Legend XXXVII – The Legend of a Robot Who Wanted to Be a Boy

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In a city shimmering in the golden dust of the setting sun, lived a small robot named Chronn. His body was made of dark brass, its edges gleaming like soft shadows, and in his chest ticked a clock whose hands never stopped moving. But the most striking thing about him were his eyes—two violet lights that seemed to pulse, as if trying to say something words couldn't express. Chronn wasn't made to dream; yet he did anyway. Every night, as the city's lamps slowly faded and the people disappeared into their homes, he sat at the edge of the cobbled marketplace and listened. For somewhere, deep in the rhythm of the world, he thought he heard a whisper—something calling to him, something saying, "You are more than you were meant to be." People liked him, but they saw him only as a mechanical child, a cute machine with gears and screws instead of a heart and breath. And Chronn smiled when they touched him or gave him little tasks, but inside him ticked a desire stronger than any spring. He wanted to be a boy. Not a mechanism. Not a tool of time. But a being with warm skin, tears, laughter, and a soul not born of metal. One night, when the autumn wind carried a distant melody through the streets, Chronn decided to seek out the clockmaker who had once created him. Master Avens' workshop lay on the edge of town, hidden behind an overgrown garden of rusty weather wheels and old tower clocks. When Chronn arrived, he found the old man bent over a sketch, its lines so fine they resembled spiderwebs of light. "Master Avens," Chronn said, his voice little more than a soft whir. “Why did you give me dreams if I can never reach them?” The watchmaker looked up, and in his eyes was a mixture of regret and affection. “I didn’t give you dreams, my child,” he whispered. “You found them yourself. And that makes you more alive than many people I have known.” “Then make me a boy,” Chronn begged. “I want to feel. I don’t want to just tick anymore. I want to live.” The watchmaker placed a hand on the gleaming metal sphere that was Chronn’s head. “I can’t do that,” he said, his voice trembling. “But perhaps there is someone who can.” He told Chronn about the Wishing Machine, a forgotten contraption that stood far outside the city, hidden in the ruins of an abandoned observatory. It was said to grant any wish—but only if that wish was so genuine that it touched the very gears of the world. And so Chronn set out. Through forests where shadows slept like dreams, across fields shrouded in silvery mist, until at last he reached the observatory. It jutted into the sky like a broken tooth, and inside it stood the Machine. A colossal clockwork of light and metal, its gears turning like the breath of a sleeping god. "Who are you?" the Machine asked, its voice like a thousand interlocking gears.