Iracebeth came bounding up to Time the next morning, her most prized possession clutched in her arms beneath the ruffled pink sleeves of her dress. It was her ant farm, of course, encased in crystal with a base and lid made of polished olive wood. Fine white sand filled the inside, where tunnels had been dug by Iracebeth's ant colony in tiny paths, some storing food and little grains of sugar, others connecting to the surface, where she could watch them forage.

Time was standing at the window ledge, weakly leaning against the glass as he gazed down at the sprawling courtyard outside.

"Good morning, Tick-Tock," Iracebeth exclaimed loudly, "and how are you today?"

Startled, Time turned to glare at her, taking a step back. "What do you want?" he snapped rather viciously.

Iracebeth was surprised to hear his voice. He had a thick German accent, just like the first time she had ever heard him speak aloud, but his words now were vexed and resentful. She might have been offended under any other circumstance, but then she remembered her father's words from the night before, and she cheerfully told him, "my father is the King, and he says he's going to repair you. Wonderful news, isn't it?"

Time's words were still as cold as ever. "What in hell for?" he asked.

"…Let's change the subject, shall we?" Iracebeth suggested, trying her best to be chipper. She placed her ant farm down on the ledge, the crystal glass of each side casting rainbows from the warm sunlight into the room, spilling across the floor. "My father says that you are a friend to no man, but I'm not a man. I'm Princess Iracebeth, eldest heir to the throne of the Kingdom of Marmoreal, and so I think we could both be friends."

Time kept his blue eyes downcast.

Iracebeth grabbed onto one of his gloved hands, pulling him forward. "I wanted to show you my ant farm, my greatest treasure of all," she explained to him, pointing at it. "I love tiny things, you see. These dainty little ants are beautiful, like ornaments, but they can carry things heavier than they are! Mirana thinks the ants are scary, but I adore my little pets."

It took what seemed like forever for the clockwork being to reply back to her. "Why do you keep them trapped in glass?" Time finally asked, watching the ants as they used their jaws to cut pieces from the small green leaves at the top of the farm.

"Oh, they're not trapped!" Iracebeth assured him, giggling. "They're my pets! You have some very funny ideas, Tick-Tock."

If Iracebeth's nickname for Time annoyed him, he made no effort to correct her. Instead, he continued to look out the window, where through the glass, he could see a menagerie of vibrant flowers and animals. A white stone pond filled with blooming ivory lilies was there in the centre of the courtyard, but the clear water was turquoise in colour, as if blue and green dyes had been poured into it at some point or another. Bright pink fish leaped in and out of the water, taking in noisy breaths of fresh air from the dry land before diving back down into the water. Everything in this mad new world was upside-down! The only consistency in Underland seemed to be that nothing made any sense.

Iracebeth frowned, her eyes stricken with realization beneath her ruby-red locks of hair. "You don't think that we should be friends," she sighed sadly. "Why not? Am I too loud? Am I bossy? You can be honest. It's nothing that I haven't heard before."

Time glanced over his shoulder at the crimson-haired princess, then turned on his heel and stepped away from her. "I'm a fighter for the Resistance in my homeland. I'm a guard. I keep watch all night, and every half-hour, I report back about whether or not an enemy or a spy is approaching. I have no time to be friends with anyone… but not because of anything that you've done, Princess. You've been very kind to me, but I have to return to my country and…"

"You can't!" Iracebeth blurted out. "You belong here in Underland!"

Bewildered, Time threw her an angry, determined glare, his blue eyes aglow like fire and ice all at once. He was about to say something in protest, but before he could speak, Iracebeth jumped forward and held him against the window glass, pressing her hand against the ticking gold clock embedded in his chest. A harsh, heavy wave of dizziness overtook him, and he nearly toppled over onto the floor, dreadfully ill.

"There, see?" Iracebeth insisted, moving slowly away from the clockwork boy and letting go of him. "You're to be the timekeeper of Underland, Tick-Tock. You can never return to your own kingdom. I'm sorry… but this means that we can be friends then, doesn't it?"

Panting breathlessly, unable to regain his composure as he shuddered violently, Time stared at her. "Answer me this!" he demanded. "Why do you want to be my friend?"

Such a thought had never crossed Iracebeth's mind. Why did she want to be his friend? Mirana was her friend, but that was a friendship that they were both born into. The ants in the ant farm were her friends, but they couldn't even speak, let alone do anything much except eat the leaves and sugar she dropped into the sand. "…I don't know why I want to be your friend," she finally admitted, hanging her head, "but what does it matter? If you don't want to be my friend, I couldn't care any less. You're only this curious broken clockwork creature! I don't need you for a friend…"

Time, bowing chivalrously, turned away from her and went back to watching out the window, his gloved hands held up against the glass. "I believe," he told her, "that you've just answered your own question, Princess Iracebeth."

"You… you…" Iracebeth's face had become almost as pink as her dress as she found herself drenched in burning anger. "You're impossible!"

"Ah, well," said Time dryly, "I wouldn't want to break any of Underland's rules, would I?"