Mirana felt a pang of sympathy fill her heart as she sat on the granite floor, watching King Oleron and Time. The broken clockwork boy would take a few slow, shaky steps only to collapse to the ground, caught by the King's burly arms. He panted breathlessly, clinging onto the King's robes as he cowered in fear.
"What in the name of Underland is he so frightened of?" Mirana questioned, smoothing out the hem of her skirt with her polished white fingertips.
King Oleron didn't answer. "I'll have to construct more mechanical pieces for him," he muttered under his breath instead.
Iracebeth, perched nearby on the pink velour window seat to the left of the room, was whistling to the red-breasted robins in the rose bushes as she gazed out over the open ledge. The robins, speaking perfect English, chirped, "greetings, little majesty!" as they cocked their heads at her, watching with their beady black eyes. Iracebeth preferred this to Underland's ruby cardinals, who always spoke in Canadian French, a language that she had yet to learn in school. "Fairfarren, dear song-spinners," she said to the birds, waving at them as she watched them fly away.
King Oleron was becoming more frustrated and flustered, trying to repair his new timekeeper guardian, who could hardly walk without falling, who had made himself ill trying to drink a glass of water the day before, incessantly trying to be what he was in the past. Just like the beach in the kingdom's old fable of the Walrus and the Carpenter, Underland's sense of time was in chaos, with sunlight spilling down in some places, moonlight pouring down in others, day and night all at once. Some days a powerful blizzard would blanch the sky white and chill the air so cold that the knights and guards had icicles on their noses. Other days, the heat would rise so high that the pigments melted straight out of the petals of every flower in the kingdom, only to bloom back later as the weather became mild again. It all seemed to be coinciding with Time's own disoriented state, but the King had faith in his new little guardian, because of such matters, he was never wrong.
"Here, have one of my tarts," Iracebeth boldly offered, slipping down from her window seat and ambling towards the clockwork boy, who eyed it curiously, but said nothing.
The King shook his head. "Don't give him that, Iracebeth. I told you before, he can't eat anything."
"More to the point," laughed Mirana quietly, "it's stale. Mother baked those tarts five days ago, Racie."
"Well, if he's Time itself," argued Iracebeth, crossing her arms and pouting, "couldn't he bring the state of the tart back to the past so it would be fresh again? Besides, it isn't moldy or anything, Mirana! I don't hoard moldy food away, never ever."
Mirana scowled. "I should certainly hope not!"
King Oleron frowned, taking the tart from Iracebeth's hand and tossing it out the open window. "For the birds," he explained when he saw Iracebeth's puzzled face.
Mirana rose to her feet, rushing towards the window seat to get a view of any feathered visitors that might stop by, holding up the hem of her skirt so she could kneel down and look without tearing the thin gossamer fabric.
"What's the matter with him?" Iracebeth demanded, pointing at Time as she stared.
"Nothing," insisted the King, his voice rising sharply.
Iracebeth gripped the black collar of Time's overcoat, shaking him back and forth. "You're mad!" she declared, her pouted lips even more pronounced than ever before. "You have to eat! If you starve yourself, you'll die."
"Iracebeth," King Oleron grunted sternly, placing a hand on his older daughter's shoulder.
She was incorrigible. "What's wrong with you?" she asked the boy, reaching out to grab his overcoat again… but she accidentally brushed her hand against his stomach, and he yelped out, visibly wincing.
Iracebeth stood there, too shocked to think of what to say. Beneath her fingertips, she could feel the thread of thick stitches through the fabric of his shirt, as though he'd been sewn together like a patchwork doll. He was struggling to drag himself away from her, his blue eyes shining with fright, but still he didn't say anything, not a word.
"…Poor Tick-Tock," Iracebeth laughed softly, nervously, but her attempt to lighten the mood sounded inappropriate and morbid to her own ears as she spoke aloud. She wasn't sure what finally brought her to do it, but she moved forward and threw her arms around Time's shoulders, hugging him carefully. "I never meant to hurt you."
Time gazed at her, astonished, looking almost taken aback. Iracebeth feared, for just a moment, that she had done the wrong thing, that she had let her own emotions get the better of her as usual… but to her surprise, the broken timekeeper sank into her arms, his eyes closed gently as he rested. He didn't seem quite able to keep his balance, unfocused as ever, but he wasn't frightened of Iracebeth, that much she was certain of.
It was such a newfound thing to her. She was always far too rough and bossy to make and keep her own friends, often tagging along with Mirana in the courtyard, bursting into tears or stomping off in a rage if she wasn't allowed to play their games or enter into the hushed realm of their gossip and conversations. She was lonely, with a lonely childhood and inanimate tiny objects for visual company, filling her half of the bedroom she shared with Mirana, spilling out on gold-plated shelves because she insisted on keeping every tiny trinket she ever came across. The peculiar clockwork being that the King had brought back with him from his travels actually seemed to like her, or at least trust her, and it was something that Iracebeth couldn't entirely comprehend.
King Oleron and Mirana couldn't help but smile, not only because Time no longer looked so unwaveringly terrified, but because Iracebeth was being so kind and understanding, her petty temper packaged away like an unopened unbirthday present.
