Black bricked walls surrounded the cell. A small electric lamp in the corridor outside the bars flitted as the only source of light. The Watcher sat on the right of two opposing metal beds, staring at the clock face of a silver pocket watch.

Adelaide Wiltkins sat opposite him, tracing the movements of his deep brown eyes as they followed the tick of the watch. From the moment they were brought together, the human had not so much as glanced in her direction. But she was used to treatments like that. It was the humans' way.

Nonetheless curious, she asked, “What are you doing?”

Without taking his eyes off the watch, he replied, “I'm looking for any anomaly or offset in the chronological order of the space-time continuum.”

“Am I suppose to understand what that means?”

“Not unless you have an innate ability to sense and interpret spatial and chronological temperaments on a subatomic level.”

“You humans get crazier every time I see you.” She leaned into the wall. Adjusting atop the metal contraption they called a bed, snuggling into her knees and giving a bored yawn.

He finally closed the watch and slid it back in his coat pocket. “I'm not actually insane. I'm just—” He looked up, his eyes shot wide in surprise and a grin spread wide across his face. “You! You're an elf!”

Her messy short hair was as green as the leaves of the forest she lived in, still riddled with specks of the same dirt. Light freckles littered her cheeks like pebbles on the earth. Her build was lithe and tall, her skin the shade of paper. A tattered and patched green tunic covered her upper body. A pair of muddied grey trousers, a small leather belt, and knee length brown leather boots were worn below. Adelaide Wiltkins looked fit to blend into a forest should one sprout up around them. But the most outstanding of her features were not her long, sharp elven ears or rugged dressing. It was her eyes, whose irises were leaf green while the sclera, the whites of her eyes, were blood red. It was as if she had ruptured a vessel that bled into her stare.

Rolling those weird eyes, she replied, “Yes, I'm an elf. Don't have to be so surprised. I know you humans only ever get to see us elves in those slums you call Antipods, but we're not some animals for you to gawk at.” Her tone snapped with distaste at having to talk with a human. “Inbred apes.”

“Alright, alright! No need to get hostile. Sheesh. You're almost worse than the drow that shot me.”

“I would shoot you too if you use that language again.”

“What language? 'Hostile'?”

“You can't be that stupid.” She looked on in confused frustration.

Sensing the enmity she was starting to emit, The Watcher put his hands up in peace. “Look, I'm not from around here. I don't really understand your culture all that much.”

“Really?” Her tone betrayed her believe. “You don't know what d'raows means?”

Eyes wide, lips pursed, The Watcher shook his head with his best impression of a dog without a bone. She thought he just looked constipated. She scanned his face. Though hard to read, she felt he was telling the truth, which was odd to her. How foreign was he to have no idea of one of the most offensive words to use to a dark elf?

She explained, “D'raows is derogatory. It means 'death skin', or 'rotten people'.”

He stared at her blankly before commenting, “That's bad.”

“Yeah. It's bad.”

“Wow, then I really made a mistake there. I hope that Avalas Speedrunner or whatever his name is makes it.” He sat back in solemn contemplation.

She processed the name, running it through her list of known dark elves and only one was even a remote match to the butchering The Watcher gave. “Akaras Spaedruiner?” She knew that if anyone was locked in that cell with her, it was for something drastic, though she never expected her cellmate to survive an encounter with Akaras.

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“Yeah. That guy.” He swiped his hand across her view like a biplane. “Sent him flying into a wall.”

“You defeated Akaras Spaedruiner?” She stood to her feet in surprise. “Not possible. He's the best Spellblade in Eltar. How?”

“Well, I sort of held my hand up like this. And focused really hard.” The Watcher raised his hand and squinted really hard. He then snapped back into a jovial, casual pose, flailing his arms in excited explanation. “And I tried to wrap him in a temporal stasis. But the laws of physics in this universe might be slightly different so I accidentally sent him shooting off through space without any gravitational suppression. So he went splat!”

A male, matter-of-fact tone came from the corridor outside. “That is what the reports says, though without such childish details.” The pair turned to the voice. Outside the cell, leaning against the wall opposite, having slipped into their area like a ghost, a dark elf stayed still near the shadows with his arms crossed. “Like a bullet.”

The newcomer wore a leather vest over a black shirt tied by belt straps across his chest, all covered by a night darkened collared trench coat. A pair of thick black pants and maroon strapped boots completed the rugged-clandestine ensemble. A hood further shadowed his face.

Adelaide walked up to the newcomer with a rascally smile and waved lazily at him through the bars of the cell. “Hey, Nadier. Nads. You getting me out of here? Nads?”

The dark elf ignored her, instead addressing The Watcher directly. “Akaras Spaedruiner is my brother.”

A solemn fog sunk between the three, with Adelaide losing all playful intents, and The Watcher slowly getting to his feet in sober respect. The latter looked at Nadier and said, “You used 'is'.”

“For now,” Nadier nonchalantly replied.

“Are you here to kill me?”

Without skipping a beat, Nadier replied, “No.” He pushed away from the wall and stepped towards the cell, removing his hood. “If I had been there, I would have killed him myself.” Like his brother, Nadier's irises were blood red, a trait shared amongst most of the dark elves. His hair was also jet black, messy and swept over his right eye.

However, unlike his brother, his chin was sharper, his cheeks wider, giving him a more human-like face than the sleek, curved elven ones of Akaras and Adelaide. Flatter. More heavy and boned. An orange tattoo – a sharp seven with a line slashing across, intricately decorated at the edges – covered his left face and cutting through the eye.

Feeling the tension lifting, Adelaide let out a breath of relief, before cheekily telling Nadier, “You know Akaras would have geared you.”

“Nice seeing you too, Adelle. But you...” He turned to her cellmate. “Your name. The Watcher.”

“What about it?”

“I just came back from a summons from the Overseers.” He looked to Adelaide with furrowed brows and a stern stare. She shot up like an animal ready to hunt and Nadier continued, “They announced a new epitaph. The Watcher.”

She asked, “What's the name?”

“There is no name.”

The Watcher cut in, “Ooo, that's a scary tone. This sounds bad. Is this bad?”

With tone uncertain and bordering on fear, she noted, “That's impossible.” She turned and stared at The Watcher, wide-eyed. “You're impossible.”

“No.” The Watcher grinned. “I'm Batman!”

“I don't know what that means, human, but I am very tempted to punch you for it.” She shot him a look normally reserved for a piece of furniture after stumping a toe.

Nadier said, “The Overseers are a 'group' with the ability to see certain aspects of the future. They sometimes assign Epitaphs to individuals who they predict will be influential on the world. They would announce a name and an Epitaph. But you, Watcher, did not get a name. Just an Epitaph. I wonder why.” He reached back for beneath his coat and pulled out two hand axes. Adelaide's eyes lit up as he passed the weapons to her through the bars. “It's not always accurate, and some do slip through their sights. But when they mark you, you become someone to watch. The Double Edged Prince, the current king of Aleynonlia. Akaras 'The Bolted Arm' Spaedruiner, the strongest Spellblade of Eltar. Generally, they are pretty accurate.” He stepped away from the cell and began walking away.

Adelaide casually called out, “You're not going to help me escape?” She was weighing the axes within her hand as she asked the question.

Nadier replied, “You don't need my help.”

The Watcher added, “But you are helping. Why?”

The dark elf stopped in his tracks, a glimpse of his back just before he faded into the shadows of the hallway. He replied, “Lady Nora Phemtelle is eager to put your head to the guillotine. Says you're too powerful to keep alive.” He looked over his shoulder, his red eye a piercing stare in the dark. “My brother tried to destroy Everwind. And there's a good chance he might die for it, from you. As far as I'm concerned, you owe me twice, one for his injuries, and another for helping you. In return, I will use your powers to find out who placed my brother in a position to get killed.” A glint of mad anger shone in his eyes as the lamp flitted. “And that aelan dae will die at my hands.”

The dark elf stepped into the shadows, melting into it, and all was silent. Not the sound of footsteps. Not the pant of breath.

Adelaide had ignored the conversation. She had no intentions of getting dragged into a battle that had nothing for her. Instead, she sheathed the two axes into her belt. “It's been my truest displeasure meeting you, Watcher. But it's time for me to leave.”

She stood before the bars, closed her eyes, breathed in deep, and took a step forward. When she opened her eyes again, she was in the corridor outside, facing just an inch away from the brick wall in front of her cell. A successful teleportation, as expected.

“Woah!” She heard The Watcher exclaim. “How did you do that?”

She smirked proudly. It was an ability that made her special, unique. A step away from the tedious human breed. “No idea. Maybe it's magic, but I don't have any magic circuits that I know of so—” She turned around and the cell was empty. Instead, The Watcher stood beside her, somehow having escaped the confines of the prison himself, excitedly examining her like a curious child.

“You just poofed! And here you are! Fascinating! Did you you step out of time? No, I would have felt that. So what? You just just stepped through space? Folded it like a wormhole? Or did you cut through dimensions?” He blabbered on, though his questions were seemingly more directed to himself than her. He took a whiff of the air. “What's that smell?”

“How did you—” She looked to the bars of the cell, none of which were tempered or moved, the gap too narrow for even her to fit through. Even though her abilities to teleport had always been a mystery to her, the idea that someone else was capable of such a feat boggled her mind. “What kind of mage are you?”

Seemingly having decided to leave the mystery of her teleportation for later, The Watcher stood to height, adjusting the collar of his coat and sweeping specks of dust off his shoulder. “I guess I'm what you would call a, um... time mage?”

“A chronomancer?”

“Yes! A chronomancer.” He snapped his fingers, kindled by energy. With a playful smile, he said, “Now, let's do ourselves a jailbreak.”