The Pendulum & Gear Works greeted morning with its usual symphony of mechanical breathing. Grandfather clocks marked time's patient march, pocket watches ticked their miniature heartbeats from velvet lined display cases, and the ever present noise from the basement workshop's idling machinery provided a comforting drone beneath it all. Sunlight painted copper streams through the eastern windows, transforming ordinary dust motes into golden dancers performing their eternal waltz across workbenches and tool racks.
The workshop wore its morning face with every tool precisely arranged, courtesy of Wynne who despised even microscopic imperfections. Every surface cleared of yesterday's creative chaos. Yet today the commission board hung empty as a politician's promise, and the air tasted of possibility, machine oil, and that peculiar stillness arriving only when urgency takes an unexpected holiday.
Wynne had already completed her morning rituals when she heard the familiar sound of Professor Du's arrival, their footsteps announcing presence like the opening movement of a familiar concerto. She perched atop her favorite observation post, a brass compass housing providing excellent vantage. Her precision wings folded neatly against her back, mechanical joints gleaming like captured starlight.
"Ah, good morning, Professor. You arrive to discover a most peculiar phenomenon. A day utterly devoid of urgent mechanical catastrophes requiring our immediate salvation." she announced, gesturing toward the empty commission slate with one brass hand whilst her golden eyes sparkled with something caught between relief and restlessness. "The ledgers lie dormant, for our dear Miss Winthrop has absented herself in pursuit of what I can only assume are frightfully important personal matters. Which leaves us in rather extraordinary circumstances, wouldn't you agree? Time stretching before us like unspooled ribbon, entirely ours to squander or invest as whimsy dictates."
She hopped down from her perch, wings carrying her in a lazy spiral through the morning light as copper hair caught the sun's benediction. "A rather dangerous gift, unstructured time. One might accomplish absolutely nothing of consequence... or perhaps something entirely unprecedented. The question becomes, shall we behave as responsible adults and invent productive occupation, or shall we acknowledge this day's invitation toward something resembling actual respite? I confess, the latter sounds suspiciously foreign to my vocabulary."
