Chapter 264

I was sitting in the lobby the next morning while waiting for Mimi to finish getting ready upstairs. The two of us had a bit of a date planned out today. I feel like Mimi and I haven't been very close lately... or maybe it's more like I've been too busy with everyone else to give her as much attention as I would like to. Not that I can totally blame the others, between their aunt, the revelations with Silva, and their collars being removed, the twins had been the primary focus of my attention the entire time we were in the capital. Things have settled a little bit, but there are still lots of people dividing my attention, especially now that we've added even more people to our primary traveling group.

"Lilith!" Mimi called out as she came down the stairs. She was wearing a light white sundress that contrasted nicely with the golden fur of her disguised self. She had a red ribbon tied around her waist that matched her pretty eyes. Despite being more dressed up than usual, her relaxed affable nature shined through.

I stood up and adjusted the collar of my blouse. I was wearing some nicer clothes than usual for a change. Bella had convinced the two of us to treat this more like a proper date than just the two of us hanging out like I had initially planned. Neither of us were wearing anything too expensive, but I wasn't wearing my routine rough work clothes either. I was wearing something that was a bit more unisex than Mimi, a dark blue blouse tucked into nice dress pants. Our outfits gave us a bit of a different atmosphere than usual. It was a fun change of pace.

"Are you ready to go?" I asked.

"Yep! This sounds like fun," Mimi said excitedly.

She slipped her hand into mine and walked with me hand and hand through the door. It was still pretty early in the day, which meant the streets were pretty busy with people headed off to work. I noticed a few curious gazes as the two of us walked through town, but they were predominantly accompanied by smiles and nods.

"What are we going to do today?" Mimi asked curiously.

"I'm not entirely sure," I said with a chuckle. "I hadn't planned on anything as formal as this. I just wanted to spend some personal time with you. I feel like we haven't had much time to bond lately."

She nodded. "We've been really busy. I didn't want to bother you, so I've been trying to have fun with others. It's been fun spending time at the Ruby Vixen again."

"You do seem quite popular there," I said.

"Yeah, a lot of our sisters like me there. I remember a lot of them from when we were here the first time. Some of them said that it was because of me that they started to experiment with their new abilities more. It's nice to feel like I helped them, even if it's all a little confusing for me," Mimi admitted.

"You seem rather sociable for someone who... someone with your past." I looked around at some of the people nearby. We should probably be less open with what we were talking about here.

Mimi smiled. "I think I've come a long way. For me... it feels like I'm making up for all the time I was alone in the dungeon. But... I don't know. It doesn't feel as good as when I spend time with you and our other lovers."

"That's pretty normal. Physical relationships don't feel as important as the emotional ones," I said.

"I think I'm starting to understand. Everything is still so new to me."

"Are you enjoying yourself at least?" I asked.

Mimi nodded enthusiastically. "I am! Right now I guess I'm taking the opportunity to spend time with people that live here since I know that most of them aren't coming with us. I was pretty happy when you asked to spend time together today though. It's not something we normally get to do, just the two of us so it's a little exciting."

"Is there anything in particular you're interested in doing?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Eat?"

I laughed. "Not surprising. Anything else?"

"I always like to try new things, so something new?" she said.

"Hmm... For now, why don't we just look around? See if anything interesting is going on."

"Okay!" she said with a big smile.

The two of us walked around and explored the town. The city looked a lot more vibrant than the first time we had been here. None of the areas that had been blocked off or deserted were abandoned anymore, though some areas had noticeably less traffic. We walked through the street where we had fought the hellhound. Most of the rubble had been cleaned up, but there were still a few buildings that hadn't been torn down and replaced yet. This area was a little bit sobering because it was hard to forget that this was where Jasper had died. We didn't spend long there.

While we were walking, I noticed a shop had caught Mimi's eye. "Do you want to go check it out?" I asked her.

"Oh, if you want to..." Mimi replied.

I laughed. "If you're interested, we should check it out. Come on." I pulled her toward the store. I hadn't seen what it was from a distance, but now that I was closer, it looked like some kind of clock shop. The front had several large grandfather clocks in the front display window. It was rather interesting because until now, I hadn't known clocks even existed outside of the large bell towers. Even hours were referred to as bells here.

An older human man came out of the back room when we entered the store. "Hello, can I help the two of you?"

"Just looking for now," I told him.

He nodded. "Call me if you need anything." He turned around and went into the back room, leaving us alone in the room full of clocks.

I looked at one of the clocks up close. Unlike the ones I was used to, they were numbered differently and only had one hand. The first bell was at eight in the morning, which was labeled with a one, but it was in the nine position on the clock I was looking at. Thankfully, the numbers traveled around the face of the clock clockwise, but rather than stopping at twelve, they continued all the way to fifteen. That made ten p.m. the last numbered bell for the day. The entire twenty-four hours were represented on the clock, but since the last nine hours weren't labeled with numbers, they were marked with three circles instead, which I guessed to be the three moons. It was kind of confusing trying to convert the time into the format I was used to, especially when the numbers were all in different places and the night hours weren't even labeled. The clock wasn't broken into minutes or seconds either, so it was only as accurate as the bells were for telling the actual time, but at least you could see how close the next bell was on the dial.

When I turned back to Mimi, she was just as focused on one of the clocks as I was, but the one she was staring at was partially disassembled behind the counter. Her eyes were wide and she was staring intently at the gears that were turning inside the mechanism with unblinking eyes. The dial had been removed and set aside, but the pendulum was still swinging and the gears were still spinning. The mechanics of it seemed to be intriguing to the mimic girl.

"Are you interested in how it works?" I asked.

"Yes," Mimi said without looking away.

I looked around at the clocks. All of them seemed pretty expensive and more of a luxury for merchants and nobles who lived in the city. All of them were grandfather clocks with weighted pendulums rather than the smaller desk-sized clocks or pocket watches that I was more familiar with.

"Excuse me?" I called into the back.

The old man returned with a smile. "Yes? How can I help you two ladies?"

"I was wondering if you could explain how the clock works," I said, pointing to the disassembled one.

He frowned. "I'm a little busy in the back right now..."

"How much for one of the cheaper grandfather clocks then?" I was a bit worried that 'grandfather clock' would translate oddly, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Hmm... I can give you one of these ones for eight gold," he said, indicating some of the smaller ones near the back of the room.

Eight gold was a lot for a flight of fancy like this, but Mimi seemed more interested in this than I had seen her in a while. "If we bought one of these, would you be willing to spend a little time telling us how it functions?" I asked.

The old shopkeeper perked up. "I'd be happy to." He walked behind the counter and pulled out a ledger. "Which one? The one with the cherry wood?"

I pointed at one of the ones he had shown me. "This one."

"Perfect!" he said with a smile. "That will be eight gold."

Before I could come over to pay, Mimi walked up to him and produced eight gold coins right on the counter in front of him. I had been intending to buy it for her, but Mimi had been quicker to act. "Eight gold!" she said excitedly.

The older man chuckled. "Spatial magic. No wonder the two of you have eight gold to spend on something like this. I take it that the two of you won't need the clock delivered then?"

Mimi shook her head. "Nope! I have plenty of room for it!"

He chuckled. "Good to hear." He counted the coins and placed them inside a metal lockbox. "Excellent! Let me go bring something out from the back to show you how the movement works."

I came over and patted Mimi on the shoulder. "You seem rather interested in this," I pointed out.

She nodded excitedly while she stared at the disassembled clock behind the counter. "Little pieces that move other pieces that build to a greater effect. I haven't seen anything like it before..."

The old man walked back to the counter while holding a disassembled mechanism with lots of small pieces. He placed each of the pieces down carefully before pointing out each one, explaining what they did before carefully assembling it into the larger mechanism. Because this was a grandfather clock movement, they wouldn't work without the pendulum or weights. Once he was finished explaining the disassembled movement, he opened the cabinet of one of the working ones and pointed around at the moving pieces while the pendulum was swinging.

I hadn't been particularly interested in clocks or watches, so I don't know how much of it I actually retained, but Mimi was fascinated and asked a lot of questions about how it worked and what the different pieces were for. I was more interested in watching Mimi enthralled by something so thoroughly. After spending more than a bell, which was rather noisy in there, Mimi was satisfied by the man's explanations and collected the clock she purchased before the two of us left.

"Did you enjoy that?" I asked.

"It was amazing! I didn't know something so interesting existed before!" Mimi gushed.

I laughed. "Do you want me to tell you a little bit more about smaller clocks from my world? I don't know how they worked exactly, but maybe you could learn how to build your own."

Mimi's eyes widened. "You think I could do that?" she asked excitedly.

"Why not? You're pretty smart. If you're interested enough, I'm sure you could build your own with enough effort."

She bounced up and down. "Okay! Tell me what clocks are like from where you come from!"

I led her to the park where I had spent some time with Bella yesterday. It was a nice calm place without too much traffic, perfect for a bit of sketching. "Can I have one of the empty journals from my trunk, please? Oh, and I'll need a quill and ink."

She nodded and materialized them before handing them over. I opened the journal to the first page and began to draw out a few clocks, watches, and pocket watches to give her some inspiration. I didn't know much about how the internals worked, but I was able to sketch out the casings and explain how our timekeeping worked in contrast to the 15-hour bell layout they used here. I also warned her that the challenge of the small watches and pocket watches was that they became less accurate over time. I didn't know how they had fixed that problem with pocket watches, but I knew they had found some way to make them a lot more accurate. I also sketched out a few diagrams of the gear layouts the old man had shown us while it was fresh in my mind. I only had a general idea of how it worked though, so they weren't all that detailed. When I was finished, I let the ink dry and handed the journal to Mimi.

"You can keep that journal. Maybe we can find some way for you to tinker with other parts in the future when we have the time."

Mimi looked down at the journal and smiled. "Thank you, Lilith! This is so great!"

I smiled. "So... what do you want to do now?"

"Hmm... Let's eat!" Mimi replied happily.

I laughed, "Alright, let's go find a restaurant."