Author's Note:

Here we are, the final chapter of my doll lore fanfic. I'm awful at conclusions. I always have been. It's probably why I have so many unfinished projects lying around. I've actually made a goal for myself next year to finish any and all unfinished projects. I'm not even allowing myself to pick up a new project until all the projects in that area are finished. My writing list alone stretches into April at this point!

I still have JaNoWriMo, to do on top of that, too. I'm planning to use it to work on my ignored NaNovel from this year, but still...

I finished the story during the week, much to the kids' relief. I ended up reading it in its entirety three times that week, and then another five or so times the next week. They begged for another story, so I started working on a couple. They're here in their unfinished and unedited forms respectively. Thank you for reading the whole way through. I hope you enjoyed my interpretation of the Yu-Gi-verse.

Pegasus Unmasked

Nearly everybody else was sitting around the table at their assigned places. Only Kaiba was out of place, and he had only shifted down a seat to be beside his younger brother. The head of the table was still missing, a fact that was not going unnoticed by the eight people present, but few could be heard over Joey's complaints.

"That jerk! His goons bring us back here against our will, and then he doesn't even show up!"

"Not to mention everything he's put us through today," Tristan muttered, squeezing Serenity's hand under the tablecloth, away from Joey's eyes. As the girl returned the squeeze, he found himself grateful that his friend seemed to be easing up on him for liking Serenity. Joey had approached him after he and Mai arrived back in the hall and told him that he wasn't comfortable with the situation, but he was going to try to be more accepting. Next to the high he was already feeling after winning Serenity's freedom, it made Tristan's heart nearly explode.

Everyone around the table seemed to be a mixture of relief and annoyance. Mai was good-naturedly ribbing Joey, and once Tea and Yugi had returned to the hall, the dancer started helping the blonde duelist in her torment of her smart-alec companion. He tried to get the attention away from him by trying to deflect the girls' attention toward Yugi or Kaiba. Yugi, who was a bit more relaxed than he had been the last time he was sitting at the table, was lost in his own thoughts and failed to notice Tea trying to pull him into the conversation.

The Kaiba brothers had decided to pass their time waiting for Pegasus by playing a makeshift game of tic-tac-toe. It was difficult to tell if Seto was growling out of annoyance at Pegasus, or because Mokuba seemed to be winning most of the games. Every time the little boy won, he giggled, filling the room with mirth and warmth. Trying to outthink the brother who knew him almost better than he knew himself, Kaiba also missed Mai's attempts to pull him into the conversation at the other end of the table.

Some time after Tea and Yugi had taken their seats at the table again, the door creaked open and Pegasus walked in, showing the same maddening calm he had been displaying since they first sat down to tea twenty-four hours ago. He sat down quietly and waved his hand. Men appeared and placed tea in front of everyone again. It was the tea party that seemed to never end.

"What's the meaning of this?" Kaiba demanded. Mokuba reached across his brother to swipe a handful of sugar cubes, but the CEO was too angry to notice.

"It's tea. Drink up!" Pegasus lifted his mug in a small salute, "To your health, Kaiba-boy." Kaiba responded by pushing away the mug before him.

"Pegasus, you invited us here. You kidnapped some of us. You put the rest of us through awful, dangerous games. Now, you expect us to have tea with you like nothing happened?" Tea nearly rose from her seat to chastise the eccentric man beside her, who responded by slowly sipping his tea. The girl's temper wasn't nearly enough to intimidate the eccentric duelist.

Everyone waited to see if he would in fact respond to her, but he continued to silently sip at his tea. Finally, Yugi quietly asked, "What was the purpose of bringing us all here?"

Pegasus smiled in a soft, quirky way. "As I told you earlier, Yugi-boy, this holiday was one of Cecilia's favorites. I haven't been able to deal with it in years. The loneliness it evoked was too much to bear-"

"You were feeling lonely?" Joey asked, incredulously.

Ignoring the question, Pegasus continued, "-so I thought it might be fun to make the day less lonely by sharing it with others."

"You call this 'fun'?" Kaiba was greatly annoyed.

"Of course, Kaiba-boy! Playing games with you all has certainly brightened my day." His voice was casual, as if the group had spent an afternoon engaged in simple games instead of a day in life-or-death games for the lives and souls of some of their number.

"That does it! Mokuba, we're leaving!" The teen grabbed his younger brother, who was still stirring sugar cubes into his tea, and dragged him out.

Watching the Kaiba brothers leave, Mai stood up from the table, "I really should get going, too."

"Wait!" Serenity jumped from her chair. "I'll walk with you!" Tristan and Joey both quickly followed Serenity, each for his own overprotective reasons.

Realizing they were being left behind, Yugi and Tea quickly escaped the table and followed their friends out the door.

Alone again in his hall, Pegasus pulled back a set of drapes to reveal the portrait of a beautiful woman. Lost in happy memories of a past life, he sipped his tea and missed her.