joyful . optimistic . delighted

---

"I'm tired. I'm tired of being told that I'm wasting time. In this little shop full of clocks, I feel like I have all the time in the world."

The Apprentice is a new face in The Watchmaker's shop, and is the very first protégé he has ever accepted.

She didn't enter the shop with the intention of finding a job, in fact she arrived there as a customer looking to repair her grandfather's old watch. Upon being invited to sit in the shop and wait a full day for the repairs, she decided that the bizzare request was exactly the excuse she was looking for to escape the stresses that awaited her back at home. She spent the day listening to The Watchmaker's stories and pursuing pleasant conversation with him between long moments of silence and, when the repairs on her inherited timepiece were finally completed, she experience a flutter of panic as the watchmaker sold it to the next customer who walked through the shop's door.

A young man around her age enthusiastically made the purchase. As the Watchmaker retreated to the back room to fetch change, she approached the new owner of her watch, meekly attempting to tell him that the watch was hers. Before she could get much of a word in, however, the man greeted her pleasantly and asked her name before remarking that she shared a name with his fiance. Upon hearing his name, her confusion melted into a fascinated realization when she recognised the young man as being her grandfather (whose wife she had been named after).

Following this, she asked the Watchmaker if she might be allowed to stay, and met no resistance from him about it. The only condition he cited was that she must then become his apprentice.

Since beginning her apprenticship, the Watchmaker often assures her that she'll always be...where she's needed, exactly when she is needed. Bizarrely, he's yet to be wrong.