He could close his eyes.
He wants to close his eyes, as those massive, all-consuming jaws rise up around him, more black pit than gullet, but resists the urge.
He did so once, in terrified self-absorption, when it dawned on him that he was being pulled in with all the rest, just one more terrified, half-mad fury amidst a torrent of terrified, half-mad furies, when it became clear that for all his frenzied, hopeless, rage-filled begging — look at me, look at me, look at *me*, fight me, fight for me, let me fight you, show you, make you see, see what all this power could do for you, I'll make you regret, I'll make you *want* — Lucifer had looked, and had only seen one more speck of rebellious dirt to sweep away, one more pathetic piece of junk to consign to oblivion.
He doesn't, now.
This is how it should be, how it must be, if he wants to have any hope of setting things right.
This Pandemonium is not the cage that once held him, just a convenient shape for a prison far older, gorged not on thousands of screaming primals, but on the pieces of his own ugliness, far more grotesque and numerous than all the armies of rebellion.
This is the grave where he's buried every curse, every accusation, every baseless, hideous twisting of reality in the hopes that doing so would erase them from existence.
This is the court where all his sins are waiting, both pardoned and unpardoned, naked without the pretty words the mortal children choose to dress them in, where bravery and determination and devotion are unmasked and shown as the feckless thugs they are, pretenders whose true names could fill a record from here to infinity — arrogance, egotism, despair.
This is the well where he has sunk all his desires, every filthy, covetous wish, every traitorous reaction, every sinful thought about the shape of those lips, the timbre of that voice, the gentle, wind-swept scent of coffee flowers — in the hopes of finally, finally locking them in its depths.
This Pandemonium is not the cage that held him, but it is as good as the real thing, as terrible as the real thing — an endless fall into oblivion, past the thousands of calcified bodies lining the walls, clawing, desperate limbs stretched towards the fading light in a fresco of suffering, the raw material that built this prison long before it was deployed in the Rebellion.
The only difference is that this time, Sandalphon does not resist the fall, has no intention of resisting the fall — folding his wings close to his body to keep them from shredding themselves to ribbons on those countless spines, and welcoming the dizzying descent. It's not enough to keep from getting tumbled about like a leaf, the monstrous gullet home to winds that will grind anything to dust against its walls, but he couldn't care less—
Couldn't care less, except for that brief, blinding flash of panic at the sudden burst of white — white rushing up from somewhere without-within, threatening to cradle, to cushion, to heal, and—
No, no, don't You dare, this is *mine* to bear, at least let me do this much for You, let me protect *You* for once—
— and the relief when they finally listen, returning to their dormant state with a last, soft whisper of their wish to see him safe.
He lands hard, every muscle coiling tight, hands flexing into claws to meet the recreation of the hellscape that has burned itself into his mind—
Cries of terror, his own voice joining the wailing of a thousand captured primal beasts, all tearing at each other in a desperate scramble to escape — and that was before Pandemonium itself descended upon them, myriad grotesqueries rushing from its depths to start the eternal hunt—
He's ready, he's ready, even with the wound oozing — still oozing — with every movement, even with every instinct screaming at him to run, hide, get away — stupid, stupid, he's spent two gods-damned millennia in this place, he's fought every single horror it had to offer and survived, he'll do it again twice over, with his bare hands if he has to because the stupid fucking sword keeps refusing his call as if it were an actual object that he could actually lose like a complete idiot—
Impossibly far above, the jaws of Pandemonium grind shut, the low, sickening groan of eternity settling into place and slowly smothering the howling gales, the phantom wailing of the damned, until the only sounds left are his own harsh breathing, the pitter-pat of blood from his torn wings.
Slowly, ever so slowly, Sandalphon rises to his feet, a different kind of unease taking charge of his limbs.
Pandemonium was never this quiet, not even during the strange lulls it would sometimes enter, offering indeterminate periods of respite for no reason other than that constant terror was something a prisoner might grow accustomed to.
Pandemonium was never this empty, with every surface, every wall and floor and shadow moving, breathing with a will of its own, capable of twisting in on itself and spitting out a freshly mangled corpse or a newly born abomination on a whim, to continue the hunt.
He's not sure what to do with this, this yawning, silent labyrinth that matches neither the place from his half-forgotten nightmares nor what he knows — oh he knows — to be true about himself.
At least, it's not a peaceful silence.
It is the kind of silence waiting for something to burst, and the sooner he can figure out where and how the gloves will come off, the sooner he can—
~~ah~~
He freezes, thoughts dropping to the ground in a snarl.
Faint, so faint a saner man might doubt his own senses, might never even have heard.
~~sandalphon~~
Hardly a sigh, barely even a breath, the echo of an echo from a thousand miles away.
"Lucifer-sama!"
A single ill-timed noise in Pandemonium is enough to invite six dozen things worse than death, but he'll be damned if he doesn't answer, if he doesn't shout as loudly as he can—
"Lucifer-sama, I'm here! Where— where are you—?!"
And then, he spots it: a pinprick of light, a shimmering little speck of purest white, slowly drifting towards him. Wide-eyed, he reaches out to it, and it alights on his fingers for the briefest of moments before fading out, its tiny warmth seeking to mend his injured palm.
Oh no.
~~i have a message… for the one named sandalphon~~
Oh skies above and all the heavens, no.
*.*.*.*.*
It is worse, so much worse, than the first time.
The horror never faded, of course, the sickening realization that he was listening to an epitaph, a twilight sigh, that someone (he) had ripped the sun from the sky and handed him (himself) the last of its fading embers, and it was only right, only proper and just, that he should have those words echoing through his dreams forever, and half his waking life as well—
Now, though, as he's stumbling through the gloom of Pandemonium, hands alternately clutching at the walls and the stupid, useless, pointless wound that won't close, incensed at the illogicality of it all — an imaginary wound on an imaginary body, crippling his imaginary ability to fucking run towards the only real, true thing that fucking matters—
There's a snow-gray plain unfurling inside his heart, expanding until it reaches from horizon to horizon, pale earth blending with an equally pale sky. Crystallized, a permafrost preservation where each tiny flake is a facet, a part of something far too vast to be as fleeting as sorrow, as trivial as grief—
Nameless, unending, and so very quiet—
A lonely tundra for lost chances, a final resting place for an unrealized wish, a fledgling hope that never even learned to fly.
Loss, loss. No more tomorrows, no more means to make this right, no more words to attempt reparations that may well be impossible — close, so close, yet forever out of reach — a prayer, that at least these wings will be enough of a consolation, a way to keep safe that which he will never see again, a faint sense of comfort in the thought that this, at least, will not be beyond his power—
Sandalphon is best friends with agony, is as good as mated to despair, has had grief and regret make a home of his heart, and yet, all of them combined cannot hope to encompass what he's glimpsed from this faintest of lights, this speck of a fragment of the real thing—
—or help him understand how the wings he inherited (stole, robbed, took) can speak to him of nothing but care, the boundless desire to protect, when the soul they belong to spent his last living moments feeling like this.
It's worse, so much worse, because that glimmer of memory was only the first, a vanguard to dozens upon hundreds of others, drifting through the labyrinth of Pandemonium without direction, without meaning, a sea of little wandering stars.
He can't hope to avoid them, not when his presence seems to imbue them with a sudden purpose, sends them flitting towards him as if they were searching for him all along. Settling on his brow, his hands, his wings, seeking to care and heal to the very last, and each inadvertently bestowing its cargo.
Allowing him to see, with eyes that are not his, the myriad impressions collected over millennia of observation — each moment perfectly preserved, as vibrant as if he were seeing it for the first time: the changing of the skies with the seasons, the endless cycle of celestial bodies overhead. Birds traveling from north to south and back again, shoals of fish ascending from the ocean depths towards the shore, sustaining countless other living beings by following nothing but their own drive to beget new life. Mortals casting their nets, building their homes, drifting together and apart in ever-changing configurations, smiling, arguing, creating—
Would that these were truly messages, would that he could dismiss them as residue, passive instruction gained from his awful, precious inheritance, but he knows now — oh how he knows — that what he received back then was sanitized, depersonalized as much as possible — as if the true owner, the one who amassed all this experience to begin with, whose soul sang at every new discovery, every new grain of knowledge, as if He were an impurity, a contamination to be purged from His own memories—
/Why, why would You do this, why would You give me everything I needed to use Your wings, and allow everything of Yourself to fade into obscurity—?/
No more room for denial, no more room for pretenses. No thunderclap to punctuate the realization, no triumph in finally understanding, just a sense of dread—
—he's holding a cluster of small white flowers, ever so mindful not to harm the petals as he brushes them with a swab covered in pollen dust. The part that's still Sandalphon recognizes the plant perfectly well, knows it will one day be bending with the weight of countless bright red berries, intimately knows the brew they will help invent, but the soul nursing this half-wilted desert shrub is—trembling, knowing he has transgressed, has interfered with the natural order by taking this little plant from its lonely, far-off island where it was clinging to life against the naked rock. The last of its species, unique in all the world, and he could not allow it to perish, could not allow it to be forever lost, not when he has only just come to know of its existence. Not when he cannot quiet the strange pull on his core, drawing him in, as irrefutable as gravity — the sense that in this, they are alike: two creatures as far apart in origin and make as they can be, but united in their solitude—
These are not leftovers, no vestiges of the power he has so poorly managed to absorb — he has been wading through soul stuff, getting tended to by little bits and pieces of a person—
—a carillon sound draws his attention, pulling his gaze away from the report he has been composing and down to the lower courtyards to find his Four engaged in conversation — Gabriel's clearwater voice in the lead, Uriel's bronze bell ringing after it, punctuated by soft staccato huffs from Raphael and Michael, lips and wings twitching, failing to call them to order. He knows the sound, of course, even though it is almost a stranger to these halls — the mortal children will emit it often and loudly, especially in each other's company, an expression of pleasure and good humor. How surprising, how wonderful to think that primal beasts are capable of it, as well, of forming bonds that will foster such a sound.
It tugs at him, this thing called laughter, leaving him wondering, if only for a moment, whether he might learn it if he went to join them — but no, not when he knows the cost. Not when the cost would be to have the ease leave their voices, their conversation trail off, their shoulders stiffen as they bow. It is enough, more than enough, to know that they are warming to each other, and to let the sounds of their communion warm him like the springtime sun.
There's a blur in his eyes and salt on his lips, even though Sandalphon knows he doesn't have the right and doesn't want to anyway, his stupid non-body reacting in the simplest way it knows, hot and furious and transitory — not to the memories themselves, though they're enough to last anyone a lifetime, but to the feelings they come wrapped in, millennia of emotions never shared, never even named — fathomless, wordless, eternal—
—the skies awash with blood and fire, primal beast after primal beast succumbing to the blight of madness, becoming mindless agents of destruction. He's been ordered to turn his light upon this scourge — and he will, he must, to protect everything else, bury the questions no one seems able or willing to answer — why did it come to this? is there no other way? how can they be a scourge when they suffer so? — felling crazed foe after crazed foe and looking upon their twisted, broken bodies, the darkened veins circulating nothing but poison, the bones snapped and rearranged to make room for half-formed limbs they were never meant to have, spines boring through their skin, every inch of them changed to hurt and kill—
So many he does not know, and so many he does — Dinah, whose wings would never stop fluttering even when she was grounded, as if she could hardly wait to defy the earth — Forfax, who loved the night skies even though he was meant to operate only in daytime — Jophiel, always bursting with things to report though she couldn't speak in anything but gestures — all gone, beyond even his ability to heal — and how a part of him is relieved — how? why? he cannot distinguish, must not distinguish, cannot permit himself to favor, to weigh one life over all the others — *still* so relieved to never recognize that one dear face among any of them.
The little lights aren't messengers, aren't guides. They are the last stage, the final step, cast-offs from an existence that is on the brink of losing cohesion, of losing awareness of itself.
—forcing closed the jaws of Pandemonium and etching into memory the screams of the wretched as they fade, knowing this will forever be their prison — knowing that he has failed, failed them, failed each and every one even as he resolved to do what was asked of him, to prevent even more suffering and loss — suffering which he could have, should have been able to ease, to take on his own shoulders so that those in his care might find relief — and knowing that in the midst of all this frenzied chaos, there might very well have been the one he could never, ever stop looking for —
—driving his blade into his Friend and watching (having to watch, making himself watch) the life leave his eyes — eyes which used to be shrewd, sharp, calculating, agleam with ideas and theories, but which will now never watch, never challenge, never urge him on again. By his doing, by his *choice*, made after deliberating as long as the fate of the world would permit, after his Friend made it clear that he would not be swayed, neither by word nor any deed but this one — it will be his to bear, this moment, his duty to remember that satisfied smile — why? why? surely, surely that must be wrong, as well? — on bloodless lips, and forever wonder whether he could have stopped it all, whether, if he understood hearts and words just a little better, he might have known how to avert disaster, might have kept his Friend from inflicting so much pain—
Glimpses of a life that Sandalphon was never privy to, a soul he never truly knew before it started unraveling before his very eyes.
"You can't, you hear me?!"
Perhaps that's pointless too, but he's past caring about things like use and meaning, past caring about trying to keep it together — sure, let his voice break, let his tongue stutter nonsense, so long as it's at last talking—
"You can't do this, alright? You can't give up, I know I'm — gods, I'm really late, I know, okay? I know, I know— but you can't just start… unexisting on me, and — look, I don't know how to do this, I know you never bossed anyone around as the Supreme One—"
"—but I will, I am, and I'm telling you you can't— I'll make a decree out of it if I have to! See if I don't! I'll write it out in triplicate and get it stamped like a stupid mortal in a stupid office with a stupid official seal and I bet you'd love to see that, I bet you'd read it all, even the stupid fine print the mortals say you should read but nobody ever does and then they squall over it like lunatic seagulls, I was there, I heard it, you should hear it, it's brilliant, and by brilliant I mean so stupid—"
"—but you'd love that, wouldn't you? You always seemed to— you'd always tell me about things you saw them do, you'd… you'd really want to see it in person, wouldn't you? And I want you to see it, you can, I promise, as long as you just don't… give…"
He stops, stills.
Ahead, the tunnels are opening up, walls and floors giving way to a precipitous drop — the true maw, an abyss so deep it can only be measured in aeons. An invitation to nowhere, a cruel trick to reinvigorate the hopeless, teasing salvation, oblivion, eternal rest.
Plenty of primals took it as a twisted sort mercy, a way out once it became clear there was no way out, and would eventually succumb to its siren song. He's seen and heard it often enough, what the fall does to them — how it slowly peels away their ether-flesh, layer by layer, as they cry and bellow their betrayal, how it won't stop until it reaches their very core, and starts breaking it apart, crystal chip by crystal chip, feasting on its power and leaving only the consciousness behind — broken, scattered, but still aware enough to suffer, to feel its own infinitesimal splinters forever swirling round and round.
He's had to talk himself away from the edge plenty of times, trembling like a moth caught between its web and the web he was weaving in his own mind — a tapestry to smother everything weak about himself, leaving only the burning need for vengeance.
Slowly, consciously, Sandalphon inhales, forcing down the echoes of the past once more.
This is different, he is different, he will not desecrate the sight before him by seeking refuge in remembered terror, he will bear the seizing of his muscles and the helpless, disbelieving tremble of his heart for what it truly is—
Because here, now, there is a light rising from that bottomless void, a soft glow streaming up into the caverns and soothing their shadows as if trying to calm hell itself. Brighter, steadier, impossibly purposeful—
/Thank you, thank you, *thank you*—/
—forever his dearly beloved Guiding Light.
*.*.*.*.*
Pandemonium is capable of crafting illusions; of whispering to its prisoners, of planting ideas in their exhausted minds — invitations, threats, lurid suggestions, until they are happy to mutilate themselves to please it, or just in the vain hope of making it stop.
Pandemonium is capable of taking thoughts and warping them into shadows, letting them dance along its walls in a feverish carousel of lies and nightmares, taunting the unguarded with their fears and desires.
Pandemonium is not capable of anything beautiful, anything true.
Pandemonium is not capable of this: A sphere of light, as warm as the sun but gentler, much gentler — its mere presence something holy, humbling the footsteps of a careless trespasser. Shades of sunrise, duskfall, moonshine playing across its surface the same way they used to play across the wings at his back — back when they still belonged to the most beautiful soul in all the skies.
It draws him in, spell-bound with awe, staring like a fool at this too pure, too private thing — this essence that should burn him to cinders for laying eyes upon it, even though all it does — all He has ever done — is exude a gentle warmth.
"Lucifer-sama?"
There is no answer, not in anything resembling words, but there is intent in its quiet thrum, a faint sense of the willpower that put it in place.
A shield, the thrum murmurs, a barrier. It will not falter, it promises, it will not fall, it will protect this precious place until the last threat has been dealt with—
"What… what threat?"
It's ridiculous to try talking to a manifestation of pure power, and an even more ridiculous thing to ask at the heart of a primal-devouring casket— but that, he realizes, is exactly the issue. This Pandemonium might not be the real thing, but that doesn't — shouldn't — make it any more hospitable.
"You're not… trying to keep something out, are you," he breathes, mind racing to count the possibilities but drawing a frighteningly endless blank. "You're trying to keep something in— Lucifer-sama… what have you done?"
Without warning, the light dims, the colors scattering, dispersing like paint mixed with too much water — and Sandalphon lunges forward without thinking, hand outstretched as if that might stop it from fading.
As if in answer, the barrier flares up again before he can make contact, glowing almost stubbornly brighter as if to say not yet, not yet. It should be reassuring, except — this is how stars die, he's been told, this is what happens when their inner embers begin to cool, and they begin shining in defiance, the brightest before eternal night—
No.
Not again.
*Never* again.
This time, Sandalphon doesn't stop the stirring at his back, can't hold back the white plumes from bursting out and making a right mess of themselves when they push past tattered brown, though whether they're responding to his intent or the presence of their true owner, he cannot care to guess—
Trembling, his fingers close the final gap, grazing the surface, and oh—
He's not sure what he expected — resistance, certainly, denial, all that protective power rushing forth to refuse this intrusion, but not—
Five months is adequate time. It is longer than he would normally devote to the observation of one specific aspect of the Skies, certainly far longer than he has ever spent planning a course of action, but the task at hand is one which has necessitated careful study.
The sky dwellers have always been his best teachers — always moving, always adapting, resourceful and inventive, creating rituals and customs capable of sustaining whole communities for centuries. He has seen mortals meet as perfect strangers and part as nothing short of brothers, has seen them form bonds out of what might as well be thin air, instinctively gifted at enriching each other's lives.
Interaction does not come naturally to him, certainly not the way it seems to come to the mortal children, but also not the way it comes to his fellow primal beasts — those he would like to call his brethren, if not for the differences he cannot seem to overcome.
He is unique, he has been told. By design, by necessity — due to the vast amounts of time and resources that were allotted to his creation, the countless risks involved, and how this by default means that all those who have come before and after, who will come after, cannot but be limited in their scope and ability. This fact seem to please his Friend greatly, and this should be a happy thing — his Friend is so rarely pleased with anything — but the thought leaves a peculiar weight sinking inside of him, a small stone cast into still water, despite the fact that there is nothing there at all.
He has wondered, often and at length, whether uniqueness is a contributing cause or merely a symptom of this deficiency — this inability to put others at ease, to soothe their worries, to convey to them that they do not have to bow and hide their wings from him, that he is gladdened by their safe return far more than the completion of the task they have set out to do, that they might seek him out for any reason, any at all, for they could never be unwelcome...
He cannot afford to err today. He cannot afford to be discomfiting, whether in speech or action, not when there finally is—
—one of the same make, the same design, the same capabilities—
—one whose core he held in his hands from the moment it was little more than a spark of ether, fire-bright and so very different—
—one whom he so very dearly wants to know.
A meeting long delayed, when he had to leave almost as soon as this precious Other was hatched, before they could even truly exchange words — but perhaps, this was for the best in the end, since their separation has afforded him the time to study, to prepare, to learn—
He tells himself this as he carefully brings the water to a boil, measuring the dried seeds for a pour-over.
Sky dwellers, he has learned, bond best over food and drink. Primal beasts do not require nourishment, though he has discovered long ago that the intake of organic matter is not beyond them. It was the very definition of a happy accident: a spell of absent-mindedness in tending to the leaves and fruits of his solitary charge — coffea, after the long-gone island that used to be its home — a little too much pressure bursting the vibrant red gift between his fingers, and a sudden urge to know what would happen if he did like mortal children sometimes do when they go foraging, deliberately bruising their favored prizes so they can claim them spoiled and eat them on the spot.
It's a habit he has kept up over the years, a strange compulsion inviting him to try again and again — to learn how to devote time to the preparation of the fruits, copying the methods of the sky dwellers and discovering a few of his own. Doing so is restful, affording him a way to order his thoughts, the tasks inconsequential in scope and fascinating in their results.
Today, however, the restful effect refuses to manifest, leading him to check and recheck the temperature of the brew, the setting of the table, the placement of the furnishings... perhaps because today, there are two of each: two chairs, two spoons, two cups and saucers, all arranged for that one chance.
An offering, an opening that might convey what he means to even if he fails in words and gestures.
~~Would you come to the gardens, Sandalphon? If it pleases you, I should very much like for us to speak…~~
Here, he can't help the shiver stirring his plumes, the response like a flash of lightning, electric and immediate —
/Y-yes! Yes of course! I'll— I will be there right away—!/
So different from the dutiful replies he is used to, so direct, so vibrant — is this how Sandalphon is when he is pleased? — then perhaps, it will be all right, perhaps, he has finally found the right way to ask, perhaps, he has at last discovered how to make himself approachable.
There's something stirring inside him, like a nestling beating its wings in anticipation of its first flight, that first uncertain plunge—
Hasty footsteps, the eastern gates slamming open, foliage rustling in an effort to get out of the way — and what is this? what *is* this? no one has ever rushed to meet him so—
Russet eyes, the exact same color that met him on that fateful day in the hatchery, brighter than anything he could have envisioned as part of a blueprint—
"Lucifer-sama, you… wanted to see me?"
—and with a small prayer, he sets the bird free.
—It's like reaching into a sunbeam.
*.*.*.*.*
TBC
Author's Notes: Nine chapters in, Lucifer finally graduates to a proper speaking role. I think you can kinda see why... it's just really challenging to write a soft, emotionally handicapped, extremely wise but socially inept several-thousand-years-old being... who spent the better part of a year researching how to talk to a boy. Yep.