Strifehart pirate AU anyone?
Squall Leonhart is the son of Laguna Loire head of the Esther estate and security advisor to Ansem the wise. In Radiant Garden, Squall is the closest thing to a prince the people have, and they hope that in the event that Ansem has no sons, Squall will send the thrown.
Squall has no desire to be king, and finds it incredibly distasteful that Princess Kairi is being skipped over for a thrown that is rightfully hers. He has no intention of taking the thrown, and he knows if he says to his father he doesn’t want it, Laguna would not make him. However, with no real reason not to take it, Squall has played the dutiful heir role , if only to protect Kairi from the nasty gossip culture of Radiant Garden, until she’s old enough to deal with it on her own.
However, fate had other plans for the Leonhart boy….
When sailing across to the Gaian Continent to meet with Lord Shinra, the ship Squall is travelling on is boarded by the most infamous ship in all the seven seas, The Jörmangundr.
Flooded with pirates, Squall finds himself holding his own against men, women and teenage children with truly frightening sword skills. He holds his own, obviously, but fighting against the silver haired Adonis that’s obviously the captain sees him shoved to his knees with his friends, while the rest of the crew lay dead.
He can only find time to be relieved that all his friends are okay, though he does at least register the confusion that they were all spared, until Silver hair stands back and another figure steps forward.
He’s not anywhere near as tall as Silver hair, in fact he’s probably an inch or two shorter that Squall too; with almost chocobo blonde spikes and completely dressed in black except for the silver wolf at his shoulder that has burning sapphires for eyes. Something about his presence has Squall re-evaluating his assessment of who is captain around here.
His suspicions are confirmed when Silver hair defers to him, before going over to check on a younger Silver haired boy and the taller brunette teen next to him.
The captain steps forward, staring down at Squall with interest but no malice.
“You Loire’s boy?” He says in a very soft spoken drawl that immediately marks him as from the northern hills of Gaia.
“Who’s asking?” Says Irvine for him, clearly trying to pull attention off of Squall in case this all goes south. He wished his friends wouldn’t put their lives in danger for him all because they want him to be king, but the Captains attention is already turned to him.
“Captain Cloud Strife of the Jörmungundr.”
“You’re the captain?!” Selphie blurts out, and from the crowd a young spikey haired brunette pipes up:
“You’re looking at the most fearsome pirate to traverse the Seven seas!”
“Hush Sora,” Cloud mutters, but it’s filled with too much fondness to land as a repremand. He kneels in front of Squall, studying his face closely before a slow, small smile touches his eyes.
“Get them back to the ship, and for the love of siren, Seph, take the ropes of them yeah? Their our esteemed guests after all,”
They’re all taken from their ship, which is burned and left to sink into the depths, there’s no real feeling to watching it burn, but there’s a little irritation when later, Cloud invites them to dine with the crew above deck.
It’s quickly morphed into confusion however, when Squall realises, even if Clouds sat at the head of the table, he’s got a little girl in his lap, using him as a high chair, and the rest of the adults of the crew are letting the kids get food first before they get their own. It also confuses him that they are eating all as one crew and not split into officers and crew mates. Sure this is a pirate ship, but even they split captain from crew.
Cloud takes note, from where he’s sat Squall on his left. He explains that they were all servants of Shinra once upon a time, slaves would be more apt a description, given what the dynasty did to them. He tells Squall about how Shinra used them for fighting and pleasure pursuits, how they were all made to work without pay or decent places to sleep.
Squall is disturbed to hear that most of them were taken as children, and more disturbed to learn that most of the children present were born on the estate. He learns that They eat together above deck as much as they can, because they were all one big family.
The Boy who had spoken, Sora and his twin Roxas were Clouds Godsons, their mother Aerith was the woman fussing over the little girl, Marlene, in the very imposing lap of Barret Wallace, the ships master gunner. It was very hard to find the man’s hook hand terrifying when he’d placed a rubber ball on the end of it like one of the fools in Cité de Cloches.
The boys father was Zack Fair, who was unfortunately no longer alive, so Cloud filled the role of father for them. Sephiroth, the First mate and Quater master, was father to Riku and also took care of his partner Angeal’s son, Terra. Both boys had the same birth Parent Genesis. After that the children all blurred into one until Cloud bounced the little dark haired girl in his lap.
“And this is Xion, my daughter, her mothers are Tifa and Lightning,”
“Mothers, plural?” Zell asks leaning forward to peer at the little one.
Cloud shrugs “we share. Tifa realised she had more interest in women, and I ain’t about to stand in the way of that,”
Squall could respect that. But it didn’t answer one burningly obvious question he had.
Cloud took his time, handing Xion a cracker to mouth at before answering.
“Your father sent us. Told us you were heading for Shinra estate and that he’d tried to advise your king that trade deals with them were a bad idea. Figure his only son living life as a pirate was more palatable than letting Randal Shinra sink his greasy claws into you.”
Squall blinked. “My father sent pirates to save me?”
Cloud grinned. “Oh it’s a mutually beneficial agreement don’t you worry your pretty little head. After all, you’re going to help me find our stolen children.”
Squall sits back in his seat. This was going to be a long long journey.
