Chapter Text
Cloud kicked a pebble across the path.
"I won't go," he said to himself.
It was laughable. He had been invited to the royal ball. Him, Cloud Strife, noble bastard, laughingstock and outcast of the Nibelheim Baronial family, the strange almost-nephew who rarely even spent time at the Baronial mansion.
Cloud was relatively comfortable with his small house on the outskirts of Nibelheim. He had the things he needed, and those who laughed at him did not come to bother him out here. Those who did come, came only for small trade, taking chopped firewood in return for coin or edible goods, as if Cloud were indeed the peasant he chose to live the life of.
Those who did enjoy needling Cloud in the town kept away from his house. He'd grown up having to defend himself, gotten decent at it, and gained something of a reputation despite his looks and lack of height.
The idea of dressing up and going to the ball was ludicrous.
"You should go," a voice said in his mind. "You'll confound them all."
Cloud told that part of himself to shut the hell up.
He was getting into the center of the town now. Amusing, that he needed to visit the family seat just to say he was not attending a dance.
"Well, hello, my lord! Getting ready to go to the ball there, are we?"
A chorus of multi-gendered laughter greeted the loud voice. Cloud looked, and saw Reno the merchant's son and a group of his cronies, about to enter the inn.
Cloud snorted, looked away, and kept going.
"Maybe he wants to meet the Prii-iii-iince!" sang out one of the others. More laughter.
"Is that the best thing you can think of to do with your time?" Cloud spat and kept walking. Don't let them see. Don't let them know. Keep your head high.
It shouldn't still get to him at all, Cloud thought. He KNEW this. He knew he was better than the stupid brats who thought it was fun to make life hell for others, yet still - sometimes. Just sometimes, it would be good to walk through town without the bullshit.
Cloud reached the mansion, and knocked on the door.
"Yeees?" greeted the butler. "Ah. Hello, Strife."
"Hello yourself, Jearle." Cloud replied. One corner of his mouth lifted in a smile.
"Would you care to wait in the sitting room for the others to return, or...?"
"Nah. I've got a message."
Cloud followed the Jearle into the sitting room.
"Would this be regarding the invitation to the ball?" asked Jearle. He poured them each a small sherry.
"Still drinking the baronial grog when you're not supposed to," observed Cloud, taking his.
"Of course," Jearle said. "Only with the proper sort of guest, though." They toasted each other in the air, then sipped.
Cloud sighed, looking at the floor. "Astute as always, too, Detective. You guessed it. 'm not going."
"I see," Jearle said. "Well. I can't say I am surprised, but it might have been nice had you come along and confounded them."
"Not if they dragged me," Cloud said.
"You know he'll be there." Jearle looked at Cloud. "The Prince."
The Prince. They'd both seen him. Once. Together.
Two years ago, when Cloud was only seventeen. The butler had been seeing Cloud out of the mansion after another argument between the Baron and his bastard half-nephew. And then the Royal carriage had pulled up as the two watched through a front window.
Prince Sephiroth had descended from the carriage, and Cloud had stopped stock-still, not knowing what to do with himself.
It was as if the Prince carried his own aura as he walked; an aura of beauty and of danger. It was not just the long, powerful legs and hips encased in finest leather breeches and knee-boots that hugged his form so closely it was almost sinful. It was not just the suggestion of carven muscle and shoulders beneath the silken shirt. It wasn't even just the ethereal sweep of silver hair to Prince Sephiroth's hips, or the coldly beautiful features such as either Cloud or Jearle had never seen on a man.
Well, it was partly those things. But it was also the way he moved, the way he scanned the area as if for danger or enemy. A sense of sheer power, of ability to do anything with or to anyone without even having to think about it.
Cloud had stood staring, wide-eyed, his heart beating as if he'd been running, raw attraction and something else charging through his veins. Never had he had a reaction like this to anyone or anything before.
And then the Prince's eyes had suddenly fixed on Cloud and Jearle at their window, and narrowed.
"I think perhaps the back door would be best," Jearle had suggested mildly, and Cloud had nodded and turned and ran as if the hounds of Hell were after him. He'd escaped ... why did he think of it as escape?? ... and gone straight back to his cottage on the outskirts of Nibelheim.
He'd never seen Prince Sephiroth again - not that that was unusual; the Prince was not often seen anyway, and many spoke of him as someone elusive and mysterious.
Cloud had felt those eyes on him, piercing, and had not forgotten the experience.
He found that he was like a few of the women of Nibelheim were rumoured to be: unable to stop thinking about the mysterious heir to the Kingdom, breathless to think about him, his intense physicality and unearthly beauty locked in Cloud's mind.
Now, in the present, Cloud did wonder what it would be like to see Prince Sephiroth again, at the ball. But - no way was he ever going. He wouldn't give the others the satisfaction of bringing him down in that sort of social scene.