Not a story, but a concept and idea for anyone who is still thinking about the Falses:
Cogsmeade and False’s Hermitcraft base share a fair few similarities. The build styles are very similar, naturally, since both are built by False - but there’s shared concepts as well. A tall central tower surrounded by walkways that confuse interior and exterior, long bridges, wooden beams, mountainous terrain...
Imagine, for a second, that once they were two parts of the same base. Imagine False’s Hermitcraft base but with a big clock on the tower (which, I should note, looks oversized in Cogsmeade, as if it’s reusing a design meant originally for a larger building). Imagine an airship or two in the empty skies, to go along with the train - they could even have been meant to support the elytra course, once upon a time. Imagine the factory with great big copper clockworks to decorate it. Imagine what that could have been.
I have no idea if any of this was intentional - these sort of minor coincidences seem more pareidolic than indicative of any actual intent - but either way the storytelling on display is heartbreaking.