A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk and Robot #2 )(2)
“Materially, yeah, pretty much,” Dex answered, in regards to the wagon. “At least, in an everyday sense.”
The robot craned its head, looking at the storage crates tied to the roof of the vehicle that rattled with the internal shifting of yet more things. “I suppose I might not want to travel much if it required taking all of this with me.”
“You can get by with less, but you gotta know where you’re going,” Dex said. “You need to know there’s food and shelter where you’re headed. Which is exactly why we make signs.” They gave Mosscap a knowing glance. “Otherwise, you end up spending the night in a cave.”
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.