Dex put an elbow on the counter and leaned their jaw against their fist. “Can I ask why?”
The robot sat for a moment, considering. “I don’t want to separate myself from other robots any more than I already have,” it said. “I am having the most incredible experience out here. I’ve seen species of trees that don’t live in my part of the world. I’ve been on a boat. I’ve played with domesticated cats. I have a satchel!” It gestured at the bag hanging at its side for emphasis. “A satchel for my belongings! I am doing things no robot has ever done, and while that’s marvelous, I … I don’t want to become removed from them. The aggregate differences I have are only going to increase as we continue along, Sibling Dex. It’s very nice to be famous, but I don’t know how I feel about it yet, and I’m beginning to wonder if it’s a trait I’ll have among my own kind as well. So, you see, it’s enough that I’m experientially different; I don’t want to be physically different, too.” It paused. “Does that make sense?”
“Yeah,” Dex said with a fond smile. “Yeah, it does.”
Leroy watched the two of them with a touched expression. “I’ll go warm up the grinder,” he said, leaving breakfast prep where it lay. “We can start the melt while we eat.”
“Anything I can do to help?” Dex asked.
Leroy squeezed Dex’s shoulder as he passed by. “Nah,” he said. He paused, noticing what Dex was wearing. “Is that my shirt?”
Dex laughed awkwardly. “Sorry,” they said. “I was hurrying, and—”
“No, it’s cool,” Leroy said. He continued on his way to the workshop. “You should keep it. Looks good on you.”
Mosscap leaned forward once Leroy was gone. “Is exchanging items of clothing customary?”
Dex’s cheeks grew hot. “No,” they said.
“Ohhhh.” Mosscap raised both hands to its angular chin. “Ms. Amelia would have something to say about that, I think.”
“Please,” Dex said fervently. They shut their eyes. “Don’t tell Ms. Amelia.”
4
THE COASTLANDS
Finding the ocean was as simple a matter as letting a river lead you in the direction it wanted to go most. There were many options of where a person could head once the air took on a bite of salt, but Dex had chosen Shipwreck Margin, for the uncomplicated reason that they liked the look of it and thought Mosscap would too. It was a contemplative place, its silvery waters punctuated with boulders carved by the strange hand of the tides. There were beaches nearer the City with pillowy sand and playful waves, but Shipwreck was not of that breed. The currents here were as unforgiving as the toothy predators that navigated their pull. The shoreline was carpeted with stones in need of a few more epochs before they became sand, and the cliffs they’d been ground from towered over the pounding surf, their edges sharp and scabrous.
But despite Shipwreck’s foreboding demeanor, life thrived in this place. Black-feathered seabirds nested in crevices unreachable without wings, and spruce trees clung to the cliff edges, stunted yet defiant in the briny mist. Softer touches were abundant, if you knew where to look. Sea strawberries grew from even the darkest gaps, and matte-orange gemstones hid among the pebbles. And there were people in this part of the world, too, clustered here and there in settlements no bigger than a dozen or so families, making a life on the bleeding edge of where a terrestrial animal belonged.
These scattered villages were easy to spot from the clifftop Dex had parked the wagon on. Mosscap observed its new surroundings with keen interest, peering through the binoculars it had acquired the week before. “Their dwellings look very simple,” Mosscap said as it surveyed.
Dex nodded as they set up the folding chairs. They didn’t need to look to know what Mosscap was talking about—modest, sturdy shelters made of spruce planks and driftwood, a short distance from the jetties where small sailboats would return at the end of the day, hauling back whatever had been caught with a hand-pulled net.
“I’m so looking forward to going to the beach, Sibling Dex,” Mosscap continued. “I haven’t spent much time around littoral ecosystems, and it’s been years since I did so.”
Dex sighed as they found themself standing at the inescapable entry point of a conversation they’d been putting off and could no longer avoid. They’d spent days agonizing over the best way to bring this up, and had considered doing it sooner, but Mosscap had been having such a good time in the Riverlands that Dex hadn’t wanted to rain on the parade. They knew this was a subject Mosscap would get deep in its own head about, and Dex had felt it kinder, in the end, to limit that sort of wheel-spinning as much as possible.