AN: You know, I keep swearing and swearing to myself that I'm not going to write MR anymore, I'm not going to get distracted from my WIPs... but my brain keeps on churning out oneshots and drabbles. But I do love this format for my ANs and title/summary/story, it works on a glitchy document edit... Ah, well, this has been in my USB, just waiting to be published, for over a year... so I decided to just clean a few things up and publish it. Of course, I don't own MR, insert obligatory disclaimer here, reviews are loved, yadda yadda yadda... Here you go, fifty-seven Max-centric drabbles, all under 100 words. With that, HallowedHallsOfWriting, aka Juliet, now presents to you...

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57 Falling Feathers
– or –
Sneaks, Peeks, And Slices Of A Not-Bird-Not-Human Teenage Girl's Life
[because growing up is so much harder when you don't know just what you are]

-x-

Clouds
Most certainly do not taste like cotton candy.

Pillow
"Mmmmm… so soft and warm…"

"Get off, Max!"

"But you make such a nice pillow, Fang!"

Moonlight
Sometimes, when her flock is asleep, she will slip out onto the roof and relax underneath the light of the moon.

Dressing Up
She will never forgive Nudge and Angel for the time they forced her to put on a heels and a dress.

Regrets
Looking back at her life, her greatest regret is being too scared to escape the labs earlier, even if it meant leaving the others behind. She quickly banishes that thought.

Peace
It's times like these, when she looks down at their sleeping faces, so peaceful and innocent, that she knows, despite her earlier thoughts, if she were to go back, she would do the same thing all over again.

Fingernails
Are stubby and rough due to how much she chews them.

Video Games
"HAHA! Bow to the supreme ruler of all things virtual!"

"Max… you're starting to scare me…"

Patience
Patience is one of her – admittedly few – virtues, but living with Iggy and Gazzy, two forces of absolute chaos, Fang, who does an excellent impression of a stone statue at the worst times, Nudge, who never shuts up, Angel, who blackmails people with their thoughts, and Total the snarky, whiny dog, is enough to make even the holiest of saints commit homicide.

Those Times
There are times when it's all too much, and she just wants to curl up under the covers and hope this is all a bad dream she will wake up from.

Candy
Screw what Fang thinks. Almond Hershey Bars are soooooo much better than Three Musketeers.

Leader
She is the leader for so many reasons. She is the oldest, the strongest, the smartest, and the best with the others. But deep down, she knows it's really because she's a survivor – because her heart can shatter and she can pick up the pieces then go on like they never broke in the first place.

Whiplash
Ow. Owowowowowowowow. Never snap your head around like that. It hurts. A LOT.

Selfish
She is selfish. Despite the fact they have real families that miss them, she can't let them go. She WON'T.

Shadow Puppets
Get old really fast.

Nervous
Her palms are clammy and her body sweaty. She almost laughs at herself. She's faced down both mutated monsters and psychotic scientists; taken down an all-powerful company; lived on the run for half her life; eaten rats and garbage and god knows what else; and she's worried about high school?

Explosion
"LOOK OUT!"

"HOLY–"

boom!

"BWAHAHAHAHA!"

Running
When her wings were shot and unable to move, she turned to running. And marveled at how close it felt to flying.

Strategy
Contrary to popular belief, she does not charge off without thinking things through. She always has a fool-proof strategy at hand and two more in her back pocket.

Scars
She has many scars. She looks at them in the mirror and is reminded of each and every time she cheated death.

Paper
Despite how hard she tries, she will never master Origami.

Wounds
She revels in the intense, burning pain she receives from these. It is proof she is alive, that she survived.

Liar, Liar
She is a crap liar. So why do they believer her every time?

Hope
The first time she ever felt this foreign, fragile emotion is when Jeb rescued her from her cage, then broke her out of the labs.

Rings
She wears six of them on a chain around her neck. One for each member of her first family.

Groceries
She and her 'family' invade the grocery store to steal the food they need so they have enough energy to outrun Itex for another day. Once they have grabbed all they can, they head for the exit.

And run smack-dab into a hoard of Erasers. Then they fight their way through the men-turned-wolves, attracting stares from all the other shoppers.

An old man breaks the stunned silence with a whistle. "When I was their age, grocery shopping used to be boring."

Valium
Fang has never let her forget that incident.

Dive-Bombing
"Does not include actual bombs, Iggy and Gazzy…"

Smell
She's gotten – mostly – over her paranoia and fear of those in white lab coats, but she still can't make it inside a hospital without wanting to run away and/or puke from fear of the antiseptic smell.

Wrinkles
"Max?"

"Yes sweetie?"

"Don't frown so much. You're getting wrinkles."

Chocolate
Is what Fang smells like.

Dream
When Angel told all the others about their parents, she secretly hoped that she had parents, that she had family. And then promptly scoffed at herself for being such an idiot. As if they would want her.

But still, she dreamed.

Madhouse
The perfect word to describe where she lives.

Allergy
For her, Mushrooms = Dead Mutant Bird Kid (DMBK).

It's so embarrassing.

Quiet
She feels the most comfortable near it. No wonder she likes to spend time with Fang.

Bittersweet
As she sees Itex go up in flames, she can't help but think that the ending is somewhat bittersweet. After all, what is her purpose in life now that the object of her obsession is gone?

Black
Inky strands of darkness wrap across her vision until she can see nothing, and it terrifies her to no end, not having any control.

When she returns to the light, she has a new appreciation for what Iggy puts up with constantly.

Gold
The color of her daughter's wings.

Tears
Her brother lies broken and bloodstained and she knows that she shouldn't cry, he wouldn't want her to cry, and he died the way he wanted to, going down fighting.

The tears come anyways.

Kiss
No matter what Angel may say, she did not mean to kiss Fang. She will stand by her statement, and no one will convince her otherwise. Not even the others' poorly disguised coughraspchokehacks of denial.

Oh, who is she kidding? She did. Now stop snickering, dang it!

Bambi Eyes
Should burn.

Tattoo
She will get one. Just as soon as she finds an artist who doesn't freak when he sees those huge-ass wings of hers.

Verita
A wise man once said, 'the truth shall set you free.'

No wonder she is still chained.

Tangle
Her curls are always a bi – witch to untangle when she wakes up.

Prayer
While others will pray to their gods and their saints, offer up empty words and flowery speeches, she does not. There is one prayer she says every night, and this is it: "Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, live to see another night…"

Bitch
She takes that as a compliment.

Home
There was a reason she was always so willing to go to the Martinez's. And it wasn't the cookies. It was because they had accepted her as her, Max, and not something she should be.

But dang, those cookies were good.

Traitor
She is Maximum Ride, and Max is nothing if not a traitor.

Limit
Yes, even she, world-savior-extraordinaire, has one. And it will occur in 5… 4… 3… 2… 1…

"Hey Max, look at this cute top! How adorable is it? And, and, and, oooooooooooohhh, loo – "

*insert spontaneous combustion of said bird kid here*

"Nudge? I think you broke her."

Death
By annoying talking winged dogs.

… This means you, Total.

Jealousy
It took her a while to identify it as the funny feeling she got whenever she saw Fang with Lissa. And Bridget. And those other girls who were falling all over him.

Well, dang.

Paintballing
Would be much more amusing if her on-and-off boyfriend couldn't blend into the shadows and her pseudo-daughter couldn't read minds. It would be easier, too.

Mortality
Seeing her brother's grave reminds her of just how mortal she is.

Old Age
Looking at Jeb and her mom, she prays she will never get all those aches and pains when she is older.

Perverts
Should really burn. Or, at least, stay out of the room when she's trying to change.

… Except for him. He could stay.

Belong
Belong. Long to be.

Absolution
Some days, she wonders what life would be like if she was another. If she didn't have wings, if she didn't have powers, if she wasn't a human experiment, if there was no antagonist in her little world bigger than the local mean girl, if she didn't have a mismatched, rag-tag family like she does now. If she just wasn't Max.

Would she still be who she was?

But the question really was – did she really care?

She was Maximum Ride, sister to four, daughter to two, mother to three, lover to one, and savior to so, so many more. And that was her finality, her identity, her definition.

Her absolution.

-x-