When I started looking back through my Wattpad stories, I was reminded of Arcane Gears and my long-standing desire to tell a larger tale centered on Elara Finch. Earlier this month, I spent time sketching out the foundation for her first major narrated piece, Residuals of Wonder. This collection of flash fiction begins shortly after the events of Arcane Gears, giving me room to explore both Elara and the narrow world she inhabits, cramped between a tanner’s shop and an apothecary.
Elara Finch’s workshop was never meant to feel welcoming. It was built to function, wedged into a space where other trades bled their presence through stone and timber. The air carried traces of work done elsewhere, a constant reminder that nothing existed in isolation within her walls. Elara didn’t try to erase those intrusions into her cramped space. Instead she worked within the constraints, shaping purpose from limitations.
What emerged from her bench was not designed to impress. Her creations were shaped by patience and response, by systems that waited rather than demanded. Things brought to her were often unfinished, broken, or abandoned. When force failed to repair them, her restraint became the last option left to the desperate. Elara refuses to promise miracles. Instead, she promised attention and effort.
This is a quiet story, unfolding in the moment after something awakens and before the world decides what that awakening means. It’s about work resumed, boundaries held, and a space learning how to accommodate more than one presence without surrendering itself.
As the automaton sat on the workbench, Elara moved through her cramped workshop with practiced efficiency. She cleaned up the spilled gears, gathered scorched filaments, and sorted the cracked lenses before returning half-repaired devices to their drawers. Amidst the scents seeping through her shared walls, she picked out old oil and scorched metal beneath them.
When something shifted from behind her, Elara whirled around. She found nothing but the automaton still perched upon her workbench, its internal mechanisms humming and ticking away. She frowned as she crept closer to her creation, a coil of wire half lifted from the bench. As she neared it, the room stilled, the automaton included.
Elara waited and counted. By the time she reached five, she stepped back, shattering the artificial stillness. She surged forward and rested her hand on the automaton’s shoulder. The touch lacked any command. Nor did she trigger any of the thing’s runes. The act was nothing more than acknowledgment, and it didn’t flinch. Rather, its humming altered in response to the contact.
As a knock cut through her cramped workshop, Elara tore her gaze from the automaton and focused on the warped door. She plucked a tool off her workbench, holding it like a weapon as she opened the door to find a woman wrapped in a cloak worn thin from constant use. The stranger’s eyes darted between Elara and the improvised weapon, lingering just over her shoulder.
“Do you want to put that down?”
“No,” Elara said, resting the tool against her shoulder. She stepped closer and tapped the bundle clutched to her chest with the tool. “What do you want from me?”
The woman’s gaze drifted behind Elara as she licked her lips. “Did you make that?”
Elara glanced over her shoulder, finding her automaton looming behind her like an overzealous bodyguard. Her lips curled into a tight smile as she turned back to the stranger. “Would it make any difference if it’s my creation or another tinkerer’s?”
Clutching the wrapped bundle to her chest, the woman stared at the mismatched metal standing behind the young tinkerer. “If you created that yourself, you’re worthy of your reputation.”
“And what’s that?”
“Based on what I’ve heard, you fix things others won’t bother with or have already declared beyond repair.”
Elara leaned against her automaton as she crossed her arms. “Is that all?”
“There’s more.” The woman peered over her shoulder and inched forward, lowering her voice. “Amongst all those rumors and stories, they also confirm you don’t ask why people visit you or who sent them. Is that true?”
Elara stepped out of the doorway, ushering the stranger inside as she inclined her head. “For the most part.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I listen to what you’re wanting done before deciding.” She reached out and tapped her creation’s torso as her smile widened and took on a hint of warmth that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. “And yes, I created this automaton.”
After glancing behind her, the woman stepped inside and laid the bundle on the workbench. “The mages believe it’s cursed, and the guild won’t examine it.”
As Elara unwrapped the bundle, a faint ticking escaped the cloth, her eyes widening. When she unfolded the last of the fabric, she revealed a brass housing no larger than her palm that was threaded with several crystal veins. Elara studied the cracked lines running through the crystalline lattice.
“I already know why the guild refused to work with you.” Elara’s finger slid across the slight fracture. She turned toward the woman and licked her lips. “Considering it’s a memory anchor, why would the wizards believe it’s cursed?”
Elara stepped forward and pressed a finger into the woman’s chest. “And before you answer, if you continue lying to me, I won’t help you.”
“They weren’t involved in creating this one,” the stranger said, her shoulders slumping forward as if surrendering to an immense weight.
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