Clouderella
By ~Stormy~
Disclaimer: All characters from Final Fantasy belong to Squaresoft, I, however, own nothing. Go ahead, sue me.
Warning: I have completely screwed up the timeline here… apart from that, everyone is in character (well, apart from the girls… but ya know, I couldn't care less!)
Author's Notes: E minor… soooo damn spooky ^_^
Don't say you never thought of it before! I dug this outta my old… old english book. I can't believe my teacher thought this was worth an A, I can't believe she knew who Cloud was!
Clouderella
Prologue
Once upon a time, there lived a young man whose name, odd though it may seem, happened to be Cloud.
He was a quiet and misunderstood fourteen year old, looking nothing like anybody else in the village except, perhaps, from his mother. His father, a rather mysterious figure rumoured to be a decently ranked soldier, if not war hero material, had long since died in action. Leaving them both quite alone in their small one-roomed cottage, in the small one-truck village of Nibelheim.
For ease of visualisation and brevity notwithstanding, it is taken that Cloud's mother was quite beautiful, if small, and bore an uncanny resemblance to her son. Who was shorter and younger looking than others his age, and painfully thin – for they were not a wealthy family, far from it, and he would not think of eating while his mother could not.
His hair was long and wild, the colour of sunshine as it fell on morning snow. His eyes, of more than generous proportions, were the most unusual blue, which changed shade and hue dramatically between midnight and ice to fit his mood; and his skin, while often bruised or cut or covered in dirt as befitted a teenaged boy, was as white and delicate as the ashes of cremated bones.
Cloud and his mother were very close, although of course, Cloud being the age that he was and being posessed of the accompanying hormones, did nothing for his normally pleasant demeanor, or his mother's sanity. This being the case, he spent a larger than discreet amount of time free climbing and practising his sword skills in the cold, bleak Nibel mountains. Cloud loved the mountains, though the other villagers were loath to venture so far out of their walled village for fear of ghosts or monsters. It was for this reason more than any that Cloud trained so hard, and travelled so deep into the forbidding highlands; because he was often blamed for everything and anything. Such was the price of individualism. Not that he didn't want to play with the other kids… but he was so different than they were, and couldn't bear to be laughed at.
Yes, Cloud was bullied. An outcast, with the overruling and intrinsic knowledge that he would never fit in. Over time, he learned to keep out of the way of anyone lest they take out their frusrations on his perfectly deserving carcass. Not that he was unable to defend himself. Cloud could easily outfight groups of children much larger than himself, and hold his own with the best adults. He also had the art of outrunning an opponent and completely disappearing from sight practiced to perfection. Indeed, there was but one man in the whole village he could not at least escape with minor cuts and scratches… Mayor Lockheart.
Lockheart was not what one would call an evil man, even though left bitter by the loss of his wife. But the overall feeling toward the boy was that he was of bad blood, a troublemaker… and Lockheart did nothing to defend him, inflicting the worst punishments upon the boy himself.
Now, also in this close knit village lived two girls whom Cloud had repeatedly attempted to befriend, with less than little success. Indeed, they were generally worse than all the village boys put together, which was quite often what happened when he attempted to gain the favour of either.
You see, the first of these girls was the daughter of Mayor Lockheart himself, and the focus of attention for every boy in the village. She was entirely childish, and very rarely thought of anyone over and above herself… of course, she was young and spoiled, so Cloud never thought to lay a large amount of blame on her. No matter what Cloud did to try and get her attention, it almost always went over her head, or resulted in yet another street brawl and beating from the girl's father. Which was unavoidable, since retaliating against the Mayor could have put him, and his mother, in even worse trouble.
The second girl, was completely the opposite. Whenever she saw Cloud return to the village after one of his extended sojourns, sometimes even during lessons, she would latch onto him in a manner quite reminiscent of a lovestarved puppy. However many times Cloud insisted that he was not, and never would be interested in her, she managed to avoid taking the blindest bit of notice. Apparently, she had a thing for the strong-silent type. (Though Cloud was not particularly silent, having a boundless and morbid sense of humour behind a mouth that was known to have caused seventy percent of all altercations in the district.) This just made the village boys even more jealous, knowing that they weren't nearly the mach for Cloud in looks. Which of course, nearly always ended in a fight.
Now, one day, after yet another day of unfortunate jokes and their painful retorts, he had called only briefly into the house to gather some things, and tell his mother not to make his dinner, before heading straight back out into the town.