The next day had not gone to plan, but for an entirely different reason. Awoken by the sounds of his parents calling his name, he assumed the worst and took his time preparing himself before heading to meet them. “I’m sure that I finished enough shafts yesterday, and there was still some water left from the day before. Maybe Mother decided to make stew, and now there isn’t enough?”

After a minute of struggling to think of what he had done wrong and failing, and realizing that he was just delaying the inevitable, Aven pushed aside his curtain to find that his parents were not in the living section. Moving through the tent in a clockwise fashion, and hearing another round of yells go up for him, he finally arrived at the rear exit to find his parents hurriedly… making arrows with his golem?

“Mother? Father?” He kept his response simple, in case the oddity before him was unrelated to their earlier calls and a harsh lesson was in store. Instead, they turned on him with faces of glee as his father raised his hands to the air and his mother enveloped him in a hug. Their laughing drowned out his first few questions, and so he had to endure the skinship as he was passed from one suddenly loving parent to the next.

His mother rained kisses on his forehead before Aven’s father slapped a hand on his shoulder. His father met his eyes and said four words - “You’ve done us proud, boy!” This led to a round of agreement by his mother, which was continued by his father, with Aven the only one left out of the loop.

Finally, he managed to find his voice. “What is it that I have done?” He immediately regretted the squeak in his voice.

“What did you do?” His mother parroted back before awkwardly pulling him to the craftstation and golem that had gone unnoticed. Without the focus on his parents and their sudden praise, he could see that his golem was not simply shifting wood from one pile to the next. He was doing that as well, but what caught Aven’s attention and rooted him to the spot was the blade of metal in the golems hand. Magical constructs were bound to follow orders, this law set in stone like the very runes carved into the golem’s forms, but for a second Aven could not help but imagine his stone figure turning the weapon towards him.

Noticing his son’s face, his father roughly pulled him to the side to gain a better view of the workbench. Aven tried to resist, but his new perspective informed that what his construct was holding was not a weapon, but a saw. The golem was sawing through one board after another, much faster than Aven the day before. Like a knife through goat’s butter, it cut one square shaft after the other of the longer section of wood and showed no signs of stopping.

Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.

Mouth agape, Aven looked to his parents who simply nodded and continued staring. For the next five minutes the trio looked on as it continued its work. While the cuts were less than straight and many of the shafts were splintered from excessive force, later to be used as kindling, the golem’s speed more than made up for it.

“You will need to work on its accuracy,” his mother mentioned, holding up one of the lopsided square shafts and running a finger along its edge, “but that will come with time. A little practice is all that is required, compared to learning such a dexterous art in the first place.”

His father shared in his mother’s sentiment, nodded along and breaking into one of his rare smiles. “And imagine what it will be like with two or three! The warm months will not be the only rest period once we have a team of crafting golems.”

His father began to stroke his beard, his eyebrows knitting in thought as he turned to look at Aven. “Tell me - how did you manage to teach it? What must we do to create more golems like these?”

“I… am not sure,” he replied, having come upon much the same question. “Ever since I retrieved it from Creator Fernon, I have simply had it follow me. We have traveled through the village, explored the hills and counted the livestock, and only yesterday did I have it help with the crafting of arrows. But I only ordered it to move the lumber, not work it.”

That gave his father pause, which his mother took to retrieve his smoking pipe. He nodded in recognition and lit the end, taking a puff before continuing. “It seems it matters not the how, in the end, as much as the who. Though you do not know, some action of yours has led the construct to develop a new skill. Mayhaps it is imitation, or possibly an order perceived in a new light, but the truth remains that you were the Creator to do it.” He punctuated the point with a stab of his pipe, a grin peeking out from behind. “As such, I give you leave from your chores.”

Aven was surprised, still consumed by the question of how he was to teach his golem when the method of instruction was unknown to him, but his mother beat him to it. “Do you not think that is rash, husband? His chores had little effect on the golem’s teaching, and look what it is continuing to do. Would it not be wiser to refine the method before giving all the work to the beast?”

“I agree dear, and that is why I give him leave from his chores. Take your construct, and do what you will with it. Explore, play games, it matters not. However,” he said with weight, “that is with the assumption that your golem will continue to learn. And to learn is to practice. In your stead, whenever you see fit, be it morning or night, you are to have your golem continue your chores to show that this is not the work of a blue moon. Do you understand?”

Aven agreed, wondering if there was a golem to make more blue moons or if he would have to create it himself.