"I haven't met my grandson for at least six months consecutively."
Valestra muttered them under her breath while she stirred the bubbling stew in the cauldron, river trout, herbs, and mountain garlic filling the cottage with a delicious smell. Her hands worked with practiced ease. This was her routine. She did it every once in a while, just enough for two, always expecting him to come back to her. That little boy whose eyes looked so very old.
Lucifer.
She glanced over at the wooden board on the shelf. No painting was inside; instead, there was a black thread token, evidence of a soul rescued by the hand of god. She'd created that token herself when he'd almost died eight years ago. He'd been bony then, coughing up blood in the dead of night, a boy she'd have buried before she'd ever name him. But fate had intervened. Or at least. something a whole lot grander.
She never quite did manage to get it all. One day he was dying, and the next day or so he was strolling under the moonlight with silver eyes and a voice belonging to no ordinary child.
It had been twelve months since he'd been "normal" again. If it was ever possible to say that of a boy like him.
He hadn't aged a day over eight or nine even then. But the longer she gazed at him, the longer she realized that appearances were just an illusion. The way he spoke. The droop of his eyes. The unobtrusive way he soaked up everything like he'd already experienced a thousand seconds she didn't yet have the wherewithal to imagine. A grandmother knows her child. And she knew this one thing
Where he's headed. Time is not the same there.
As she got up to take the firewood, air in her kitchen warped.
The stew boiled over. The birds outside ceased singing. Her vision went blurry, space warping in a crease of bending and then, as one enormous motion of the world buckled inward, a boy's voice spoke from behind.
"Grandma,"
She turned, shaking hand not with terror, but awe.
There, at the entrance, stood him. Her grandson Lucifer.
His untidy silver hair streamed down his back, gently glowing in the sun. His white and shiny skin was not weak. His ears hooked back at the tips, showing the half-elf ancestry. He wore a black traveler's cloak around him and cinched with black cord, and an armband around his hand.
But first, he had looked into hers.
Deep purple with a dull sheen from one who had stared too long into the black. He looked not from child to man, but from soul meeting soul across the millennia.
And the instant her eyes welled over with tears, he stirred… and smiled.
"You made stew again."
Wood slipped from Valestra's fingers, and she hurled herself into his arms.
"Don't stand there like some vagabond ghost!" she exclaimed, shivering. "You've come to see your grandmother at last!"
Lucifer chuckled, his arms embracing her. "I've missed you too."
---
Lunch was boisterous. Just as it should've been.
Valestra loaded his bowl with all manner of victuals. Trout, Potatoes, Steamed wild rice. "Eat hearty. You're still growing. Maybe."
Lucifer grinned between mouthfuls. "I don't think I'm going to turn out the way you're expecting anymore."
She glared. "Don't give me that fuzzy mystical garbage. You seem to be a child, so I'll behave like one in your presence."
He capitulated. "Okay, okay."
There was a lengthy silence, and finally Valestra said it, her voice soft. "You're leaving again, aren't you?"
Lucifer had frozen in mid-air with a mouthful. "Yes."
She said nothing, though the spasm in her cheek gave away what she already suspected.
"This time… it'll be a year or two before I return."
Valestra clutched her spoon in tight fists.
"I don't know if I'll still be alive," she panted.
"You will," he said to her. "Because I'll make sure of it."
"Always so much to promise," she panted, but there was the merest hint of a smile on her face. "How long are you staying this time?"
"Three months."
She smiled, relief and despair struggling for room in her chest. "Then I'll make every day count."
Lucifer placed his bowl on the ground and looked out the window.
"I want to leave something after I'm dead," he said. "Something that will enable me. to remain connected. Something that will protect you when I'm dead."
"Magic again?"
"Something similar. Soul-bound. I've learned a thing or two."
She raised an eyebrow. "You and your 'few tricks.'"
Lucifer did not answer. He could not bring himself to say that he had no idea.
At dinner, Valestra unwound contentedly. "Alright. You've had your time off. It's time you visited your fiancee."
"Seris?" he opened his eyes.
"Months she's waited. Training is every bit as hard, too. She wants to be a battle junkie like her dad."
Lucifer's expression unwound.
Valestra continued, "And your uncle? Still headmaster at Valkarion Academy. You're not in school anymore, but you owe him a visit."
Lucifer nodded. "Then let's go."
Valestra looked up at the heavens. "Maybe, maybe you'll be able to lead a normal life again, if only for an instant."
Lucifer did not speak. He just slid away from the table, his presence charged with a temporary otherworldly rhythm.
However short the time shared with him, he would make it so.
For soon the world of dimensions would claim him.
And when that day came, he would no longer be a boy.
He would be a figure greater than which even the gods would need to bow.