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Dex's legs were itchy from sea salt when they slowly blinked awake the next morning. Outside, the waves were whooshing softly against the sand, the gulls were crying off across the water, and the brilliance of the sun had dispelled the bioluminescent glow of the phytoplankton from the night before. Dex scratched at one thigh, then pulled a piece of dried seaweed from between their toes. They and Mosscap had exhausted themselves frolicking in the sea the night before, tugged at by the gentle insistence of the tides, and eventually Dex had pulled themself from the water and sprawled in the embracing sand, limbs tingling from their recent exertion, too tired to return to their wagon or even to put their clothes back on, but unconcerned about it all.
They did not remember falling asleep on the shore, or being carried by Mosscap back to the wagon, but that clearly was what had happened. Sand came away beneath Dex's fingernails as they scrubbed at their dry scalp and rolled off their bed. When they poked their head outside the wagon, they noticed their clothes neatly folded in a little stack, just outside. It made Dex smile to see that their friend had mimicked the fastidious care with which Dex always treated their own clothes after pulling them off a clothesline, dry and a bit stiff and smelling of fresh air.
"Good morning!" said Mosscap, popping out of nowhere from around the side of the wagon and, per usual, nearly giving Dex a heart attack. "How are you today, Sibling Dex?"
"Great, thanks," Dex replied, stretching. It occurred to them that they should have felt just a bit self-conscious about standing around in the buff, but after last night, Dex really couldn't care less. Come to think of it, Mosscap probably thought that humans wore clothes mainly to stay warm, and not for outdated reasons of modesty or prudery. "A bit sandier and saltier than I usually am, but that's my fault for not bothering to shower off before going to sleep last night. Do you need anything, given all the saltwater you've been submerging yourself in, these past few days?" they asked, suddenly worried. "Should we, uh, oil down your joints, or something?"
"Oh, no," laughed Mosscap. "That is very thoughtful of you, Sibling Dex. But we believe that while maintenance is helpful, we must accept the impact of the elements on our bodies as it comes, for better or for worse. Besides, corrosion takes months to set in, and a short time in these seaside conditions will not hurt me, even if put into contact with the water itself briefly. I was more concerned for you last night, given that the tide might have come up again and done irreversible damage to your human body."
"Yeah," grinned Dex, "and thank you, by the way, for looking after me like you did."
Mosscap's eyes twinkled happily, and the robot nodded—an oddly human affectation that Dex had to assume had arisen sometime over the past few months. It puttered about the sand happily, picking up seashells and peering down at little clear blobs that were beached jellyfish, as Dex showered off and shook out their bedding, then made them both a quick breakfast that didn't require the driftwood they no longer had for kindling.
"Sibling Dex?" asked Mosscap as Dex washed the dishes. "Even if we don't need to figure out where we're going in the long run, we should probably figure out where we're going within the next few hours."
"Yeah," agreed Dex, wiping the last dish dry and sliding it back onto its shelf, before closing the cabinet and locking it securely against the bumps of the wagon. "Well, not the City, obviously. Not yet. But maybe we could keep to the Coastlands, for the next few weeks?"
Mosscap did not object, and so Dex packed up the wagon and hauled it out of the sand before taking their seat on the ox-bike and setting off.
They kept to themselves, mostly, given the general attitude of the Coastlands inhabitants towards Mosscap. And in fairness, both tea monk and robot enjoyed the polite distance from society they could keep here, in contrast to what awaited them in the City. Many days, they simply wandered along the sandy beaches, or ambled up and down the rises of wind-blasted cliffs, sometimes talking, and sometimes not.
Mosscap wasn't concerned about rusting or corroding, but Dex certainly was concerned on their friend's behalf. The robot resisted the idea of any sort of protective coating initially, but Dex eventually won Mosscap over by arguing that it wasn't a modification of any sort, but more like if Mosscap decided to put on a hat to shield its eyes from the sun. (A villager had once lent Mosscap a floppy sunhat for a few hours, and the robot had been delighted to model the borrowed garment.) So Dex looked up a good boat builder early in their coastal wanderings, and found the perfect person for the job in a wild, windswept little fishing village. The boat builder was more than happy to accept some of Mosscap's many pebs to coat the robot's joints and panels in a thin layer of hard, sap-based varnish gathered from a grove of local pines, which would keep the salty sea air from eating away at Mosscap's body, before eroding away itself over a few weeks. The layer gave Mosscap an iridescent sheen, and the boat builder laughed to see how delighted her client was over how its metal limbs now flashed through an array of colors with every twist of Mosscap's body in the shop's light, before the robot departed to thank the pines. (The boat builder had wispy hair pulled into a long tangled braid, and enormous muscled arms, and the prettiest smile. By the time they were saying their goodbyes after breakfast the next morning, Dex had to admit they probably had a type, and if there was one definite advantage to Mosscap's occasional need for maintenance, it was the excuse to meet more gorgeous and talented artisans with a knack for robot repair.)
Dex had promised themself that they wouldn't provide a tea service until they felt in their core that they were ready. One day, they woke up and touched the bear amulet they wore around their neck, and they realized they wanted to try to provide the community good that had given them such pride in the past. After letting Mosscap know what they'd be up to for the morning, they loaded their supplies into a foldable handcart, then went through the familiar soothing ritual of setting up the table, laying out the blankets and pillows, assembling the travelling shrine, boiling the water over a wood fire. A few people came by, some out of curiosity, one to quietly mourn a parent lost the previous year. And Dex felt good about it all, about the fact that they were back doing what they had so loved; until very suddenly they didn't. After a few minutes of gut-churning indecision, they politely told everyone they were very sorry but they'd have to close up in a few minutes.
When Dex trudged back to their camping spot, slowly pushing the handcart before them, Mosscap immediately knelt down next to its friend in concern.
"Sibling Dex, what's wrong?" the robot asked. "I thought you wouldn't be back for several hours, at least!"
"I thought so, too," said Dex grimly, and then the tears began to flow in earnest. Mosscap placed a comforting hand on Dex's shoulder.
"Things were going fine," Dex sniffled. "I felt like I was really getting back into the swing of things, you know? And then suddenly I hit another wall, mid-service. And I didn't even try to power through, I just gave up. I feel like such a failure."
Mosscap was silent for a few moments as Dex continued to cry.
"I don't think you're a failure, Sibling Dex," the robot opined thoughtfully. "You felt ready to go back, and you did; and then you realized that it wasn't the right place for you to be at that time, and you left. You did exactly what you felt you should be doing, at all times."
"Yes," agreed Dex through gritted teeth, "but I didn't see things through for the people I was supposed to be helping! I just up and left them in the middle of everything!"
"Did they seem upset when you said they had to leave?" Mosscap asked. When Dex shook their head, it continued, "Well, then I don't think anyone was worse off for what you did. You probably made some people feel better for providing tea when you were able, and you stopped when you weren't going to be as helpful anymore."
"But..." Dex shook their head. "But I quit. I wasn't supposed to just quit like that. Not when I said I was going to go back."
"But you did go back, didn't you?" Mosscap pointed out. "Even if you didn't stay as long as you'd thought you would, you did go back. And just think, Sibling Dex, if you'd suddenly started feeling physically unwell, would you feel like it was wrong to have ended the tea service early?"
"Well, no, but..."
"Then if you were feeling emotionally unwell, why shouldn't you have ended things early?" Mosscap concluded reasonably. "It sounds like you did what you needed to, and stopped when you couldn't do anything more, and everyone was happy with what you could provide. Why are you angry with yourself for not doing something that no one else expected or needed you to do?"
Dex couldn't answer that one, so they retreated inside their wagon and lay down on the bed until they had internalized Mosscap's logic a bit better and were feeling calmer. They re-emerged when they heard Mosscap poking through the tea cabinet, looking for something to give Dex, which ended in Dex making tea for both of them. And when Mosscap pushed its cup towards Dex to be drunk, Dex felt infinitely happier than they had a few minutes ago.
"Sibling Dex, how much longer do you think we'll be staying in the Coastlands?" Mosscap asked one afternoon.
Dex stopped chopping a potato and glanced at the robot.
"Not long," they said. "Do you want to head somewhere else?"
"Oh, there's just an apple-picking festival that I heard about," Mosscap explained. "It sounded delightful. And I'm taller than most humans, so I could help so many people reach apples, if we went! But it seems it's in a month, and it might take a week to get there, and I didn't know how much longer you were thinking of remaining here..."
"Just another week or two, so we can definitely make it to apple-picking," Dex smiled. "And you always have a say in where we go, and when we go, Mosscap. I'd feel like a total jerk if you ever felt like I was keeping you from being somewhere you actually wanted to be."
"Well, where I want to be is apple-picking in a month," Mosscap announced. "And it sounds like you don't mind that plan."
"Not at all." Dex raised an eyebrow. "Aren't you curious about why we're still on the coast?"
"I'd assumed you were enjoying the scenery still," Mosscap replied. "And the inhabitants, upon occasion."
Dex rolled their eyes, wondering which of Mosscap's many downloadable books were teaching the robot to have such a dry sense of humor.
"Well, be ready to pack up and head back up the coast tomorrow," they informed their friend. "We're going on a little adventure before we head inland."
It struck Dex that, in their travels with Mosscap, they'd rarely retraced their steps through an area. Pedalling effortfully up and down the rocky swells created by the rugged coastal cliffs, they nonetheless smiled to hear Mosscap exclaim, "Oh, Sibling Dex, I recognize this place! There's that beautiful cypress we passed a few weeks ago! And that colony of terns on the rocks is still there, too!" They knew what a grand time Mosscap had been having, discovering new things each day since crossing from the woods over into human civilization. It had never occurred to them that perhaps robots, like humans, sometimes need a break from novelty, in favor of relaxing into the familiar.
Soon, though, they were back on the unmarked road leading to the nameless beach, the brambles scratching Dex's arms as they crossed over onto the little abandoned shore. Dex pulled themself off the bike seat of the wagon, panting, and smiled at Mosscap, whose head was tilted at a confused angle.
"It's our beach again," said the robot, and something warm bubbled inside Dex at the idea of our beach, a perfect little paradise carved out for two best friends.
"Yeah," they replied. "Are you okay with staying here for a few days again, before we head to apple-picking?"
"Of course," replied Mosscap, and it set off in search of any new driftwood logs that had washed up in the weeks since they'd left.
Dinner was long since eaten and tidied up when Mosscap asked the question so clearly on its mind.
"Sibling Dex, are we back on our beach for any particular reason?" it asked, slightly suspicious.
"Well," sighed Dex, adjusting their arms behind their head where they lay propped up on a rolled-up blanket, "I had a hunch about something."
"Oh?"
"Yeah. You mentioned that the turtles only come out of the water to lay eggs during a full planetrise, but I remember one of my teachers once saying that turtles emerge at the start of a planetrise, which lasts a full 18 hours. When we came here last time, looking for marbleheads, we arrived towards the end of the planetrise, which is why we didn't see any turtles—they'd already come here and laid their eggs under the sand. But I figured, since the average incubation period for a turtle tends to be seven to eight weeks, if we stayed close enough to the coast..."
"Then we could come back to see the baby turtles hatch!" cried Mosscap. "Oh, Sibling Dex, you are brilliant! You are the most helpful and happiness-inducing tea monk I have ever met!"
"This has absolutely nothing to do with being a tea monk," Dex grinned. "But it has everything to do with the fact you're my friend, and even if you don't know what you need in the long run, what you need right now is a moment between yourself and a turtle and no one else."
"And one other person," Mosscap amended, so earnestly and stubbornly that Dex laughed aloud.
"You'd better go stand on the beach," they told Mosscap. "You're not gonna want to move around too much, if they all start hatching tonight and are running around on the sand."
And so Dex watched from their spot by the fire as Mosscap dragged its metallic feet through the sand, to avoid stepping on anything in the dark, and stood waiting at the edge of the water, foam-rimmed waves lapping at its ankles, eyes trained back towards the shore. There was no guarantee that anything would happen tonight, but Mosscap was a patient being and would be happy to keep this vigil tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that, if needed. Dex shut their eyes, drowsy in the warmth and in the salty scent of the driftwood fire. They only opened them again when Mosscap exclaimed, "Sibling Dex! Oh, just look at them all!"
Across the beach scurried thousands of tiny turtles, no larger than Dex's palm, all squirming through the sand towards the water. Mosscap stood stock still, but laughed in delight, waving its long arms as the little turtles scurried over its feet.
"They're wonderful!" it cried, bending its head down to peer more closely at the rush of determined little shells. "They're all just so wonderful!"
Dex still didn't know what the future would bring, whether they or Mosscap would ever find the answers they sought. But in this moment, watching their friend experience a moment of unadulterated wonder, that didn't matter to Dex. What mattered was that they and Mosscap were working through things, slowly but surely, and doing it side by side. Perhaps it was the little things like this that mattered most, the bright little starbursts within life during which they both were too wrapped up in the immediacy of things to worry about the meaning of it all. For now, Mosscap had exactly what it needed. And, having done something to bring their friend such joy, for now, Dex had zero doubt whatsoever that they were good enough as they were.