Warning ahead, I have never touched the books. I have not watched YGO5ds since years ago. And even then I watched until the episode where Crow unravelled the mystery behind the death of his Signer Dragon's previous Duelist. The one that died in the fire and who he got his Turbo from.
Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh 5Ds or Harry Potter.
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Ancient Fairy is called the Ruler of the Spirit Realm.
It is not something she has decided. It's not something she has wanted. It's not even something she does. At least, not like those stories humans wrote, like some duel spirits told her. She does think it is silly that they think her their Queen, their Ruler.
She just looks after her people. She cares and helps and loves, and that is all. And maybe it's because of it that they revere her so. It's so disgustingly hard to meet spirits who are not Deck that help out of the goodness of their hearts. Ancient Fairy Dragon cares for them, looks after them, loves them. Even those who do not have duelists.
But her name has not always been Ancient Fairy Dragon.
She remembers another life, one where she is just a little human with too thin body, too dirty clothes, too messy hair, and too green eyes. She remembers the lonely Little Girl, scarred and abandoned and locked away in a cage under the stairs of wretched beings. She remembers wearing her heart on her sleeve, education gone wrong, learning magic could be terrible as it is wonderful, scorn and friendship and kindness and betrayal and love and death. She remembers waking up as this - this beautiful, unnatural creature with scales the color of the sky and a mane the color of death and wings of fae.
Duel Monsters is what they are. What I am. She remembers the girl with puffy hair and love for books mentioning them to her. A... muggle game, was it?
What was muggle, again?
It's also very strange that the Crimson Dragon, her sire for all intent purposes (because she knows it is Him - or Her - that did this), selected her for their mission. She's angry, so very angry at first. This happened before, with that old man whose eyes spelled lies and trickery and manipulations, who was responsible for the loneliness and hurt of the green-eyed little girl (her - it is her but then not her). The Crimson Dragon doesn't answer her demands, her questions, no matter how long she screams (roars) and hunts Him down.
She does not stop hunting Him until a long time later. It was tiresome, and she had been exhausted and drained and numb... She is paranoid and cautious. She wonders what Akakiryuu wants from her. Why her. She is so tired of fighting and war and death, and now Little Girl is denied peace and turned into Ancient Fairy Dragon... The Akakiryuu does not answer her. Ever. But Ancient Fairy Dragon sometimes hears rumbling clouds and sometimes there are crimson scales adorning a serpentine body many times massive than her curling around her, those nights where she is so, so tired. She thinks it is maybe remorse and regret she feels, across that feeble, dry Bond between the Signer Dragon without a Signer and the Crimson Dragon.
It is foreign, but genuine. So she forgives Him.
(It is hard not to. No one has ever shown Little Girl remorse or regret and guilt for such. Certainly not the old human with lying eyes. Ancient Fairy Dragon supposes that is something that impacted her more deeply than she cared to admit.)
Regulus was a blessing, the precious companion he was. His name is his alone as much as Ancient Fairy Dragon is what she is, but remnants of Before nag at her, makes her see a human man with a wide smile and black hair, awful and liberating, aged and dirty with tragedy and betrayal and anguish but radiating adoration, love and devotion to Little Girl. He was an amusing human, who made Her laugh. He reminded her of dogs.
(The amusing dog-human died trying to save Her. She feels Her pain clearly, or is it her own? She does not know and she has long since stopped trying to find why some things were clearer, some blurry, some numb, some so familiar it ached—)
Regulus is a beast of four legs, she supposes, but also much more than that. He's different from the Dog-Human. More animal, more regal and serious. A mythical beast of magic, proud hunter and a very precious, loyal friend. So very precious. It is Regulus that implored her not to reject the duel spirits' wish. He sees that she cares, sees that she does not like them calling her Ruler. But still, he knows and implores.
It is a bit aggravating, but it is not like Ancient Fairy Dragon can turn away from those spirits. Those who are abandoned, those who are hurt, those who seek refuge from the wicked and greedy, those who wish freedom from the wretched that control and take until there is nothing. She cannot turn them away. Not when she remembers how no one offered The Little Girl help and care. To even think so wrenches deeply at her soul, makes her very beast cry out. She takes those spirits under her protection, brings them to villages she knows to be kind and joy and forgiveness and home and everything she knows they want.
(Her heart swells every time she comes to a town and see those familiar spirits, happy and joyful and free in a way Little Girl had never been. They look at her and she sees love and gratitude and adoration, so very different from the blind, backstabbing wool the country of Little Girl showed. This is genuine and pure and she did this, truthfully and sincerely on her own actions - not by the sacrifice of a Mother and not by manipulations, just her own will and hands.
She thinks it soothes her memory of Little Girl.)
Some are not docile, they think she is tricking them and she does not blame them, but she still tries to help them and for the most part succeeds. Then there are those torn apart by human's greed and dark rituals of the damned. She knows of Shadow Duels, of the Three Gods' hands in them; many spirits she helped had been scarred by those games governed by shadows.
The most terrible time would be when the Light of Destruction came and sent mortals to the sand dunes of their Realm, and the Shadow King (not the one of the Shadow Duels, they did not have a King, but the antonym of the Light, or so Regulus told her) cut off a portion of the Spirit Realm in an effort to cage the wretched Light so it wouldn't contaminate more land. It sent many Duel Spirits running to the villages under her protection, battered and scarred and traumatized and wounded, and worst of all, with their duelists and many of their Deck-Mates lost to the Light. Thankfully, the Light is driven away and the humans return to their own realm, but worry nags at Ancient Fairy Dragon when she hears the Shadow King vanished and that a human had been left behind. She had wanted to seek them both, the Shadow King responsible for stopping the Light and the unfortunate Human trapped in a foreign world, but didn't have the chance to.
She's pleased to find the human has gotten out when she looks into it. She's not so pleased when these foul creatures start to take the souls of those in her protection. They are rotten and foul and wretched, much like the Cloaked Deaths that harmed Little Girl with memories best forgotten, and they take and take and take. Ancient Fairy Dragon is only an individual, with her power halved by the non-existent bond with an unborn Signer, so she is helpless as many spirits are taken. She's glad to find that the spirits are returned and safe after the intervention of the Shadow King and the Perfect Defense. But it also means more work, as many are traumatized by the experience.
One of her trusted, a fire-eating draconian named Salamander, called her workaholic. Ancient Fairy Dragon vaguely remembers the weasel boy often calling the puff-haired girl that, so she supposes it is a compliment. She has no idea why Celestial Magician smacked Salamander then.
(An iron-devouring serpent, Metalica, mentioned something about tension before Regulus snapped at her. It worried Ancient Fairy Dragon, but Regulus told her that they were being silly. She still hopes Salamander and Celestial Magician resolve the problem causing the tension, something which Metalica had laughed at, until Ancient Fairy Dragon expressed her wish that she and Regulus should also solve their tension since they fought much. Metalica's face spasms and it looked amusing, if she was truthful, but she was worried when Regulus started choking.)
...
...Then there are fools that mistake her actions for naivety and weakness. After the first time, they know better than to try after she dealt with them. Little Girl would've been sad, because Little Girl did not like violence, because Little Girl had been molded a little too perfectly to the whims and wishes of a liar wearing faux skin of kindness. Ancient Fairy Dragon is not entirely Little Girl, and although she cares and loves and forgives, she has no patience for those who remind her of the old man with lying eyes and the snake who ran from death.
In actuality, it is not the entire Spirit Realm that consider her their Ruler. There are many different Rulers in the Spirit Realm, like the Dragon King, the Lord of the Magician and Caster Types, the Queen of the ice tundras, the Lord of the sea...
Ancient Fairy Dragon just gained her own, albeit scattered and not dependent on a sole specie. She protects fairies, magicians, cyborgs, cyber ladies, dragons, little creatures...
It started with those she gave home and safety, then those gave others home, and so it branched on. Her actions are catalyst and before she knows it, there are many villages that claim her as Ruler. A very large number. It is a bit terrifying and humbling, to see this honest gratitude as opposed to the selfishness in the humans from Before.
...
Ancient Fairy Dragon likes to wander the Spirit Realm. It is wide and expanding, with many sections belonging solely to draconians, to casters, to lava-nature serpents. Mountains of lava, islands in the sky, towers of magic, a city under the sea and a population thriving on an elephant-shaped mountain so high it reached the clouds. It is all so awe-inspiring, so beautiful. She loves places, she loves meeting wonderful spirits, she loves the freedom of wandering and finding more things.
But it is Her Forest that she calls home. It is the place where she woke up, with florescent nature, and healthy trees so very tall. Fruits and green grow there, and she allows duel spirits to live there too, to collect nutrition and wander Her Forest. It is a peaceful place, no wars and no death. No one dares disturb Her Forest, not after the anger she showed, and certainly not after the incident where some foolish barbarians tried to destroy it as some form of petty vengeance for liberating the spirits he enslaved.
Regulus is out there, wandering. He is loyal yes, but she knows he likes freedom as much as her, and she won't be as cruel as to chain him by her side. He insists that he did not mind, but she knows her friend better. She would have, truthfully, asked a Caster to transport Regulus to places far away, if it meant him understanding how he is still free and that she does not, in any way, want to bind him to her will.
Last time she heard, he was visiting the fortress of ice supposedly ruled by The Frozen Ice Queen. It amuses and puzzles her, because she knows Regulus hates cold and she wonders what he is doing.
Not everything is perfect. There are times when the part of Little Girl that was still inside her mourned for Before. It is a tiny part, easily consoled and soothed by her own accomplishments - the help and homes and safety she brought many, with her own hands and will - and Ancient Fairy Dragon is content.
...
Summers pass. The meaning of her Card's Silver Shade is introduced by the Human Creator, Pegasus; Synchronization. The influence of the Light fades and for a moment there is peace, but such did not last.
Certainly not when the Fallen came. Her Forest has rotten and become poisoned with the taint of the Fallen, who imprisoned her to a slab of hardened soil, mixed with the remains of their essence to hold her in. As she had been - only at half power without a Signer in the Bond and preoccupied with matters - she is caught off guard and caged. It shames Ancient Fairy Dragon to think she has been caught off guard, and she is not the only one to pay.
It enrages her, the prison so similar to the cage of Little Girl, and they fuel her ire when they barred the access from the Human Realm to the Spirit Realm, effectively caging those who did not belong to a Deck and starting a twisted hunt for them.
They are harming those under my protection! Wretched things! Ancient Fairy Dragon wants to rage like she had not done in summers, helpless as she feels the minions of the Fallen encroaching her territory. She feels rage and fury, as the Fallen refuses to show Itself after catching her by surprise and caging her. She seethes, struggling to break her prison of bone and hearth. Show yourselves, cowards! she howls in her mind, I shall rip you apart and dance over your ashes for doing such against I and what is mine!
(Because a dragon is protective. Dangerously so. And Ancient Fairy Dragon valued freedom, ever since Little Girl had been denied such.)
She pleads for the help from her sire. She begs for Him to help those she vowed to protect. But He doesn't - can't. He has not been idling all this time she did not feel him. The Seal of the Gate is breaking, and He cannot leave it least it does break. Especially not when many of His Signers are not even born yet, when some Signer Dragons have not been selected yet. There is only her and two of her Dragon Siblings, and the connection is weak and fresh, they not being able to locate her, and as powerless as she is without their Signers.
The Crimson Dragon tells her to wait - wait for her Signer, because they will come and help. She feels His regret, sincere in His apology for not being able to help, so she cannot be angry at him for long.
It does not make it easier. Regulus tries to keep everything together, along with the others, but the Minions are too many and the villages too scattered. She watches in pain as they Stone her precious, lively spirits, guilty and shame and rage eating away at her conscience.
(The Little Girl does not cry, does not make a sound.)
...
She feels the moment her Signer is born, when her Signer is chosen, when the Bond snaps into place and is full for the first time since she can remember. She has lived for so long at half-strength, with a feeble Bond that wasn't and emptiness from a side that should be thriving; the change is exhilarating and pleasing. It gives her a bit of strength, but not much, as her cage sapped her strength simultaneously.
But it is not until years later that she meets her Signer - still so young and scarred, very much like the Little Girl, that it smooths over the cold rage that build up over the years.
When the Bond grows strong enough to surpass her cage and the seal of the Spirit Realm, she reaches out for her precious, precious Signer and pulls—
"Welcome, my Signer."
Her Signer looks up at her cage, and Ancient Fairy Dragon feels hope, as her Signer's presence smooths over summers of bitterness and rage and despair tainting Her Forest.
.
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Aaaaannnnddd it ends here.
What began with my rewrite of Sora no Hoshi (FemNaru as Stardust Dragon) ended with the fantastic idea of imagining FemHarry as Ancient Fairy Dragon. I won't deny that I have begun to love reading FemHarry more than FemNaruto, and because I'm trash for wanting to pair FemHarry with everything under the sky, in here, I almost made it a YuseixFemHarry (Ancient Fairy Dragon) even though I HAVE NO IDEA how that would've worked out.
It was more along the lines of Yusei pulled in with Ruka, or Yusei meeting FemHarry later on after all the shit with Goodwin. Then that spiraled into the thought of what if Yusei was her Signer instead but it broke me when I thought of Ruka. Then then then-
Acutally I will shut up. So, just take this as a fic of FemHarry, gen-fic. Her Signer is whoever you want, Yusei or Ruka; I omitted gender and name to entertain my fantasies just a little while more. '-'
I'm sorry if this offends your view of Ancient Fairy Dragon, but I'm not sorry for how this turned out. I'm actually a little proud how this came about in less than 3h.
Well, I should go back to whipping up that troublesome rewrite of Sora no Hoshi. Urgh. I'M AIMING FOR A ONE-SHOT, NO MATTER IF IT'S 20K OR 30K I'M SO NOT DOING MULTI. I think. I'm very aware I suck at multi-chapter...
~TenraiTsukiyomi