Elara loved the smell of warm oil, polished brass, and the faint, exciting zing of static electricity that always seemed to hang in the air of her attic workshop. It wasn’t a grand place, tucked away under the eaves of her family’s slightly crooked, cheerfully painted house in the town of Cogsworthy Springs. But to Elara, it was the most wonderful room in the world. Sunlight, often dusty but always welcome, slanted through a round porthole window, illuminating shelves crammed with gears of every size, spools of copper wire, tiny bellows, mismatched springs, and jars filled with shimmering powders labelled “Moondust (for extra shine)” and “Sun-sparkles (use sparingly!).”
Her parents, both renowned inventors themselves – her mother crafted musical weather vanes that sang opera in the rain, and her father built self-folding laundry contraptions (still a work in progress) – had given her the attic space for her tenth birthday. They encouraged her tinkering, her endless questions, and her habit of taking things apart just to see how they ticked.
But Elara had one secret in her workshop, a secret so precious and so extraordinary that even her inventive parents didn’t know about it.
This secret sat on a velvet cushion on her main workbench, currently making a soft, rhythmic tick-tock-whirr sound. It was Cogsworth.
Cogsworth was a dragon, but not the fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding kind you read about in dusty old storybooks. He was about the size of a well-fed cat, his body a marvellous construction of gleaming copper plates, intricate brass gears, and tiny, whirring flywheels. His wings, made of carefully stitched leather and delicate metal struts, could flap with surprising speed, though he wasn’t quite built for long-distance flight – more for enthusiastic, if wobbly, hops across the workshop. His eyes were two large, beautifully crafted sapphire lenses that glowed with a soft, intelligent blue light. Instead of smoke or fire, when Cogsworth got particularly excited or happy, a shower of harmless, colourful sparks would erupt from his snout with a cheerful phhht! sound.
Elara had found Cogsworth a year ago, discarded in a heap of forgotten inventions at the annual Cogsworthy Springs Swap Meet. He’d been rusty, silent, and missing a crucial winding key. Everyone else had seen a piece of junk. Elara had seen potential. She’d traded her prize-winning self-buttering toast rack for him, a decision she’d never regretted.
It had taken her three months of patient cleaning, oiling, and crafting a new, specially designed winding key forged from a silver teaspoon and a thimble, but one magical afternoon, with a final, hopeful turn, Cogsworth had blinked his sapphire eyes, given a mighty tick-CHUGGA-whirr-POP!, and sneezed a rainbow of sparks right into Elara’s delighted face.
“Oh, Cogsworth!” she whispered now, gently polishing a smudge from his copper snout with her sleeve. “The Stardust Festival is only a week away. Can you believe it?”
Cogsworth tilted his head, his internal gears whirring thoughtfully. He couldn’t speak in words, but he had a whole language of clicks, whirs, and happy spark-puffs that Elara understood perfectly. A series of rapid, excited ticks followed by a little jump meant he was very excited indeed.
“I know! It’s the best night of the year,” Elara continued, her eyes shining. “All the lights, the music, the new inventions everyone shows off! And Papa says this year, the Great Star Cog, the one that powers the whole town, is supposed to shine brighter than ever.”
Cogsworth let out a soft, contented clink.
Elara picked up a small, silver oilcan. “Just a little touch-up for your wing joints, my friend. We want you to be in top condition for the festivities. Maybe this year, I’ll even be brave enough to show you to Mama and Papa.”
The thought sent a nervous flutter through her. Cogsworth was her most amazing creation, her dearest friend. But he was also… different. The other children had self-bouncing balls or programmable pets. No one had a miniature clockwork dragon.
Suddenly, a strange sound interrupted her thoughts. It wasn’t one of Cogsworth’s usual happy whirs or the familiar hum of the town’s machinery outside. It was a faint, grating noise, like rusty gears grinding together, coming from downstairs. Then, her mother’s voice, usually so cheerful, called out with a note of concern, “Elara? Darling? Is your Sparkle-Spinner acting up? The lights in the kitchen just flickered rather alarmingly!”
Elara frowned. Her Sparkle-Spinner, a device that collected stray ambient energy to power her smaller gadgets, rarely misbehaved. “No, Mama! It’s fine!” she called back, though she quickly glanced at the device in the corner. It seemed to be humming steadily.
Cogsworth, however, let out a low, worried grrrr-clunk, his sapphire eyes dimming slightly. He nudged Elara’s hand with his snout, then looked towards the porthole window, a tiny puff of dull, greyish sparks escaping him.
“What is it, boy?” Elara asked, stroking his head.
Outside, the usual cheerful hum of Cogsworthy Springs – a symphony of ticking clocks, whirring automatons, and chugging steam-powered delivery carts – seemed… off. There was a new, discordant note, a subtle dragging, like an orchestra slowly losing its tempo.
A shiver of unease ran down Elara’s spine. Something wasn’t right. Not just in her house, but in the whole town. And she had a sinking feeling the Stardust Festival, and perhaps even her best friend Cogsworth, might be in trouble.
