The Forgotten Lessons

The village of Ashvine was no stranger to travelers, but the man who arrived that day was unlike any they had seen before. He was tall and gaunt, his dark coat brushing the ground as he walked. His hair, streaked with silver, was pulled tight against a face sharpened by hunger and ambition. He carried no pack, no visible supplies, only a small metallic case that had formed a rectangular shape in one of his pockets. 

It was the eyes that unsettled them most. Eyes that gleamed not with curiosity or gratitude, but calculation.

“Who is that?” Mina whispered, peeking from behind her mother’s skirt.

“No one we should speak to,” her mother replied, pulling Mina back.

The man didn’t seem to notice. His gaze swept over the village like a hawk surveying a field, and when it landed on the cluster of constructs working silently at the edge of town, he smiled—a thin, sharp expression devoid of warmth.

The man called himself Victor. When he spoke, it was with an ease that disarmed the wary and drew in the curious. He claimed to be a historian, someone who had wandered the broken world to understand what had been lost and what could be reclaimed.

But Victor wasn’t here for stories.

He knelt before a Creche construct, watching its nimble arms weave shards of glass into the framework of a new water tank. His fingers twitched at his sides, as if itching to put the Creche’s skills to their own use.

“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” he said, though no one had asked.

“What do you want with them?” an elder asked, his voice wary.

Victor turned, his smile returning. “The same thing you do. To build. To repair.”

But that wasn’t true. Victor didn’t see the Creche as partners or even protectors. To him, they were tools. Tools that, in the hands of the right person, could reshape the world—not through gentle renewal, but through precision, efficiency, and control.