Fenrir

Cloud wandered around the fields south of Nibelheim. Of course, he wasn't supposed to wander so far from home, but he could only watch the other kids play for so long.

The fields were nice, too. Green, unlike everything in town or on the mountain. Sometimes he'd see birds, squirrels, or maybe even a fox.

A tiny noise interrupted his thoughts. A high-pitched whimper that stabbed Cloud to his very core. Something small was in pain, needed help. He followed the noise to a little hollow surrounded by gorse. There, with its leg caught in a trap, lay a wolf cub.

Cloud looked around but couldn't see any sign of other wolves. The little cub cried and whimpered as it tried to pull its leg out of the trap.

What was he supposed to do? He couldn't just let it die here, could he?

"Wait. Just... wait right there."

There wasn't much to pick from, but he found the strongest stick his little hands could hold and might fit inside the jaws of the trap.

Getting the stick wedged between the metal jaws was made harder by the little cub's struggles. He had to, somehow, calm it down. But he didn't know how.

He thought he remembered seeing someone talk to a stray cat to coax it out of a hole.

"It's going to be okay. Really. I just gotta open the trap a bit. Hey. I can, uh, tell you a story, 'kay?"

The cub still whimpered, but it seemed to lay a little more still.

Cloud swallowed then continued with his work and talking. "Well, the old folks were tellin' stories at the in last week and one of them was about this monster wolf called Fenrir. That's just what they called him! I didn't think he was a monster! B-but he was the son of this god the other gods didn't like and they thought he was going to do bad things because of who his parents were and a p-prophesy. So they tricked him into letting them tie him up and he bit off the hand of one of the gods."

The jaws refused to move, but Cloud kept trying. "Maybe I shouldn't've said anything, but I did. I said that seemed mean and ... they yelled at me. I didn't know what I was talkin' 'bout. M-mom stood up then and said I was the only one that got what the story was about. That the gods made the monster they feared by treating Fenrir bad." Cloud stopped talking for a while as he thought about what to say next and worked the stick a little further into the trap. "Mom told me later that I shouldn't feel sorry for Fenrir, though, 'cause he's a big, tough wolf and would think it was an insult. I wanna be big and tough, too. If I was, Mom wouldn't have to stand up for me and I could help her."

Finally, the jaws opened enough for the cub to slip out. It limped a step toward Cloud, sniffed, then ran away.

*7*7*

Tifa smiled as she watched Cloud fix up the new bike. "You're really putting a lot of effort into that."

He grunted as way of acknowledgement.

"Are you going to name it?" The question had been teasing, she hadn't really expected an answer.

"Yeah. Fenrir."

"Fenrir?" Tifa blinked. She hadn't heard that story in years. After a moment, she smiled. "It suits you."

This time was Cloud's turn to blink. Tifa looked from him and his adorably confused face to the monstrous bike. "A wolf that was mistreated and ended up killing a god. I think it sounds a lot like you."

Cloud shrugged and turned back to his work. He hadn't thought about it that way. Somehow, hearing it from Tifa almost made him smile.

There were a couple ways I could have written this, but I liked the idea of Child!Cloud telling the Fenrir story to a wolf cub. It didn't get into the story, but the trap was there because monsters were making trouble for the farmers in the area.

And Tifa was at the gathering where Cloud got scolded for sympathizing with Fenrir, but she doesn't remember it. She was five at the time. I have a fairly good memory, and I can't remember many details from when I was five.