Piers wasn't sure, at first, that he wanted a young girl-cousin living in the Dolphin House with them. He imagined her, vaguely, as being rather like Beatrix, full of whispers and poses and high drama, with hair as bright as flame.

But the moment he saw her, his little cousin Tamsyn, he knew that he had been quite wrong, and she wasn't that sort of little girl at all.

She had a thick mane of black hair, for one thing, and that was surprising, because Piers had thought that all the Caunters had red hair. And she was little and sturdily built, and – he found with a little spark of pleased surprise – she was really rather a quiet sort of little girl. He'd thought that he and Littlest were the only quiet Caunters, too.

But Tamsyn was quiet, quiet in an interested sort of way, watching things with bright dark eyes, instead of speaking. She had very black eyes and hair, and skin as brown as a berry, and a determined little chin; and sometimes she would have a lonely, heartsick, longing sort of look on her face. That was mostly when no-one was looking, when Piers' mother was busy and the Almost-Twins were having some private joke together.

Piers noticed this himself, of course, but he had always been very good at noticing things like that, things that other people missed. And he decided that he was glad, after all, that little Tamsyn had come to the Dolphin House, because she seemed to him to be someone very like himself.


Well… *pops out of the ground and looks around* I guess I'm all alone here, so far…

I've searched for Armourer's House fanfiction, but there's NONE. Are there any other fans around?

Anyway, I decided to write something myself. This is only a short little piece to get me going, but I'm planning to write a longer story for Piers and Tamsyn sometime. If by some mysterious process you've stumbled on this, please do leave a review! :)