding.

“Not my idea, Faye.” He made eye contact. “Her Lavender Grace was not my idea. Or my want.”

Faye blushed.

She shook herself.

“Ok. So, you did not kill your mother. Can we get back to that?”

He sighed.

“My skills were limited at first. My mom thought the snow globe was a great focus tool. I still loved them, so they were added to the collection when we found ones that had a specific resonance.

I was able to port easier. She traveled with me when she could, a better guide. We explored, crafted, and we changed the world around us.

My father interfered. He pushed the Condor on me, and I found out later that the Condor sent the murders after me. And my mother.

The night she died – twilight always seemed to be the worst, that death of day to the rising of darkness – was the first time the feathers burst. The pain,” Vincent was panting hard.

“Vincent,” Maria said softly. He focused on her as she modeled a slower breathing pattern, following along.

He gulped, closing his eyes.

“That was the night my mother had had enough, found the strength to leave my father. We were in a hotel, hours from our house, and I had only taken the first snow globe with me.

Then the change, and I screamed, and with my arms turning into wings, my mother held me tight, and I felt something calling through my chest, my face ached, and my body convulsed, and I yelled and yelled and screeched and cawed….

And the Condor emerged through me and tore her apart.

Then I tore it apart.”

Weaver Facing: Vincent’s Descent – atoz blog challenge

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 22: Weaver Facing

            Overlay.

            Vincent’s golden world dissembled. Blues were the first to bleed through the multitude of shades of yellows. All at once, oranges burst, dribbling into pinks-crimson-magentas, adding the plushness of greens, from royals to pastels to foams, mixing and cleansing and blending on an ever-changing palette of Vincent’s world. It was all beyond Maria as she fixated on Vincent.

            Vincent stood golden and black, sparkling, staring after Her Lavender Grace. His body was a mixture of feathers and human flesh.

            Maria walked up to him, reached out her hand but stopped herself, a feather’s breath, from touching him. Stopping, her hand slowly dropped, landing at her side. She took in the changes around him. The landscape around them was still gently morphing. She did not know what a touch would do.

            “Vincent?”

            He turned, and Maria exhaled a held breath. His face, Vincent’s face. But his eyes were The Grackle Lord’s penetrating blackness. She held steady, fighting an instinct to take steps back as his arm/wing drew her close.

            His head burrowed into her hair, the crook of her neck. Tearing up, Maria wove her arms around Vincent’s back. His skin texture changed under her hands and arms, the feathers soft and exuding a warmth she accepted. As they retracted, the coolness on the smooth surface was comforting. While they held onto each other, Maria did not feel any change occur on Vincent’s face.

            “Thank you,” he said softly, so close to her ear.

            Overlay.

            Her Lavender Grace had taken wing, bloodied and partially satisfied. She flew to her stronghold, passing through Vincent’s golden world and into the jet black of her domain.

            She had coaxed her Condor’s jealousy, urging its lust for power and her. It had taken too long for her liking for the pup to Become. Like so many of hers, the Condor was fodder for her needs. As, now, The Grackle Lord had become.

            The murder followed her as always, forming a protective wall as she nested. Behind them came the loyal who had scattered during the storms. Talons and beaks encrusted with dried ichor, having chased down many of those who stood beside The Grackle Lord. This pleased Her Grace: nothing less for those guilty of such a treasonous act.

            Her Lavender Grace roared:

            “Quis Mecum Stat?”

            The answering cacophony of whistles, croaks, shrieks, trills, squawks, and caws satisfied her. She waited for the exulted assembly to quiet, then called out again:

            “Quis Mecum Stat?”

            The tumult was thrilling. She basked in the adulation.

            Her Lavender Grace unfurled her wings to their fullest, stifling all utterings instantly. She held them open wide, raised her head, and screeched:

            “Qui Me Vindices?”

            A rustling of feathers. A series of squabbles, wails, more than one keening.

            Uneasy heads turned around Her Lavender Grace. She drew in her wings and waited, but not for long.

            A large, shadowed shape flew slowly into view. It circled above three times before it spiraled down to land before Her Grace.  

            The Black Vulture craned its long neck, genuflection to Her Lavender Grace, then raised itself, waiting.

            Her Lavender Grace nodded and laid out vengeance.

            Overlay.

            Vincent’s father barely registered the slamming of his office door as Ms. Smythe took leave of his presence and her job. He rose from his desk, walked over to his wet bar, opened the wall-inserted refrigerator, and pulled out a bottle of Spirtus vodka. He poured three fingers into his favorite tumbler.

            Sipping, he turned, leaning back against the carved wood bar top. Glass in his left hand, he ran his right hand along the deep-cut grooves. From top to bottom, right to left, ritualized to the point that he was unfocussed in the gestures.

            A shimmer caught his eyes, emanating from the snow globe shelving. Vincent’s mother’s idea. The only thing she truly defied him on besides how to bring up Vincent. The globes, he came to admit, were far from frivolous. Vincent’s attachment to them, to his dearly departed mama, made it easy to keep track of him.

And so, a light green rose from the farthest globe. The dormant artificial snowflakes rose and twirled, going from dying grass to Viridian. As it settled, the next took on multi-layers of Blues. Then came the Reds. There was a jump, for there was the missing globe, that damned dust swirls, with the next one in line Purples, then Browns, then Pinks, then then then then….

            the last one went black.

            “Fuck,” he said into his Glass as he took another sip, smiling.

            “About fucking time.”

Overlay.

            Ms. Faye Smythe.

            “Vincent.”

            Overlay.

            Maria.

            “Vincent.”

            Overlay.

            Vincent’s father.

            “Vincent.”

            Overlay.

            The Black Vulture.

            “Grackle Lord.”

            Overlay.

            Vincent.

            “I wish.”

UKI-E: Vincent’s Descent – atoz blog challenge

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 21: UKI-E

            “I wish I knew where Vincent is, but I do not,” Faye repeated as a mantra, fighting to remain composed. Her face wan, eyes bleary, the lawyer wanted to crawl into a bottle of single malt. She shook her head, looking down at her notepad filled with legalese gibberish as if the answers were there.

What could she say without finding herself locked in a BBHPC room for observation?

Oh, Vincent grew feathers, and he and his shrink flew away.

Right.

As it was, Faye had been questioned ad nauseam by hospital security. After that, the police detective. Lawyer Fayed knew how to concoct a story out of the shock of the situation. She pled the fifth without invoking it.

Vincent was more, and she knew that, but not in this reality. Her experience with him when he portalled; glorious and terrifying. Where Vincent took her, what they did, and what he did. Blood rushed to her cheeks but washed them down with the memory of what had occurred in the room. Watching him shifting in confinement, seeing Maria toss herself on him, and then…poof!

Maria. Fuck.

They could not detain her. A single text waited for her when they finished with her. Faye gathered her things. Before she left the hospital, she found her way to a visitors’ women’s room. Locking the bathroom stall, she sat and finally allowed herself to shake.

Settled, she unlocked the door, went to the sink, and splashed cold water on her face. Looking at herself in the mirror, she grimaced before fixing her face. She was summoned.

“I wish I knew where Vincent is, but I do not.”

“Ms. Smythe, that is not going to cut it. Where the hell is my son?”

Sitting across the carved oak desk at Vincent’s father, Fayed shook her head.

“How many times do I have to tell you? I. Do. Not. Know.”

“Bullshit.” He leaned closer, his hands in a tight grasp of air above his desktop. “Bullshit. You don’t have many tells, lawyer, but even you can’t control your micro-expressions.”

Faye straightened her already straightened back.

“Last time before I fire you: where is my son?”

The threat.

“Fuck you,” and then she told him. Everything.

He did not interrupt her. No nodding of understanding, no shaking his head in disbelief. His tell? Vincent’s father sat back in his chair and listened.

When she went over every last detail, Ms. Faye Smythe stood, wanting to push her chair back so it would topple. Instead, she pulled down her suit jacket, picked up her briefcase, and turned her back on Vincent’s father.

Out of the corner of her eye, Faye looked at the shelf of snow globes, the last vestiges of Vincent’s mother. A space was vacant. Dust motes swirled under the LED lights.

The door slammed in her wake.

“Vincent!” Maria screamed to him as the rain turned from freezing rain to deep, heavy snow.

“Vincent!”

Her voice, useless, drowned out. The birds. The battle, the destruction, the death of the Condor. Its body smashed those who had remained on the ground. The screams cut off. The inner circle tried to take wing but found the icy storm tucked around them, weighing them in place. Those on the outskirts of the vortex scattered as best they could.

Maria paid them no attention. She was freezing, drenched from her swim through the soupy mud. Teeth chattering, body shaking, she wished for arctic-strength clothing.

Vincent! His gaze shifted to Maria. She was dry and warm in an instant, encased in proper gear.

Then the wind howled between Her Lavender Grace and The Grackle Lord. Her Grace lumbered large, buffeted by the driving icy sleet. Her ebon wings gained a brief coat of white, sloughing off each time she shook herself. The drippings turned to icicles at her pinions. They hung with growing weight.

Her Lavender Grace’s determined eyes never left her Grackle Lord until

Vincent!

Neck twisting, Her Lavender Grace searched for the nuisance. To her left. She honed in on the tree line, eyesight still razor sharp. As she turned her attention back to The Grackle Lord, she thrashed her left wing, snapping the needle-like icicles off and sending them hurtling toward Maria.

Maria!

Triturate: Vincent’s Descent -atoz blog challenge

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 20: Triturate

Her Lavender Grace breathed in deeply, her expansive chest filling with the deathly air. The taste of blood carried on the winds, and they began to whip around with the fall of the rain. She exhaled with a squawk, a call that further stirred the murder lust around her. She reeked of power and death. The washing rain did not rinse her of cravings.

And the rain began to fall in sheets, shimmering from her wings, running down her dense hide. Pools formed around and under Her Lavender Grace. Her flocks sputtered in the growing density. The rain was brutal, beating down with a rat-tat-tat beat that only gained in speed and force. Her Lavender Grace reveled in the stinging pain that came to her from members of her horde.

Still, her gaze locked on the deadly struggle between her Condor and her Grackle Lord. She lost all interest in Maria.  

The brackish water surrounding Maria got in her eyes and mouth. Maria spit out one mouthful only to have a deluge wash over her from above. She slipped, her hands going deep into the mud. Her struggling to escape the monster’s claws took on a higher energy. The immense shape above her was ever so slowly sinking.

I wished, the thought his Maria, and she wished again. A lightning storm tore the sky open with a force that stopped all action, turning attention away from her. Maria frantically dug into the mud, the pools of water enveloping her in sloshing waves. Forcing her head above the water, Maria took deep breaths. Then down, down, and forward.

Down and forward as the skies broke in streaks of deadly white. The rainstorm blew over the light-rooted birds, trees, and bushes. It softened the land, and Maria took full advantage of this.

Vincent-Inside, momentarily startled by the fierceness of the gale, went full Birdserkr.  

The Condor had let its guard down.

The Grackle Lord’s maw clamped down onto the Condor’s left wing. It snapped it in half, dark-drenched feathers slamming the mob below. Before it could react, Vincent-Inside fed off of all the abuse he carried. Digging his nails into the midsection of the Condor, The Grackle Lord ripped it open. With a whip-shot, Vincent-Inside sent his bloodied beak through the Condor’s neck, the tip breaking through and through.

The Condor choked on its blood.

The Grackle Lord pulled away, claws still inserted in the Condor’s abdomen. Their eyes met. Vincent-Inside held on as he watched the Condor’s black eyes lose their color, their power, grinding to a dusty death pallor.

There was no shudder, no rasp. The Condor had been alive. Now, not.

The Grackle Lord retracted his talons. The Condor fell.

Turning, Vincent-Inside faced Her Lavender Grace. His jet-black eyes went to the claw where Maria had been, but there was only muddy water.

The Grackle Lord, in full fury, scattered the multitudes of lesser birds. Its feathers slicked back, wings tossed wide and beating the air, The Grackle Lord challenged.

Her Lavender Grace faced it, eyes narrowing, wings akimbo. Neck lengthening, beak glistering from the rain, she waited for the attack.

Maria had crawled out of the soupy earth inches from the prison of bone and flesh. Unnoticed, she crawled along the muddy ground, finding a semblance of shelter among the upturned roots of a giant denuded tree.

Along the way, some blackbirds saw her. Grabbing rocks, she smashed a few skulls that got too close to her. The last one that came at her avoided the rocks, scoring a bite through her sodden pants leg. Dropping the rocks in pain, Maria caught its wings and slammed the bird against the tree trunk she was leaning against. And again, until it was a stain on the bark.

Dropping the dead thing, she watched the battle. It was brutal, and her stomach churned, but she knew. And it was done.

Then Vincent turned to face Her Lavender Grace, and Maria inwardly cried, noooooo

And then said: “I wish….”

And the rain began to turn to snow.

Scratches: Vincent’s Descent – atoz blog challenge

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 19: Scratches

The Grackle Lord went for the Condor’s eyes. It cawed, flying backward and up, looping over its young attacker.

“I taught you that, idiot child.” It spat venom toward its foe.

Vincent-Inside banked to the left. The spittle landed on the flanks of the three ravens behind him. Each of them sizzled as they fell to the ground. Twelve others swooped in to attack from the rear, three more to each side.

The Condor dove, batting them all out of the sky, all hollow bones pulverized by the brutality of the strike.

“He. Is. Mine!”

Those in the air dove to the ground, the trees, and the jutting rocky landscape. They watched, trembling. The dead around them went uneaten.

“Where?”

The Grackle Lord took this distraction and pounced from above.

They raked each other’s flesh with claws and beaks.

Her Lavender Grace had been waiting for the attack, surprised that it had taken The Grackle Lord so long. She had plucked the sore by his side to prod him. Looking down, she noticed it was still squirming under between her talons. Good. She needed it alive.

Turning back to the dueling pair, Her Grace focused on the rendering, lapping the droplets of sprayed blood that fell her way. She licked her beak with a long pink tongue. Errant members of the frenzied flew too close. Her Grace snatched them indiscriminately out of the air, crunching them into pieces and swallowing them as the opportunity arose.

Maria continued to struggle while blood and offal fell on and around her. She had seen the Condor turn on its own, noticed Vincent soar up, and then when the screeching began, she averted her eyes. Maria contorted, trying to squirm through Her Lavender Grace’s grasp. It was too tight. The pressure on her chest grew.

Fuck

            Looking up through the gap, she saw the massive eyes glance at her. Maria went still but did not avert her eyes. Taking a deep breath in, Maria held it, counting to calm herself. When she quietly exhaled, she relaxed. The pressure decreased. A chuckle-like sound sent her shivering once again. Her Lavender Grace turned away from her captive and back to the battle overhead.

            Maria looked at it as well. Tears welled up and began to fall.

            “Oh, Vincent,” she murmured, wanting to scream.

            The Condor cackled as The Grackle Lord screeched. The Condor had its claws sunk into its opponent’s legs while a beak surrounded its neck. Both sets of wings closed in on the other, and they began to drop from the sky, falling in a barrel roll.

            They crashed, crushing a multitude of birds that were not fast enough. Those that took flight circled over the pair as they continued their assault on the other.

            The Grackle Lord butted its head under the Condor’s beak, sending the larger bird back.

            Too late Vincent-Inside saw his error. The Condor leaped, beak first, and punctured the flesh under The Grackle Lord’s right eye.

It screamed.

The Condor laughed.

The Lavender Grace stood stone still.

Maria felt herself shuting down. She couldn’t think. There was nothing she could do.

“I wish,” she said.

And it began to rain.

Refractions: Vincent’s Descent – atoz blog challenge.

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 18: Refractions

            Vincent stared at the Condor, his lips pulled back, baring teeth.

            “I killed you.”

            The Condor’s head tilted back, a barked laugh escaping. Its neck leveled out, staring down at Vincent.

            “You killed ‘Cat-grandpa’ in your world. A vessel. Nothing more.”

            Its head tilted toward Maria.

            “You brought a snack.”

            A large crow shot out from under the Condor’s spread wings, aiming at Maria. Vincent reached out, grabbing it midflight. With one hand, he broke its neck and tossed it into the legion of blackbirds.

            They screeched and fed.

Maria stood up straighter. She realized she had had her hand wrapped around Vincent’s arm. She dropped it, staring back at the Condor.

“Fuck you.” Maria bent over, picking up a fallen branch. The first was unwieldy, the second perfectly balanced for her.

“Fuck you,” she sneered.

Again, it cackled. Paused, then hissed.

A black-winged phalanx rained down toward Maria. She swung back and forth, shattering a skull, breaking two wings. From above and the sides, they dove at her, some getting within her arc, tearing clothing, skin, pulling at her hair.

Vincent needed only his hands and teeth. He ripped bodies apart, separating wings from bodies, catching them with hands as claws. A few came close to his face. Their mistake, was as Vincent bit into their necks, spitting the heads away. Gore ran out of his mouth, along his arms. He moved around Maria as a whirlwind, deflecting the murder that Maria did not swat down.

A caw, and the attack formation flew back. The ground around Maria and Vincent was littered with the dead. Vincent kicked a one-winged assailant into the crowd. It was gone in the rending of bird flesh. Maria was panting, scratched, and dripping blood. Carrion birds lifted into the air.

“Vincent,” Maria stood by his side, nodding to the approaching figure in the sky. “Is that….?”

Flocks hopped or flew apart, creating a clearing. The Condor flapped three times, hovering over the multitude, filling the sky with wings spread.

“Regina nostra, Gratia nostra!” It bellowed.

            As one: “Gratia Nostra!”

            As one: “Gratia Nostra!”

            As one: “Gratia Nostra!”

Her Lavender Grace descended. Her size dwarfed the Condor. Talons extended, she lit on the land without a sound. Her wings were multi-layered feathers, plush, spreading along the rest of her humongous frame. Sharp eyes, sharper beak, her Grace fixated on Vincent.

Before he could react, Her Lavender Grace grabbed Maria in one of her claws. Maria’s scream cut off as it started, the pressure from the nails too great. Her Grace continued to stare at Vincent.

Vincent began to run to Maria. The Condor flexed a wing, hitting Vincent, sending him sprawling. The assemblage in front hooted and cawed. His concentration broke. Feathers began to emerge.

All eyes were on Vincent.

All eyes were on The Grackle Lord as he manifested. It raised itself, staring at Her Lavender Grace. Maria struggled in its grasp.

The Condor beat his wings three times. It flew directly in front of its once charge.

“Gratia Nostra!”

 “Gratia Nostra,” The Grackle Lord croaked out, bowing its head to Her Lavender Grace.

And then Vincent-Inside lunged at the Condor.

Quills & Black Skies: Vincent’s Descent – atoz blog challenge

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 17: Quills & Black Skies

               Vincent was half-formed.

               Maria had one hand on the protruding feathers, the other on Vincent’s smooth skin. Both textures rippled under her palms. She held her face close to his, her eyes locked on Vincent’s. He was losing it, fighting it, then winning it, his face morphing, then returning. 

“Vincent,” she cried out, knowing from experience that he might not understand her while they transitioned through Vincent’s worlds.  

She felt full skin on skin now. Clothes had no meaning to him when in flux. Maria knew this, and whatever discomfort she had felt the first was meaningless now.

“Vincent. Vincent. You are Vincent.” Over and over, a mantra, a repeated prayer of hope that he would stay with himself. The language changed independently, becoming guttural, soaring, ancient, cawed. Each utterance came to fit the colored worlds he broke through. No matter, for the meaning, did not change.

“You are Vincent. You are Vincent. Vincent. Vincent.”

               His answer was gritted teeth, snapping maw, growls, howls, moans. From blue fields to orange skies, through a pastel-filled kaleidoscope of scenery. He called her name only once, and it bit through Maria. She faltered in the repetition of his name only then, a sob replacing the vowels and consonants.

Maria embraced Vincent’s wings. His hands. His feathers. His hands. His plumage. No matter the form, she held him close. Though she bled from talons and beak when the bird enveloped him, she held him close.

The change was sudden as they entered Vincent’s golden-hued world.

Vincent was Vincent.

They lay on a swarth of dark yellow grass, soft from morning dew. There was a light breeze, and Maria felt goose pimples run across her unclothed body. Sighing, she turned her grasping for his life into a hold; then, when he draped an arm around her, she relaxed into his side. Head on his chest, Maria heard the jackhammer beating of his heart slow to a less harsh beat.

Maria felt the heat of the rising sun at her back. Exhausted, she drifted.

Vincent did not.

As drained as he was, Vincent remained vigilant, scanning the skies, ready. Whispering, “I wish,” lush trees surrounded him and Maria, their canopies dense and hard to fly through. He wished for raised roots to form a barrier circling them. Water and food for when she woke. Clothes for her came last. The close contact was soothing for him, but he knew Maria well enough, respected her more.

The ordeal caught up with him, and Vincent finally closed his eyes, wishing himself not to dream.

A furious beating of a force of wings startled the two of them awake.

Blackness seeped through the slowly disappearing cover of leaves. Branches decimated, wooden splinters showering around. Vincent wished for a tarp to cover the two of them. Maria cried out as she removed the projectiles that had punctured her exposed skin.

“Maria, I’m….”

He felt her shake her head.

“Wish us out of here, Vincent.”

A child-like voice: “I can’t. I tried,” as debris pelted their covering.

A cracking overhead.

Maria grabbed his hand.

“Move.”

Black branches crashed behind them. Vincent wished, and an opening through the copse widened enough for them to get through. The sound of devastation, the wings, the squealing of the birds, and they made their way through.

shit, they thought in unison, stopping at the sight before them.

Birds. In the sky. On the ground. A multitude of birds. Some flew near, pecking at them. Others, overhead, spattered the ground with their waste. Their noise came in waves, modulating in volume, but the tone remained the same.

Vengeful.

“Dominus Avis,” came from above the throng. Those milling the soil in front of Maria and Vincent parted. A wide-winged hunter landed in the cleared space.  

“About fucking time,” the vast Condor smirked.

He sang out, and an even more prominent figure eclipsed the night sky, coming to them.

Perspicuity of Want: Vincent’s Descent – atoz blog challenge

**Author’s Note: Vincent’s Descent is a continuous story that began on April 1st, 2023, as part of the AtoZ Blog Challenge. Most chapters are not designed as stand-alone. I’ve done my best to keep each chapter a touch over 500 words each so they are not too dense to follow along, IMO. For the entire story, please start HERE. Comments are always welcome.

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 16: Perspicuity of Want

            Maria’s head whipped up and over to Faye.

            “You’ve been there?” Silence as Faye looked away. “Faye?”

            The lawyer wanted to take out a cigarette and light it right then; she wanted to down a bottle of aged bourbon; she wanted to walk out, she wanted to scream, she wanted. Instead, her mind traveled along the non-linear path Vincent had drawn her into on more than one occasion. Lawyer’s mind took over with a huff.

            “Yes. There,” Faye answered. “many ‘theres.’” She crossed her arms, hip jutted to the side.

            Maria took in the stance, analyzing the depth of her voice, the rigidity. She turned to look at Vincent. He was wide-eyed, staring up from his imprisoned bed at Faye. His eyes shifted to Maria.

            “Oh.” Dr. Maria sat still.

            Faye went to her briefcase. She picked it up, held it against her side, took two steps to leave, froze, and retraced. When the case thunked against the tabletop, Ms. Smythe’s hand still clutched the handle. Her back was to both Vincent and Maria.

            “Well, now.” She adjusted her shirt sleeves, pulled the suit jacket taut, let go of the briefcase, and turned. They were equidistant from each other on three levels: standing, seated, and prone.

            “Patient/Lawyer confidentiality is out the window now, yes? Yes.” She hadn’t waited for Maria to answer.

            “I know Vincent is…has…is more than what he appears. I can’t believe I’m saying this out loud, but he is a walking fantasy novel.”

            Maria, as the observer, noticed the eye contact between Faye and Vincent: harsh to wounded.

               The lawyer turned her focus to the doctor.

“It is obvious, Maria, you know this for truth.”

Maria nodded.

“Fine. Ok. Details don’t matter. For now.” Pause. “For now.”

Maria nodded again, turning her attention to Vincent.

His mouth was taut, brows convexed. Vincent, hard to read at most times, was unguarded then. Maria was about to turn back to Faye when she noticed that Vincent’s face began to strain. A vein popped up on his left temple.

“Vincent?”

He shook his head, jerking to the sides.

Faye either didn’t see any of this or chose to ignore it.

“What do you mean that you did not kill that horrible old man? ‘It.’ You were there, Vincent, the blood dripping off you, pieces of him….” Faye Smythe sucked in a breath, “pieces of his flesh under your nails, between your teeth.

Vincent! Look at me! Enough of this fucking around.”

Maria pushed herself out of the chair and got between Vincent and Faye.

“Enough, Faye? Look at him. You’ve traveled with Vincent. I know what I have seen. We have a different lens to look through, how to approach all this. Stop this, Faye. Look at him.”

The lawyer bristled. She pushed Maria out of her line of sight.

She blanched.

“Fuck no.”

Black feathers were pushing their way out of Vincent’s arms. The IV worked its way out of the vein it had dug into, rejected alongside the now torn-apart restraints.

Vincent was thrashing, trying to contain Grackle Lord from emerging.

Maria saw he was losing. She rushed over to the bed and jumped on top of him.

They went away.

Faye was alone in the room as security and nurses burst in.

Oneiric Truth: Vincent’s Descent – atoz blog challenge

Vincent’s Descent

Chapter 15: Oneiric Truth (then and now)

            “Cat-gran…” the Grackle Prince began before a heavy wing beat his beak shut.

            The giant blackbird squatted closer, placing a talon over Once-Vincent’s chest, pinning him to the ground.  

            “Do not ever call me by that insipid title again. Do you understand? Well?”

            The princeling stared, nodding slightly.

            “Your fucking waste of a mother. Thought it was necessary to differentiate me from the other one.” The Condor shook itself, feathers bristling as it righted itself. “I am Condor. I am Elite.” It bent its head to look down upon the prince. “Do you understand?”

            “Yes,” he croaked, taken aback that the word had formed.

            “About time. Now,” the Elite removed its claw, stepping back. The crowded rows of blackbirds all hopped back to open the space. “Now, get up.”

            Nothing in his body moved the way he was used to. Struggling, the Grackle Prince fell over, rolled, winding up with his beak against the loam. The color had settled for the preferred Vincent golden-yellow. A sign? He was not sure, but it was enough of a temporal foundation.

            “Get. Up.”

            A kick sent the prince rolling, his back thrust against a wall of blackbirds. They gawked at him in silence.

            There was a light pressure against his back wing, folded tight against his side. It pulsed two times, rocking Once-Vincent. Then another, stronger, and again, until he again was prone but along the stomach.

            His wings, freed, spread wide. The legion in front flapped its wings, and those behind followed suit. The generated airflow fed the Grackle Prince. Without thought, he lifted off the earth, hovered, twitched, then began to beat, and Once-Vincent was airborne.

            Group after another took off to follow. None were considered prey during this journey. Never a hive mind, they yet shared the joy of the day. They flew without question, trading leads, gliding on drafts crafted by their own and those near. As long as the Grackle Prince would fly, so would they.

            All flew after except for the Condor Elite. He watched the sky grow clear of black as the miles swallowed one after one. He squealed, turned in the other direction, and went to give the news to his Lavender Grace.

Now

            Dr. Maria went still.

            “Vincent, no. You don’t have to…I don’t think that you ‘have’ to die.”

            He shrugged. His face was ragged, drained of color. She could see the struggle he was placing on himself. Vincent noticed that and turned his head away from her pleading eyes.

            “Please, Vincent. I’m here.”

            Pause times infinity, but Maria was patient. He finally nodded.

            “Good. There has to be something….”

            A knocking cut her off, and then the door opened.

            “Dr. Maria,” Ms. Faye Smythe entered the room. Shutting the door, she stood by it.

            “Vincent.”

            He closed his eyes.

            “I know you’re awake. That was feeble.” She took a few steps closer into the room, setting her briefcase on the rolling meal table pushed off to the side. Faye clicked it open, removed a folder, and shut the case.

            She turned and stared at Vincent.

            “You’re in a shit load of trouble. First, your family members, and now the guard.”

“I did not kill my mother,” Vincent muttered. “I did not kill the guard.”

“Oh? Really. What about the man you called your ‘Cat-grandpa….”

            Dr. Maria saw Vincent’s body tense at that.

            Silence from Vincent.

            Ms. Smythe walked around the infirmary bed, staying out of reach.

            “I said…”

            “Yes, Faye. Yes. I killed it.”

            She shook her head.

            “It?”

            Vincent pushed his head deeper into the bed pillow.

            “It. You were there with me, Faye.”