Bastion liked listening to Isabella talk. He’d seen the way a lot of the other staff reacted when she went on long rants about books. They always seemed to do their best to avoid starting any of those conversations with her, but Bastion did the opposite. He always tried to bring it up, just to get her talking, just to see her so passionate about something, especially since he was usually passionate about the same things too. “If you drop them, they keep on being a book,” he recalled, remembering the lecture from his own studies in literature. “If you drop an E-book, you’ll get a cracked screen and hours of anger and frustration. If you lose power, you have nothing to read with an E-book. It’s not a good book in that case. I completely agree with Adams.” He nodded.
“No, don’t be sorry. Who else am I going to get to ramble to me around here besides you?” He asked jokingly. “I mean … Carly’s sweet, but I haven’t gotten to see her ramble about anything. The closest I got was her talking about how annoyed she was at having to walk her dogs at night.” Bastion loved animals as much as the next person, but he found books so much more interesting, especially when those books sometimes told stories about the best kinds of animals. “My family always fought about technology like that. It was mainly my sister against my parents though. I didn’t really have much say at first.” He shrugged. His sister and parents tended to fight often.
He nodded. “It is beautiful.” At least it was still amazing and beautiful the last time that he’d seen it. The fire was something that didn’t look like had even happened, not after how many renovations they’d had. Most people had forgotten about the fire anyways, everyone except Bastion. “It’s not that different from most libraries honestly, other than basic decor.” He shrugged. “But it was nice. I had to do some research in different places, and I couldn’t just keep working at the library, so I found other ones to work at while I do some research.”
“Unless you drop them in water, of course,” Isabella replied, a little teasingly. “Though, if you dropped an e-book or a real book in water, neither of them would fair well.” It was a relief that Bastion wasn’t rolling his eyes, and he didn’t seem bored with her rambling. Of course, there was every chance that he was humouring her -- he was definitely polite enough to do that -- but it didn’t seem like he was. Isabella couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a conversation with someone who cared as much about books as she did.
He asked who else he was going to ramble too, and Isabella laughed, guiltily. “I do worry that some people here -- not mentioning any names -- do get bored with my rambling,” she said. “I’m so glad you’re not.” She smiled at him, a genuine and warm smile, and listened as he explained his family. He hadn’t actually discussed his family a lot, though what little he had said had been more than what she’d said. She never talked about her sham of a family with anyone, even Harls and Eddie barely knew how she considered, in some odd way, Hugo Strange her father, and Kathryn Munroe her mother.
“I’m sure it is,” she agreed, a note of envy in her voice. “I love independent libraries.” She sighed wistfully. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this place. I love working here.” She reached out and touched a shelf reassuringly, almost trying to reassure herself of the fact that she wasn’t betraying this library. “But there is something so romantic about independent bookshops, smaller libraries...” She trailed off, and frowned when Bastion mentioned his research. “Oh, really?” she said, curiously. “I don’t think you’ve mentioned that before. Can I ask what you’re researching?”
