Work Text:
In the Clockwork Castle, time stood as still as stone.
Well, in some ways.
Time could still pass, but at the same time, it didn't. It never washed over any of the Castle's residents, not really, and so, they were never corroded by its effects. Nobody could age in this Castle. Ever.
Much to Caël's chagrin, however, one could still feel tired.
He and his engineers had been working non-stop for.. well, they were always working, so it was hard to tell, especially with the fact that time was a little odd around here. There weren't too many things to do other than work and play in the Castle. But since the time that the Fleshmancer's Acolytes had arrived, they'd been put to work, so there wasn't much time for play or anything else.
The ten-year-old rubbed his eyes, feeling another headache coming on. He hadn't eaten anything in a while, and it had been even longer since he'd had any sleep.
Scheduling for sleeping and eating and everything had really gone to the dogs since they were in the Castle (try telling a ten-year-old with free rein of time when to do things).. but Caël was exhausted. And as he looked about the room, seeing his team yawning and rubbing their eyes, it looked like they were just about ready to nod off too.
"Caël.." Spike put down his tools and stretched over the back of his chair. "I'm so tiiired..." A couple of the others piped up in agreement.
"Listen.. we can't afford to stop, not with them breathing down our necks.." Caël scowled, thinking about the stupid Acolytes and the stupid Fleshmancer and those two nasty traitors of Solstice Warriors that were helping the Fleshmancer instead of trying to save their world.
"We can't make our things if we're tired, though." Locket nodded in agreement to Hammer's comment.
"He's right! I poked myself in the hand because I was feeling reeeaally sleeeeeepy..."
There was a bit of silence from Toe, and Caël looked over to see that he had already fallen asleep at his desk.
We can't work like this.. they're right. We need to rest.
"All right. The Acolytes are gone, but we still need to be careful.. until they come back.. it's nap time!"
The faces of the child engineers brightened almost immediately at Caël's announcement. Each of them left what he was doing - either carefully leaving off or just dropping their work - and joined Caël at the rug in the left side of the room. Spike stopped over at Toe's desk to rouse him first.
"Nap time!"
"Oh, finally.."
"I missed sleep!"
Caël stretched, then lay down on the soft rug, his team following suit. Soon they were piled all over each other like a litter of kittens (now that he thought about it, he missed seeing cats). Hammer and Spike were on either side of Caël, Toe was curled with his head resting on Spike's tummy, and Locket was splayed on top of their legs. It was cosy for sure, and warm like this.. quite nice given that the Castle got chilly sometimes.
"Everyone comfy?" Caël looked about to make sure, and got little nods and noises of affirmation from his team. They all looked so tired with their dark circles and gaunt faces - it was hard to remember when they'd last had a nap time, and not just taken a bit of sleep at their desks.
Now that the Acolytes were here, they weren't really allowed to take many breaks. And, Solstices forbid they all stopped working, now that was a bad situation. The threats were serious, and after what had happened to Chain.. they knew that the Fleshmancer wasn't playing around.
However, the Acolytes were busy now that Zale and Valere and those others were here. Which meant they weren't so focused on micromanaging Caël and team.. that meant they could sneak away from work for just a little bit. Caël liked feeling sneaky. And he especially liked it when he got to spend time with his team and thwart the bad guys (this sleep was going toward the cause of thwarting).
Caël noticed that Hammer was still holding one of his gears - and had already fallen asleep, snoring softly. The white-haired boy carefully pried the gear from his fingers so as not to disturb him and laid it aside before reclining onto his back, hands folded neatly over his chest. He closed his eyes, breaths deepening with the familiar rhythm of sleep.
Someday, Caël thought to himself, someday we'll break loose of these bad guys and make all the machines we want.. our machines, all our own.. and save the world..
And with that, he fell asleep, dreaming about all the things they'd do.