Hope is a songbird, the sky dwellers say, a thing that perches in your soul and twitters in jubilant defiance of all you fear is true.

Hope is a vulture, Sandalphon knows, one that periodically returns to feed on what's left of him, digging for any parts he carelessly left exposed. It sits, always just out of reach, eyeing him for its next chance, the next moment when the glimmers of something better and brighter turn out to be too tempting, the possibility of catching and holding onto them too sweet.

He sits quietly, the bird tearing at his innards, as Lyria holds her hands out, aglow with that solemn ancient magic that has any primal trembling involuntariy, though he hardly finds it in himself to care.

There's sweat beading on her brow, her call tugging at him harder and harder, until she abruptly lets go, and, like a rubber band stretched taut, his core shivers back into place.

"I'm sorry, Sandalphon, I… I can't feel anything right now," she finally says, slumping in self-deprecation. "It's like… something was there, and now it isn't, but it's not like… it doesn't feel like it's gone, either. I can't really explain it better."

The vulture barely pauses at her words, too far into its task to be deterred so easily.

He already knows what he felt back there on that muddy battlefield, would have been able to name that fleeting presence even if he had been blind and deaf, his body and his mind in pieces—

Lucifer.

Not a mirage, not a rogue fragment of the Supreme One's power left in him, not with the way those wings were enfolding him so carefully, so completely, welcoming, giving, so terribly, wonderfully giving–

Part of him, the ugliest, most selfish part, keeps howling in rage and denial, beating its fists against the part of him that is scrambling to aid the vulture, to let it gorge itself on the possibilities – because he's been here so many times before, and it has always, always cost him everything—

But isn't it worth giving everything of yourself to that one impossible dream? Isn't it only right... especially when the dream keeps reaching back for you?

Slowly letting out the breath he didn't realize he was holding, he rises, stilling Lyria's apologetic mumbling.

"It's fine. You don't have anything to be sorry for. In fact, I... thank you for trying."

"Sandalphon...?"

If feeding the vulture is good for anything, it's the birth of half-mad schemes and the wholly mad and entirely idiotic drive to see them through. It's not confidence and nothing even close to conviction, more like stepping off a precipice with his eyes closed, compelled to fling himself into the void.

At this point, keeping going is not a question of how or why, but an absence of any sensible reason not to.

All he has to do is listen to the fragments of knowledge that remain within him, aspects of the providence of the Supreme Primarch that have been whispering to him all along, if he hadn't been too wrapped up in himself to listen.

"I'm... afraid I may have to step out for a bit," he says eventually, trying to figure out the best way to put into words what he only knows on an instinctual level, the same way he knows that he can fly, or breathe, or speak.

He lacks Lucifer's deep understanding, though, the wisdom that came from overseeing evolution for thousands of years, and he will never have his skill, let alone the serenity to pull this off while staying conscious, thinking, feeling, processing the myriad distractions that come from simply having a physical existence.

He can't expect Lyria to understand, not when he can barely conceive of it himself, but something in her seems to anyway, if the widening of her eyes is any indication.

"A-are you sure?" she asks, gazing up at him uncertainly. "I mean, we could call for Michael and the others..."

He shakes his head. There's nothing the former Primarchs will be able to tell him that he can't already guess the answers to. They won't know of any record, let alone proof of a primal beast surviving the loss of their core, not when Sandalphon himself is the one so intimately familiar with the endless, twisted experiments conducted in the Astrals' labs, not when he's witnessed a thousand torturous ends to primals whose cores were shattered, fused, transplanted, or tainted with the blackest venom.

And even if they did, they would certainly never have thought to pry into the affairs of the Supreme One, because seeking to learn about Perfection would have been nothing short of blasphemy, and trying to understand Him, the Embodiment of Light and Right, would have been akin to a peasant seeking to understand the mind of a king.

"But I'm sure they'd come!" Lyria tries again, fingers twisting in her skirt. "I bet they know lots more than we do, and they wouldn't even take long to get here... not that, um, not that you don't know Him, Sandalphon, just..."

Once upon a time, he would have taken umbrage at that, bristled at the implication that he might not have the first idea — when really, it's nothing but the simple truth.

I didn't know Him either. I didn't know Him at all. I didn't even try, just saw what I wanted to see because I couldn't ever fathom...

...why He would keep coming to me, calling for me, why He would lower himself to speak to someone even less than a peasant, less than a tool... why He would listen to me with such patience, and tell me of His observations of the world, and ask my opinions, as if I was more than what I was, as if I could /ever be/...

Back then, he never could have imagined that there was anything Lucifer might have been missing, might have been searching for, let alone that anyone so worthless might be able to help him find it. Nothing he has been or done since then has made him any worthier, let alone deserving, even if he hadn't been driven by a blaze of grief and rage, and yet...

And yet.

And yet, He keeps choosing me, over and over, against all odds and against all reason, against what's good or right or even sane... I still don't understand it, and maybe I never will, but... that doesn't mean I shouldn't try.

Unaware of his web of guilty recollections, Lyria is still talking.

"...just, it's so dangerous, isn't it? I... I know you're strong, but there wouldn't be any harm in waiting a little longer, right? Just a bit? Until we can be sure? And, I mean, maybe they know of another way, so you wouldn't have to—"

"I seem to remember a particularly stubborn intruder once telling me that sitting and waiting for things to happen is little better than dying," he says, a smirk stealing across his lips. "Don't tell me she's getting into the habit of running from her own convictions?"

It's just a little mean to throw her own words back at her like this, but then again, she never stopped the Singularity trying to guilt him with that stupid line about the delicacy of his fingers.

Lyria ducks her head, a poor attempt to conceal her flush at being called out, and he has the absurd impulse that someone should really tell her to stop folding in on herself like that. After a moment, though, she meets his eyes again, anxious and watery and unfairly caring. "I guess... I just don't want you to get hurt. Again. You, you always seem to, and. It shouldn't have to be this way."

One day, perhaps it will cease to amaze him that a remnant from the dawn of the world could so thoroughly be molded into a little mortal girl, compulsively compassionate and so set on extending a kinder, softer version of the world to just about everyone. It's touching, really, as much as he doesn't want it to be, so much so that he can't bring himself to tell her that he's fine with this, more than fine — that when it comes to Lucifer, after so long, even pain is dear to him.

"Well, if you'd like to placate the Singularity for me, that would aid considerably in my safe return," he says instead, and doesn't miss the way she brightens in spite of the ridiculousness of the statement, in spite of herself. Always so eager to be helpful. For some reason, that makes it easier to ask something truly vulnerable.

"And I would appreciate it… if, in my absence, I might be... in your care."

For a moment, Lyria's entire face is a breathless little 'o' before she catches herself, squaring her shoulders and nodding rapidly. "O-of course! I'll do my best!"

"There's nothing to do," he starts to explain, uncertain how much she knows about primal beast hibernation and somewhat taken aback by her fierce enthusiasm for something that mostly amounts to giving himself peace of mind.

"Yes, just leave it to me! Don't worry, I won't drop you!"

Sandalphon stiffens. "I… should hope not."

"And I'll be sure to keep you warm!"

"You… don't need to do that."

"And turn you over twice a day—"

"My core is not an egg, Girl in Blue!"

"—I've got this nice box for my necklaces, it's all soft and padded and everything, and I can keep it locked... though maybe I shouldn't do that, it's no good if you end up feeling cramped—"

Rolling his eyes skyward, he lets her nonsense ramblings be the prayer that carries him off as he bids the ether binding his physical form unravel. There's the brief, horrible sensation of flesh detaching itself from flesh, and the last impression he has is of her hands fumbling to reach for him before his senses, too, are no more.

*.*.*.*.*

TBC

Author's Notes: I'm so sorry, Sandalphon my sweet child, I promise things will only get worse. When will Lucifer stop being a plot device? Slower than you might want, faster than you think. Also please feel free to yell at me about LuciSan, it sustains me.