I Don't Wanna Be A Princess
Summary: Harumi was a fairy. That was a problem for the emperor and empress of Ninjago.
AN: This was written for @badthingshappenbingo for the prompt "grabbed by the hair." And if you've been keeping track of my prompts, you know what that means. Yes, yes I did finally finish my bingo card. It has taken over 4 years, but I am posting this finally. For the last one, I decided to go back to the first fic, with the ship Ultra Violet/Harumi. It is a bit light on UV but hopefully fairy!Harumi makes up for it
TW for discrimination, child abuse, manipulation, assimilation
Harumi knew that she didn’t look very intimidating. Upon first glance, she was an easy target, going by her blonde hair, small stature and mermaid themed clothing. Just another teenage girl who was a bit quirky.
Assuming Harumi was weak, however, was a big mistake. Harumi’s hands had been coated in blood for years, since she murdered a man who tried to touch her when she was a child. She had a thirst for blood that she was far more blase than she probably should have been.
She knew her biological parents were worried about her violent tendencies, especially with how often she would bring them dead animals as offerings. While that behavior might have been normal for phantoms or cats, for a half-fairy, it was incredibly unusual.
Fairies, for the most part, were considered non-violent creatures, especially compared to other fae like sirens and phantoms and dwarves. They weren’t pushovers, but they tended to be more defensive, and their magic was much more equipped to heal and repair and grow food than anything else.
But Harumi was always too curious for her own good as a child. She remembered how much she stuggled learning how to join things together, and she recalled how fire came to her as easy as breathing. She was a strong mage, but that strength was in all the wrong places. People gossiped, saying that she was cursed, that her mother cheated, that something was wrong.
Despite all the comments, though, her parents never let it affect how they treated her too drastically. They still played with her, they still braided her hair, and they still read stories to Harumi before bed. Oh, they would lecture about murdering little, innocent animals, but they never hurt her for what she couldn’t control. She was a bit different, and the world would just have to deal with a fairy who was better at fighting than healing.
It should have been fine, until the great devourer came. Harumi and her parents were in the city on a vacation, for while there was much danger for those not human in the city, fairies were considered safer, especially accompanied with a human.
Sure, Harumi had to hide her wings, and her hair was coated in a weird liquid that turned the light green and pink into a white-blonde, but that was just what you had to do sometimes. Her mama did the same, so it wasn’t like Harumi was being forced to do something no one else had to, either.
The most exciting part for Harumi was the chance to finally see the ninja who she had heard so many stories in her little village. There was much discussion about them, and what they were worth, but Harumi only cared about how they seemed so strong and confident. They never let anyone push them around, and Harumi was gonna be like them when she was grown.
But that dream died as the great devourer’s rose to life. Harumi was saved by her parents, but only in body, not in spirit. Her parents, the only ones to care about her, had died.
Harumi wondered if she was supposed to die that day.
It was a blur what happened afterwards. Harumi knew people talked to her, but her Ninjagaron was not very good, so she had no idea what they wanted from her. She didn’t dare let out her wings, though, no matter how uncomfortable she was, for she knew what humans did to young fairy.
She had seen the bodies of her friends after humans got to them. Wings stripped from them, hair cut off, and blood completely drained out of their body, all because of a misguided belief that fairies’ bodies had healing properties. The fairy needed to make the sacrifice willingly. The stolen parts were worthless.
Eventually, Harumi felt someone grab her hair. She cried and tried to use her magic, but it was like trying to make yourself throw up, slow and hard and painful. There were heavy cuffs on her wrists that she hadn’t noticed before, and it felt like her skin was being burnt off.
Someone punched her gut, making her gasp as tears filled her eyes. “Hey little monster, shut up. You’re lucky, got it? The emperor and empress want a half-blood like you as a heir, and you look human enough for it to work, so be grateful we aren’t selling you,” a deep voice snarled, violence bleeding out into every word. Harumi felt her stomach dropped.
The emperor and empress were why fae were hurt so bad in Ninjago. They wanted everyone to be equal, in their own words, which just meant they wanted humans only. The fact the ninja were allowed to exist was a shocking thing to many of the adults, but that meant nothing in the end if it meant fae were still going to be hurt.
Harumi’s head hurt when she was ungracefully deposited into the back seat of a black car, some of her hair pulled out. No one cared as Harumi was driven to the palace.
Soon enough, they broke Harumi. They forced her to hide all the things that made her “look like an animal,” as the emperor would say. So purring, chirping, magic, and letting out her wings were beaten out of her under the careful eyes of her “loving parents.”
They took Harumi and broke her so she could be pieced back into a picture perfect princess like stained glass is broken and soldered together. She wasn’t allowed to grow her garden, instead given books to memorize on ettiquette and the horrific history regarding fae.
Harumi let them believe they won, and that they had a girl who was perfect and oh-so-human. But they didn’t take away Harumi’s anger, and if anything, they just made it grow from how they treated her.
Harumi vowed she would get her revenge one day, and it would taste as sweet as her mother’s flowers.
Years after Harumi’s parents died, Harumi saw Ultra Violet for the first time, and she felt a sense of kinship immediately. They were both girls who had too much violence in their blood, who were told to be calmer, be nicer, to not take what was theirs.
The only difference was that Ultra Violet didn’t let anyone tell her what to do, while Harumi let the others in her life control her life. But seeing Ultra Violet so free gave Harumi the freedom to start planning her escape.
With a new sense of determinism, and dare she say, optimism, Harumi concocted plans of how to get revenge.
The first step? Bring back her biggest hero: Lord Garmadon.
