Lilah knew no misfortune throughout her timeless existence. Like all other angels, her life was blessed and free from the little problems that mired the lives of creatures lesser than her, those that wondered the earth. Like all other angels, there was never a second in which she knew need. Like all other angels, she was very bored with her existence, that was perfect to the point of imperfection.

Her mind wondered the depths of the infinite Universe, her thoughts reaching into the most arcane and strange of mysteries. Upon her whim and upon her will, stars would bloom in the sky, and so would they die in the cold vastness of space. There was no place for error, and no place for mistake in her infinite life. She knew no wrong for anything she did was right and just.

A life that was so pointlessly great, so miserably perfect had led many others of her kin to simply choose to fall into a slumber that wouldn’t end until all stars in the sky went dim, and until they could entertain themselves with a laughably short moment of purpose once more.

Admittedly, even Lilah often found herself contemplating the idea. It was during such an infinitesimally short moment of her eternal life that she had a spark of inspiration: would she not be able to find some measure of relief of her boredom in observing the lives of those who crawled the earth? Like Lilah, they were alive and yet, unlike her, their lives were far from perfect. And so, Lilah went into a slumber, and, while her hazy consciousness slowly submerged into a place of dreams, she directed her gaze upon the earth.

There were billions and billions of small little things crawling all over the place, caught up in the quagmire of their own lives. Their lives were short and pitiful, and were Lilah awake, she’d find them trivially simple, not even worth a single thought of consideration.

And yet, as she was in a dreamy haze, she could find amusement in looking at these little things, as she fall deeper and deeper into her slumber.

…

As she crossed the forest, she came across a hatched bird egg on the ground. Near it, was a tiny sparrow that was only a day old, it pecked seeds with its broken beak. Its small little head was bleeding, and Lilah knew it would not live to see the next day. On a whim, she chose to save it.

In two weeks it was already healthy and lively. It became attached to Lilah and would follow her wherever she would go. Looking after the little animal was an interesting pastime, so Lilah decided to keep it for a while.

In twenty years, it was gone, and Lilah continued her journey.

…

As she traveled through a dust-ridden road, through a small country of humans, she saw a child laying on the wayside.

It seemed to be a little human girl. Her hair was disheveled and dirty, and the bland hemp clothes characteristic of human peasantry on her showed signs of wear.

The girl seemed to have fainted from hunger. This was strangely not an uncommon sight, since the human country that Lilah was walking through seemed to be involved in wars every thirty years or so. Contemplating on what to do with what she found, Lilah took a good look at the girl again.

She was truly a pitiful sight. Her lips were blue and her cheeks sunken. Her dirty hair was sticky with sweat, and the way she breathed was very erratic. Without help, Lilah estimated that the girl would not live to see the next day.

Strangely, this reminded Lilah of a pet sparrow she once had. She remembered how fun it was to keep it, so, without thinking too much, she scooped the small thing up in her arms and went to find a place to stay.

…

It took her a few days but now the girl was not in danger. Interestingly enough, a little girl was harder to take care of than a sparrow and, although it all was similarly trivially easy to Lilah, taking care of the girl was a bit more interesting.

The girl then woke up. She looked around the small wooden shed that Lilah quickly put together. The girl then looked at Lilah with bewildered eyes and simply stared in confusion.

“Where am I?”, her hoarse and quiet voice would be barely audible to another human.

“Here, drink some water first, child”, Lilah's voice was very calming and the little girl couldn’t feel threatened around her, so she took the cup that was offered to her without any objections.

“...Where am I?.. Who am I?.. Who are you?”, the girl hugged the pillow defensively. still confused. Lilah was slightly surprised at the girl’s questions. Taking care of her would be much more interesting than taking care of a sparrow.

“You are at my home. I found you fainted outside. I doubt you still have a family to take care of you. Do you wish to stay here with me, child?”

The little girl didn’t understand much of what was said to her, but she knew she liked the kind lady in front of her, so she weakly nodded her head at the last question.

“Good. How should I call you, child?”

“I… I… I don’t know… don’t remember...”, the girl was confused but she wanted to find the answer for this kind lady.

“It’s alright, it’s alright, child”, the lady’s warm hand gently landed on the girl’s head. It was a very comfortable gesture, “If you can’t remember your name, then… I shall call you Little Sparrow from henceforth. You can call me Lilah, Little Sparrow”, Lilah smiled a warm smile and the Little Sparrow felt very happy as she looked at Lilah, so she beamed brightly in return.

…

So began Lilah's life of happily taking care of her small human.

As Lilah found, humans were much more prone to boredom than even angels, and their time was needed to be occupied with things to lighten their mood. Little Sparrow didn’t understand Lilah's stories of the vast Universe, and Lilah didn’t understand humans enough to spin a tale that Little Sparrow would like, so their favorite pastime was having Little Sparrow sit on Lilah's lap as the latter would read books she brought from human towns.

Sparrow would ask for Lilah to read more and more of these stories and Lilah would happily oblige. She loved the small reactions that Sparrow had when she was read the stories, though the stories in question were of little interest to Lilah herself.

Sparrow also loved having her head patted by Lilah, she’d always smile contently and push her tiny little head against Lilah's hand like a cat, which Lilah found very cute.

Little Sparrow grew very attached to Lilah, she would be very happy whenever Lilah was around and she’d throw a tantrum if Lilah went outside alone. Little Sparrow would need Lilah to be near to fall asleep, because without her, Little Sparrow’s dreams were plagued with strange and scary disconnected memories from before she became Lilah's Little Sparrow.

...

All in all, they were very happy and the years went by in a flash. This spring Little Sparrow would soon turn nineteen springs old and Lilah could sadly no longer call her “Little”. Through time, Sparrow bloomed, her laughter was as beautiful as the chiming of a little bell in the wind, her smile could melt the snow and bring spring even into the coldest winter days.

But, she was still Lilah's Little Sparrow, and she still didn’t want to be a second away from the angel that entered her life so many years ago. If anything changed, she only grew more attached to Lilah, and she became more needy. She’d pout when Lilah wasn’t around and hugged Lilah tight, as if afraid of letting her go, when Lilah was near. Since not long ago, she’d even demand that Lilah said things like: “I love my Little Sparrow” and shower her with kisses. Naturally, Lilah would not deny the small demands of the adorable creature, so she went along with any idea Sparrow came up with, spoiling and indulging her incessantly, filling the small wooden hut they lived in with happy chime-like laughter.

These were the days in Little Sparrow’s life that she didn’t want to go anywhere, so she spent them in laughter and happiness.

…

The wheel of time kept turning. Lilah noticed that Sparrow became more unhappy, and couldn’t understand why. When she asked Sparrow what was the problem, Sparrow would pout and demand that Lilah kissed her and hugged her and said that she loved her. But even after all these requests, Sparrow’s mood would only lighten temporarily, and she’d become even sadder than before. She’d hug Lilah and stick very close to her, as if trying to assimilate into Lilah's blood and her bones, and she’d stay like this for hours in silence, pouting whenever Lilah disturbed her.

The frown on her face made Sparrow look like a withering rose, and the small wooden hut that was once filled with her innocent laughter started to feel gray and empty.

“What am I to you, Lilah?”, almost pleading, Sparrow looked straight into Lilah's eyes, with barely-noticeable hints of desperation in the depths of hers.

“Of course, you are my cute Little Sparrow”, Lilah patted Sparrow’s head and kissed her lightly.

Sparrow hugged Lilah and with, a shaking voice repeated: “Of course… I am Lilah's Little Sparrow… I am Lilah's beloved Little Sparrow...”

“Yes, I’ll always love you”, another kiss. It would make Sparrow happy a few years before, but now it felt inhumanely cold on her lips.

Forcing a smile, she answered with quivering lips as she looked into Lilah's forever warm eyes: “And I’ll always, always love you”, and them she buried her head in Lilah's shoulder.

…

Lilah went outside for a walk. She was almost fully asleep by now, and in the dreamy haze, the simple world seemed a little magical to her. Usually, Sparrow would throw a tantrum if Lilah went without her, but in recent days, she’d been oddly quiet.

As Lilah flew over the lush forests, she contemplated taking Sparrow with her next time, as the latter’s mood lately has been very low. Maybe some distraction was in order.

When she returned back to the hut deep in the woods, she found it empty.

Sparrow was gone, nowhere to be seen, and instead, there lay a letter on the table:

“Dear Lilah,

I am very sorry for going so suddenly, but I cannot take it anymore. Forgive me, for I can’t be your Little Sparrow, for my heart aches each time I look into your eyes. I love you more than my life, but I can’t live this delusion any longer.

Even as I write this, I can’t help but wish that you’d understand my feelings, that you’d see why I ran, but I know that this will never happen.

The love you have for me is not the kind of love I want from you, and I can’t tell what is real and what is false anymore.

Please forgive me.

- forever yours, X”

The last few words were crossed over almost with a vicious strength, making them completely unrecognizable.

As Lilah looked at them, she contemplated what to do. Did she do something wrong? Did the fault for Sparrow’s poor mood lie with her? She decided to find Sparrow and apologize and try to fix what was wrong.

She stormed out of the hut, and flew high up, looking for traces. She couldn’t find any. Had she been more sober, she’d be able to find Sparrow without even needing to look, but she was barely awake by now, and most of her mind was deep in a place of dreams.

She carefully searched for Sparrow for a week, and she couldn’t find anything, until she had a feeling to search in the direction where she first found the girl.

It was but a hunch, a strange feeling, but for an angel no hunch is baseless, so Lilah chose to listen to it and headed the direction where she first found Sparrow.

As it turned out, this feeling was right. Lilah found Sparrow, but it was already too late.

She leaned against a tree, with shrapnel stuck deep in her gut, blood escaping her weak body.

“...Ah… Lilah...”, she weakly smiled, as she saw her beloved angel appear in her fuzzy field of vision, “You came… I missed you”

Lilah looked at the dying girl, not knowing what to say. As she slowly found the words and opened her mouth, however, she was interrupted: “...Hush... don’t speak, my love… my Lilah... It’s too late for words… Can you... come here…?”, she patted the ground next to her with what little strength she had left.

Lilah obliged, she carefully hugged the limp body in her arms and pressed Sparrow’s head close to her chest

“...I can hear… your heartbeat… Lilah… Lilah… I know, I must have done wrong…. running away… from you… I should’ve stayed… I should’ve believed your gentle lies… But I couldn’t”, she weakly squeezed Lilah's hand, “Remember… how you first found me? I didn’t… I simply knew that my life changed… the moment you chose to bring me… with you...”

The pauses between Sparrow’s words grew longer and her speech grew sluggish

“I remember now… I remember my name… It’s… Mina...”

“Mina”

“Yes… I’m so happy… to hear you say it… at last… I’m your Mina… forever…”

“Yes, you’re my Mina. My lovely beautiful Mina...”

“Please… Stay with me… until… the end...”

“I will… my Mina”

Mina’s heart slowly stopped beating and her body grew cold.

Lilah didn’t want Mina’s body to be left exposed to the elements, so she turned it into smoke.

She didn’t feel like traveling anymore, so she fully fell asleep.