"You look up at stars, child, for what reason?"

  Lucius peered away from the eyepiece of the telescope, the five-year-old's hands were porcelain. Frail, pale, and all the like. He watched his mother with a thoughtful gaze. Had he been looking at the stars for their beauty? Or was it because they were so much greater than he was?

  The stars looked down from above the clouds, if they were eyes, then he found himself gazing back at them. All in hopes that the owners of the eyes returned the attention with the same awe.

  He found himself answering; "They mean so mush more then me."

  Lissandra raised an eyebrow. Lucius kind of knew, from the day he first gained full autonomy, his consciousness told him something unnatural. His mother was the very same as those stars; sneering down on everyone with sardonicism no matter who it was.

  She was massive too. In this room she touched each wall, she would touch each wall even if they were 20 or 30 meters apart. When she was outside she'd touch the sky, she'd touch every place the human eye could see.

  Not physically… maybe. Lucius knew from the get-go, her spirit, the very concept that she was; it encompassed here, there, and everywhere. It wasn't anything their neighbors could see, it wasn't anything he could see personally.

  It was simply, fact.

  "Child of mine, one cannot have you speak with mistakes," she came closer, or rather, she physically approached, "there's no wonder you give meaning to the stars." She said, spoke slowly as if time itself slowed down at her pace, "Not when you say 'mush' over 'much', nor when you intend to say 'then' believing that your phonetic trickery could get across this one."

  Lucius shut up then and there her voice was condescending, but she brought her hands closer to his face, stroking his porcelain cheeks with her long slender fingers.

  "Come, follow this one." Her veil consumed them both and the black satin cloak covered the world as he knew it.

  He's always wanted to touch it, but mother has always pushed his hands away from the fabric, here he knows why.

  It has always had the blemishes of everything, he wondered why one would wear fabric with holes in it; it never occurred to the five year old boy however, that the cloak itself was made of the same fabric as space in its entirety.

  There, in the vast sea of stars, Lissandra held her child close, covering him with her cloak, shielding his eyes from the bright lights with her black veil.

  "Here we are, faced with a failure star far bigger than the inconsequential 'sun' that humans see in awe." Lucius' head filled with so many questions, first and foremost however, amazement. But in this empty space where there were just two of them, his mother saw everything. "No, child, kill that shameful intrigue, reserve interest for yourself, and you alone."

  Her hand swept through the dark matter, ripples in time and space followed along in its wake, like a hand sweeping through a puddle of water. She grabbed a star in the distance.

  Lucius couldn't tell if they had grown larger, or if stars were always so small and meaningless. Lissandra plucked one out from the high and mighty heavens.

  In the palm of her hand, a bright light floated just above. Its surface was in chaos and turmoil, boiling, radiating, melting anything that it came across. All of its energy came from fusion.

  Lucius reached out to touch it, but in turn, his mother crushed it. Through the gaps of her fingers, colors so bright and varied spilled in a blinding supernova.

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  With its death came the birth of emptiness, an all-devouring black hole.

  A straight line formed on the five year old's lips. Stars weren't eyes of greater beings watching over him, they weren't other kids looking at him the same way he did them.

  Stars are just as mortal as the humans around them. Even less than humans since they held no conscious thought or emotions. They were spheres of gas meant to reach the end of their lives.

  "You are a Nox, are you not?"

  "Yes."

  "You are the child of this one, the Ruler of the Night, this Grievous Lady, are you not?"

  "Yes."

  "Then," she pushed deeper into her 'cloak', "never let yourself be preceded by anything, nothing in this world means more than you." Lucius saw how the scope of everything expanded, going from the galaxy, to the cosmos, to all the interconnected timelines and universes.

  His heart pounded, all of this, he was greater than all of this. All these timelines, all these people, all these separate beings. He sat at the forefront.

  "Engrave this into your heart as a Nox, not a single other witch transcends us, not a single demon from hell overpowers us, everything is ours. We are Grievous, for we are important."

  Despite all these floating universes, timelines— worlds. He couldn't see a single one of himself in them. There was just him, the singular Lucius Nox that was here and now, there was no Lucius Nox in the past, no Lucius Nox in the future, no Lucius Nox in any universe aside from where he decided to be.

  He was special. No matter how far the scope went, he could feel the presence of his mother, even all the way out here, she encompassed all of it.

  Out here, beyond the world he lived in, there were others that could see them, Lissandra whispered;

  "Those are the demons, and the sleeping terrors beneath, our 'prey' who call themselves nephilim." Her icy touch held the boy close, this was the last thing he was allowed to be somewhat amazed of, "Do not look at them, little one, do not be frightened. Even those shapeless beings can't shine as bright as you."

  The abyss stared back, but The Grievous Lady couldn't care less. Stare as they wish, there was little difference between them and the stars she squashed in boredom.

  Tonight's stroll, albeit grander than the rest, ended as quickly as it began.

  Lucius blinked multiple times, finding himself suddenly in his bed with Lissandra by his bedside brushing his hair away from his eyes.

  "But Mama! I wanna keep looking!" As realization hit him, he knew then that the intention here was for him to go to bed. "Tell me more about how m— mushch important we are!"

  Lucius knew he said one or two things wrong, luckily, Lissandra was happier now, so it wouldn't matter.

  "More important than anything, child," she cackled.

  "I'm more important than bedtime!"

  Lissandra paused, then cackled all over again.

  "It's not funny." Lucius pouted, he wasn't being taken seriously.

  "That you might be," she hummed, giving it a thought, "this one offers you a compromise; if that body is able to fight off the concept of exhaustion, then, I'll let you transcend your bed times permanently."

  Her purple eyes told no lies, Lucius readied himself for the challenge. With a nod of approval, Lissandra placed her hand on his forehead and waited. Waited and waited. Lucius wondered if anything was gonna happen.

  Nothing really did, the five year old was too stupid to understand that really; nothing was meant to happen. He began drifting into sleep, and Lissandra sang a lullaby, one he was familiar with in the dozens of sleepless nights he's had.

  When he inevitably drifted to sleep, the moments he saw that night stayed etched into his heart. It was that night where Lucius Nox found his favorite insult.

  "You're a star."