Aurina Vey and the Golden Hour

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Gate It was a faint rustling sound that woke Aurina—like sand falling through glass. She sat up, her joints humming to a familiar rhythm as tiny gears recalibrated her arm. Above her, the vaulted ceiling of the Aeon Chamber slowly rotated, where time didn't flow but collected like rain in a golden chalice. "Still there," she murmured, groping for her lantern—but nothing hung there. Only her fur-lined backpack, still warm from the Chron warmth, remained at her side. The lantern had gone out in the last time-jump sequence. Aurina rose. The round table before her, set in a pedestal of black iron, bore the Hour Gate: a giant clock with a golden disc, its hands silent for centuries. Its runes had faded, its memories erased. But Aurina had a mission. She was a time traveler—not a wanderer through spaces, but through lost hours. Between two breaths, she could touch years. Between two heartbeats, a century vanished when she touched it. Slowly, she raised her finger, touched the center of the Hour Gate—and flickering light rose. Gold dust trickled up, and with it came voices. Whispers. Children's laughter. Tears. The beat of a heart. She felt her body flicker briefly. The magic answered—not with power, but with memory. "Not all clocks tick. Some dream." The voice was not hers. Old, but familiar. Her teacher? Or herself—in another now? The Hour Gate vibrated. Runes awoke in fine lines, running like veins across the golden case. The hands trembled. Aurina took a small cog from her backpack—barely larger than a thumbnail, transparent as amber. She breathed on it. And whispered: "Back. To that hour you swallowed." A flash of light. Then it was dark. When she blinked again, it smelled of damp stone and ink. The chamber was no longer empty. Books lay scattered, a broken hourglass dripped silver glass onto the floor. And beside the Hour Gate stood a young girl—translucent, barely visible. Her fingers, like Aurina's, rested on the clock's center. "Who are you?" Aurina asked. "The hour you sought," the girl said. "You forgot me the first time you jumped." Aurina hesitated. Then she remembered: a lost moment in her childhood, when she had first fallen through a clockwork. No name, no time. Just a look, a sound—a vanishing. She stepped forward. Her metallic fingers touched the girl—and met only light. "If I bring you back, something else will be lost," she said softly. "I know. But you're the only one asking." One final click. The gear in her pocket shattered into light. The hour gate burst open. A gust of wind blew through the chamber—and then the girl was gone. Instead, in Aurina's hand lay a new gear, engraved with: 03:14 – Hour of First Memory. She pocketed it. And stepped through the gate—back into a world where at least one hour was whole again.