Chapter Text
5 Years later…
Cloud sighed as he flopped down on the dock he and his mother had built extending into a nice private inlet located deep in the thicker parts of the Nibel forest far enough away from town that they didn’t have to worry about anyone other than themselves and mers from Squall’s clan accidentally coming upon the human boy and young triton while they were meeting. It was somewhere far enough that Cloud could easily lose any of the town kids who tried to follow him to harass him. After they’d almost gotten caught together by some of Cloud's more persistent bullies, he and Squall had searched along the river and its inlets and tributaries to find this special meeting place. Having spent so much time traversing the woods all of his life, Cloud was a much more capable woodsman and mountaineer than his peers - though that was kind of the problem.
He was teased for being the weird mountain or wilderness boy. Even though he was far from being the worst student in their class, he wasn’t the best either (just average) but that didn’t stop the other kids from calling him stupid. As much as their teasing and taunting hurt, Cloud didn’t really care what they thought in the end. He had his mother, Squall, and Squall’s family and they were enough for him.
“Are you alright?” Squall’s low voice asked.
In the last month, Squall’s voice had started getting deeper and cracking at random moments so he’d begun speaking at a softer volume to prevent such embarrassing instances even though Cloud reassured him that it was only a matter of time before his voice started to do the same.
“Fine,” Cloud huffed. “Just the same nonsense. Jerks being jerks and all that.”
“They didn’t hurt you, did they?” Squall asked, one of his webbed hands reaching for Cloud’s face, cupping his left cheek and gently rubbing his thumb under Cloud’s eye.
“Nope. They haven’t been able to catch me for a while,” Cloud bragged, beaming proudly. “I’m too fast for them and they’re crap at navigating the forest.”
Squall hummed, eyes narrowed in amusement, tapping their foreheads together before letting Cloud’s face go and drifting back so that he could prop his arms on the dock.
“So how was your day?” Cloud asked. “Has that summer festival thing you told me about last time happened yet?”
“No. It’ll be another moon cycle before that,” Squall sighed, his tailfin swishing in the water for a moment, his silver scales glittering brightly in the sunlight. “Though the way Ellone is making a fuss about preparations, you’d think it was happening tomorrow.”
“How is she? She completed her magic training, right?” Cloud asked.
“Yeah. She’s now an official seawitch,” Squall sighed. “Dad's really proud. There’s even a chance that she’ll become Matron Edea’s next apprentice. We’ll find out at the festival. How’s your mom?”
“Ma’s fine,” Cloud sighed. “She’s still not happy about my current grades in school.”
“Still?” Squall groaned. “Cloud! That’s why we can only meet once a week!”
“I know,” Cloud moaned. “My literacy score’s gone up a bit, but I still suck at math and my science grade’s about the same.”
“I will never understand the importance you humans put on strange numbered equations,” Squall muttered.
“Shut up,” Cloud huffed, sticking his tongue out at the young triton. “Your magic circle and potion stuff is just as strange and confusing to me.”
Squall chuckled, the new deep rumble of it a comforting sound that settled something deep in Cloud’s soul.
“You’ll get it one day,” Squall murmured, leaning forward to press their foreheads together again. “When we bond as mates, I’ll get to show you my world and you can show me yours.”
Cloud hummed, running his fingers through Squall’s damp hair and lightly touching the finned shell of an ear, loving the way the thin membrane of the fin flexed and twitched beneath his finger tips.
“I look forward to it,” Cloud murmured. “Not sure what you’d want to see in Nibelheim, but I’ll show you whatever you want.”
“You know I’m just as curious about how you live as you are about how I live,” Squall chuckled, his cheeks pinking and his long eyelashes fluttering closed as Cloud lightly scratched behind his ear fin, making Cloud grin.
Squall was really pretty.
He couldn’t wait until they were older and they could perform the mating bond. He wasn’t sure what it all entailed yet - something his mother said he wasn’t allowed to know until he was fourteen and wouldn’t be able to go through until he was eighteen. He had a feeling that it had something to do with sex - something he’d learned recently at school - but he wasn’t sure how that worked between a human and a mer. He barely understood how it happened between a boy and a girl. The lesson was really more of a scare tactic to discourage them from doing sex so that they couldn’t get gross and scary diseases than it was informative about how it all worked. When he’d gone to his mom with questions, she’d just once again told him he’d learn more when he turned fourteen.
Whatever.
He and Squall continued to talk about the goings on in their respective town and clans until the sun began to set and they reluctantly parted ways until they could meet again next week. When he got home, his mother looked up with tears in her eyes from where she was seated at their dining table. Seeing her sorrowful expression, Cloud froze for a moment before hurrying over to her.
“Mom? What’s wrong?” he demanded. “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”
“I-I’m fine Cloud,” Claudia Strife murmured. “It’s just… Thea Lockhart is dead. She finally succumbed to her illness.”
“Oh…” Cloud murmured.
Thea was one of his mother’s best friends when she was growing up. They’d become estranged in their adult years after Cloud’s father died and Thea’s husband, Brian Lockhart had gotten pushy about Claudia remarrying. Cloud didn’t like Brian much. He never told the town boys off for their bullying and had recently started telling Cloud to stay away from Tifa.
Tifa…
Poor Tifa. If Miss Thea was dead…
Cloud didn’t see Tifa at school at all the following week. The three main guys who normally bullied Cloud were preoccupied for once trying to plot ways they could see Tifa to “check on her.” He didn’t actually see Tifa until Saturday morning when he was on his way to see Squall. He was surprised to see her out walking the trail up to the mountain with Tyler, Emilio and Lester.
“Tifa?” he muttered, watching her slow trek as she completely ignored the three boys accompanying her.
Something didn’t feel right. Tifa looked… out of it.
Cloud looked in the direction through the forest he needed to go to the inlet where Squall would be waiting for him. He didn’t want to disappoint his only real friend, but… something was wrong with Tifa. Why was she (and the other three boys) going up the mountain path? They weren’t adept at hiking like Cloud was. Someone could get hurt. He couldn’t just let them go off. Did anyone back in Nibelheim know where these four were?
His mind now made up, Cloud hurried after Tifa and the others. He quickly caught up, but kept back. He didn’t want to deal with Tyler’s snide comments or potentially be Emilio and Lester’s punching bag. He noted that none of them were dressed for a hike and it wasn’t long before the three boys were complaining about aching feet and legs. Tifa didn’t utter a word. Cloud shadowed them faithfully, trying to listen in and figure out what they were up to, but all he could tell was that the three boys were quickly becoming reluctant followers trying to convince Tifa to turn around and return to town. Their pleading picked up and turned to outright refusal to continue when they reached the rickety old bridge that hadn’t been maintained in years (maybe even decades). They stopped before the bridge, but Tifa kept going with her slow ponderous stride. The old bridge groaned and at the sound of a loud crack, Tyler, Emilio and Lester began screaming at her to come back, but wouldn’t set foot on the bridge themselves.
Cloud ran, bolting up the path and shoving his way past the other three as he raced after Tifa. The bridge lurched with the addition of his weight on the planks, and snapping could be heard as ropes broke. Tifa screamed, falling to her knees as the bridge lurched and dropped slightly, the planks beneath her cracking and threatening to break. Cloud reached her in the next instant and felt the old boards giving under them. Cloud grabbed Tifa up, his adrenaline giving him strength as he whirled around and tossed her as far as he could back towards the other three boys just seconds before the section of bridge beneath him gave and sent him plummeting down the canyon and into the river below.
The last thing he saw before he hit the water was a wide eyed and screaming Tifa reaching for him as her three friends hauled her off the bridge that was falling apart and following Cloud in his plunge.
SPLASH!
Cloud tumbled and was tossed about in the river’s rushing current. The moment he breached the surface he gasped for air just moments before he was pulled under again. He tried to surface again and managed a few more gulps of air and yelled, “help!” before he went under again. This pattern repeated a few more times before Cloud was aware of the roar of the waterfall up ahead.
“Squall!” he screamed as he approached the falls, not sure if he was calling for his intended mate or if he was just thinking of the triton in what he was sure were going to be his final moments.
Then he was going over the edge and once again plummeting at the mercy of gravity once more. This time he blacked out when he hit the water below and knew no more.
He didn’t expect to wake ever again, but something was shoving at his shoulder.
“Cloud! Cloud, please! Please wake up!”
“...Sq…ll?” he whimpered upon hearing Squall’s high panicked voice cracking as the triton called for him.
“Cloud! Oh thank Laviathan!” Squall sobbed, Cloud feeling the other’s face press into the side of his neck while arms wrapped around him.
“Squall?” Cloud muttered, trying to move and give comfort to his distressed friend, but his limbs felt weighted and deaf to his will.
“Don’t try to move, Cloud,” the voice of Squall’s sister, Ellone, said softly, pressing a cool hand to Cloud’s forehead. “We had to use a lot of magic to heal you and your body is still out of sorts.”
Squall let out a soft sob and curled around Cloud, his tailfin winding around Cloud’s legs as though to keep him immobilized. But… how? Squall could only do that if Cloud was in the water with him. For as graceful as Squall was in the water, he was a flailing mess on land.
Cloud managed to blink his eyes open and stared up at a smooth domed ceiling that shimmered like places did when they were either reflecting light off of water or they were underwater themselves. It took a long moment for his brain to realize that he was underwater. But if he was underwater, how was he breathing?
“I’m sorry,” Squall sobbed. “I reached you too late.”
“‘M fine,” Cloud murmured, trying to lean his head against Squall’s.
“No you’re not!” Squall snapped, pulling back to look down at Cloud with a devastated expression. “That fall broke you! Your soul was only holding on by a thread! I… I had to kiss you to give you even a chance to survive.”
“...We kissed?” Cloud mumbled with a pout. “I wanted to be awake for that.”
Ellone giggled while Squall scowled.
“Focus,” Squall hissed, cradling Cloud’s face between his webbed hands with a gentleness that contradicted his tone of voice. “Do you remember what I told you about a mer’s kiss?”
“...They’re only meant to be exchanged between mates?” Cloud mumbled.
“That’s part of it,” Squall sighed.
Cloud’s brow furrowed as he tried to remember what Squall had told Cloud about kisses. They’d gotten curious when Cloud was ten after he’d heard that exchanging kisses were demonstrations of affection between those who loved each other, but Laguna had been adamant that they not exchange kisses until their bonding, which wouldn’t happen until Cloud was eighteen. Squall was so smart and came up with the idea of pressing their foreheads together instead of kissing until they were old enough to. Cloud could remember all of that, but not why kissing wasn’t to be allowed between them.
“It’s part of the claim,” Ellone told him softly when Cloud failed to remember the reason on his own. “In the old legends you humans like to tell, mermaids drag their victims into the water and drown them. These tales come from witnesses who see mers stake their claim on their human mates and bring them to their homes underwater to perform the bond. The process starts with a kiss, exchanging air as the mer’s magic binds the two souls until the human adapts and can breathe in water on their own. To save you, Squall had to initiate this part of your mating bond so that you could survive long enough for help to arrive.”
Cloud tried to process what she was saying. At least he knew how he was able to breathe under water now.
“So… are we bonded now?” Cloud asked.
“Partially,” Ellone said softly. “Squall started the process, but you’re both still much too young to finish it.”
“...So what happens now?” Cloud asked, worried when Squall only continued to wordlessly cling to him.
“You heal,” Laguna’s voice said before the older triton appeared within Cloud’s field of vision.
Though he was still smiling, the elder’s face looked sad.
“I was able to talk to your mother and told her what happened,” Laguna told him. “She’s relieved that you are alive, but understandably upset.”
Squall flinched and let out a soft whimper.
“Oh, minnow, she doesn’t blame you,” Laguna cooed, coming over to nuzzle his distressed son. “In fact, she’s very grateful you did what you did. She’s just sad because of what this means.”
“What does it mean? Why’s Squall sad? I’m fine, right?” Cloud asked.
“I’ve trapped you,” Squall sobbed.
“Trapped me?” Cloud asked.
“Until the bond is complete… I don’t have the power to restore air to your lungs,” Squall sniffed. “You can’t return to the surface. You’ll start to suffocate the moment you breach the waterline, like you normally would if you tried to breathe underwater before I kissed you.”
“So… I can’t go home and see Ma…” Cloud mumbled.
“I’m sorry,” Squall whimpered.
Cloud wished that he could move so that he could hug Squall back.
“It’s okay,” Cloud said. “I wouldn’t be alive if you hadn’t done what you did.”
“You wouldn’t be,” Laguna and Ellone confirmed.
“So this is for the best,” Cloud murmured before perking up. “Hey! I don’t have to go to school and learn dumb algebra anymore! Or deal with Tyler, Emilio and Lester’s bullying.”
“There we go! Silver linings," Laguna chuckled, gently petting both Cloud and Squall’s hair. “And this may not be for six years. Matron Edea is looking into a solution as we speak. With any luck, we can get you home soon.”
Cloud hummed, feeling tired as he started to drift off again. Between one blink and the next, he fell asleep.
~ 🐚~ 🐚~ 🐚~
Over the course of the next couple of days Cloud recovered in the healing ward Ellone worked in. Squall didn’t leave his side the entire time. When Cloud was capable of movement again, he was happy to cling to Squall in return. It felt right to cuddle up wrapped around each other. Laguna explained that that was their bond settling. Clinginess was expected apparently, especially since the bond wasn’t going to be completed for years yet. When he was allowed outside the small room, he had Squall show him around the mer clan. He got to see so many things, like the coral reefs and structures that made up the mer colony’s hidden home beneath the Nibel mountain range.
It was all so alien and new to the human preteen and endlessly fascinating. He got to meet other mers who were just as curious about him as he was of them and he felt more welcome among their kind than he ever had back home in Nibelheim. Even if he was currently recovering from serious injury, he couldn’t swim as gracefully or efficiently as they could, but they never thought less of him and were encouraging and helpful instead. Apparently, once Cloud and Squall’s bond was properly completed, Cloud would be able to transform into a triton himself in the water and Squall would be able to take on a human form on dry land.
Then there were the creatures! Aside from a colorful assortment of fish, there were a number of creatures that he’d never known existed! They were all sorts of strange shapes in various sizes with appearances that he knew that he’d never be able to find the words to describe them accurately to his mother. And of course they had strange names that tripped up his tongue with the foreign pronunciations. There was also all of the magic that mers were capable of and their warrior training that Cloud was allowed to participate in some minor drills of. His swimming vastly improved as he got better and his mobility improved. He swore that he was learning more in those first few days exploring the colony’s reef than he had in years of education at his school in Nibelheim.
After he’d been living among the Nibel mer colony for roughly a couple of weeks, Laguna informed Cloud that the great seawitch, Edea, had found a solution that would allow Cloud to return to his life on the surface. They couldn’t undo what had been done by the partially formed bond, but Edea had found a work around. All it required was for Cloud to wear a set of enchanted jewelry; earrings, necklace and a ring.
They pierced Cloud’s ears and inserted a pair of special silver studs capped with a small pair of Squall’s scales and was infused with the triton’s magic. The pendant on the necklace they gave Cloud was also made out of one of Squall’s larger tail scales and had a Nibel wolf engraved into the shimmering surface. When Cloud asked about the wolf - surprised that it wasn’t a sea creature of any kind, Squall had blushed and mumbled that he knew that the wolf was Cloud’s favorite animal and felt it was a good representation of the blond human. It turned out that the engraved scale was something Squall had been working on for a courting gift - something they weren’t supposed to start exchanging until Cloud was fourteen and Edea had found it an appropriate token to enchant for her solution to Cloud’s situation. The ring was a simple silver band to be worn on his middle finger and had faint elegant engravings of wolves and wind swirls all around the band - the wolves obviously representing Cloud and the wind, Squall.
“Wearing these won’t affect you underwater, but the moment you surface you should be able to breathe as you normally would.”
“What happens if one of them comes off?” Cloud asked nervously, fiddling with the necklace’s pendant.
“Do not remove any of them when you’re on the surface,” Edea said sternly. “But if you’re worried about them breaking, falling off, or someone trying to remove them, they are enchanted to be highly durable and remain on your person unless removed by yourself or Squall.”
As if to demonstrate, Edea tugged lightly on the ring in an attempt to remove it from Cloud’s finger, but it was as though in the few minutes it had been on his finger it had shrunk and couldn’t make it past that first knuckle. The necklace’s cord suddenly seemed shorter and incapable of fitting back over his head. No one tried to remove the earrings, but the pieces were small enough they were honestly the least of Cloud’s worries out of the three in the set.
“You won’t accidentally lose these,” Edea assured. “And once your bond is completed, they’ll just become normal pieces of jewelry as the enchantments recognise the magic they are temporarily taking the place of.”
Cloud blew out a breath of relief, though he was sad that his time living among Squall’s colony was at an end until they completed the bond in six years.
“So what happens now?” Cloud asked.
“Now, we organize your miraculous return to your home,” Laguna said cheerfully. “I’ve been in contact with Claudia giving her updates on your status and we’ve been making arrangements for you to return to Nibelheim via a transport from another human town further down river in the Northern Corel Region. There is a mer colony down there in the ocean bay with a pair who are similar to yourself and Squall. Shera has promised that her human mate, Cid, can make arrangements to transport you to Nibelheim under the pretense that you were found on an outing to the beach and have been healing in Rocket Town until you were able to regain consciousness enough to inform them of where you were from. Because you’ve been recovering underwater, you’re going to have a lot of readjusting back up on the surface where gravity will be working against you. Even though you are better and your body has mostly healed, you will feel weak and uncoordinated for some time.”
Cloud grimaced, not looking forward to that.
after he retreated to Squall’s dwelling for one final night together, the pair of them curled up, limbs entwining.
“I’m happy you’re better and they found a way for you to return home,” Squall sighed, nuzzling the top of Cloud’s head, “but I’m going to miss having this time together.”
“Yeah,” Cloud hummed in agreement, wiggling closer until it felt as though there was no space left between them.
It was silent for a while and Cloud could tell that Squall was nearly asleep when an intrusive thought entered his mind.
“Hey… Squall?” Cloud said softly, not wanting to wake the triton if he was already asleep.
“Yeah?” Squall hummed before letting out a soft breath that stirred the water by Cloud’s temple.
“So… because we’ve already kissed… Does that mean it’s okay to do it now?”
Squall’s body twitched and they drifted up for a moment before Squall’s tail anchored them back down to the spongy floor of the dwelling.
“...I… Maybe?” Squall squeaked, his voice cracking.
Cloud giggled as he felt the triton’s entire body emit a little more body heat as it flushed.
“Why?” Squall asked, clearing his throat.
“...Maybe we can have our first real kiss?” Cloud said sheepishly. “The consequences have already happened… is there really a need to hold off anymore?”
Squall was quiet for another minute, thinking it over before he pulled back enough to look Cloud in the face, his gaze searching. Cloud wasn’t sure what the other was looking for, but he must have found whatever it was because Squall reached up with the arm that had been wrapped around Cloud’s upper back and cupped the blond’s face with a slightly shaking webbed hand. Cloud felt his heart beat harder in his chest in anticipation, his eyes locked with Squall’s before the triton gently leaned in and pressed soft silky lips to Cloud’s. Cloud pressed slightly back, his eyes falling shut and cheeks flushing a pink.
After a couple of long seconds they pulled back and Cloud couldn’t help but grin. Squall’s normally pale face was currently a bright pink like his own. Cloud reached up with his own hand and pulled Squall’s warm forehead to press against his, giggling as he felt the water in front of his face swirl from the soft silent breath Squall let out.
“Shut up,” Squall huffed.
“No. You’re being cute,” Cloud snickered, nuzzling against Squall’s cheek, loving the faint scratch of Squall’s tiny facial scales against his skin.
Squall growled and nipped reprimandingly at Cloud’s jaw, but wrestled Cloud back into their normal clingy hold to sleep.
Cloud sighed and cozied back up, settling against Squall again, feeling better about his own fluttering heart rate when he could feel Squall’s own heart beating a quick steady tempo beneath his cheek.
~ 🐚~ 🐚~ 🐚~
The next morning Cloud and Squall set out with Edea and Laguna to meet with the people who were responsible for getting him home. They rode creatures similar to dolphins to help speed their way and before Cloud knew it, he was breaching the water’s surface for the first time in weeks. There was a moment of discomfort as he choked on air before the enchanted jewelry kicked in and he was able to take a deep refreshing breath of air.
He felt like he lost all coordination and suddenly felt heavy as he stumbled onto land for the first time since he went over Nibel Falls. Gentle hands helped support him and he was introduced to Cid and Shera Highwind who were kind enough to allow Cloud to acclimate to having gravity working and weighing his body down before they helped him into the back of a truck. He waved goodbye to Squall, Laguna and Edea as he was driven away to Rocket Town to be looked at by a human medical professional - one who was thankfully aware of his situation and was experienced with working around mer magics because of the Highwinds.
He spent a few days in Rocket Town learning tips from Cid about how to readjust to life back on two feet. As good as Ellone and Edea’s healing was, his body was still recovering and Cloud found himself feeling stiff and sore now that he wasn’t floating and swimming around virtually weightless in the calm waters of Squall’s mer clan’s waters.
Once he was well enough and properly readjusted to his “land legs” again, Cid and Shera drove him back up river to Nibelheim where he was greeted with shocked and surprisingly elated cheers from the townspeople. He wasn’t expecting such a welcome upon his return and he honestly didn’t know how to react as they asked how he was doing but that no longer mattered when he heard his mom calling for him.
“Cloud!”
“Ma!” Cloud gasped, reaching for her as she nearly leaped into the Highwind’s truck to check him over. He murmured numerous reassurances at first, but upon seeing her again and no longer distracted by strange new surroundings, his mind seemed to finally process and register the trauma of his plummet into the river and over the falls. Tears came unbidden to his eyes and as much as he didn’t want to break down in front of half of the town, he couldn’t stop an unbidden sob from bubbling forth and soon found his face buried against his mother’s chest as she gently pulled him into a tight hug.
“Shhh! I’ve got you, honey,” Claudia cooed.
There was some murmuring before the voice of Brian Lockhart called out.
“Alight everyone, give them space, for pity sake! I’d like to see how you fare after taking a plunge in the river from that damn old bridge and surviving a plummet from the top of the falls,” the man snapped, shooing everyone back from the Highwind’s truck.
Cloud proceeded to lose track of his surroundings, just wanting to remain in his mother’s arms, but eventually he was moved out of the truck and into the town’s inn with his mother to a room on the ground floor. His progress was slow and slightly unsteady, but he was well supported by his mother and Shera who helped him into a bed. Cloud held his mother’s hand as Shera informed her of his treatments and what the doctor said to expect as he recovered, but he understood with perfect clarity as the conversation wound down that he and his mother would be staying at the town inn until he was recovered enough to properly manage the trek back to their home at the edge of the forest.
The news was upsetting and frustrating because it meant that it would be a long time before he could see Squall again at their meeting place in the forest, but feeling the cool smooth curve of Squall’s scale pendant brought him some peace and reminded him that his intended would still be waiting for him once he was better. They were partially bonded now, so there was no going back. He was Squall’s and Squall was his, so it was only a matter of time before they were reunited.