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Unconventionally Bound

by Açai Sparrow

With ash-stained gloves, I ease another book free of the charred shelf. Deckle sneezes at the burnt leather, but she guided me to this one for a reason. Despite the sorry state of the cover, the pages look to be mostly intact.

The next book is much worse off, and I can barely identify it. Still, I can feel Deckle’s certainty through our bond. One of next year’s students will need it.

I nearly trip over the book after that; it must have fallen at some point. It takes a bit of doing to retrieve it, Deckle tucking herself under my arm as I lower myself to the floor. The edges of her scales leave raised red lines on my skin. They’ve been getting sharper; I should probably get around to getting a reinforced sleeve soon. The book’s cover crumbles a little when I pick it up, and I get the feeling some of the pages are damaged, but none fall out, so it can probably be repaired. As inappropriate as it may be, I’m excited by the task ahead. It will be refreshing, compared to assembling new covers or making whole replacement copies.

Deckle shifts from where she’s settled beside me. She can’t keep the ash away from my lungs for much longer, not if we want to come back again tomorrow. It’s an important reminder. She’s never been able to maintain a ward as long as most other dragons her age; instead, her strength lies in knowing when things are most needed—wards, but also other things, like books.

I set the book in the basket on her back, and we pick our way carefully back outside.

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Before the fire, my restoration work on the books was organized either by clear reason or my own mood. Since the fire, that’s changed.

Almost every decision about which book to restore when is guided by the sense of knowing that Deckle and I share. I spend my mornings retrieving books and my evenings working on restoring them until the day there’s nothing left to bring back from those shelves. Most of the books need the covers replaced, and my hands ache most nights from cutting boards to size, but the thought of a full shelf keeps me going.
In the end, that book I almost tripped over on the initial trip is the very last to be restored, a little more than two years later.

A number of the pages were burnt, or had ink too smeared to read, so I had to note the sentences before and after each of them and send my apprentice to the library in the capital to copy the damaged sections. After they return, I undo the binding and insert the new pages before sewing the whole thing back together, then paste on the mull so it’ll be ready when the time comes to attach the cover. The spine is a bit bulky from spots where I glued in a single page rather than replacing the whole sheet and re-sewing the signature. The handwriting also doesn’t match, but the important part is that it’s complete.

As I work, I find myself oddly happy. The circumstances that led to this task are heartbreaking, but the task itself makes my bond with Deckle sing. This is what we are made for: preserving these words for the next generations of dragon-human bonds.

I know that I should wait to make the cover until I have the chance to measure the dried text block, but I find myself itching to continue working. So instead, I retrieve some paper and begin binding a blank journal. I’ve left the crafting of those to my apprentice since the fire, but the change of pace could do me good. A task where I can rejoice in both the reason and the process.

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The next morning, I cut boards to size and start assembling the cover. My hand drifts across the rolls of decorative paper, which have become less sparse as the school has recovered. Not the forest green, or the speckled gold… I settle on a gently mottled berry color. After pasting it to the boards, while waiting for it to dry, I assemble another blank journal. It’s soft-covered and uses paper I marbled in blue and gray late in my apprenticeship.

After the journal is complete, I return to the book I’ve been restoring. Retrieving my favorite wide-nib pen and a bit of blank paper cut to size, I select a deep purple ink and letter the book’s title.

Complex Bonds
Beyond the “One Human, One Dragon” Model

A sense of elation settles over me as I paste the title card to the cover and set weights atop it before leaving it to dry.

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Deckle and I enter the library, the last repaired book and several blank journals in our basket. I miss the old library, but rebuilt it’s a sight to behold. The new support beams have been painted as long-leaf pines, and in place of needles, paper birds hang from the rafters.

I slot the new journals onto a small set of shelves near the door, then drift toward the library proper. There’s a cluster of two kids and three dragons nearby—new students, since the dragons are still no bigger than a particularly large cat.

A few shelves further, a kid stands alone, looking kind of lost. Her dragon isn’t with her, maybe in that cluster near the entrance. Deckle huffs softly as we approach.

“Can I help you find anything?”

She turns to look at me, and I can see the moment she reads the title of the book in Deckle’s basket. Then, she reads it a second time. “I think you already have,” she says, voice strange.

Oh.

She reaches for the book, looking at me as if to ask for permission. I nod slightly. I was just reshelving it, after all.

When she joins the group by the door, two of the dragons begin arguing over which of them gets to sit on her shoulders. She shows them all the book, and I can see them lean closer.

I’m curious what shape the connections between the six of them take, but I leave them be. They’ve likely faced too many questions—from others and from themselves—already. As we go to check if anything else needs to be reshelved, I find myself thinking of all the other students who haven’t found their books yet. Deckle nudges me through our bond: there are books waiting on the table where the ones damaged in circulation go. I gather them and we start back toward our workshop. When we’re done, some other student will find what they need the way those six did, the way Deckle and I did when we were almost that young.