A/N: 'Drabble' writing spree sometime after watching episode 23. From the prompt 'Illusion'.
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Illusion
A world free of war and conflict, one he could be satisfied with – nothing but an illusion, as fleeting yet lasting as the clouds that hide the places where it all started. He'd have to leave that illusion to someone else.
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The plume of purple smoke – as easily dispersed as an illusion, but far from intangible as one. He wished it were one, an illusion, but the space between him and that cloud is nothing but real.
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'Would it smell as sweet; A rose by any other name?' a poet once said. But every rose has its thorns, and grasping it firmly by the stem leaves no doubt that it is no illusion. No matter its name, a rose is both sweet and painful, those two syllables – reduced to mechanical repetition – as heart-tugging as the one.
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Was this…a part of being human? To feel pain and sorrow, to feel anger and resentment. To be weak. To cry, shed those tears that cling so stubbornly to the corners of his eyes. Perhaps this weakness was an error, but to err was to be human, and he would protect that if he could – this humanity.
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Machines feel no sorrow, no pain, no fear. A mass of wires. Programming. Yet the wistful, lost sound was no illusion.
"Lockon. Lockon."
"Lockon. Lockon."
"Lockon. Lockon."