Breglio and the Clockmaker Without an Hour

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The wind smelled of copper and old promises as Breglio crossed the threshold of the workshop. It was one of those days when even the fog was unsure where to go. The lantern in his paw was almost extinguished, but the light from the thousand gears on the walls was enough to make him wonder. Some were still turning, some weren't. Some, perhaps, were just waiting. "Ah," said a voice between ticks. "A visitor. And not a random one." Behind a pile of quills and jammed wheels sat an old gnome with a wild beard, a magnifying glass on his forehead, and a leather notebook that consisted more of etchings than words. His ears were as large as his memory—and just as folded. "I am Grembold," he said, "Keeper of the Hours, Inventor of Three-Quarter Time, Bearer of the Wheel of Binnen." Breglio approached. "I am Breglio. I seek... something that has gone astray." The clockmaker laughed dryly. "Then you've come to the right place. Things regularly get lost here—mostly in time." The workshop was like a poem made of metal: weights hung from the ceiling like thoughts, tiny bells whispered at intervals no one understood. On the largest table stood a grandfather clock, golden and venerable, its hands strangely hesitant, as if they never meant to arrive. "This one measures everything," Grembold explained, polishing a gear, "solstices, breaks in the rain, errors of reasoning. There's only one thing it can't do: tell my own hour." "Yours?" asked Breglio. Grembold sighed. "I never built it. All clocks are for others. But my own hour... somehow slipped away." Breglio sensed it immediately. This was no ordinary loss. It was the kind of gap that can't be closed by ignoring it—only by filling it. "And if we find it?" he asked quietly. "Your hour. Not in the clock, but in you?" The gnome raised his eyebrow. "You mean... an hour that doesn't pass?" "One that belongs to you," Breglio replied. "That isn't measured—but lived." They searched together: In a dusty drawer, they found an old minute spring that had never been wound. In a glass shelf, Breglio discovered a splinter of morning dew that bore the sound of a memory. Grembold fished out a screw, as tiny as the moment before the first smile. "I need another beat," Breglio murmured. "Not a regular one. A real one." The clockmaker tapped his notebook with a screwdriver. A sound emerged—crooked, rough, but honest. They both laughed, and in that precise moment, Breglio knew: They had found him. The small clock they were assembling was crooked, warm, and alive. Not a masterpiece—but a centerpiece. It didn't tick. It breathed.