Tearha: The Number 139

Chapter Thirty-One: Seven Leafed Clover

"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."