Throne of Norsetrine

Chapter 1 – Birth of Emotions Clank! Clink! Ting! The rhythmic sound of metal echoed throughout the underground workshop of House Colorose, bouncing off stone walls that had heard this same song a thousand times before. It was a familiar melody to every servant in the estate. Whenever that sound continued for hours without pause, without a single break for tea or supper... It meant only one thing. Young Master Pari was inventing something again. Somewhere above, in the estate's kitchen, an old maid sighed as she packed a third untouched dinner tray back into the pantry. "...A little more..." A silver-haired boy leaned over a cluttered workbench, his crimson eyes fixed on a tiny metallic figure no taller than his forearm. A single candle guttered beside him, its flame the only witness to attempt number forty-seven. The workshop looked less like a noble heir's laboratory and more like a battlefield. Scattered gears, some still spinning lazily on their own. Broken springs, coiled like dead snakes across the floor. Cracked Eteriom crystals, dimmed and useless, swept into a corner. Burn marks covered one wall — a permanent souvenir from Attempt 19. Half-finished inventions occupied every shelf, some blinking, some smoking faintly, one occasionally sighing. And in the far corner, one pair of boots continued whistling by themselves. Off-key. Relentless. "...Still doing that?" Pari frowned without even turning his head. The boots answered with an even louder, more off-key melody, as if personally offended by the question. "...I'll fix you later." The boots somehow sounded even louder in protest, stomping twice for emphasis. "...Or maybe not." He returned his attention to the tiny golem resting on the table. It was simple. Round head. Small arms. Short legs. Nothing flashy. Nothing elegant. Just... Cute. Pari carefully wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, leaving a faint streak of grease across his brow. "...Attempt forty-seven." He glanced at the notebook lying beside him, its spine cracked from overuse, pages dog-eared and stained with candle wax. Large letters filled the cover page. **PROJECT: SELF-LEARNING GOLEM** Below it... Forty-six attempts. Every one crossed out in increasingly frustrated ink. *Attempt 3.* *Walked into a wall until battery depleted.* "...In its defense, it was a very confident wall-walk." *Attempt 11.* *Learned how to scream.* "...Still don't know why. I never taught it that. I never taught it *anything* yet." *Attempt 19.* *Exploded.* "...Understandable, given the circumstances. I probably would've exploded too." *Attempt 27.* *Refused to move after discovering gravity.* "...Honestly... same. Gravity is rude like that." *Attempt 34.* *Insulted my handwriting.* "...Which was rude. It said, and I quote, 'illegible.' A machine with no hands called MY handwriting illegible." *Attempt 46.* *Lasted six seconds.* "...Personal best." He smiled despite himself, tapping his pen against the page. Failure never bothered him. Not really. Not anymore. He'd long since stopped flinching at the sound of something sparking, sputtering, or screaming in confusion. Failure simply meant... One less wrong answer standing between him and the right one. Pari reached toward a velvet cloth folded neatly at the edge of the workbench — the one clean, undamaged surface in the entire room. Resting upon it was a glowing blue crystal no larger than a thumb, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat. "Eteriom Core..." He picked it up with surprising gentleness, cradling it the way one might hold something newly hatched. "So... are you finally going to work?" Silence, save for the boots' endless whistling. "I'll take that as confidence." With practiced hands, he opened the tiny compartment set into the little golem's chest. A faint hiss of released pressure escaped as the panel swung open, revealing a nest of miniature gears no bigger than grains of rice. The mechanisms clicked into place one by one as he worked. Tiny gears aligned. Runes engraved along the inner frame began faintly glowing, tracing thin lines of light like veins waking up. Pari inhaled deeply, holding the breath the way he always did right before the moment of truth. "This is it..." He slowly lowered the Eteriom Core into the waiting socket. *Click.* The workshop became quiet. Even the boots, for once, seemed to hold their breath. "..." "..." Nothing happened. Pari waited. Five seconds. Ten. Twenty. The little golem remained completely motionless. Its tiny glass eyes stayed dark, lifeless, unbothered by the boy hovering over it with held breath and aching hope. "..." Pari rubbed the back of his neck, the familiar sting of disappointment creeping in. "...Forty-eight." He sighed dramatically, flopping backward onto his stool. "I was already thinking of a cool introduction speech too. Something like — 'Rise, and greet the world I built for you.' Real dramatic. Real noble-heir energy. Wasted on absolutely nothing." He reached forward to remove the core. Then— *Click.* "...Hm?" Tiny blue lights flickered inside the golem's eyes. Once. Twice. Then... Darkness. "...You're kidding me." Pari leaned closer, nose nearly touching the golem's round little head. "So close... come on, come on, come ON—" Just as he extended one finger to nudge it— **FWOOM!** The little eyes suddenly burst into a brilliant blue glow, flooding the workshop in soft light. "WAAAH!!" Pari jumped backward so fast that his chair tipped over behind him. **CRASH!** "Ow! Ow ow ow—my spine, my *actual* spine—" He landed flat on the floor, staring up at the ceiling, momentarily forgetting the miracle sitting three feet away. The tiny golem slowly lifted its head. Its neck made a soft mechanical sound. *Tick... tick...* Its eyes wandered around the workshop, taking in the scattered gears, the burn marks, the whistling boots, the ceiling, the candle flame — cataloguing an entire world it had no name for yet. Left. Right. Up. Down. The world. For the very first time. Pari remained frozen on the floor, propped up on his elbows, not daring to move. "..." "..." "...Hello?" The little golem tilted its head at the sound of his voice, as if the word itself were a puzzle worth solving. "..." Pari slowly stood up, brushing sawdust and gear-shavings off his trousers with exaggerated care, the way a man tiptoes around a sleeping beast he isn't sure is friendly yet. "...No explosion..." He waited, watching for smoke. "...No screaming..." Another few seconds. Still nothing but that quiet mechanical *tick... tick...* "...No property damage..." The golem blinked. An actual, deliberate blink, both glass eyes dimming and brightening in sequence. Pari blinked back, entirely unsure what the proper etiquette was for this situation. "...This is new." He cautiously approached, one careful step after another, the way he'd approach a bird that might startle and fly off a windowsill. Except this bird was made of tin and had no wings and absolutely could not fly, and Pari knew that, and yet some instinct in him still tiptoed anyway. Until he was standing right in front of it. The tiny machine looked directly into his eyes. Neither of them moved. "..." "..." Pari scratched his cheek awkwardly, feeling suddenly, ridiculously nervous — as if this were a first meeting with a foreign dignitary rather than a golem he'd built himself, out of scraps, over forty-eight sleepless nights. "...So..." He crouched down to its level. "...Do you... understand me?" The little golem simply stared, head tilted, saying nothing. "Right. Of course. Silly question. You've been alive for—" he checked the workshop clock "—about ninety seconds. Understanding language wasn't exactly on the itinerary yet." He held up one finger between them. "Let's start smaller. Can you... follow this?" He moved the finger slowly left. The golem's head turned, tracking it. Left. Pari's breath caught. He moved it right. The head turned again. Right, smooth as clockwork — because, well, it was clockwork. "...You ARE watching me." He moved his finger up, then down, then in a slow circle, and each time, without fail, the golem's tiny head followed, eyes locked on like it was the single most fascinating thing in existence. Something warm cracked open in Pari's chest, spreading slow and unfamiliar, like sunlight through a cracked window he hadn't realized was shuttered. "...Ha. HA! You're actually tracking me! Forty-eight attempts and THIS is the one that—" He caught himself getting loud and immediately dropped his voice back to a whisper, glancing guiltily toward the workshop door as if the whole estate might come crashing in to see what the fuss was about. "—sorry. Sorry. I'm being weird. This is just... a lot. You have no idea how many nights I sat right here talking to a pile of dead gears, hoping one day they'd talk back." The golem tilted its head the other way now, as if trying to process the sudden shift in his tone. "Do you have a name yet? No, obviously not, you don't even have a *concept* of names yet, you've been conscious for—" he checked the clock again "—two minutes. I really need to stop asking you questions you can't possibly answer." He sat down cross-legged on the floor in front of it, workshop mess forgotten entirely. "Okay. New plan. I'll talk, you listen, and whenever you're ready, you do... whatever it is you're going to do. No pressure. Well — some pressure. This is attempt forty-eight and my father thinks I've been down here 'wasting Colorose resources on toys,' so a LITTLE pressure. But mostly no pressure." The golem's eyes flickered once, a small pulse of light, and it raised one tiny arm. Slowly. Unsteadily. Like a newborn fawn testing legs it didn't yet trust. Pari's eyes went wide. "...Are you— are you waving? Is that a wave?" The arm wobbled, dropped, then rose again, a little steadier this time. "That's a wave. That is DEFINITELY a wave. Oh, this is—" he pressed both hands over his mouth to stop himself from shouting again, muffled words tumbling out anyway. "This is incredible. This is the first — you're the first one that's ever — okay. Okay okay okay. Let's not scare it off with excessive enthusiasm." He took a breath, steadied himself, and gave a small, careful wave back. "Hello." The golem's head tilted, processing. Then — haltingly, almost experimentally — it raised its little metal arm again and moved it in a small, wobbly arc. An echo. A mimicry. The very first thing it had ever chosen to do on its own was copy the boy who made it. Pari felt something in his throat tighten in a way he didn't quite have a word for. "...You're copying me." The arm waved again. "You ARE. You little—" he laughed, a genuine, surprised laugh that hadn't left his chest in longer than he cared to admit. "Forty-eight attempts, and I finally get a golem with manners." From the corner of the room, the whistling boots let out a long, warbling note, as if personally jealous of the attention. "Oh, don't start," Pari said without looking. "You've had your moment. This is someone else's turn." The boots stomped once, sulking, then fell into a quieter, grudging hum. Pari turned back to the golem, who was now experimentally raising its other arm, testing whether that one worked too. It did — clumsily, jerkily, but it worked. "You're figuring it out fast," Pari murmured, watching closely, professional curiosity beginning to war with the warmth in his chest. "Faster than any of the others. They usually just... sat there. Or screamed. Or exploded. You're doing none of those things, which, frankly, sets a new personal record." The golem lowered both arms and simply looked at him again. Watching. Waiting. Learning. "...Right. I suppose I should give you a name, shouldn't I? Can't keep calling you 'attempt forty-eight' forever. That's not a name, that's a lab report." He tapped his chin, thinking. "Something simple. Something that fits." His eyes drifted to the notebook, to the crossed-out failures, to the long string of nights that had led to this one small, wobbling wave. "...Rin. How does that sound? Short. Easy to remember. Easy to shout across a burning workshop if things go wrong again." At the sound of the name, the golem's eyes pulsed — brighter, just for a moment, as if something inside its tiny Eteriom heart had reached out and caught the word, turned it over, and decided to keep it. Pari noticed. "...Did you just—" He leaned in. "Say it again in my head — okay, that's ridiculous, you can't hear my head — say it — Rin. Rin. Do you like that?" The golem's arm rose again, wobbling, and gave one small, deliberate wave. Pari stared for a long moment. Then he laughed — softly this time, more disbelief than joy, though there was plenty of joy tangled in there too. "...Welcome to the world, Rin." The little golem tilted its head once more, eyes glowing steady now instead of flickering, as if settling into itself for the very first time. Inside its Eteriom Core... Something impossible had begun. Not a command. Not a program. Not an order etched into its runes by its creator's hand. The first faint spark, small and stubborn and entirely its own... Of learning. And somewhere deep within that tiny artificial heart, past the gears and the glowing crystal and the forty-eight failures that had come before it... The first step toward something no one in the history of House Colorose — or perhaps the world — had ever successfully created before... The birth of emotions. ---