[This is an excerpt I took from Prayer for the Crown-Shy, probably the coolest part from the entire book. I copied it out using Android OCR and screenshots, but it was hard because the screen was small and also I was on the verge of happy tears half the time.]

[The first book in this series, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, ended with Dex and Mosscap convincing themselves "it's okay to just *be*." The passage I've clipped here ends with them getting to the conclusion "it's okay to just be *us*."]

"Do you remember what you said when we were there, about how nothing needs a purpose? How all living things are allowed to just exist, and we don't have to do more than that?"

Mosscap nodded. "I do, yes."

Dex pressed their lips together. "That's the heart of my faith, Mosscap. That is what I am saying to everyone who comes to my table. I say it out loud, all the fucking time. You don't have to have a reason to be tired. You don't have to earn rest or comfort. You're allowed to just be. I say that wherever I go." They threw a hand toward their wagon, its wooden sides emblazoned with the summer bear. "It's painted on the side of my home! But don't feel like it's true, for me. I feel like it's true for everyone else but not me. feel like have to do more than that. Like have a responsibility to do more than that."

"Why?" Mosscap said.

"Because I'm good at something" Dex said. "I'm good at something that helps other people. worked really hard to be able to do it, and I benefited from the labor and love of others while I did so. I'm able to do what I do because everybody else built a world in which I could do it. If just say 'Thanks for all of that, but I'm running off to the woods now,' how is that fair? That doesn't sit right with me, not at all. I'd just be a leech if I did that."

Mosscap looked confused. "What's wrong with being a leech?"

"You know what mean" said Dex.

"I don't," said Mosscap.

Dex sighed. "A leech is a person who takes without giving back. It's a metaphor."

Mosscap considered that. "I don't think it's very kind to use an entire subclass of animal as a metaphor for behavior that you deem unseemly."

Dex threw up their hands. "Well, we do it, all the time."

"And it's not even an accurate metaphor" Mosscap went on. "You're basing that shorthand off of the human relationship to leeches, not the entire experience of being a leech. They're as vital a part of their ecosystemn as anything else."

"Gods around." Dex rubbed their face with their palms.

"Would you use the term parasite in the same metaphorical manner?"

"Yes!" Dex exclaimed. "I would!"

Mosscap gave Dex a reproachful look. "All parasites have value, Sibling Dex. Not to their hosts, perhaps, but you could say the same about a predator and a prey animal. They all give back—not to the individual but to the ecosystem at large. Wasps are tremendously important pollinators. Birds and fish eat bloodsucks."

"This is making my head hurt" Dex said. "And also, none of this has anything to do with what I'm saying. I'm talking about the relationship between me and other people, not a fish and a bloodsuck."

"It's your metaphor" Mosscap said.

"Well, I'm never going to use it again." Dex picked up a stick and poked at the fire irritably.

Mosscap let the picked up a stick too. "You're not alone in this, you know" it said, nudging bark off of glowing wood. "'Purpose' is one of the most common answers get to my question." [As a robot, Mosscap has spent the entire book asking humans "what do you need?"] It lowered its gaze and sighed. "I'm beginning to worry that you were right, you know."

"About what?"

"About my question. You said when we first met that you thought it was impossible to answer."

"I still do" Dex said.

Mosscap looked seriously at them. "Then why do you come with me?"

"I'm not with you for the question," Dex scoffed.

The robot took that in as it played with the fire. "When I first volunteered to make contact, we all thought this was a very good question. We wanted to know if you'd done all right in the time since robots left your society. We knew you'd improved, certainly. You were on the brink of collapse when we left, and obviously that hadn't happened. Your villages have a glow at night—we can see them, if we're in the Borderlands. And the satellites, of course. Those wouldn't stay up without your help. We knew you were still here. We knew things were better. I never saw it for myself, but I know the previous generations watched the rivers clear up. They saw the trees grow back. My kind witnessed the world heal itself, but we didn't know how well you had healed. Nobody was sure what I'd find out here, least of all me. So, you see, it was a very sensible introductory question. What is it that you need?"

"You thought it might be something basic" Dex said. "Like ... we need food. Or living space. Better technology. Something like that."

"Possibly, yes. But I've been nowhere with you where those needs aren't provided for. And when people interpret my question beyond the things you require to stay alive and healthy, it gets ..."

"Complicated?"

Mosscap nodded, looking exhausted. "Every answer I've received falls into one of two categories. Every single one." The robot gestured emphatically with its metal fingers. "The first category is extremely specific things. 'I need my bicycle fixed so I can deliver these goods to another village.' 'We need to prepare better for the next time the river floods.' 'I need to find my dog.' Things ike that. Either a very personal, individual need or a broader need within the community, but all in all, specific and isolated." "Okay. And the second category?"

"The second category is esoteric. Philosophical. I get answers such as 'purpose,' or 'adventure,' or 'companionship.' A broad requirement the person has in regards to feeling satisfaction with their life. Some people lack whatever it is and are searching for it, but others already have it. They interpret the question as me asking what aspects of their lives they would not want to do without, not as an unmet need. And I hadn't considered this, at the start. Must a need be unmet if it is to satisfy my question?"

Dex exhaled and shook their head. "You tell me, Mosscap," they said. "I have no fucking idea."

"Neither do I, and that's just it. thought this was the most bothersome thing on mind until spoke with your father the other night and he asked me what I need." Mosscap dropped the stick and turned to face them. "Sibling Dex, I don't know. I don't know at all. So, what am supposed to do now? How am to ask my question of others when can't answer it for myself?"

Dex listened to this complaint, and as they processed it, a slow, wry, not-at-all- funny smile spread across their face. "How am I supposed to tell people they're good enough as they are when I don't think I am?" they said.

Mosscap responded with a single heavy nod. "You see," it said. "You understand. I wish you didn't, because I know it means you're as tangled up as I am, but ... I'm grateful that you do."

"Is that why you didn't want to go to the City?" Dex asked. "Because you're not sure about your question?"

"Is it because there's too much going on there?" Dex asked. "We can cancel stuff, no problem. I'd love to, honestly—"

"No, that's not it" Mosscap said. I didn't—I don't want to go to the City. I don't want to go to the City, because the City is the end."

Mosscap didn't need to explain what it meant; Dex understood. The end of their travels. The end of their companionship, maybe. They hadn't discussed what they wanted to do after the City, but therein lay the problem. It was a question mark, an empty space. It wasn't the only thing that had made Dex about-face on the road, but it was the one they hadn't known how voice. Not until now.

"We dont have to split up" Dex said softly. "We don't have to go anywhere we don't want to go, do anything we don't want to do." Their brow furrowed. "You are the weirdest, most inexplicable thing that's ever happened to me. You make me crazy, most days. You say so much shit I don't understand." Their voice cracked, and grew almost inaudibly quiet. "But whatever it is we're doing, it's the first thing in a long time I've been sure about." They swallowed. "Most days, you're the only thing that makes sense."

Mosscap did nothing but nod several times, in fervent agreement. "So, what do we do?" it said. "Do we go to the City? Do we go back to the wilds? Do we..." It waved its hands emptily.

"I don't know." Dex's fingers found their pendant, and they held the symbol of their god hard. "You know, I never answered your question."

"Yes, you have. I ask you all the time what it is that you need."

"Yeah, but you ask about everyday stuff. I never answered it the first time you asked. Remember?" Dex would never forget. "You walked out of the woods, and you said, 'What do you need, and how can I help?'"

Mosscap smiled at this. "I remember this, yes."

"Well, I didn't know then" Dex said, "and I still don't. But what I do know is ... you help. You're helping me figure it out. Just by being here. You help."

"Then we have the same answer, Mosscap said. "I don't know, either. But you are my best help, Sibling Dex." It looked at the fire built of the last of the driftwood, dying more quickly than the ones that had come before. "What if that is enough, for now? What if we're both trying to answer something much too big before we've answered the small thing we should have started with? What if it's enough to just be..."

Us, Dex knew Mosscap meant, though the robot didn't finish. "Then we tackle the rest when we're ready," they said. "However long that takes."

Mosscap started to say more, but its attention was captured by somnething else. "Look!" it cried, pointing toward the sea.

Dex looked. The last of the day's light had faded, rendering the water an inky void. There was no dividing line between ocean and sky any longer, no horizon separating here from there. Motan's stripes still hung in their comforting curve, and stars were waking by the handful, but at first, all Dex saw below these cosmic constants was emptiness.

Their eyes adjusted, and as they did, color and shape appeared. A gentle wave broke, and would have been invisible, were it not for the blue glow that blossomed in the crest, a vibrant splash winking in and out, quick as breath.

Dex and Mosscap each leaned forward, eyes fixed on the shore. Another wave came, right on cue, and with it, another burst of blue.

"I've heard of this" Mosscap said in hush, "but I've never seen it for myself."

"Same" Dex said. They stood up. "Come on."