Different: Chapter 1: Aunts and Other Annoying Family Members
Elle Piper was undeniably lovely. She was small and petite, with her father's white-blonde hair and her mothers flashing icy blue eyes. Many of the men at the Court of the Rouge would flirt with her when she came to visit her father. But when the others would warn them that she was the daughter of the Rouge himself, they would leave her, fearing his anger. The King of the Thieves would be very, very angry if his daughter was hurt.
Elle stood at Kora's booth in the Daymarket, coolly regarding the two women in front of her, who had yet to notice that she was waiting to help them. They were both dressed too well for the Lower City-there was no way they actually lived there.
Finally the lady that appeared to be the younger of the two turned to her. "Where is Mistress Kora? She is the owner of this booth, and she helped us when we were here last."
Definitely not Lower City mots, Elle thought as she smiled and said, "I'm sorry, Kora's not here in the evenings, so I watch the booth. My name is Elle Piper, and I assure you I can help. I know a lot about charms and such." Kora was already at the Court of the Rouge, the Dancing Dove, where she told fortunes for the thieves, but Daymarket wasn't over yet, so Elle watched the booth.
"Is Piper your father's surname, or your mother's?" the other woman asked, squinting at her.
"Diona!" the other woman said, ashamed. She should be-it was a rude question, but Elle was used to such things.
"Piper is my father's surname." Technically, her father was "the Piper" but she didn't tell that to strangers. Too many people wouldn't have qualms about killing her to harm her father. She would use her mother's surname, but her mother had just as many enemies as her father and less people made the connection from Rosto the Piper to Elle Piper.
The older woman was still thinking. The other woman turned to Elle. "I believe Mistress Kora had one of her cloth-cleaning charms ready for us? We were supposed to come pick it up." As Elle nodded and looked through the charms Kora had prepared, she thought, those women definitely look related. They could be sisters.
The ruder woman, Diona, looked at her. "What is your mother's name?" She asked. Before Elle could answer, the other woman scolded her, but Diona said "Lorine, don't her eyes look like Beka's?" Lorine looked to Elle for the answer to the question.
Elle swallowed. These women obviously knew her mother-Beka was her mother's nickname, and Elle had inherited her icy blue eyes. "My mother is Guardswoman Rebakah Cooper." There, she had said it.
The woman called Lorine's eyes lit up. "But she is our sister!" She cried. Elle let out the breath she had been holding. So these were Mama's sisters. She had told Elle about them once, but she didn't see them much. Apparently they were trying to become people in the world and didn't like it when Beka became a Dog, even though she was a famous Dog.
Lorine was almost crying with happiness. "We are your aunts!" she said happily.
Diona wasn't as happy. "Beka never even bothered to tell us she was married? Or that she had children?" she asked, hurt in her eyes.
"But we scorned her when she became a Dog. Now we can apologize and get to know her husband and her children!" Lorine rejoiced. To Elle she said "What is your father's name?"
Elle swallowed again. "Rosto the Piper." And when neither woman's face twisted in hate, she silently thanked Mithros and the Goddess that neither of her aunts spent enough time in the Lower City to know that he was the King of the Thieves.
Lorine had asked her how many siblings she had, and Elle had told her she had two older brothers, one a Dog and one just a Puppy, and that she was the youngest. And when they asked if the could stop by and see Beka, and where they lived, Elle told them that address of the boarding house her father had bought upon the former landlady's death. It was across from the Dancing Dove, Elle told them, and she said for them to come in the morning before her mother started her watch. She didn't mention that was also before her father went to the Court of the Rouge.
Then Elle closed up the booth, because Daymarket was ending by the time her aunts left. Elle got the feeling Lorine was happier than Diona that they were going to see Beka again.
Then Elle rat to the Jane Street kennel, but her mother had already left, so she went looking for her and finally found her on the street over from the Mantel and Pullet with her partner Lind and their new Puppy, Gita Burns, a girl a little older than Elle was. Gita was clearly intimidated to be paired with the famous Beka Cooper, and Elle had a feeling seeing her, one of the infamous bastard children of Rebakah Cooper and the Rouge didn't help. But she had to warn her mother that her sisters were coming to visit tomorrow.
Her mother looked a little less than pleased when Elle told her she hadn't told them Rosto's occupation or that he and Beka weren't officially married.
But Beka just told Elle to run along home, out of the Cesspool. Elle restrained from asking her why she couldn't stay in the Cesspool when the Puppy Gita was the same age as she and working in the Cesspool, and when her brothers were too. She didn't think her mother would appreciate it just then.
So Elle went home, to the house across from the Dancing Dove, the Court of the Rouge. But she thought that her father might like to hear the news from her early in the evening as opposed to from her mother, tired after her watch when she would probably forget to tell him anyway.
She slipped inside, hardly noticed by anyone in the noisy games of cards, the loud arguments at the tables where the thieves sat, getting drunk on ale and flirting with doxies. She wrinkled her nose, searching the place for her father. She remembered the time one of the men suggested she become a doxie. He had offered to be her first customer, before she pulled a knife on him and then her father found out…
She recognized her father, his pale hair shining as he sat on the tall chair by the fire, surveying his people and the inn he had built. Then his dark eyes landed on her. His brow furrowed. Elle knew he was subtly beckoning her forward, but she also knew if that didn't work he'd come and get her. For someone who was the King of the Thieves he sure didn't like having his daughter spending time in the Dancing Dove.
She walked across the inn to her father. She said hello to Aniki, her father's friend and former lover, who was also the Queen of the Ladies of the Rouge.
"Why are you here, Elle?" Her father asked her. She smiled.
"I came to warn you, Mama's sisters are coming for breakfast tomorrow. They were at Kora's booth and dragged the address out of me." Elle told him. She was talking to Aniki too, but she was pretending not to listen.
"Oh." Rosto said. He was still surveying his people.
"I already found Mama on Watch and warned her," she continued.
"Did she tell you to come warn me?" Rosto asked.
"Um…no." Elle said.
"Than why are you here?" Elle sighed. Neither of her parents liked her at the Court of the Rouge.
"Mama told me to go home, but I thought I'd stop by and warn you before Mama didn't ell you until tomorrow morning. She'll probably forget after Watch, you know that."
"Alright, you've told me. Now you can go home." Rosto dismissed her.
Elle sighed as she walked to her house across the street. It had once been two boarding houses where her parents had stayed when they were young. When the landlady retired, Rosto bought them and connected them into one house. She was the only one in the building. Her adoptive uncle Ersken, her mother, and her two older brothers were all Dogs on Evening Watch. Her father, his friend Phelan, and her two adoptive aunts Kora and Aniki were across the street at the Court of the Rouge. Kora and Ersken's three small children were asleep in an upstairs room in the Dove where Kora was nearby-Ersken would fetch them when he got back from Watch. All the people who lived in the house would be out past midnight. Elle, however, was supposed to go to sleep now.
She sighed. You would think her parents would be less overprotective.
Disclaimer: Everything you recognize belongs to the very talented Tamora Pierce. Everything you don't recognize I made up but is based off of the book Terrier.
A/N: So this is my first fanfic, and I'd really appreciate reviews-stuff you liked, constructive criticism, whatever. I hope to expand this-I have the general story line in my head, but it's not definite. Also I'm aware we don't know if Rosto and Beka have kids, but I think they do! So go ahead and review, please!