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“You have a bookshelf?” Adora said, her flat tone doing little to hide the curious glint in her eyes.
“Um…yes? Didn’t you see that earlier?” Glimmer asked, looking at her upside down as she laid back on her bed, hanging high above the floor.
Adora looked up at her from her seat among the many cushions scattered around the room and simply shrugged.
“We were always either coming in when it was dark or late, or I was trying to hide from your mom. Kinda…not great times to look around for something like a bookshelf. Also not the first thing I look for in a room to be honest.” She answered matter-of-factly, though she couldn’t keep herself from looking back at the books.
“Well…I mean I guess that makes sense.” She mused, kicking her legs in the air as she looked back up at the chains holding her bed aloft. “So then, do you wanna read any of them? There’s some good stories on those shelves.”
“Wait…those aren’t manuals? Or rule books?” Adora asked as she stared at the shelf again, already starting to fidget with a curious energy.
“No…?” Glimmer said as she raised an eyebrow, teleporting down in front of the bookshelf.
“You mean you’ve got books that aren’t manuals or full of long drawn out rules? Books with stories in them?” Adora added as she started to get up and walk over, moving just a bit too quickly to hide her excitement any more.
Glimmer nearly collided with the shelf as she backed up, feeling like she was staring down a dragon that just saw an incredibly enticing meal; she squeaked a little as Adora put her hands on her shoulders, her excitement giving her eyes a fiery gleam.
“Can I borrow some of them?!” She pleaded, her eyes practically shining now with the same energy she had whenever she swung that sword of hers, a shine that Glimmer couldn’t help but smile at.
“Sure, you can take anything you like from here.”
Glimmer paused and looked down to find that her feet were no longer touching the ground, held aloft by just Adora’s hands on her shoulders.
“Do…Do I weigh anything to you? At all?” Glimmer sputtered as she swung her legs a little in protest at being picked up by the much taller, and much stronger girl.
“Uh…Not at all…?” Adora answered, giving her an apologetic grin as she set her down on the ground again.
Glimmer sighed and shook her head, trying and failing to hide a smile as she turned and pulled a book off the shelf and handed it over.
“Here, start with this one for tonight since it’s late. You can come and get more when you wake up okay?”
Adora gave her a smile and a nod as she headed to her room for the night, practically running as she could not wait to start.
‘Dear Diary, Adora finally noticed the book shelf in my room today.’ Glimmer muttering to herself as she wrote in her diary, not bothering to hide the smile on her face with every word. 'I can’t really blame her though, with how much we were all running around those first few days. But honestly it’s so strange getting to show someone all these things that I see pretty much every day, but to her are absolutely new. But it’s always amazing to see how excited Adora is to find new things to learn. I have no idea how, but I swear the more I see her the more I fall in love. Maybe one day I’ll tell her that.’
Glimmer yawned and slowly shut her diary, making sure her book mark was in place, and set it down on the table. She rose to her feet and started to head up to her bed, turning out the lights as the last room of the castle finally fell quiet.
When Glimmer woke up the next morning she rolled over in her bed, looking down to find her shelves completely empty of books. She couldn’t help but smile and laugh a little.
“Well I did say to take anything you liked.” She mused, climbing down to get dressed and go looking for Adora.
Glimmer found Adora perched in a window sill in one of the castle’s alcoves, with a table obviously dragged over to her side; a few large stacks sat atop the table, hoarded away like a dragon’s treasure. She had one of the thicker books in her hands, one hand gliding down each page as she read them.
“I didn’t realize I’d had that many on my shelf…” Glimmer said, captivated by the sheer bulk that small table was holding.
“Well, not all of them were on the shelf. Some of them I guess you forgot, since they were kinda buried.” Adora said absentmindedly as she turned one, two, three pages as she spoke.
“Wait, where all did you grab these from?”
“Well I just looked around on the lower part of your room, I didn’t wanna wake you up, so I just grabbed any that weren’t up there with your bed.” She answered with a shrug, hardly slowing down at all.
Glimmer froze as she processed what Adora had said, her eyes scanning over the stacks and finding something that made her blood run cold; a familiar bookmark peeked out at her. Her diary, her diary with all of her secrets and all of her feelings, was on the bottom of the stacks; stacks that were very rapidly shrinking.
“Uh, Adora..? You mind if I take one of those back? I was planning on reading it tonight.” Glimmer said, trying to keep her voice from shaking as she reached for her diary.
Without even looking away from her book, or even acknowledging her hand at all, Adora swatted Glimmer’s hand away. Now this wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for Adora’s rather exceptional strength meaning that it was less of a swat, and more like Glimmer’s hand getting spiked like a volleyball down onto the table. Glimmer bit down on her tongue to stifle her cry as she reflexively teleported out over the moat, plunging into the water with a splash. The water practically boiled as a muffled, but still quite loud scream of pain and sheer, nervous panic roiled the water around her. Glimmer thrashed to the surface before teleporting back into the castle. She had to get her diary away from Adora. But she couldn’t get her hand anywhere near those stacks without getting swatted again!
“Gee…Adora, uh, you’re really reading reading through all of those kinda fast huh? Ya wanna, maybe, take a break…?” Glimmer pleaded, knelt on the floor, just out of swatting range at the side of the table.
“Nah I’m good, I’ll get all these back to you by the end of the day, promise.” Adora said with a wave.
Adora had already finished the book she was reading and moved onto the next, hand gliding down each page as her eyes trailed not too far behind; her gaze and perched posture made her look almost imposing as she devoured each word, having been starved of so much experience for years. Her eyes were burning with that hunger for knowledge as they glided over each page at a speed that actually made Glimmer kind of curious.
“Say Adora, how are you reading so fast?” Glimmer inquired, tilting her head in curiosity as she watched her read.
“We had regular training exercises back in the Fright Zone. We had to read things like reports in the middle of a Combat Sim. You tend to learn how to read quickly when things are shooting at you, even if it only stings.” She answered with a shrug, glancing down at Glimmer.
Glimmer was shaken out of her thoughts as she looked at her diary again, the stacks growing ever smaller and Adora getting closer and closer to picking up her diary next. Glimmer bit her cheek as she tried to contain her panic, teleporting to the top of the castle to vent her panic and frustration in one loud, drawn out, shriek.
By the time Glimmer got back to the alcove Adora had claimed for her hoard of books, it was too late. Her diary was not at the bottom of the stacks anymore. Adora was already reading it but something was different this time, her hand was moving much slower along each page.
“Hey Glimmer, you might wanna check this one out, it’s…” She paused, looking the pages she was reading over again, lost in a thought. “…almost like a fairytale really, all in first person though. It’s really kinda cool.”
Glimmer couldn’t help but swallow her nerves as she watched Adora’s hand trail down each and every page, eyes with that same hunger for knowledge running over every word. She wasn’t reading a book any more. She was reading Glimmer now, her thoughts, her ideas, her feelings all in every word and every page of that book. A book she was holding with great care, a book she was taking her time to read, captivated by every word like a dragon drawn to treasure.
Glimmer couldn’t speak, her voice was already in those pages, her words pinned under Adora’s touch. Like that, how could she find any words at all.