The royal library of Agrabah was a secret the night held close, vast and breathing with a quiet that settled deeper than any spoken silence.

Columns of carved sandstone rose into darkness, their capitals lost high above where vaulted domes arched like a sleeping sky.

Golden lanterns hung in air, dimly flickering, casting subdued halos across long corridors of wood and paper.

The air was heavy with the scent of ink, dust, and time itself, each breath taken in this place feeling like a borrowed piece of history.

Stacks upon stacks of ancient volumes slumbered on carved mahogany shelves, their spines worn by the soft erosion of fingers and years.

Velvety tapestries hung like shadows against the walls, embroidered with the constellations of Agrabah’s past dynasties—sultanes long buried, sultanas long whispered about in palace corridors.

Below them, large tables of dark wood lay scattered with the quiet chaos of thought: open tomes with gilded edges, folded maps inked in delicate lines, and scrolls unfurled in partial translation.

Moonlight crept in through arched windows, as it painted its light across the marble floor.

The wind beyond the thick walls was little more than a ghost, brushing the glass with fingers made of sand and breath. Outside, the palace lay asleep.

The servants’ quarters dark, the corridors hushed, the throne hall far away beneath draped silks and locked doors.

But here—within this forgotten chamber of stories and solitude—something stirred.

The softest of sounds approached—dull and rhythmic, a quiet cadence against velvet rugs. Not the swish of slippers or the patter of bare feet, but something heavier, grounded. Paws. Enormous, padded, and sure.

Emerging from the shadows cast between towering bookshelves, Rajah entered the library with his usual silent majesty.

His frame was powerful but fluid, stripes dark as fresh ink curling across fur the color of honeyed firelight. He moved like a memory through the dark—large, precise, and impossibly quiet.

In his mouth, gently clutched between his teeth, were several parchment rolls bound with a strip of soft crimson ribbon. They wavered slightly with each step, ends fluttering like reluctant leaves.

Somewhere in the deeper wings of the library, he had searched—nose pressed to shelves, paw lifting papers to find the correct scent, the right texture.

His quest, though simple, had been pursued with the solemn purpose only a tiger of Rajah’s stature could possess. Not a servant’s errand, but a companion’s vow.

There was dust on his front leg where he had brushed against a low stool, and a bit of golden thread caught beneath one claw.

The parchment bundle shifted slightly in his mouth as he stepped deeper into the library’s heart.

His ears flicked with attentiveness, and his long tail moved in an easy arc behind him, low and measured. He was a tiger in a palace of parchment—anointed by candlelight, cloaked in silence.

Passing under an arched doorway between two towering shelves, he emerged into the central chamber where a single lamp glowed steadily.

The light haloed across a reading table cluttered with soft-bound atlases, tea left to cool in a forgotten cup, and several weathered scrolls half-unrolled.

The scent of warm ink and open vellum lingered here like perfume. The shadows swayed gently with the flicker of the flame. All was still. All was waiting.

Rajah paused a few steps from the table you were sitting by, his amber gaze catching the light and holding it—liquid and endless.

The scrolls rustled faintly between his teeth as he took one more step forward.

His massive frame settled softly beside the chair, the thick fur at his neck rising and falling with each breath.

Then—deliberate, gentle—he pressed his head forward and nudged the scrolls against your resting hand. It was not out of urgently, but rather with the quiet gravity of completion.

The papers brushed against your skin, a sound softer than silk and just as weighted with meaning.