When time permits

Previously

…Elara took the seed, and the watch in her pocket gave a single, soft chime. She understood then that this was not a place of waiting, but of becoming—a sanctuary where time surrendered its urgency and offered only its essence. She knelt, pressed the seed into the soil at the base of the clock tower, and whispered a poem that had no words yet—only the feeling of arriving exactly where she was meant to be. The second hand grew, a tendril of silver-green that curled into place, and the clock began to breathe.