Tiktoras crazy Sister, Chronoma,The Sister Who Laughed

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In the seventh depth of the Aether Library, where no hands ever stop, but are merely forgotten, lies a room that cannot be opened – unless one loses an hour of one's life. Those who enter it find no books, no shelves, no order symbols. Only paper airplanes and the scent of copper. And in the middle of it all: Chronoma. She was born of gears like her sister Tiktora. But while Tiktora watches over the order of time with silent seriousness, Chronoma wears a burned-in grin on her bronze clock face. Her eyes shine with the cold blue of playful catastrophes, and every movement of her wire-link arms creaks like the laughter of a watchmaker who has long since lost his mind. Once they were inseparable – two constructs of the Great Spring Mechanism, created to give shape to time. Tiktora assumed the role of keeper, while Chronoma that of dreamer. Where Tiktora counted hours, Chronoma wanted to feel them. While her sister kept track of events, Chronoma built flying machines from time notes, let them sail through the endless halls, and sang songs that sounded better backwards. "You must stop playing with time," said Tiktora one evening, as the shadow of the tenth hour crept through the corridors like tar. But Chronoma didn't answer. She only turned her face to the ceiling, listened to the clatter of the hands above her, and whispered, "If time is clockwork, why can't it make music?" Then came the day—or rather, the unmoment—when Chronoma disappeared. There was no sound, no light, no crack. Only the feeling of a gap opening up, exactly where a second should have been. Tiktora later found the open compartment in the Chamber of Impossibility, the imprint of a glowing feather on the floor, and what looked like a tiny paper airplane made of music paper—on it was inscribed: "I'll return when yesterday begins anew." Since then, the Aether Library has avoided the depths where Chronoma lives. But sometimes from there, one hears a giggle, a clang, a song of numbers whispered backward. And if you listen too long, you start to think your memories in the wrong order. A boy with a broken compass once found her, by chance or fate. He threw a paper airplane through the wrong door, and she caught it. Smiling, she stepped out and turned back time for him to the wish he hadn't spoken. And while he still hesitated, she whispered, "I can bring you back. But you'll forget why you came here." He agreed. And was never seen again. Chronoma plays with time because she knows no one truly understands what she is. To her, she is not a stream, not a thread—but a ball of gears that can be turned until it dances. She keeps nothing. She admires. But even she has a secret: in her chest, behind closed brass flaps, ticks a clock that stands still. It shows an hour that has never struck. Tiktora knows it. It is the hour in which Chronoma forgot the name she had given herself. And perhaps, if you listen to her long enough, she will tell it to you. Backwards. In silence.