Croissant

When it concerns Crossiant’s job, time is money. No, seriously. Getting paid to make sure the timelines don’t mess up while simultaneously having fun? It’s practically every dragon’s dream to have a career that they both enjoy and benefit from. Fortunately for this Sandsurge, he’s got a pretty good gig going for himself, even more so now that he has a work partner by his side to keep his antics in check. Despite their differing breeds, they get along quite well for an Auraboa and Sandsurge duo.

Croissant can be found majority of the time in his workshop, which looked more or less like what you’d expect a mechanic’s workplace to look like. Just like the rest of his species, he’d burrowed underground and made a place for himself to focus on his passion projects, as well as his actual work. Because he hadn’t been called in to work for the Time Division today, he figured it was a nice day off. Due to this, he was currently sails deep into one of his projects at the moment, with Uyn at his side, handing him the tools he needed.

“Sprocket, please,” he murmurs as he holds out a talon to retrieve the item as his serpentine assistant gives it to him. Croissant is currently underneath a pretty sizable metal contraption, which he’s working on. After attaching it to somewhere inside what looked to be a specialized clock of some sort, he wipes his oil stained claws off on his scales and then holds out his talon again. “Wrench,” he says as he takes this brief moment to flex his claws.

“Are you sure this will work?” Uyn’s voice rang out in the hollow space that had been carved out to serve as a workshop. She clutched a battered up wrench in her claws and observed it for some time before eventually handing it over to the awaiting Sandsurge, who chirped his gratitude and began working again. When he next spoke, his voice was a bit muffled due to him being under some personal project of his.

“Of course it’ll work! C’mon, haven’t you ever wanted a universal clock? There’s different time zones throughout Sornieth since the elements have a curious effect on how time passes, so if this clock can track all of them, it’ll make our job much easier.” Croissant emerged from underneath the large machine, most of his body splattered with oil as a result of him tinkering with it. He brushes himself off a bit and then stands up to his full height, grinning widely at Uyn. Croissant was practically beaming with pride at what he had accomplished.

Furthermore, despite the two being different in appearance, Uyn could tell by the way his head frills were held up high that it was a good indication of an uplifted mood. They fell a little once he saw that the Auraboa before him didn’t exactly share his good spirits. “What’s wrong?” he asked, allowing his sails to relax a bit as he underwent some well needed stretches. He really needed to loosen up after an hour or so of being in just one general area.

“It’s… nothing,” Uyn muttered, although her drooping crest of feathers said otherwise. Her branch horns also had wilting flowers, which was another clear indication of her downtrodden mood. Other than that, it would be nigh on impossible to discern what emotion she was feeling at that moment. She gave a quick, dismissive wave of one of her wings and slithered over to another project of Croissant’s, one that looked abandoned for the most part. While the topic of time was a rather sore subject for her, machinery was not. Uyn tapped on the metallic surface of the contraption, before she turned away again and looked uninterested by even its appearance.

“Thinking about the rift again?” Croissant inquired, only now beginning to fix the cogs and gears lining his sides. He hadn’t even been aware that his outfit of choice was starting to look unsightly, since no one had bothered to tell him.

“What rift do you speak of? We’ve been through so many, I’ve lost count.” Despite her cool tone, Uyn’s answer was vaguely snappy, even as she feigned ignorance as if she had no idea what her friend was talking about. She also noticeably refused to face him as she pretended to be interested in the other creations that were scattered around the workshop.

“Oh, well, uh… y’know, the… um…” Croissant fumbled over his words, unsure of how he wanted to word what he was attempting to ask. Eventually, he just settled on going over to his self made ‘snack corner,’ and munching on a baked good that he’d made himself. Funnily enough, it was a croissant, the very thing he took his namesake from. He enjoyed them, as well as other foods like them. Especially a good biscuit. Oh, or a cookie or two.

His tail brushed against the floor of his den as he once again pondered what he might say to Uyn. He let out a sigh, a few stray crumbs tumbling from his mouth in the process. “You already know what I was trying to ask. Were you thinking about the time rift you were stuck in for… well… who knows how long?” Croissant then settled down on his haunches, before laying down fully on his stomach, his tail curled around him.

Uyn shot him a nasty glare, but shook her head as her expression softened. “...Yes, in fact, I was thinking about the time pocket I had been stuck in indefinitely until you came along and saved me. What of it?”

“Oh, um, I didn’t mean anything by it, I just wanted to ask…” Croissant mutters after wolfing down the rest of his snack. He messes with a few nearby pieces of metal strewn across the floor, before huffing and resting his head on his talons. “Can we just… talk about it? I know there’s a lot to unpack there, but… I mean… I think it’s important for us to finally address those feelings of yours.”

Uyn’s answer was swift. “No.” She had barely even turned her head to glance at him as she uttered that simple and curt one word response. In fact, she seemed intent on ignoring him. Uyn then flicked on the giant clock machine that Croissant had just finished creating. As it springs to life, the many clock faces on it begin moving, tracking time across Sornieth in all its elemental areas. It seems like all is well with the timelines at the moment.

The Sandsurge springs up at this, rushing over to the contraption that he made with love and care. He briefly forgot about the last thing that he was worried about and threw the previous conversation topic to the wind. In all his excitement, sparks buzzed off of his body. “It worked! It worked! Oh, thank the Stormcatcher! Now this’ll make everything about our jobs so much more simpler!” While Croissant looked ecstatic that his gadget worked, Uyn looked on with cold indifference. One of the gauges on the machine wasn’t moving.

If she looked at it long enough, she could tell that it was twitching slightly, but other than that, there was no other movement from it. Even the dragons that were the most confused about how time worked and how there were different timelines could most likely grasp that this was a time loop; a rift in the very fabric of the space-time continuum itself. This was where she had come from. Even Croissant, in his gleeful state, saw this gauge and knew what it meant. The pocket of time still existed somewhere out there. It was unlikely to ever close since it neither began nor ended.

“Hey, Uyn… I… I had no idea that it was going to track… well… that…”

“...It’s… fine, really.”

“No, it’s not. I can tell that it’s bothering you. It’s not like we can fix it, though…”

“I said it’s fine. Please, just don’t bring it up anymore.”

While Croissant wished to say more, he realized that maybe it would be better to keep his mouth shut in a situation like this. He wouldn’t want to overstep some invisible boundary, after all.

Written By Dreamsicle262

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Apart of the Time Division, a group of engineers and adventurers whose duty is to make sure both past and future timelines are intact, it is Croissant's job to make sure every bolt and wire is in place. Shown to be quite talented with machines from a young age, Croissant is a highly respected member of the estate. Using both personal skills and things picked up along the way, he loves to find out just how things work. He'll easily pull an all-nighter if it means an easier route for his workmates to manage timelines. Infact, sometimes he has to be dragged away from his work by force! This can be obvious with just a glance at him considering all of the cogs and enhancements on his body.

He won't tell anyone, but the clock hand was simply for a little joke about his job he finds hilarious. As head of the time division, he finds it to be that it is his duty to distribute his precious portable machines carefully, being quite the stickler when it comes to handling and usage. Incidents involving his machinery make him feel as though he failed them in one way or another. Whether he didn't explain it with enough detail, or he took his eyes off his teammates at the wrong time.

Besides his job, Croissant can be found rummaging through his belongings for something he hasn't dismantled and put back together. Trinkets attract him like a moth to a flame, occasionally blowing all his gold on a new hoard from a pawn shop. It can get so time consuming, Uyn will have to grab him by the fins just to get some fresh air.