[i][u]Sid Magnus aka. Timekeeper[/u][/i]

The clocks were ticking in concert, the ground was soothed, the night was coming, and Sid was asleep. All was right. At least, as far as could be seen from the waking world. But inside Sid's sleeping mind, things weren't quite right.

It had started with the usual dream. The standard beginning in which, due to his fresh loss of consciousness, the wild parts of Sid's psyche force themselves into control. The rage. The hunger. The fear. Every base instinct lashes out. The sleeping mind begins throwing obstacles at them in that strange way that only dreams can. Monsters, stray dogs, vanquished foes. All coming to fight, eventually to be torn apart like wet tissue paper and tossed around the idyllic field. 

And then comes the second part of the dream. The noise. A rhythmic popping. Or clicking. Like a child who can't count to high numbers, it simply repeats what it knows. One... Two... One... Two... Click... Clack... Tick... Tock... Sid follows the noise. Slowly the animal inside settles. The ticking and the tocking get louder but Sid can't find the source. He walks in circles, pacing the battlefield of his minds creation, and only when he looks behind himself does he find what he was looking for. 

He turns to find a Grandfather Clock. But not as you would imagine one. This is a brutal piece of crude machinery. A gnarled slab of wood filled with grimy cogs and gears sits amidst the carnage Sid had earnestly wrought in his fury. And Sid just stares at it. Transfixed. For a while he just stares. And then he reaches out and touches it. He feels the wood. He begins to carve at it. 

As he carves and cleans and scrapes away at the wood and it's mechanicals the battlefield around him slowly fades. Slowly and quietly things just sort of... leave. The blood silently, secretly, seeps through the earth as though it was never there. Bodies gently turn to dust and drift away on a breeze. Nothing that would catch Sid's attention, nothing to ruin his focus. By the time Sid finishes carving the wooden monstrosity into a right and proper Grandfather Clock all signs of fighting and unpleasantness have gone. And now he sits in a beautiful field, paying the view no attention. He watches the clock. Listening for the tick, and the tock. Relishing each movement of the hand. Tick, tock... Tick, tock... Tick...

And then there it was. His problem. 

The tock had gone. He'd lost a tock. But you couldn't lose a tock. The tock was late. But tocks aren't late. Perhaps something had taken the tock? A tock thief? If tocks couldn't be late, and tocks couldn't be lost, could tocks be stolen? He spun to find himself face to face with Dreamcatcher. She said something. Something faint and unheard. She'd stolen the tock. Sid screamed out in rage and dove at her to rip he face off and find the tock.

And then he woke.

It was not an easy wake up. He woke in the same mood he had been in as his dream ended. Rage. Unreasonable rage. He roared and he shouted. He slammed his fist into the large tree he was sleeping under, burying his fist inside it and then ripping it out the side. He calmed slightly. Enough to at least form a thought. and that thought was [i]Tock[/i]. He practically threw himself at his large Grandfather Clock that was standing nearby. His face inches from the clock's. And he watched. Tick, tock, tick, tock... a full minute of ticks and tocks. Gradually he was soothed. Each reassuring tick and tock calming him gently like a tiny wave in the sea. 

When reality had finally sunken in and all was well, Sid attempted to regain some composure and have a look around. His eyes conveniently glided past the broken tree, so as to spare himself the embarrassment of facing what he'd done. He hoped nobody has seen. That was [i]very[/i] ungentlemanly. Though he supposed sleeping in the dirt and bushes was probably unbecoming of a such a fine specimen of nobility too, but he still did that. He swiftly, and deliberately, lost track of that train of thought choosing instead to use his genius level intellect. He managed to gleam somethings from the environment. He that it was day time. He learned that he'd woken early. And as a Pocket Watch somehow found it's way into his palm and he judged the time to be middle-of-the-day-ish. Usually, he reassured himself, he'd have figured out more information. This day was just being deliberately mysterious. It was a rude day and Sid certainly didn't appreciate it.

A short while later, after donning his gentlemanly suit and checking his gentlemanly Pocket Watches were working correctly, Sid remembered why he'd had such a bad morning. He'd had a visitor in his dreams. Dreamcatcher had brought him out into the cold light of day. He couldn't really remember what she'd said to him. He hadn't heard her very well at the time. That plus the fact that he was now awake and any memories had the haze of a fading dream. But he managed to scrape together one word from the jumble of half-memories. Orphanage. He decided that it was good enough as a clue to get him where he needed to go. He needed to find orphanages. And, he thought with a sense of pride in himself, Dreamcatcher probably only called out to anyone nearby! So she was most likely going to be at a nearby orphanage. All he had to do was walk and look, or ask someone for directions. Maybe he could trade information with a passing human person. He'd supply then with the time, they'd point him in the right direction. Yes. He decided. This was a good plan. After all, who wouldn't like to know the time? 

He picked up his Grandfather Clock, wearing it like a backpack, and strolled off in search of Dreamcatcher.