The CYAP library was a small room off the Sparkle Room, filled with picture books about friendly glow-worms, histories of the Awakened Association (heavily sanitized), and beginner's guides to "Sparkle Safety." On Wednesday, during "Quiet Reading Time," Teacher Milly announced a special treat.
"Friends! The Main Branch Library has loaned us some very special books for our 'Historical Sparkles' unit! These are replicas of books from before the gates opened! Be very careful—they're delicate!"
She placed three books on the reading table. They were indeed replicas—faithful copies of older volumes, made with modern materials but designed to look aged. One was about early Awakened theory. Another about pre-gate mythology. The third...
The third was a reproduction of a 17th-century herbal. "Plants of Myth and Medicine," the cover read in ornate, faded script.
Astraea knew that book. Not this replica. The original.
She had watched it being written.
The memory didn't wait for her to open the book. The scent of the replica's aging-simulation chemicals—a clever modern concoction meant to evoke old paper and leather—was close enough. Not exact. But close:
She was in the Library of Silver Leaves, the greatest repository of draconic knowledge in the northern mountains. Not a building—a living grove of memory-trees whose leaves were actual pages, whose bark was inscribed with histories that changed as the events they recorded unfolded.
A human scholar—his name was Alaric—worked at a stone table under the dappled light of memory-leaves. He was transcribing dragon lore into a form humans could understand. A dangerous project, but her father had approved it. "Knowledge should flow like rivers," he'd said. "Not hoarded like gold."
Astraea, curious and young, watched as Alaric carefully wrote in his herbal. He was documenting silverleaf, among other plants. His hand was steady, his script beautiful.
"Why write it down?" young Astraea had asked, her draconic form curled nearby. "The trees remember."
Alaric smiled, not looking up from his work. "Human memories are shorter than dragon memories, little one. We need reminders. Tangible ones." He tapped the page. "This book will outlive me. It will carry what I've learned to humans who haven't been born yet. To humans who might need it centuries from now."
The scent of the ink—ground minerals and tree sap. The scent of the paper—hemp and moonlight. The scent of the memory-leaves overhead—living knowledge, sweet and sharp.
"What if the book burns?" Astraea asked, practical even then.
Alaric paused, considering. "Then the knowledge returns to the world. And perhaps someone will remember enough to write it again." He looked at her, his human eyes serious. "Knowledge is like starlight, little dragon. It travels. Even if the source is gone, the light continues."
She watched him work for hours. The careful illustrations. The precise notes about which plants grew where, which healed what, which remembered which dragons.
When he finished the silverleaf entry, he showed it to her. The illustration was surprisingly accurate. The notes mentioned its use in "draconic maternal care rituals."
"Your mother helped with this part," Alaric said softly. "She wanted humans to know how to care for their young too."
Young Astraea touched the page gently with a claw-tip. The ink was still damp. The scent rose—minerals, sap, memory.
"Will humans really use this?" she asked.
"Some will," Alaric said. "And some will dismiss it as myth. And some will keep it safe, just in case." He closed the book. "Knowledge finds its way to those who need it. Eventually."
"Astraea? Would you like to look at the herbal?"
Teacher Milly's voice pulled her back. The replica book lay on the table. The modern chemical scent filled her nostrils. Wrong, but close enough to unlock the right memory.
"Yes, please," Astraea whispered.
She opened the book. The pages were modern paper made to look old. The illustrations were reproductions. But the information... the information was the same.
She turned to the section on silverleaf. There it was: the same illustration. The same notes about "traditional use in maternal care." A footnote added by modern editors: "Mythological reference—no verified Awakened properties."
Mythological. Because the humans who wrote the footnote didn't remember the Library of Silver Leaves. Didn't remember Alaric working under memory-trees. Didn't know the original had been copied from living leaves that remembered dragon gardens.
Leo peered over her shoulder. "That's the plant from the tea," he noted. "Artemisia lunari folium. The footnote says 'mythological.'"
"It's not myth," Astraea said, her fingers tracing the illustration.
"I know," Leo said simply. He pointed to another entry—moonthread. "This one too. Mia has it growing."
The replica book contained maybe two dozen plants. Astraea recognized eight of them from her mother's garden. Plants that shouldn't exist in human herbals because humans hadn't discovered them yet when these books were supposedly written.
Unless...
She looked at the publication date on the replica's inner cover: 1673. Four years after she had watched Alaric working on the original.
The original had survived. Had been copied. Had made its way into human knowledge, labeled as "mythology" because the truth behind it had been forgotten.
"Teacher Milly?" Astraea asked, keeping her voice child-steady. "Where did the original of this book come from?"
"Oh, it's from the Royal Archives!" Milly said cheerfully. "Part of a collection donated by the Alaric Foundation centuries ago. They preserved all sorts of old herbals and mythologies!"
Alaric Foundation. He'd done it. He'd preserved the knowledge. Not perfectly—humans had labeled it myth. But preserved.
The scent of the replica book—chemicals simulating age—mixed with the ghost-scent of the real memory: ink and sap and living leaves.
The other children lost interest in the old books quickly, returning to picture books about sparkle-animals. But Astraea, Leo, and Mia stayed at the herbal.
Mia pointed to each plant she recognized from her garden. "This one grows toward you. This one sings when you're nearby. This one only blooms on nights when your window light is silverest."
Each plant remembered. Even through centuries. Even through human misunderstanding labeled as "myth."
When reading time ended, Astraea was the last to put the herbal back on the cart. Her fingers lingered on the cover. This replica, with its chemical scent and modern paper, was a ghost of a ghost. But the ghost was real. The memory was real.
Alaric had kept his promise. The knowledge had traveled. Through fire and time and forgetting, it had traveled.
That afternoon, during "Creative Writing," where children were supposed to write stories about "historical sparkles," Astraea didn't write about sparkles. She wrote about a human scholar in a dragon library, writing down knowledge so it would outlive him. She wrote about ink made of minerals and memory. About books that carried light across centuries.
When Teacher Milly read it during sharing time, she smiled her kind, misunderstanding smile. "What a wonderful imagination, Raea! Mixing history and fantasy!"
But Leo and Mia knew it wasn't fantasy. Leo gave a small, solemn nod. Mia's water orbs pulsed in recognition.
After CYAP, walking home, the scent of the replica book still lingered in Astraea's senses. But underneath it, she could now smell the real scents: the mineral ink, the hemp paper, the memory-leaves of the Library of Silver Leaves.
The library had burned. She knew that memory too, though it hadn't been triggered yet. Burned in one of the early human-dragon conflicts that preceded the famine. The memory-trees had screamed as they died, their stored knowledge turning to smoke and ash.
But some of it had escaped. In Alaric's books. In the copies humans made. In the recipes passed down in families like Mrs. Evans'.
Knowledge did travel. Like starlight. The source could be gone, but the light continued.
That night, she examined her own small collection of books—CYAP pamphlets, a picture book about sparkle-safety Mrs. Evans had given her, a beginner's guide to mana theory.
They were flimsy things. Modern. Temporary.
But somewhere, in some archive, was Alaric's original herbal. Or a copy of it. And in its pages was the knowledge her mother had shared. The care. The love.
She touched the moonthread plant. It glowed brighter at her touch. Its leaves held memories too—of dragon gardens, of moonlight filtered through silver scales, of a time when plants and dragons spoke the same language.
[System Notification]
[Memory Unlocked: 'Library of Silver Leaves']
[Emotional Content: Mixed (wonder/loss). Associated Sense: Olfactory.]
[System Analysis: User demonstrates knowledge of historical botany inconsistent with available education.]
[Recording as: 'Historical Fiction - Vivid Detail']
[Reward: +5 to 'Research Skills' stat]
[Note: Reading books helps us learn about the past! Even made-up stories can teach us things!]
The System was so close and so far. It saw the detailed knowledge, recognized it didn't fit, and created a category that almost made sense. "Historical Fiction - Vivid Detail." Because to the System, the past Astraea remembered was fiction. Mythology.
But to Astraea, the scent of mineral ink and memory-leaves was more real than the plastic of her CYAP ID card.
She measured her height: 152.5 cm. Growth minimal. Her body was busy with other things. Integration. Memory.
The past wasn't just returning as sensory flashes. It was returning as connections. The forge memory connected to her father. The tea memory connected to her mother. The library memory connected to Alaric, to the preservation of knowledge.
And all of them connected to now. To Leo's science. To Mia's empathy. To Mrs. Evans' tea. To a replica book in a CYAP library.
Patterns. Too large to be coincidence.
Before sleep, she opened her window. Not for air. To listen. To smell. To feel if the world still remembered what the books had forgotten.
The city smelled of concrete and mana and human lives. But underneath, faint as starlight through smoke, she thought she caught the scent of memory-leaves. Of ink and sap and promises kept across centuries.
Books burned. Libraries fell. But knowledge, like starlight, traveled. And sometimes, against all odds, it found its way home.