Kanaya (hearts) Rose: AU where all the trolls are books, and Rose finds Kanaya
Her favorite place to go with her friends is a rundown library on the outskirts of town. It's run by a little, wrinkly old lady named Callie, who keeps the shelves stocked with the oddest things. Rose is always greeted with a knowing smile when she enters through the bright green doors, before Jade (or John, or Dave, or whoever she's dragged with her this time) steals the little woman's attention.
And no matter whom she brought with her, nothing ever stopped her from returning to her favorite section of this scarcely known library. It was not titled at all, simply one shelf tucked away in a clearly well tended to, but not often visited, corner that held twelve books.
Each of these books were unique, most had apparently been rescued from abusive owners (she'd wheedled their origins out of Lady Callie after several weeks of experiencing horror at several books either being incomplete due to fire/water damage, multiple blank pages, or the one that had literally had its latter half ripped out), and each one was the last of its kind. So whenever she came to this library, she made time to just sit and spend time with these books.
She liked The Bloodied Knight, but after her first time opening it (and sending the multitudes of loose pages flying across the floor), she'd put the heartfelt story of fear and difference and acceptance back on the shelf. Maybe one day she'd try to fix it, but somehow the way its grey binding just barely managed to keep the book together was part of its charm.
Rose had never felt an urge to read The Ram and the Dead Girl, but she had flipped through it once (she'd found that literally every page was either illegible or torn out). She'd put it back on the shelf with a tender care the previous owners had obviously not shown it. T. Nitram was a brown book with a title done in fiery letters. The saddest part about that book was that half the pages were left empty, only compounded due to the cliffhanger the words ended on.
Doom's Twin was actually two novels in one, and it had old and brittle, yellowed pages inside its cover. The edges were singed where it had clearly come into contact with a fire, and Rose always made sure to treat it with care. The Capricious Clown had a black cover with its title in blocky grey letters, but its text had been ruined by the bullet holes that riddle the pages. Rose always felt saddened when she looked at it.
On one of the three shelves For the Love of the Law sat between The Prince's Despair and The Witch and Her Demon. The black-bound romance novel was about the illicit, sometimes vitriolic relationship between a beat cop and a man she suspected of being a vigilante. It was one of Rose's favorites, despite its seemingly unrealistic premise. The Prince's Despair had a velvety, violet cover, but was missing its back end. It looked a lot like someone had taken a chainsaw to it. The Witch and Her Demon was a Lovecraftian novel about a young girl who found herself raised to take care of an Old God. It's beige cover and fuchsia lettering hardly prepared one for the scandals that the young witch got herself into, and Rose had been horrified to realize that many pages had holes torn straight through the middle.
Spider's Serket was a light blue book completely covered in cobwebs, which Rose had never brought herself to open (who knew what sort of spiders dared to live in such a clean corner of the library?) But one of her favorites things about this particular bookshelf was that two companion books, Huntress' Moon and Heir's Sun, sat together away from the others. They both suffered from severe water damage, but Huntress's Moon's blue cover had, at some point, been sliced by claws (likely cat ones), while the olive cover of Heir's Sun was tattered around the edges. It was cute, and while she wished she could have read their intertwined story, she wasn't too torn up about it.
But her favorite book was a white bound novel with elegant, cursive titling in a glittering jade color. It had been abused as well, in its past (two chapters towards the end had been nearly obliterated by a hole ripped through the center of its pages), but its story touched her heart. The Angel has Fangs was a book after her own heart, with vampires and vengeance and love of all kinds.
There were forgotten legacies that resurfaced unexpectedly, best friends that fell into a love that was greater than that of any other and yet still did not cross the line into romance. There was a romantic love interest that reflected the light Rose found in the protagonist, and the ending always made her cry.
It was always sad to read about that girl, that woman who grew so much over the course of her own story, giving her life to save that of her platonic life partner. It broke her heart. She loved that protagonist, that careful, sassy, glowing Kanaya. Rose always, always made time to read about her.
Rose never let Kanaya grow dusty, like her fellows on the shelf. She would never let that happen. As long as she lived, Kanaya would have a faithful reader.