Divine Singularity || Reader x Murder Drones

I

"Slow down! You're going too fast!"

"I can't."

You heard J's protest but didn't even acknowledge it. Your mind was fixed, carved into a singular point of focus. Wind screamed past you in furious currents, the sound of it pressing against your feathers like god's breath trying to shove you back. But you did not yield. You tore through the air like a living missile. The forest blurred beneath you into indistinct green ribbons, unraveling faster than the eye could process.

The Dove's lifeforce was fading. Weak. It had once glowed like a little torch nestled against your chest. Now it was dimming. Fast. Like a candle choking on its own wax.

You kept one hand coiled firmly around J's midsection, ensuring that she wouldn't be blown away by the wind currents. It probably would've been a better idea to leave J be and let her go back to the manor while you checked on the dove, but you were deadset on reaching your little friend, and so J was unwillingly tagging along.

All of your eyes—all hundred of them, embedded across your wings, your spine, your throat, your skull—blinked in unison. A wave of narrowing pupils and dilated irises swept through your body like a coordinated breath. You felt the exact coordinates lock into your mind.

And then—you dropped.

Wings snapped open with a thunderclap, a braking maneuver so violent that J lurched forward in your grip, nearly biting her tongue from the sudden deceleration. You grunted under your breath, angling your body just right, weaving yourself downward through the thick canopy. You tried to be gentle. You really did. But gentleness had to take a backseat to urgency.

Several tree limbs snapped like dry bones. Branches groaned under the sweep of your wings and the clawed tendrils of your many limbs. You absorbed the impact, trying not to cause more damage than necessary, but desperation made it impossible to be perfect. If you were in the right sense of mind, you would have realized just how much damage you were causing to the environment, but unfortunately, you were not in the right state of mind.

Finally, your claws brushed the forest floor, then curled around it like roots. The rest of your body stretched upward and outward—a divine beast threading through bark and leaf. You extended one arm and began gently feeling through the brush.

Behind you, J was already moving.

"Dammit—are you serious right now?" she snapped, scrambling to steady herself from the jarring descent. With her fists clenched, she gripped a handful of your feathers and began scaling your back like a mountain climber. You felt her shoes getting their footing on large clumps of your plume, her breath coming quick as she grunted from sheer frustration.

Being nearly blown away after you suddenly decided to accelerate to jet levels of speed without giving her any prior warning, had understandably made her quite upset.

"You almost shook me off, you idiot!" she growled. "What is wrong with you?! What the hell's gotten into—"

She stopped.

The smell of copper. Thick. Metallic and sweet and wrong.

Blood.

Her optics moved, following the same scent trail your body had already traced. Her gaze swept down your extended claw until she saw what it cradled.

A nest. Broken at the rim. Lopsided in its placement on the branch.

And inside it—a shape. Small. Fluffed. Feathered.

Still.

Your hand trembled like a tectonic plate under stress. All your eyes were locked in a wide, horrified gaze. J moved higher, climbing until she reached the crest of your head, your weary eyes surrounding her.