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"Sir? Um, is that…one of the prototypes?"

Lughaidh’s head turned slowly from his computer towards the source of the sound. Across the lab from where he worked, a young mechanic and his superior were engaged in a quiet conversation, and their voices dropped to a whisper when they realized they were being watched.

"Yeah. That’s Lughaidh," the senior mechanic explained in hushed tones, "the one with free will. He’s the only prototype who could be equipped with it because he doesn’t have the capacity to show sentiment – it’s a technical limitation, you could say. My advice to you is don’t bother talking to him. He never has much to say."

Such a reaction was expected, Lughaidh supposed as the two men hurried away. There were very few things in his life that could not be expected. Aisling’s visits were one of them, and as much as he always enjoyed her company he took pleasure from the fact that his existence was simple and predictable. Routine is good. There is comfort in monotony. Surprises could very well lead to danger, which in turn could lead to violence, and if there was one thing Lughaidh was sure of it was that he was never meant to fight.

That was a paradox, wasn’t it? What is a machine that cannot fulfill its intended function? He was created as a weapon – intended as Aisling’s counterpart – but it soon became clear that he was not and never would be her equal. What is he, then? Broken? No, regular maintenance ensured that such was not the case. There were also no obvious flaws in his construction or design, he had checked the blueprints himself. Was he useless? No, that could not be so, either; if he were useless he would have been scrapped for parts a long time ago. That is what the mechanics said would happen to him again and again as he failed to perform during weapons trials, but even though he did not have the strength, endurance, or ability of his fellow prototypes, the fact that he still existed ran contrary to their previous claim. If he were truly useless, he would have been discarded at the end of the testing period, and that event was so long ago that organic dragons struggled to remember it.

Were the mechanics lying? He asked himself. Of course not. The mechanics had always been honest with him about their intentions. They were especially honest about his performance and their feelings toward him. Most, it appeared, regarded him with either pity, exasperation, or both, but it was difficult to tell for certain. The mechanical staff must have encountered new information that would prove to them his worth, he reasoned, and, with that evidence in place, it was highly unlikely that he himself was useless. He had reflected on this conundrum so often in his mind that the internal monologue had become routine – all possibilities accounted for, all possible avenues of argumentation explored...All except one.

If I am not meant to fight, he wondered, what am I meant to do?

The question had plagued him ever since the day he had been granted free will. He had considered a plethora of possible answers, but none had given him anything close to the sort of satisfaction he craved. He liked the idea of helping others. His means, however, he remained unsure of. But these were questions for another time, he decided, and, casting the thoughts from his head, Lughaidh looked back to his screen and began to type once again.