Dyssia leans on the small windowsill in the truck, and relishes all the small sensations. It's a thoroughly new mode of transport to her! The vibrations, the little jolts and moans, and sensation of dirt and rust under her scales, the warm smells filling her nostrils, the patterns of stripes on the worn fabric seats! It's strange that this should be so enjoyable. It's the power of the novel! She's soared through near vacuum, witnessed the birth of constellations, flung herself at a planet hard enough to leave impact craters, all-but-spaghettified herself in the search of speed! She's danced through the air, trailing an orbit of friends! She's felt the whine of a tiger under her-- All of them, outdone by a little truck whose exhaust rattles whenever it hits a bump. Sublime. She stretches back, eyes towards the sky, and speaks of feeling lonely. Of being a round peg in a world of square holes? You get used to it, if you're good at lying--used to shaving yourself down until you fit in the hole, kinda, if you squint, if you don't pay attention to the pain, if you're good at lying to yourself. She talks of losing a home. Of being scared and alone, of the Pix, how--oh, it's silly now, now that she knows them, but back then she just-- It's scary too, right? Scary and lonely, not understanding. Talks about how when you're that scared and lonely, it's easy to throw yourself into-- Into anything! Any purpose! And it's not that the purpose is bad or that it doesn't need doing, but it's also something that can never be finished--not realistically, not entirely, and it's always something there to pour into yourself. And anyway, she told you that story so that she could tell you this one: About finding that-- It's not just about finding a family, right? Or about finding a new home of your own, one of your own choosing? Though they're all of that and more! Home, in a way that no brick and mortar or ship of steel could be. But also of-- Even now, she doesn't have the words. Of finding yourself, right? Of finding peace, not by trying to fill the void with a purpose, or with an antithesis, but with-- It's like, being lonely is about wanting. Wanting to be accepted, or wanting to be wanted, or wanting others to think of you. And you can try to fill that void with purpose, or with antithesis, or with crusade or conformity. But isn't it so much better to simply not have the void in the first place?