Chapter Text
Castle Strife's library has been among Cloud's favorite places in the castle for as long as he can remember. Even before his father died, Cloud loved the place. He fondly remembers getting lost in the maze of shelves that reached the ceiling, finding chairs to curl up in, and imagining he was someplace else. The feeling of being so small in such a vast place was comforting in a way he was sure not many related to. Nothing brought Cloud more peace than feeling small and ordinary, it has been his greatest wish since he realized he never wanted to fulfill his royal duties .
Of course, that means the library was the first place he brought Zack. Only a short hall separated the ballroom from the library, and so it made the most sense.
Cloud dragged Zack through a few rows, through shelves he knew were left oft-untouched. Many of the books were dusty, their pages undisturbed for years. Here, he let go of Zack’s hand, dropping his own to his side. He breathes in, inhaling the smell of old yellowed paper exhibiting history he’d been learning since he was able to understand spoken word.
He allowed himself to look up at the shelves, towering above both of them and sighed, his anxiety about sneaking away from another ball mollified as he allowed himself to feel insignificant.
“Wow,” Zack breathes from beside him, “this place is huge.”
Cloud straightened, looking over at Zack again, “Are Gongaga’s libraries not as vast?”
“No,” Zack shakes his head, “I think the humidity messes with the parchment, so we really only have recorded histories and documentation. You know, things like old birth and marriage certificates.”
Cloud nods, “My mother has always been a big reader and my father was more than glad to buy her as many books as she pleased. More than that, even.”
“It’s amazing,” Zack says, walking toward the shelves and touching the spines of several books, “do you have a favorite?”
Cloud instantly feels heat make home in his cheeks, and he chews his bottom lip. Does he have a favorite? He’s not so certain, as much as he loves the library he’s never been the biggest reader. He enjoys a book every so often, of course, but he much rather spend his time painting or doing swordwork with the knights.
“I think,” Cloud begins, slipping through a few aisles, simply assuming Zack will follow, “It would have to be this one,” he reaches for an old cloth-bound book, something his father bought out at a village shop in Junon when he had left to visit their king ages ago. When he turns, Zack is only a pace behind him, and he hands the book to him delicately.
“ A Collection of Tales ?” Zack reads the title questioningly, “That’s quite vague.”
Cloud chews his lip again, embarrassed, “Well,” he begins, “It’s from Junon, so the tales aren’t like ones we have here in Nibelheim, like Rapunzel or The Goose Girl, they’re entirely different. They focus a lot on animals and nature, not so much on faeries like the Nibel tales do. Of course, Nibel folklore is much darker than Junon’s, most of the stories end happily, and not with a child being eaten, like a lot of the stories here do.”
“Wait,” Zack says, lowering the book, “You have stories that end in children being eaten ? Most of them end that way?”
“Well,” Cloud corrects, “Not most , and those are more like cautionary tales. Like ‘don’t go on the mountain alone or a Wyrm might eat you’. Though, honestly, that’s barely a tale, I’ve heard there really are Wyrms up there. It’s more like… Rumpelstiltskin , where it’s just a lesson about not bragging or making bargains you cannot keep.”
“Rumpel… stilt.. skin?” Zack asks.
“Ah,” Cloud breathes, turning back toward the shelves, he grabs a small leather bound book from a nearby shelf, “here, this is my favorite retelling of Rumpelstiltskin. Let’s sit.”
They wander to a nearby table, a small round one with two seats, sitting on opposite sides. Cloud sits the book on the table, and opens it, “It’s written in old Nibel, so I can’t read it aloud to you, but I’ll explain the story and show you the drawings, is that alright with you?”
“Yeah,” Zack nods, smiling and setting the book of tales to the side.
Cloud begins explaining the story, “So, in this kingdom, there was once a man who bragged that his daughter could spin straw into gold,” Cloud explained, pointing to the drawing of a man marching around town.
“Could she really?” Zack asks.
Cloud smiles, shaking his head, “No, she could not.”
“Oh no,” Zack gasps.
“Yeah, well, one day the king calls for the maiden and he locks her up. He demands that she spin all the straw in the room into gold or he’ll have her killed.” Cloud flips to the drawing of a girl locked in a room filled with straw and a spinning wheel.
Zack frowns, but nods.
“The girl tries her best, but spinning straw into gold isn’t possible without magic. So she gives up,” Cloud flips to a page filled with a similar drawing, but this time featuring an old, bearded imp-man dancing around the spinning wheel. “As soon as she does, an imp appears.”
“That’s Rumplestiltskin?” Zack asks, pointing to the imp.
“Yeah,” Cloud tells him, “He tells her that he can spin the straw into gold for her. All she has to do is give him her necklace.”
“Is it a special necklace?” Zack asks.
“No,” Cloud tells him, “It’s just a pretty necklace, so she agrees. The next day,” Cloud flips to a page with a bigger room with more straw, the girl staring at it frowning as Rumplestiltskin stands behind her, “the king locks her in a room with even more straw, and tells her to do it again. Rumplestiltskin asks for her ring in payment for the task.”
“Is the ring special?” Zack asks again, “Like a wedding ring?”
Cloud laughs, “No, it’s just a ring, and so she agrees. The next day she’s locked away again. This time the king tells her if she succeeds he will marry her, and if she doesn’t he’ll kill her.”
Zack makes a face, “Sounds like a loss either way.”
Cloud laughs again, “Maybe, but becoming queen is like a dream for many people, I think. I mean, my mom was just a seamstress before her marriage to my dad, so she’d know, at least.”
Zack nods, humming, so Cloud continues.
“Anyway, when Rumplestiltskin arrives this time she tells him she has nothing left to trade,” He flips to a page of the woman pleading with the imp, “He tells her that she can pay with the life of her first child.”
“What?” Zack shouts, “I thought you said no babies get eaten in this story?”
“I never said that,” Cloud corrects, “But listen, you’ll like the end.”
Zack nods.
“Anyway,” Cloud tries to remember where he was, “Right, she eventually agrees, because she really doesn’t want to die, and so he spins the straw for her for a final time.” He flips to another page, a drawing of a wedding between the king and the woman, “The king keeps his promise, and he marries the woman. However, months pass and the queen has her first child.”
“Oh no,” Zack gasps.
Cloud nods, “Rumplestiltskin shows up to claim the child, but she begs him not to. She offers the kingdom's entire treasury in exchange for her keeping the child, but he doesn’t want any of her riches, he just wants the kid.”
“What a weirdo,” Zack wrinkles his nose.
Cloud nods, “He’s an imp,” he clears his throat, “Eventually he agrees to let her keep her child if she can guess his name.”
“It’s Rumplestiltskin,” Zack states.
“Yeah,” Cloud agrees, “But he never told her that. She has nothing to go off of. But he gives her three days to guess his name, the same amount of days he spun gold for her.”
He flips the page again, to a drawing of a woman walking through the woods, “She guesses for the first two days, saying every name she can think of. On the third day she ventures out into the woods to look for the imp-man. Eventually, she finds his home and watches him quietly. At some point he begins dancing around a fire,” Cloud flips to a page with a drawing of Rumplestiltskin dancing around a fire, “and singing, ‘ Tonight tonight, my plans I make, tomorrow tomorrow, the baby I take. The queen will never win the game, for Rumpelstiltskin is my name .’” Cloud does a weird voice as he sings the song, something his mother had done the many times she read the story to him. It has the desired effect of making Zack laugh, and so he smiles.
“The queen goes back home,” Cloud continues, flipping to a page portraying the queen in the throne room, standing before the small imp, “and when Rumpelstiltskin comes back she first pretends she has no clue about his name, and then she reveals it ‘Rumpelstiltskin’. He gets so angry about losing that he starts accusing her of speaking with the devil to learn his name.”
“That’s intense,” Zack says.
“Yeah,” Cloud agrees, “But in this version he ends up flying out the window in his rage. In some versions he just leaves, in others he tears himself in half or falls into the planet.”
“Woah,” Zack says, “ripping himself in half is… a lot .”
“Mhm,” Cloud hums, “That’s why I like this version, it’s the original one, I think.” Cloud closes the book, standing to slide it back onto its shelf, “Anyway, a lot of Nibel folktales and stories are like that. Lessons with weird sort of gruesome twists. Junon’s tales have lessons, too, but they’re not so dark . Not always at least,” Cloud thinks, sitting again, “Here let me see the book, I’ll show you one.”
Zack hands over the book, and Cloud sets it on the table where Zack can see easily, flipping to one of the stories he’s memorized.
“This one’s not my favorite, by any means, but it reminds me of Nibel tales. It’s about a mouse who’s very vain and ends up marrying a cat, who eats her.”
“Poor mouse,” Zack frowns.
“Well,” Cloud tells him, “It’s a lesson about the dangers of vanity.”
“Fair enough,” Zack agrees, “So why is this book your favorite?”
“Oh,” Cloud is suddenly reminded why he pulled this book off the shelf, “My father bought this one for my mother before they married. She brought it with her when she moved into the castle. This book has been here longer than I have, and my mother used to read me stories from it when I couldn’t sleep. Especially after my father died.” Cloud feels the tips of his ears heat, suddenly feeling very vulnerable.
“That’s…” Zack begins, “Very sweet. My mom used to tell me stories too, mostly Gongagan ones.”
“I think it’s a thing moms do,” Cloud says, “I don’t know if we have any Gongagan tales. I’ll keep an eye out for some in the bookshops. I’d ask you to tell me a tale now, but I think we’ve lingered here long enough. We ought to head out to the garden soon, or else we’ll run out of time for a full tour.”
“That sounds amazing,” Zack agrees, extending his hand toward Cloud, “Lead the way.”
Cloud nods, smiling. He takes Zack’s hand, closing his mother’s book and putting it back on its shelf as they pass it.
They exit the library, heading down the hall again, “Perhaps you can write me a letter telling me about some Gongagan tales,” Cloud recommends as they pass rooms he could care less about,
“That would be lovely, I think,” Zack tells him.
“Those are the stairs up toward my quarters,” Cloud gestures to the stairs as he passes them, “The sunroom is that way, it’s lovely in the rain and snow, especially with the fire lit.”
“It’s amazing how different each castle is,” Zack comments, “Despite all being castles .”
“I don’t think I’ve ever been to any other castles,” Cloud frowns, “Except for the one in Icicle, but it’s quite similar to this one.”
“Gongaga’s is much different, built for different weather, I suppose.”
“I could imagine, you get much more rain, don’t you?”
“Yeah, and not much snow at all. Well, no snow actually.”
“It’s snowing more often than not here.”
“It’s greener in Gongaga, too. Lots of vines all over the castle. On the outside, I mean.”
Cloud laughs, “This is the door to the garden,” he stops them in front of it, “Would you like to go outside? It may be a bit cold.”
“It would be my pleasure,” Zack smiles, “Besides, we can always come back in if it gets too cold. Perhaps we could even hide away in your quarters to warm up.”
Cloud burns a ferocious, hot red from his collarbones to the tip of his ears. He clears his throat awkwardly and barely manages to squeak out a soft “Yeah” as he pushes open the door to the gardens, pulling Zack through with him.