The Pharaoh's Will
By Lucidscreamer
Notes and Warnings: One-sided Isis/Pharaoh Atem; mentions of canon, minor character deaths; mention of forced body-modification (scarification); Alternate Universe
Yu-Gi-Oh! is the creation of Kazuki Takahashi.
When she was seven years old, Isis begged to hold the Necklace, 'just for a little while.'
So while her father was occupied elsewhere, her mother took Isis into the chapel and with great reverence (and a little fear), removed the Item from its resting place. But when Isis asked if she could wear the Necklace, her mother told her she must wait until she was older. And only then if it was the Pharaoh's will. For they were his Guardians and lived only to serve him.
When she was ten, her brother Malik was born and her mother, exhausted from the rigors of his uneasy birth, went West to become one of the Justified, True of Voice. Her father said it was the Pharaoh's will.
When she was twenty-two, their father took a red-hot knife and carved the sacred words of the Key to the Pharaoh's Memory into her brother's back. It was, of course, the Pharaoh's will. And, afterward, it was the Pharaoh's will that drove that same knife into their father's heart. Her brother was never quite the same after that, but that, too, was the Pharaoh's will.
And Isis learned not to ask questions to which there was only ever one answer.
When she was twenty-six, Shadi brought a stranger into the hidden city of the Guardians. A man who made the Items tremble at his nearness, and in whose presence the shadows writhed and whispered. The man gave her back her brother - and Isis fell hopelessly in love. But when she offered herself to him, the man gently turned her away. And that, too, was the Pharaoh's will.
And, at last, when the Items were gathered together and Isis knelt at her beloved Pharaoh's feet and felt His power, she knew that her mother had been right. She was His Guardian. She lived for Him; if need be, she would die for Him. She loved Him. And it would ever be so.
Regardless of the Pharaoh's will.