Celebwen Telcontar: Here's the first chapter of Serene Wings.
Balrog: This should be good. Especially when Joey finds out!
Celebwen Telcontar: Hopefully you'll like it!
Serenity held the letter in a trembling hand. She knew she had been adopted, her mother had told her as soon as she got her passport for the trip to Japan and her eye surgery. She remembered the revelation with a wince.
"Serenity," her mother said softly. "When I was pregnant with your brother, I had a very difficult time. I had to deliver him by cesarean section, and a cancerous growth on my uterus caused me to have a hysterectomy as well. I was unable to have any more children."
"Are you trying to say I'm adopted?" Serenity asked.
"Yes. When I found out that I couldn't have any more children, your father and I were devastated. We wanted more than one child, and so we asked one of the nurses that delivered Joey to help us. She knew of a homeless woman who had died in labor with no family. You would have been sent to an orphanage if we didn't take you."
"I see. So I have no biological family."
"I'm afraid not, but we are your family. Me, Jacob, and Joseph." Serenity nodded, chewing on her fingernail.
"I wish I knew her name. Maybe I do have family out there, somewhere. She couldn't have always been homeless, could she have?"
"No. I'll see if I can find Emily's phone number."
Now the letter she held said that the nurse who had given her to her parents had been a criminal, wanted in several child abduction cases for the hospital Serenity had been born in. Serenity went to the next page. Her mother had indeed died in the birth, but her father was alive. She didn't have any known siblings, but she had grandparents, Sonja and Eric Cardinal, who lived in New York. Eric Cardinal was the head of the Viking Shipping Company, a powerful and extremely rich man from America. Her mother's name was Cecelia Cardinal. She had married right out of high school, a young man named Maximillion Pegasus.
She stared at the name of her father. Her father was Maximillion Pegasus?! The Duel Monsters magnate?! The host of the Tournament that Yugi and Joey had won so she could have her eyes fixed?! She felt the paper slip through her fingers. The world was getting fuzzy, and she was feeling very lightheaded. She made her way to the table, and sat down, bending low so the blood would rush to her head and keep her from fainting. After sitting up, she re-read the letter. It included a birth certificate for a Sonja Éowyn Pegasus, a picture of her mother and grandparents (she incidentally looked quite a bit her grandmother), and other information. She shuffled through the papers again, before setting her head on her hand and rubbing the bridge of her nose.
The door suddenly opened, and Joey came in.
"Sis? Y'alright?" he asked.
"Yeah," she said, pushing herself back in her chair. She rubbed her temple, and reached for the letter. She might as well show her brother. "Joey, I was adopted. I've known this since I had to get my passport for the surgery. Mom was sure that my biological mother had no family. But I had been kidnapped." She handed the letter over, praying he wouldn't overreact. She should have known better.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" the Duelist Kingdom Semifinalist shouted, loudly. Serenity covered her ears.
"Joey! Please, I just learned this myself!"
"Th'nurse kidnapped ye?! An' yer Pegasus' daughta?!"
"It seems that way." She gathered up the papers, and tucked them back in the envelope they came in.
"Yeah, tha's Pegasus' wife. I r'member her paintin' 'n Pegasus' tower," Joey commented as he looked at Cecelia's picture. Then, he looked at Eric and Sonja Cardinal. "She looks jes' like ye!" he yelped, staring at Sonja's picture.
"Yes, she does. Apparently, she's my grandmother, Sonja Cardinal. I was named after her. My birth name apparently is Sonja Éowyn Pegasus." She gathered the papers together, and moved to the computer. She turned it on, then got onto a word processing program.
"What're ye doin' now?" he asked.
"Writing a letter. I want to know about my mother, I want to get to know my father and grandparents. I can't just stay as I am, Joey!" Serenity exclaimed.
"Well, why not?!" he asked her. "I'm yer brother, Mom's yer mother, Dad's yer Dad, an'—"
"And I love you and Mom a great deal. I just have to know, Joey. They are my family, and they deserve to know that I'm alive and their relative!"
"He stole Gramps' soul! An' Kaiba's an' Mokuba's! I tol' ye that!"
"Yes, but you also told me why. It was for me and my mother."
"He still stole their souls!"
"He can't be much worse than Dad," Serenity put in frankly. Joey scowled.
"Fine. But I wanna be there when ya meet 'im."
"What? Why? This is my business."
"He's dangerous, sis. I can' trust 'im 'round my little sista."
"Stop being an idiot."
"An' Yugi'll be there too. P'raps Mai should be there, too…an' I'll need a gun… "
"Joey!"
"What? Yer my sis!"
"Stop it. I won't let you ruin your life because you're paranoid!"
"I'm not paranai—er—paranoid!"
"Yes, you are." Serenity replied, rolling her eyes and continuing to type. She finished the letter, printed it out, and made copies of all the documentation that her Leah Wheeler had sent her. She folded them, and slipped them in a business envelope, before looking up Industrial Illusions, Inc. on the internet. She found the address, and wrote it on the envelope, stamped it and set it aside to drop in the mailbox later.
"No I'm not!"
"I'm not getting dragged into this," Serenity groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'll show you the reply to this letter when it comes." The young woman saved the letter and turned the computer off. She ignored Joey's continued attempts to talk to her, and went outside to the nearest public mailbox before tossing the letter in and crossing her fingers that it would get to its destination and she would receive a reply.
Celebwen Telcontar: Well, what do you think of the first chapter?
Balrog: Joey didn't pull out a flaming sword and start chopping things up!
Celebwen Telcontar: That's his favorite card, Flame Swordsman, not himself. Please review, people!