A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Monk & Robot, #2)

by Becky Chambers

The thing about fucking off to the woods is that unless you are a very particular, very rare sort of person, it does not take long to understand why people left said woods in the first place. Houses were invented for excellent reasons, as were shoes, plumbing, pillows, heaters, washing machines, paint, lamps, soap, refrigeration, and all the other countless trappings humans struggle to imagine life without.

“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.”

“Nobody should be barred from necessities or comforts just because they don’t have the right number next to their name.”

“Because the point of a peb exchange is to acknowledge someone’s labor and thank them for what they bring to the community. They didn’t give you thirty-eight pebs because they want you to go out and spend them. They gave you thirty-eight pebs because your work is as important as anybody else’s. It means they see you as a person.”

“is that complex intelligence and self-awareness arise out of an external need. A social need, an environmental need, whichever. Something pushed those creatures into needing to be more clever.”

“I know you’re of a social species, but goodness, Sibling Dex. I’m never going to get this right.” “You don’t have to,” Dex said. “It’s always chaos there, and nobody will expect you to navigate it.

It was always a strange thing, coming home. Coming home meant that you had, at one point, left it and, in doing so, irreversibly changed. How odd, then, to be able to return to a place that would always be anchored in your notion of the past. How could this place still be there, if the you that once lived there no longer existed?

“If what you say is true, then … she won’t remember me. She won’t remember this moment.” “I’m afraid not,” Dex said. “But we’ll tell her about it, when she’s older.” A dejected note slipped into Mosscap’s voice. “How very sad,” it said. “This is already quite important to me.”

“They worry enough—about me traveling alone, about everything that goes on at home. You saw how it is there; there’s always something going on. If I’m an element of their lives that they can just feel good about, without any complicated bullshit attached, I’d like to keep it that way.” “But then what are they to you?” Mosscap said. “That doesn’t strike me as reciprocal.” The robot shook its head. “I’m not saying you have to confide in these people, specifically, but I haven’t seen anyone that you do open up to, other than me.”

“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?”

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 I don’t feel like it’s true, for me. I feel like it’s true for everyone else but not me. I feel like I have to do more than that. Like I have a responsibility to do more than that.”