The Bone That Was the Shield
The dragonbone shield is made from the bone of the Dragons, and the bone is the one that was the shield before the dragon was the bone. The rib of a dragon is the shape of a kite shield grown at the size of the dragon's fight — the curve is the curve the blow has to go over, and the blow has already gone over it, the way the blow goes over the mountain, and the mountain does not come back to collect. The bone was the shield before the dragon was the bone, and the bone remembers. A dragonbone shield does not need the working. The dragon is the working, and the dragon is the one who is hit, every time, and the dragon is the one who keeps the hit.
A masterwork dragonbone shield is one rib, cut to the shape of a fighter and set with a ring of Iron, because the iron is the border of what the fighter can carry — the bone wants to be the size of the fight it was, and the iron is what says: the fight is this size, and the fighter is this size. There is no journeyman dragonbone shield. There is no master dragonbone shield. The bone is the masterwork, or the bone is not.
In the Hand
The dragonbone shield is the third stance, made bone that was the mountain: brace. It does not ring, and it does not click, and it does not give — the blow goes into the bone, and the bone is the one that keeps the blow, the way the mountain keeps the rain. The fighter behind it takes nothing of the ring, because the bone is the one who is hit, and the bone has already been hit by the whole of the world, and the world is the one who did not finish it.
"A dragonbone shield is not armor. It is the fight the dragon already finished, and the finished is the one that holds." — Wreckreate