Steven and I are participating in the Blair Family Halloween Party for the third year in a row. The first year we went as Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable. Last year we were Santa’s Elves. There is no credible photographic evidence to share of Steven’s participation in either event because… he was kinda coerced into costume. But this year… this year we are going all out. And I mean… ALL out. There WILL be photos.
You will notice that my hair is dyed a different color for each costume because… why not? This year’s costume is no different. I went to ChatGPT and then took the results to FB to ask for help on deciding which color to go with. I think the results came out to be one of my favorite hair colors ever! (Pictures coming soon!)
We created our costumes this year based on an idea and a need to use what was in my closet. I had a skirt and top that I got at the Georgia Renaissance Festival SEVERAL years ago. I grabbed a red corset out of the studio pile and added a white crinoline and some jewelry. Voila! A…something. Steven got on the ball and got a whole outfit put together and I changed out my corset for a black one and a hat from Spirit. We are gonna look FIRE!! But I wasn’t sure how to answer the question from little kids about what I’m supposed to be.
Last year they wanted to know why I was dressed like a Christmas elf. I told them that I was doing recon work for Santa because at midnight it would officially be Christmas season. I wanted to be able to tell them a fun story to go along with our costumes.
ChatGPT to the Rescue!!
I put in the preliminary pictures of what we are wearing and asked for a story to go along with the outfits. Technically, Steven did his story in Gemini and I did mine in ChatGPT, but then I combined them in my program to make a whole story. Want to read it? Here you go! Want to skip it? No worries. Jump to the end.
The Chronomancer & The Time Tinker
A Halloween Chronicle of Lost Seconds and Borrowed Hearts
Long before the age of plastic and pixels, when lamplight still flickered through fog and airships hummed above the skyline, there was a city that lived and breathed by the rhythm of its clocks.
And in that city, two extraordinary souls watched time from opposite sides of its ticking heart.
Act I: The Broken Clock and the Man Who Would Mend Time
Professor Alistair Finch was born in a workshop that smelled of oil, brass, and sorrow. His father repaired pocket watches; his mother counted minutes between bills. Young Alistair could hear time — not the tock itself, but the way it trembled. He could tell the health of a clock by the quiver of its chime, and by sixteen he could craft gears finer than a spider’s web.
When his beloved sister was killed in a carriage accident, Alistair swore time itself was to blame.
If the world could be measured, then surely it could be rewound.
He built a machine that could — for a moment — turn back the tide. The Lament Configuration, a crystalline core suspended in brass, glowed with the power to rewrite a single heartbeat. He saved his sister… but at a terrible cost.
The device fractured his own existence. Every time he used it, his presence slipped further from reality — a half-second out of sync, a flicker in the corner of every photograph. The Royal Society of Temporal Engineers banished him, calling him a Chronomancer — a meddler in the sacred order of hours.
So he took to the road, draped in his Achronometer Mantle, goggles fixed tight, trousers woven with threads of lightning. He became a ghost of the modern age: stealing seconds, chasing redemption, living one tick ahead of disappearance.
Act II: The Tapestry of Time and the Woman Who Repaired It
Far from the smoke-filled laboratories of London, in the shimmering empire of Auralis, Lady Corvina Gearhart studied time not as a force, but as an art. As the empire’s Royal Horologist, she designed the Great Clocktower of Solara, a structure so vast its gears turned with the motion of the moon.
But when the empire fell to greed and war, the clocktower collapsed — and Corvina discovered something wondrous amid the wreckage:
The heart of the tower still pulsed.
Time, she realized, was not a river but a tapestry, and every act of courage, kindness, or wit was a thread that kept the weave intact.
She fashioned the surviving gear into a pendant — her Heart-of-Time Locket — and vowed to travel through festivals, fairs, and Halloweens disguised as an eccentric traveler.
Wherever she went, she gathered ‘Moments of Marvel’: the laughter of children, the forgiveness of strangers, the bravery of small hearts. Each moment glowed within the locket’s heart-shaped core, lighting her way as she mended the fraying threads of time.
Act III: The Collision
Their paths crossed one storm-lit evening when the Chronomancer’s unstable device tore a hole through the hours themselves. The sky froze. Birds hung mid-flight. Clocks stuttered.
And through the rift stepped Lady Corvina Gearhart, drawn by the cry of a wounded timeline.
Alistair raised his goggles, astonished.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Someone who mends what you’ve broken,” she replied, and smiled like sunrise through fog.
Together they worked — her weaving light, him tuning gears — until the rupture sealed with a soft click.
For the first time in years, Alistair felt the seconds align; for the first time since the fall, Corvina felt the tapestry hum.
They realized they were opposites of the same mechanism:
He kept time from unraveling, she reminded it why it mattered.
Act IV: The Timeless Partnership
From that night onward, they traveled together through carnivals and centuries, repairing small tears in the weave of history.
He tracked anomalies; she collected stories.
He adjusted the machinery of seconds; she restored the heart of them.
When the veil between years thins — especially on All Hallows’ Eve — they step through, disguised among revelers and candy-seekers.
The Chronomancer studies the ticking hearts of clocks and children alike, while the Time Tinker, ever curious, asks the brave, the clever, and the kind to lend her a spark to keep the gears turning.
If you meet Lady Corvina Gearhart, she may ask:
“What year is it?”
Tell her, “2025,” and she will gasp —
“2025?! My locket’s glow has dimmed! No wonder I’m dressed so strangely!”
Then she’ll look at you with a conspiratorial grin.
“I need your help, traveler. My locket only rekindles when kindness, courage, or cleverness is nearby. Can you help me?”
When you agree, she’ll whisper:
“If you see a man in a long black coat with silver trousers and curious goggles, tell him — ‘Lady Gearhart sent me to check the time.’ He’ll know you’re part of the repair crew.”
And somewhere in the crowd, the Chronomancer will tip his hat, his eyes glinting behind those lenses, and time — just for a moment — will seem to stand still.
Epilogue: Borrowed Time
Some say they appear only when the world forgets the value of a single minute.
Others claim that the Chronomancer and the Time Tinker are no longer separate at all — that every act of courage, every shared laugh, every gentle kindness they inspired has become the thread that keeps the hours together.
So if tonight feels a little longer,
if a wish seems to last a heartbeat more,
perhaps you’ve brushed against their work.
For Lady Corvina Gearhart and Professor Alistair Finch still walk among us — guardians of the ticking now — collecting stories, mending moments, and gifting us all a few borrowed seconds of wonder.
So there you have it…
We are planning to do a video tonight in our costumes and tell the story to record it for posterity. I am SO excited to be celebrating with my friends and band family again this year! If you’re out and about, please drop by and say hello to Lady Corvina!! You might just get a gift!!
