A Prayer for the Crown-Shy

Mosscap gave Dex a sympathetic nod. The hard climb to Hart’s Brow was more than a week behind them, but Dex’s body was still feeling it, and they had made no secret of this. “On that note, Sibling Dex,” Mosscap said, “I can’t help but notice that the sign says it’s another twenty miles to Stump, and—”

“Yeah, day’s getting late,” Dex agreed. Twenty miles wasn’t so bad, but creamy highway or not, they were still deep in forest and had yet to see anyone else on the road. There was no reason beyond impatience to continue pressing on in the dark, and though Dex was looking forward to being in a proper town again, stillness and rest sounded preferable in the moment.

They pulled off the road at a simple clearing built for that exact purpose, and together, Dex and Mosscap made camp. The two of them had fallen into an unspoken rhythm with this in recent days. Dex locked down everything with wheels, Mosscap unfolded the kitchen on the wagon’s exterior, Dex fetched chairs, Mosscap started the fire. There was no discussion around it anymore.

As Mosscap fussed with connecting the biogas tank to the fire drum, Dex pulled out their pocket computer and opened their mailbox. “Whoa,” they said.

“What is it?” Mosscap asked as it secured the metal hose to the gas tank’s valve.

Dex flicked through message after message after message. Never in their life had they gotten this much mail. “A lot of people want to meet you,” they said. This wasn’t entirely unexpected. The moment Dex had regained satellite signal after climbing back down the mountain, they’d sent messages to the village councils, the Wildguard, the monastic network, and every other contact they could think of. The first robot to reach out to humans since the Awakening wasn’t something to be kept secret or left a surprise, Dex felt. Mosscap had come to meet humanity as a whole; that was who Dex had informed.

It made sense, Dex supposed, that everyone had written back.

“We’ve got a lot of invites from the City,” Dex said. They leaned against the wagon’s outer wall as they skimmed through. “Um … the University, obviously, and the City History Museum, and—oh, shit.” They raised their eyebrows.

Mosscap pulled its chair up beside the unlit fire drum and sat down. “What?”

“They want to do a convergence,” Dex said.

“What’s that?”

“Uh, it’s a formal gathering where all the monks come together at the All-Six for a few days for a…” Dex gestured vaguely. “You know, there’s a ceremony, and talks, and … it’s a big deal.” They scratched their ear as they read over the gushing message. “We don’t do those very often.”

“I see,” Mosscap said, but its voice was distracted, and it wasn’t looking their way at all. “Not that I don’t care, Sibling Dex, but—”

“Yep,” Dex said with a nod, knowing what was coming next. “Do your thing.”

Mosscap leaned in toward the fire drum, as close as was safe, its glowing eyes fixed on the apparatus within. It flicked the switch on the side of the drum, and with a soft whoosh, the fire leapt to life. “Ha!” Mosscap said delightedly. “Oh, it’s wonderful, it really is.” It sat back in its chair, folding its hands in its lap as it watched the flames dance. “I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this.”

The arrival of warmth and light was the casual signal that the campsite was finally in order, and Dex decided the messages could wait. They put their computer away and, at long last, did what they’d spent hours longing to do. They shed their dirty, sweat-soaked, forest-flecked clothes, set up the camp shower, turned the water on, and stepped into the spray.

“Gods around,” they moaned. Dried salt and accumulated trail dust veritably peeled from their skin, running in grubby spirals into the greywater catch. The clean water stung as it hit scrapes still healing, and soothed the constellations of insect bites Dex had been scratching despite their best efforts. The water pressure was nothing more than decent, and the temperature was only as hot as the wagon’s solar coating could coax from deep-forest sunlight, but even so, it felt to Dex like the finest luxury in the world. They leaned their head back, letting the water run through their hair as they stared at the sky above the trees. Stars were breaking through the pinkish-blue, and Motan’s curved stripes hung high, smiling reassuringly down at the moon Dex called home.

Mosscap stuck its head around the corner of the wagon. “Would you like me to make food while you bathe?” it asked.

“You really don’t have to,” Dex said. They were still warring with their personal discomfort over letting the robot do tasks of this sort, despite the fact that Mosscap loved few things more than learning how to use stuff.

“Of course I don’t have to,” Mosscap scoffed, clearly finding Dex’s reluctance on this front ridiculous. It held up a dehydrated pack of three-bean stew. “Would this be a good meal?” it asked.

“That…” Dex relented. “That would be perfect,” they said. “Thanks.”

Mosscap got the stove going, and Sibling Dex prayed silently to the god they’d devoted themself to. Praise Allalae for showers. Praise Allalae for sweet mint soap that lathered up thick as meringue. Praise Allalae for the tube of anti-itch cream they were going to slather themself with once they’d dried off. Praise Allalae for—

They pursed their lips, realizing they’d forgotten to fetch their towel before getting in the shower. They threw an eye toward the hook on the side of the wagon where it should have been hanging. To their surprise, the towel was there, right where it should be. Mosscap must’ve brought it, they thought, when it went to search the pantry.

Dex gave a small, grateful smile.

Praise Allalae for the company.

2 THE WOODLANDS

The trees the village was tucked within were deceptively young. They towered majestically over the road, taller than any building outside the City, their layered branches creating a dappled lace of sunlight. But the age of a Kesken pine was expressed not in height but width. The early years of saplings were spent exhausting every calorie sucked from both light and dirt on building themselves upward, trying to escape the shade of the lower forest for the brightness above. It was only after they’d spent years converting unfiltered sun into life-giving sugar that they began to expand horizontally, transforming into behemoths as the centuries drummed on. By their species’s standards, the trees in the place that Dex and Mosscap had entered were slim teenagers, less than two hundred years old.

There was only one reminder of the giants that had once stood in this forest (and would again, one day). Dex stopped the wagon and hopped off their bike as they approached the village’s namesake: an enormous stump, wide as a modest house, its spiring might cut clean away in the early days of the Factory Age, a time in which not much thought was given to spending twenty minutes on killing something that had taken a thousand years to grow. There was a shrine to Bosh placed before the stump, a stone pedestal with a carved sphere set on top. Small ribbons had been tied to it by countless passersby, their colors faded and fraying in the open air. Dex had ribbon in the wagon but did not fetch it. They merely capped their hand atop the mossy stone, and bowed their head in greeting and reverence.

Mosscap walked up behind them, observing. “May I ask why you do this, given that Bosh will not notice?” it asked.

“The shrine’s not for Bosh,” Sibling Dex said. “It’s for us. People, I mean. Bosh exists and does their work regardless of whether we pay attention. But if we do pay attention, we can connect to them. And when we do, we feel … well, you know. Whole.”

Mosscap nodded. “I feel that way with anything I observe in the wilds. And I suppose that’s why I don’t understand the need for this—no offense, I hope.”

“None taken,” Dex said. “But you know the feeling I mean?”

“Very much so. I feel—I connect simply by watching things move through the Cycle. I don’t need an object to facilitate that feeling.”

“Neither do we, if we remember to stop and look,” Dex said. “But that’s the point of a shrine, or an idol, or a festival. The gods don’t care. Those things remind us to stop getting lost in everyday bullshit. We have to take a sec to tap into the bigger picture. That’s easier said than done for a lot of folks—you’ll see.” They paused for a moment, reflecting. “You know, it’s funny, the way you said that.”

“The way I said what?” Mosscap asked.

“That you don’t need an object to facilitate that feeling.” Dex gave a single chuckle. “You are an object facilitating that feeling. The feeling’s coming from you, after all.”

Mosscap’s lenses shifted, and Dex could hear a small whir inside its head. “I’d never thought of it that way,” Mosscap said. It put its hands flat against its torso, falling silent and serious.

Dex watched the robot contemplate itself before the remains of the stolen tree, and likewise felt a thought take root. “You know, you might be a powerful thing for people to see.”

“How so?”

“It’s one thing to be told about the world as it was,” Dex said. “It’s another to see a piece of it. We have ruins, and things like this”—they nodded at the stump—“but you’re the furthest thing from a stone shrine. It’s not like I ever doubted the Awakening happened, but meeting you made it real in a way no museum ever could. I think you’ll bring a lot of perspective to the people we meet, even if all they do is see you walk by.”

Mosscap took that in. “I hadn’t thought about me providing them with perspective,” it said. “That’s what I’m seeking.”

“Sure, but exchange is what you get out of any interaction, even the smallest ones. Everything has a give-and-take.”

“Still, what you’re saying is quite a responsibility.” Mosscap folded its fingers together before its chest, and its eyes glowed intensely even within the brightness of the day. “What if I make a mess of this?”

“Don’t think of it that way,” Dex said. “You don’t have to do anything. You just have to be you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you nervous.”

“Yes, well, you did, Sibling Dex.” The robot wrung its hands together, and the whir in its head grew louder. “I’ve never met any humans but you, and I know that doing so is rather the whole point of me being here, but now the enormity of it is hitting me, and—and—oh, I must seem so foolish.”

Dex shrugged. “Honestly, I’m just surprised it took you until we were ten minutes out to—”

“Ten minutes?!” Mosscap cried, clutching its face. “Oh, no. Oh, no.”

“Hey.” Dex laid a hand on the anxious machine’s forearm. The naked metal components were uniformly warm to the touch. “It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine. You’ll do great, in fact.”

Mosscap looked at them, its lenses expanded wide. “Do you think they’ll be afraid of me? Or … dislike me, perhaps?” It glanced down at its body. “Will they not like what I remind them of?”

“Maybe,” Dex said with gentle honesty. “But I highly doubt many of them will feel that way, and anyway, you don’t have to worry about that.”

“Why not?”

Dex smiled reassuringly. “Because I’ll be with you the whole way.”

Ten minutes later (give or take), Dex and Mosscap rounded a curve in the road and were met with an explosion of human decoration. A large banner hung from the branches, proclaiming WELCOME, ROBOT! in letters shaped from scrap fabric of varied patterns. The trunks below were wrapped with garlands of flowers and gem-like solar bulbs. There were ribbons, too, freshly tied and waving in the air as the wagon passed by.

“Is this all for me?” Mosscap asked, gazing around in wonder.

“What other robot would it be for?” Dex said.

Mosscap looked up at the banner as it walked below. “It’s very … effusive.”

“They’re excited,” Dex said. “They’ve never seen one of you before. They want to make a fuss.”

“Nobody’s ever made a fuss over me,” Mosscap said. “Come to think of it, I don’t really know what a fuss entails.”

“Well, you’ll learn fast. It’s gonna be like this most places we go.” Dex winced as they pedaled on. Cheery as the decor was, Dex’s calves were groaning, and it was hard to focus on anything else. The ride to Stump hadn’t been a difficult one, but it had been long, and their body was ready to be done.

At last, the village came into view. Stump was like most towns in the Woodlands, characterized by nest-like treehouses, hanging bridges, and the faint sulfuric smell of the hot springs that kept the place warm and powered. The market square was one of the few features anchored to the ground, and though it was busy every time Dex came through, they’d never seen the place so full. Not a single resident of Stump was elsewhere that day. A crowd of about a hundred people had assembled, dressed as though it were a holiday. Audible gasps arose as Mosscap came into view. Nervous laughter joined the chorus, and a few cries from children quickly hushed by parents. The gathered faces were eager, welcoming, awestruck. Not a one of them seemed sure of what to do.

A middle-aged woman took a step forward. Dex knew her, in a general sense—Ms. Waverly, one of the regular members of the village council. She was not these people’s leader in any capacity, for like most villages, Stump had no such thing. She was the sort who spoke up when others weren’t sure how to, and that’s exactly what she did then. “You must be Mosscap,” she said with a sparkling smile. “Welcome to Stump.”

Mosscap nodded, its own eyes glowing friendly blue. “Thank you very much,” Mosscap said. “And thank you for the sign over the road. I’ve never had a sign before, and it’s quite—”

Somewhere in the crowd, a dog began to bark. Dex couldn’t see it, but it sounded big.

Mosscap was instantly distracted, turning its head straight toward the sound. “Is that a dog?” it asked, excitement entering its voice. “A domesticated dog?”

“Yeah,” Dex said. They kept their attention on Ms. Waverly. “Thanks so much for the welcome, we—”

The dog continued to bark.

“Is it all right?” Mosscap asked.

“It’s just a little scared of you,” Dex said. “It doesn’t understand what you are.”

The dog kept barking, and its accompanying people tried and failed to make it quiet down. “Gods around, I told you we shouldn’t bring him,” one said.

“Biscuit, hush,” said the other.

Biscuit did not hush. Biscuit did not like this.

The dog’s keepers were embarrassed, and the crowd was annoyed, but Mosscap didn’t seem to notice either of these things. The robot was transfixed by the sound, and leaned its head toward Dex. “Are domesticated dogs anything like river wolves?”

“Ish,” Dex said. They flicked their eyes toward Ms. Waverly, who no longer seemed sure of what to do. This wasn’t the greeting anybody had envisioned. “They’re friendlier by a mile, but yeah, they’re kind of like them.”

“If I lie down on the ground and show my belly, will that help?” Mosscap asked.

“I mean … maybe? I—”

Mosscap headed toward the noise, and the crowd parted before it, gawking at its seven-foot frame.

Biscuit, it turned out, was a barrel-shaped chunk of a mutt whose body communicated a long ancestry of creatures bred to keep humans safe from things that go bump in the night. His keeper held the animal firmly by a woven leash, and muttered something in awkward apology.

Without hesitation, Mosscap lay flat on the ground, face up, hands brought to rest against plated shoulders in a display of supplication. “It’s all right,” Mosscap said to the person holding the leash. “Let him come here.”

Biscuit’s human hesitated but let the leash go. The dog charged forward, bellowing in baritone. Mosscap did not mind. It lay still, letting Biscuit bark spittle onto its face.

The dog’s demeanor began to shift as the robot remained passive. The barks became punctuated with mollified grumbles, which evolved further into curious sniffing. Mosscap seemed utterly at ease with this, unconcerned about making the villagers wait. The dog, in that moment, came first.

Slowly, Mosscap moved one of its hands and brought it before Biscuit’s snout. Biscuit allowed this, and sniffed. Mosscap moved its hand back to the dog’s neck. Biscuit allowed this as well. Mosscap flexed its fingers and scritched.

Biscuit definitely allowed this.

“Oh, there we go,” Mosscap said happily. “Ha ha ha, yes—oh, yes, there you go.” The robot scritched harder as the dog leaned in and wagged his tail. “Yes, I agree, we’re friends now.”

The crowd was entranced. But as seconds stretched into minutes, it became clear to Dex that Mosscap had no intention of stopping its interaction with the dog. Dex had seen Mosscap get like this numerous times, when captivated by a bug or a leaf or a transcendental ripple in a stream. The robot had yet to grasp the limits of a human attention span, and what had been an endearing display between it and Biscuit was now crossing the threshold into social awkwardness.

Dex walked over to Mosscap’s side, crouched down, and put a hand on its shoulder. “Hey,” they said quietly. “I think we might want to give the other animals here some attention, too.”

“Oh!” Mosscap said with surprise. It gave the dog one last rub, then got to its feet, all at once attentive.

Ms. Waverly seemed to take note of the dynamic between the two and addressed Dex this time. “What can we do for you both, while you’re with us?” She spoke clearly and loudly so everyone around could hear.

Dex cleared their throat. “Well, uh…” Shit, they hadn’t thought this part through at all. They didn’t much like being in front of crowds. They had a public-facing profession, obviously, and were very comfortable performing it, but in that, there were clear boundaries. In tea service, there was a table with Dex on one side and people on the other, and those people could come talk to Dex or not. They could get tea or not. That was it. Those interactions took on infinite variation, but they all fit within a single context: that of exchanging some words and receiving a nice drink. Here, there was no table, and even though Mosscap was the indisputable center of attention, Dex couldn’t help but feel like they were onstage with no script. They cleared their throat a second time. “Mosscap has a question it wants to ask. It’d like to talk to you. Uh, as many of you as are up for it.”

“Yes!” Mosscap said, as if remembering where it was and why. The robot spread its arms before the crowd. “My question is: what do you need?”

The crowd was puzzled; there were a few quiet, unsure laughs. Mosscap looked around expectantly, but nobody knew how to respond.

Dex rubbed the back of their neck. Gods around, they needed a better template for this wherever they went next.

After a long pause, a bearded man piped up from the back of the crowd. “Well, um … I need the door to my house fixed. It’s a bit drafty.”

Mosscap pointed at him brightly. “Lead me to your house!” it said. “I will help, if I can!” It cocked its head. “Is there no one in the village who has the skill to fix your door?”

“Sure,” the man said. “I just hadn’t gotten around to asking yet. And you asked, so…” He shrugged by way of conclusion.

“So I did!” Mosscap said. It put its hands on its hips with a nod. “I have a remnant of how to use hand tools. Do you have some available?”

“Uh, yeah, we got whatever you need.”

Another voice piped up. “Do you know much about bikes?” they asked. “Mine has a flat tire.”

“I’ve got a freshwater line that’s lost pressure,” another said.

“Can you help me with my math?” a kid yelled.

“Yes, I can try, and … no, I’m afraid not,” Mosscap said. “Math is not my strong suit.”

Dex pressed their lips together, not liking the direction this was heading. They angled themself toward Mosscap and asked, in a low voice, “Are you okay with this? Is this what you meant?” Helping villagers with random chores didn’t seem like the type of answer Mosscap had broken centuries of silence to pursue.

“It’s what they’ve decided I meant,” Mosscap said, “and therefore, yes, I’m okay with it.”

“Well…” Dex didn’t like it, but they weren’t about to dictate what their friend could and could not do. “Okay. Do you want me to come with you while you do this stuff, or do you want to go alone?”

Mosscap thought about this. “I’d like to try it alone, first. I don’t need you to follow me everywhere.”

“Sure, but do you want me to?”

Mosscap thought about this as well. “I always enjoy your company, Sibling Dex,” it said. “But what I want most for you is for you to address your own needs.” The robot looked to Ms. Waverly. “If it’s no trouble, my friend here has talked of nothing but food and a bath for days.”

“That,” Ms. Waverly said with a smile, “we can absolutely do.”

As Mosscap happily followed the villagers toward their respective requests, Dex found themself whisked off to a cookhouse and placed at the mercy of its proprietor, who seemed to resent the idea of anyone leaving his establishment underfed. Woodland folks cultivated small-scale crops, but they favored hunting and foraging, and the foods that appeared on Dex’s table in tantalizing succession fit those categories. They snacked on spicy pine seeds as the grill did its work, then gorged themself on slow-roasted elk and wavy-edged mushrooms and acorn flatbread freckled black with flame. A generous chunk of prickleberry cobbler was presented afterward, along with a bowl of mint leaves for Dex to munch in the afterglow. Even if Dex hadn’t been operating on days of dehydrated stews and protein bars, the meal would’ve been fantastic; within their current context, it was life-changing. They leaned back in their chair with their hands folded over their belly, savoring the indescribable satisfaction of having eaten wild things while trading breath with the trees.

The cookhouse’s eating area was an open platform overlooking the market square, suspended by an intricate crisscross of woven cables. Dex had taken a table near the railing so as to keep an eye on the goings-on below. Despite the branches jutting into view, Mosscap was impossible to miss. Its silver plating stuck out like a sore thumb amid the village’s palette of browns and woody whites, and its blue eyes shone in the filtered daylight. Dex watched Mosscap go this way and that, disappearing for a while, then heading elsewhere with a wrench or a can of paint in hand. Everywhere it went, an audience followed.

Dex chewed a mouthful of mint thoughtfully as they watched Mosscap cross the square once more, this time helping someone carry a heavy sack of something or other. They were certain that helping villagers with physical tasks was not the end goal of Mosscap’s question. If it went on for too long, Dex was inwardly resolved to put a stop to it. They didn’t want people treating Mosscap like a circus act or, worse, in keeping with why robots had been built in the first place. But for the moment, it was clear from the near-permanent upturn of Mosscap’s metal mouth that it was having a great time, and Dex saw no cause to intervene.

They took another pinch of mint, then pulled their computer out of their pocket and continued replying to the messages they’d received the night before. There had been more that morning, and more since, apparently. Nothing to do about it but keep chipping away, Dex supposed.