“Keep trying,” The Watcher egged on from the cover of the edge of the forest.

Frustration hung in the air as Adelaide exclaimed, “I told you, it's not possible!”

Nadier watched patiently from his perch atop the canopy, occasionally glancing south towards the stone gates of Ta'Kalenyilgah. They were waiting for the dark elves to start the Transcendent Ceremony, where they would return their aeronium coating back to the aeronium pond. With his enhanced elven sights and using Light's manipulation of the horizon, Nadier could see the stream of dark elves that were slowly returning to the citadel. The gates being fully closed would be the signal for the start of the ceremony and for them to move. Until then, The Watcher focused on training Adelaide for perhaps the most important role in their plan.

“It's possible,” The Watcher reiterated. The pair sat on the forest floor, a pile of small rocks between them.

“I have never teleported inanimate objects before!” Adelaide exclaimed as she tossed a rock away in anger. “I can only teleport people.”

“And I keep telling you, that's not physically possible!” He raised his voice in equal hair-tearing emotions. He glanced up to see Nadier shaking his head in amused disappointment.

The Watcher took a deep breath. Despite her age, The Watcher sometimes felt that talking with Adelaide was similar to speaking with a teenage girl.

“Listen,” he decided to explain his trail of thoughts from the start. “It's literally not possible for you to be able to only teleport living things.”

Her attention piqued and she asked, “What do you mean? You keep bloody saying that, though you've yet to actually explain anything.”

“Your clothes, your weapons, all of those are inanimate object. Your outer layer of skin, your nails, those are also not fully biological parts of your body. Those are dead skin cells but you teleport them just fine.”

“They... they are of the body,” she tried to explain the phenomenon away.

“What about me and Nads? We're not part of your body, but you've managed to teleport us before,” he referred to their escape from The Tower and their battle with Light. His tone dropped as he said, “It's not possible to teleport selective things, including living things. You teleport areas of space. That's why there's always a cloud of rust after you teleport. You're folding between two points of space.”

He straightened his back and with a motion of the wrist, produced the rock that she had thrown away just moments earlier. Extending his palm in a gesture for 'try again', she sighed and took the rock back.

Adelaide muttered, “If only you were an elf...”

“But I'm not. The moment I step into the city, I'll get killed. So it has to be you and Nads.”

She let out a breath for calm and The Watcher could not help but think how far she had come. Just a few days ago, she would have likely axed him in frustration. Whatever Nadier said to her at Valent must have had a great impact on her.

“Okay,” she continued. “Let's try this again.”

“Focus,” The Watcher instructed. He noted how her powers were more similar to his than it was to the mages he had met so far. Hers was a focused, individual ability that could extend uncountably further. Though he had a theory of the workings of her powers, the origin was still shrouded in mystery.

The crunching of leaves had him turning his head. Nadier had landed down beside them. Returning quickly to a trained calm, the dark elf approached with an ominous announcement. “It's time.”

The pair nodded back and Adelaide got to her feet. Stretching her shoulders, she said, “I'll scout ahead.” She disappeared in a puff of rusty brown smoke.

The Watcher coughed slightly from the gas and mentally noted 'magic farts' as a joke he would use on her later. Left with Nadier, the two men exchanged glances.

Immediately, the dark elf asked, “What do you think are our odds in succeeding?”

“You'll teleport in with Adelle and follow the crowd,” The Watcher began the explanation of their plans again. “After that, Adelle will–”

“I know the plan,” Nadier interrupted. “But I want a number. What do you think our odds are?”

The Watcher picked up a leaf from the muddied ground. “A seven leafed clover.”

“I'm sorry?”

“The chances of finding a four leafed clover is one in ten thousand. A five leafed clover is one in a million,” The Watcher said, spinning the leaf on its stem. “Our chances are more along the line of finding a seven leafed clover.”

“That's not very good.”

“It's not as low as you'd think though.”

“Why a seven leafed clover?”

“Seven is a lucky number,” The Watcher replied with a grin. “And that's how skilled and lucky we have to be.”

Adelaide reappeared in another puff of smoke. “We're clear,” she announced on her return. She laid a hand on Nadier's shoulder. “Time to go.”

The dark elf looked to The Watcher and said, “Remember to clear our way out.” After a nodded reply, the two elves vanished from the scene.

Left alone to his thoughts, the time traveller took to listening to the sounds of nature. The rustling of leaves, the croaks of animals he had yet to read about, and the whispers of the wind. All of which were sounds he had not gotten accustomed to, despite having lived for so long. He was used to the loud honks from cars on the streets. The constant whirring of machineries in cities. The deafening blasts of gunfire in wars. The clashing of steel in battalion skirmishes.

He wondered if it was time he retired from watching over the universe.

“What are you going to do when you retire?” His eyes followed thin air as the hallucination of Kathleen Ambershay walked out from behind a tree.

He replied with a shrug. “I don't know. Travel around. See the world. Have some adventures. Maybe I'll finally pick up knitting.”

“So... exactly the same as what you're doing right now?”

“Except the knitting.”

She circled around him and sat back-to-back. “How long have you been travelling?”

“You're in my head, shouldn't you know?”

“So what does the fact that I don't mean to you?”

“That I can't remember?” he replied with honest scepticism.

“And what does the fact that you're hallucinating about me and not, say, Tier, Luviet, or Gallena, says about you?”

The Watcher sat silently, running through the possibilities of answers. However, he already knew what the hallucination was saying about him. It was something he had trouble coming to terms with even though, for as sure as the wars he fought, it was something that happened.

He replied, “It means I can't remember their faces. Can't remember their voices. I catch glimpses of them in passing dreams and that's about it. I've forgotten all of them, save for their names.”

“And what about me?”

“I'll probably forget about you too. Hundreds of years of living and you'll need to make some space in your head for the new things.”

“Like Adelle and Nads?”

He didn't reply. Did not need to. She wasn't actually there with him. They covered her body under white sheets back at Ra'Kalen. She had probably been sent back home by now. Whoever sat behind him was just a reflection of his own self-questioning.

Kathleen continued, “I wonder why you asked me instead of those two to travel with you?”

It was because he wanted to watch someone react to his life. Have someone, untouched by a heavy past tell him, 'you did good'. Someone fresh and new to share his story with and be reaffirmed that he did the right things all those years ago. Someone unburdened with a strong conviction in life to question his motive and reject his premise.

She carried on her questioning. “If I'd lived just a little longer, do you think I would have liked you as much as I did when I died? Knowing all your stories maybe I'd just hate you a little more.”

He pulled his legs into his chest and buried his face in his knees. “I'm sorry. I couldn't save you. Shouldn't have asked you come along with me. Should have just left you alone on the side of the road.”

“You're a smart man. You should have already figured out what my reply should be.”

He felt tears build up on the edge of his eyes. “Please, don't say it.”

She continued anyway. “Not being able to save people isn't a mistake. Nobody can save everyone, no matter how strong they are.” He did not want to hear the next sentence so he covered his ears but the voice of the hallucination echoed through his head. “You didn't do anything wrong.”

He let out a silent, internal scream, even as he felt the presence of Kathleen leaving. An irrational physical reaction created by his mind. But he knew that the hallucination was over for now. He remembered the joke of 'magic farts' he had wanted to tell Adelaide. Taking a deep breath, he wiped his face dry with the sleeve of his coat and got to his feet. Bones cracking, back stretching, the world was suddenly more saturated than before. He made his slow way towards the mountain gate.