So... How about a Strifehart Beauty and the Beast AU?
Why you ask? well because I had the idea of, instead of Squall being the beast - as I feel most would assume - you have Cloud as the beast.
It would't follow the movie, simply because Cloud already has a bit of a beast story in his own right. However, the bare bones are essentially the same. Squall is a handsome single young man, living in Traverse town with his mad inventor adoptive father Cid Highwind. The two have been travelling in search of Cid's Husband and Squall's Sister and Biological father, only now they are having to settle in this quaint little dead end town because somebody (*Couch* Cid *Cough*) had a "pulminary event" and "Requires Rest".
It would be fine if there weren't so many judgy yet completely sexually fustrated people in this damn place! Squall is forever stuck between people who think he's broody and strange and therefore want to exclude him; or people who think he's broody and strange and therefore want to sleep with him. The Fact that Squall doesn'y get a say in either of these options is deeply fustrating.
One day the notion takes Cid to Ride out to the nearest City on the map (Radient Garden.) and see if there is any need for an inventor of his calibor there, even if its just to Get Squall away from that one prostitute in district two who keeps propositioning him. Squall Stays to mind the Items shop in his absense, spending his days either in the forge making weapons, or with his nose in a Weapons monthly magazine.
after about three weeks Squall gets uncomfortable with how long Cid has been gone and decides to take his own bike out to the Gardens to find the old coot. All the way there the feeling of unease grows as its obvious that Radient Garden's has long since fallen into abandoned disrepare. theres also the problem with the fact that he's almost certain he's being watched. Something keeps moving at the edges of his vision, and every now and then a silver flash will wave between the tree's, quick as the wind.
Then he see's it. The Large towering Castle that looks impossibly precarious looming there on the horizon.
Hollow Bastion.
Upon entering the Castle, Squall isnt met by centient furniture but talking animals. Theres the Lion cub twins Sora and Roxas, the grouchy Snow Lepord Riku, The unflappable doe Aerith and her fawn daughters Namine and Kairi, Tifa the black mare and her daughter Xion. Then there is the Alsatian Terra, the Blue Jay Aqua, The mouse Ventus and the... rather sullen Black Maine coon Vanitas. Finding out they talked had nearly sent Squall up the wall, thinking he'd gone mad, But Sora had tugged and at his hand gently with his mouth and led Squall to exactly where he needed to be. To Cid.
Strangly Cid has been given a bedroom rather than a cell, and a fire had been lit in the hearth. He has a a damp cloth over his forehead and a thick Blanket thrown over him to ward off any reamining chill he may be suffering. Squall is about to question the animals about it as he rushes to wash the tepid cloth and replace it, Checking Cids pulse just to be sure, but as he turns to adress Sora he is Shot through the heart with fear at the burning bright greeny blue eyes that glare at him from a deeply -almost unnatually- shadowed corner.
"you are a trespasser in this place," says the voice Squall assumes belongs to the terrifying eyes. It's smooth but low, almost rural in its accent. Not the kind of Voice you'd expect from a monster lurking in the shadows. Still, Squall dare not move, almost feeling pinned by those luminescent eyes.
"I came to find my father, nothing more. How was I to know he's been taken captive by you," Squall says, sounding braver than he feels. the animals Round him don't seem concerned by the creature with glowing eyes, and Squall is almost sure it's a creature because he can hear the rustling of... wings? the Maine Coon seems so unbothered by the creature of darkness, that he slunks over to sit on its lap and pur like a freight train.
"You came to Save your father, not knowing that you would damn yourself to eternal entrapment here. Tsk, and here I thought they taught you all of the horrors of hollow bastion in that little backwater town of yours," Was that... a note of self depricating sarcasm in its tone?
Squall is caught between curiosity and terror, but he's not so distracted that he can't use his brain. If this thing wanted to kill him, surely it would have done so the second he entered his domain. If it had any intention of killing Cid, why try to ease his fever? unless it didn't like sick food?
"Were you the thing watching me in the woods? The silver Flash I kept seeing?" that gets him a chorus of disgruntled and frightened chitters and growls. The creatures eyes seem to morph a quizzical gaze. The creak of leather and the tip of a pale fleshed nose lets Squall know the Creature has leaned forward in its seat.
"You saw the Demon of the Bastion on your way here and you are still breathing? I'd be impressed except I know how much that thing likes to play with his food,"
"There are two of you?" Riku acually hisses at Squall, who tries his abolute best to hold his ground.
"Cloud is nothing like that murderer!"
"hush Riku," The creature (Cloud?) drags out the hush in a way that should be serpentine except its more soothing, almost parental in nature.
"He killed my Mama!" Riku spits and whines.
"I know cub, I know"
Squall Can't help it, his curiosity wins out as he takes the candelabra from beside Cids bed and brings it forward to cast light upon this mysterious figure. What he see's is both horrifying and hypnotising in equal mesure.
A Wing Black as pitch and cast in leather that looked shot through with musket balls at its edges.
Sharp talons that grew from blackened, ink dipped, finger tips that curled over the arms of its chair.
cracking inky scars that grew from an open wound on an almost bare chest; the only thing Covering it an open silk shirt rusted with old blood.
And the most gorgeous face Squall has hever seen beset with two jewel like eyes that contracted and blew wide like cat's eyes as it... as He stared back.
This wasn't just some monster, just some beast.
It was a man.
