Catra Enjoys Reading for Fun, Who Knew?

Catra finds the library

It was the middle of the night and Catra was taking one of her habitual "nobody else is up and I'm super restless so I might as well explore this massive castle" strolls around Brightmoon. Even after almost a month in the place, there were still sections she hadn't yet charted. Thank goodness she had a remarkable sense of direction, otherwise she would probably have gotten lost in the labyrinth of halls and rooms long ago. Padding down the corridor, she kept a mental map of her route so she could find her way back again. Although she wasn't really paying attention to anything in particular, she did somewhat enjoy looking at all of the intricate details in the stone walls, that were rather unremarkable looking at first glance but became far more interesting the more you looked.

As she made her way down a rounded section of corridor, repeating patterns of stars and planets were interrupted by a large set of ornately carved doors. Must be a big room behind these big doors. I wonder what's inside, she thought to herself. Giving in to her natural curiosity, she pulled them open as quietly as she could manage.

The doors led into a massive oval-shaped room, with a high ceiling supported by decorative arches. The entire space was lit dimly by a bunch of glowing orbs that floated at regular intervals around the room. Even though the lights were not at all bright, presumably because it was almost 2 AM, Catra's night vision was strong enough that she could make out the entirety of the room with little difficulty. The curved walls that stretched high into the air were split into several different stories by a series of balconies, connected on each level by a staircase at the back of the huge room. At first, they appeared to be covered in some kind of enormous tapestry with an odd colorful geometric pattern of rectangles of different sizes laid out in rows. But as Catra kept looking, she realized that the walls were not decorated with tapestries, but instead were shelves of thousands upon thousands of books. She had never seen such a large quantity of printed information in one place before. The Horde did most of its record keeping digitally, and whatever paper files they needed were often kept in small disused offices. Just above a few of the shelves she also noticed labels, that read things like "fiction", "geography" and "history". They have an entire section dedicated to stuff that isn't true, Catra pondered. Are princesses really that dumb that they can't figure that out on their own? Based on how some of the members of the Best Friend Squad acted sometimes, she decided it wasn't unreasonable to answer that question with a "probably". In the center of the library was a cluster of circular tables next to another area that seemed to contain several massive cushions that appeared as if they were meant to be sat in. As was usual for Brightmoon, everything in the room was so clean it almost seemed to sparkle even in the dim light.

Heading further into the room, Catra was only half-surprised when one of the floating orb lights drifted from its place near one of the tables to begin following her, just above and behind her left shoulder. That's actually pretty nifty, she admitted to herself. She then made her way around the room, skimming book titles as she went. "Magical Traps, Nets, and Snares" read one title. "The Official Tiny Food Cookbook" read another. Although the titles were mildly interesting, Catra didn't really feel any urge to actually pick up and read any of these books. She'd always learned better from doing something herself, not studying some dusty old textbook for hours on end. Having given the first floor shelves a decent inspection, she decided that libraries weren't really her thing, and sauntered off back to Adora's room to try and get a bit more sleep.