A/N: I know, I know. I'm really late with this chapter. Darth Real Life, a few technical difficulties, and several new projects sort of got in the way. But, anyway, it's done and edited, and I'm pretty happy with it. There's one more (yes, only one - I'm sad) chapter left before Piper's Rain comes to a close. So, if there are any questions that you have that remain unasked, now is the time to ask them! So, review! Also, while I'm thinking about it, the song is 'In My Arms' by Plumb, and I totally don't own it. I just love it to pieces.


From the journal of Jarred Cooper,
Trainee in the Provost's Guard
The Lower City, Corus

June 17, 267

Today has been a very interesting day, to say the very least. And, for once, Ma let me sleep in on one of my days off. That don't happen very often, because she's usually up at dawn with a ton of things to do.

When I finally did get up, Ma was already downstairs (as usual) talking with Aniki and Corcoran while Phelan was eating and had his mouth full.

"Where's Rosto?" I asked. Ma glanced at me before taking a bite of potatoes from her plate.

"Upstairs," she said after swallowing. "I told him to go back to sleep when I got up," she added when I raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I would point out, love, that it's awfully hard to get back to go back to sleep once you've left," Rosto's voice called from the steps. Ma chuckled, taking another bite as Rosto appeared on the stairs. He walked over and kissed her on the cheek before taking a seat and looking over what was available for breakfast. "Corcoran, is there any chance you have some Peach Dragons stashed somewhere?" he asked. Ma chuckled again, shaking her head at Rosto.

Grinning, Corcoran pulled a ripe peach from under the counter and showed it to Rosto, who smirked at Ma. While Corcoran made the rolls, Rosto talked with Aniki and Phelan and caught up a little on all that he had missed. I could almost see the slight shadows in his expression, the sorrow that he had missed so much. He didn't show it more than that, though.

He thanked Corcoran when the Peach Dragons had been completed, and took the plate that had been offered. You could practically hear his stomach growling halfway across the room. After the first bite, Rosto looked like it was torture not to eat all of the rest at once. They're well enough, but, as I've said before, I don't really like them all that much compared to the apple rolls.

It was highly amusing when, after he had taken another bite and had turned his back partially to get some water, Ma stole a piece. He caught her motion out of the corner of his eye and whirled in his chair, giving her a look of mock outrage when she popped it into her mouth. She smirked a little. He pouted – I don't think I've ever seen a grown cove act like that before – until Ma leaned over and kissed him.

Aniki rolled her eyes, but Phelan apparently decided to follow suit and kissed her. Corcoran and I exchanged glances and I sighed in annoyance. Them doing that was really starting to annoy me. And I'd begun to wonder if they were like this before Rosto disappeared. Probably. But, that's not the point.

It was several moments before Corcoran cleared his throat (which I was about to do – he stole my thunder there…) and both couples broke apart. Rosto looked at us expectantly, clearly wanting to know why they had been interrupted. I turned to Corcoran.

"Were they always like this?" I asked him. He chuckled, a wicked grin appearing on his face.

"Well, when no one was around, they were just as bad, if not worse. If I remember correctly, your mother knocked your father off a stool by accident. And then there was the time when-" Ma cut him off right there.

"Jarred doesn't need to hear about that, Cookie," she said. There was a faint blush on her cheeks as she said that. I do believe that that is the first time I've seen Ma really embarrassed. Rosto chuckled, his arm encircling her waist as he took another bite of Peach Dragon. She scooted her chair a little closer, then leaned her head back against his shoulder, stealing another piece of the Yamani roll in front of Rosto. This time, he chuckled and rolled his eyes. In turn, he stole her fork and took a bite from her plate, smirking at her as he did it.

Then, she plucked the fork from his hand and started eating her own food again. This went on for several minutes before Ma stopped and looked at me. About ruddy time too, acos I was starting to feel forgotten in all this. And for a long time, I was the man in this family, small as it was.

"Jarred, why don't you come upstairs to my room after Rosto's done talking to Aniki?" she asked. "I think we could use some help with something." I glanced at Rosto, who looked slightly confused, then back at Ma.

"Why not; all I have to do today is clean up my room a little bit," I said. Piper yipped, having finished the bowl of food that had been set out for her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! They have fun idea planned – Cat-cat say so! Piper help, too? she yipped. She danced around, turning her body in circles with excitement. I looked back up at Rosto and Ma, the latter of whom was looking at my puppy with an incredulous look on his face.

"You never said she talked, too," he said. I frowned slightly.

"You understand her?" I asked. Rosto nodded.

"All you have to do is listen – I've been able to understand Pounce since I was helping your ma at Port Caynn. Before that, though, I had to put up with only hearing Beka's side of the conversation. In hindsight, it was rather amusing. Not so much at the time," he said, grinning at Ma when she met his gaze.

I opened my mouth to respond when I felt a paw land on my ankle. I looked down to see Piper looking up at me, her paw resting on my boot. The tip of her tail wagged a little. Piper help? she asked, her bronze eyes pleading. I chuckled.

"Sure, Piper. We'll find a way for you to help," I said. She wagged her tail happily in response. My puppy is extremely adorable when she wants to be. I headed back upstairs after I was done, while Rosto talked to Aniki about Rogue matters and Ma went up to her own room to do something. I cleaned up for a while, dusting and so on. I cleaned my daggers while I was at it and polished my baton. I will admit that I miss having Callingbird, but Rosto deserves to have his flute back after so long; I'm not about to deprive him of that. A little while before lunch, he poked his head into my room (I had left the door open) and told me that I needed to come upstairs if I wanted to help.

By the time I got up there, he was looking through something, and Ma was sitting at her desk, waiting patiently. She held out Callingbird when I was close enough. That confused me quite a bit.

"Found it," Rosto said. He was holding the black and silver journal that I had run across in that crate when I was helping Ma. He handed the book to Ma, who glanced over it as he leaned over her shoulder. "I've got the modified lyrics somewhere, as well. I just have to find them, since it seems that all of my papers and such were packed up and all…" he trailed off, straightening and running a hand over his hair.

"I know where they are," she said. Ma got up and walked over to her bookshelf and pulled a small, book-shaped wooden box from it. She slid it open and started pulling papers out of it as she walked back to her desk. She sat down again, with Rosto once again leaning over her shoulder. "Here it is," she said finally, pulling one paper from the pile inside it. She held it up for Rosto to read while she herself skimmed it. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for them to finish.

"Perfect. Thank you, love," Rosto said, kissing her on the cheek. He looked up at me then. "Beka and I are planning a surprise for tonight and we'll need your help for it. I've mentioned it to Aniki, who approved it," he said. He reached out to pick up the metal flute that was on the desk – Nightingale, if I remember right. "All that's left is to arrange it and practice it. If I teach you the song, will you play it?" he asked. I nodded.

"Of course. I wouldn't pass that up – and you want me to play it on Callingbird?" I asked in turn, holding the wooden flute up. Rosto nodded this time.

"Correct. I'll teach you how to play it using Nightingale, but you have to listen to the difference in the sound of the flutes. Your mother says that you're good with sounding out a song on a flute, so we'll just have to make sure," he said. He picked up the journal, which he had put down momentarily, and flipped through the pages in the back. After a moment, he held it out to me. "Can you read this?" he asked. I looked at the page, glancing over the musical notation there, then shook my head.

"No, I can't," I admitted. Rosto glanced at Ma, who shrugged.

"He only just found your flute, Rosto. I didn't have time to teach him how to read the music to go with it. Nor did I want to, for all that he's inherited your gift for playing," she said, her pride-filled eyes flickering to me. "But he played a mighty good version of Toora Loora Loora after only hearing me sing it, didn't you, Jarred?" I chuckled.

"It was well enough. Made our fierce Rogue Queen well up a bit 'round the eyes. Not as good as it could have been, but it sounded like the tune you sang to me when I was little," I replied. Rosto sighed, shaking his head.

"Well, I'll give you a run-through of how to read music, and we can work on it more later. But if you've got the memory I do for music, and it sounds like you do, then it shouldn't be a problem tonight," he said.

He proceeded to show me how to read the score on paper, then played it once through before making me play it. The first thing he took issue with was my breathing. I got a whole lecture on how I was doing it wrong for playing a flute and how exactly I needed to fix it.

"You've got it wrong, Jarred. The flute-players stance has to always be straight-backed and tall." He stood up and put his feet together in a T-stance I'd seen an old violin-player do. He motioned for me to do the same. I did, but Rosto proceeded to poke me until I was standing just so. "Posture helps you breathe better. It also makes you look more regal-like, which you don't really need much help with, being as you're my son. Still, stand taller. There you go. Soften your eyes, hands loose, no grimacing and no tight muscles. It must look effortless, as though it were the easiest thing in the world. Easier than breathing. And that will ease your breathing." He didn't demonstrate, just sort of shook me a bit. "There you go, now, stand like that."

Rosto is amazingly picky for someone who spent eighteen years in a cell with little choice about anything. Sometimes I don't understand how Ma has managed to live with that. If he's that picky about how I breathe while playing a pipe, I can only wonder how picky he is about other things.

Anyway, I had managed to play it once through, with a number of mistakes, mind you, before we decided to break for lunch. As soon as we were all done, Ma and Rosto dragged me back upstairs to get back to practicing. It took a while before I could play it to Rosto's satisfaction, but it was worth it. After that, Ma joined in, singing as I got used to having a voice accompanying my playing, which I hadn't had before.

It really didn't take all that long for me and Ma to get out parts down; then Rosto joined in, which told me what was being planned. It was already late in the afternoon by the time we had managed to go through it near perfect a couple of times.

After that, Ma asked me to help her and Rosto move most of her things back up from Kora's room. I hadn't really realized how empty it was in her room without the crates and clutter that she hasn't cleaned up in years due to lack of time. On one trip downstairs to get hot-water for washing the floors, I heard one of Corcoran's kitchen girls tell the other that she thought Rosto and Ma would ask Aniki to move downstairs, and turn the entire last floor into one big apartment, with a medium room for Ma and Rosto, a smaller room for me, and some of what used to be a hallway, would be a front sitting room. All respectable like. Where the girl got the idea I didn't know, but I dunno if it would be that awful. I mean, it'd be like being a real family. Still, I had to go upstairs and help before I could hear where she heard it from and if she'd heard anything more, being as I was stronger than Rosto and could push the big dresser around and I could tell that it made Rosto feel bad, because he could not help much what with the fact that he's still recovering his strength from his long ordeal.

So, he helped unpack while Ma and I repacked (though most of them had never been unpacked or opened) the crates and took them back up the stairs. I did note that the crate that had the silk shirts of Rosto's had been pushed into the corner by the time the rest of them had been brought back up. I did have to wonder about that as I helped unpack some of the stuff. And Piper helped, too, by dragging baskets up the stairs.

Not much else happened of note until the Court of the Rogue began to gather. Ma and I had dinner downstairs while Rosto ate upstairs, as planned. Aniki sat on her throne, talking to Phelan while rushers filtered in. Bold Brian and his crew showed up – I'm amazed that the cove has managed to stay alive this long, now that I think about it. His jaw was healed, though there was still some leftover yellowing from what must've been an awful nasty bruise. Anyway, when a few of the younger rushers came in, their eyes lit up when they saw me and Ma. I figured that it was because they wanted entertainment again, knowing Aniki. I was right, it turned out. The mot who had acted as the voice of the younger rushers before was pushed forward by her friends again.

"Your majesty?" she asked. Aniki nodded, gesturing for the mot to continue. "Since the Coopers are back and all, might we ask them, well, might Guardswoman Cooper be asked to perform again? We haven't had any entertainment since her last song…" she trailed off, wringing her hands nervously as Aniki looked at her with calm blue eyes. It was rather ironic, being as Ma and Rosto had planned a song anyway. Aniki shifted on her seat a little, her face as mask of calm, and looked at me and Ma.

"That would be up to her. Beka, would you mind?" she asked. Ma, who had turned in her seat to look at Aniki, sighed, putting on a bit of a show of reluctance, for all I knew she wasn't.

"I suppose it wouldn't be too much trouble," she said finally. She lowered her voice and turned to me. "Would you pull out that flute, Jarred?" she asked.

I nodded, reaching down to where Callingbird had been stowed in my boot like I'd seen Rosto do. Ma got up and walked over to Aniki's throne and stopped next to the dais. She closed her eyes and waited for me to begin the song and get to the proper place for her to begin.

I exhaled and relaxed my arms and the muscles in my face and did the T-stance Rosto had showed me earlier and stood tall. Think regal. Think tall. And above all, breathe like it's the easiest thing in the world. I put the warm wood to my mouth and start.

"Your baby blues, so full of wonder…your curly cues, you contagious smile,"she opened her eyes there, her gaze locked on me as she delved into her magic. "And as I watch, you start to grow up…all I can do…is hold you tight."

Already, I could feel the waves of emotion coming off of her without even needing to reach for my own magic. There was a bittersweet joy in her tone. I could tell that, though Rosto had written those words years ago, probably in honor of someone, like his mother or his sister or something. But either way, it was remarkably fitting in this situation.

"Knowing clouds will raise up, storms will race in, but you will be safe, in my arms." Most of the bittersweet feeling had faded by now, but there was still a little sorrow mixed in with the joy in her voice. "Rains will pour down, waves will crash around, but you will be safe…in my arms…" She paused, looking at me with tears in her eyes before she went on. "Storybooks are full of fairy tales – of kings and queens, and the bluest skies…my heart is torn, just in knowing…you'll someday see truth from lies…"

There were tears streaming uninhibited down her face; her eyes were still locked on me as she returned to the song's refrain. Everyone else in the room had tears in their eyes, too. Some of them were bawling full out, not caring what anyone else would think of them. No one was immune to what Ma was singing. Even me and Aniki, who was fighting it mightily, weren't able to stop ourselves. But even then, every person in the inn had a little bit of a smile on their face as they were feeling both the sorrow and the joy she was feeling. The sorrow and joy that she felt in having watched me grow up and now having to let go.

"Rains will pour down, waves will crash around, but you will be safe in my arms." She paused again there, taking a deep breath, which she let out when another pipe joined mine. The high sweeping soprano of Rosto's pipe Nightingale soared above Callingbird and Ma's voice, and really showed off the hopeful heart of the song. The whole inn turned in surprise toward the stairway. Rosto stood less than halfway up, holding himself with dignity and clad in a demure grey silk shirt. Didn't change the fact that he looked more regal than any king, he made looking good look easy. Even when he didn't look as amazing as he used to. He started down the stairs as he played, his eyes on Ma alone.

"Castles they might crumble, and dreams may not come true, but you are never all alone…because I will always…always love you…" As they stood only a few feet apart, Ma added her voice back in for the final refrain.

I will admit that Rosto was mostly right. I sometimes wonder what it would've sounded like if Rosto had sung instead of played his flute. But he is a Master Piper, and it would be unfair to have him sing when he can play so well. I mean, hearing Nightingale, was like seeing the music notes soar. It was truly heart-catching.

As ma's voice, and the music, faded and the song ended, complete silence met them. Bold Brian fell out of his chair as he stared at Rosto, who now had Ma pulled close and wrapped in his arms. I hadn't noticed until then that there were a few Dogs present, as well with Tunstall, Goodwin, Rinny, and Tay among them. Other than Rinny, they were all staring at Ma and Rosto. Admittedly, she had her eyebrows raised, but she wasn't actually staring.

But, anyway, they had been staring at Ma and Rosto, who were still standing by the dais catching their breath. Rosto nodded to Aniki, shifting a little so that his arm remained around Ma's waist and she had her head resting on his chest, but they were both facing the majority of those in the inn.

"Some of you may recognize me," he started, "though, a number of you will not. I'm Rosto the Piper, the Rogue before Aniki. I rather mysteriously disappeared from Corus over eighteen years ago. Much has happened, none of which I will share," he continued. His dark eyes landed on Brian, who was still sitting on the floor and looked as if he'd seen a ghost. "And while I'm at it, though all of you already know them, I'm sure, I must present to the Court of the Rogue… my beautiful wife, Rebakah Cooper, and our son, Jarred…"

If it was possible, Brian paled more. Apparently, he had realized that all of those jibes he'd taken through the years were about to come back and bite him, particularly the one that landed him with a broken jaw.

Tay's mouth had fallen open as he glanced between me and my parents. Until Rinny elbowed him hard in the side, that is. He glared at her while she smirked at him and said something. Whatever it was, it made Tay roll his eyes.

Then, a couple of voices called 'kiss her' from the back, where a group of young rushers were gathered. Rosto and Ma grinned at each other for a moment, both chuckling before he leaned down slightly and kissed her passionately.

A few people wolf-whistled before the kiss was broken. Then people cheered; I don't think it was many, but a few of them did, at least. Ma blushed and looked at the floorboards. Rosto chuckled and pulled her closer before leading her over to the counter again. He watched the Court of the Rogue while Ma and I finished our dinners. I handed Callingbird back to him while I was eating. He shook his head and nudged the pipe back toward me. He was giving it to me! I was so shocked I could only mutter my thanks. I didn't know if it'd be all right for me to hug him or if I should bow, or kiss his hand, or sommat like that. How does a cove act around a man who's more friend than father but has given you a father's gift?

The Court of the Rogue was too disturbed by his reappearance to do much of anything, for all Aniki tried to get it back under control. But, all in all, nothing really happened. The Dogs present conversed among themselves while Ma and Rosto continued to talk quietly.

When people started to get up to approach them, Rosto led Ma upstairs. And, to avoid being questioned by all of the Rats, having been deprived of their goal and then turning to me, I went upstairs, too. All in all, an interesting day, and an interesting time at the Court of the Rogue…

I'm tired, and my eyes are starting to sting. I'm going to bed.


Posted 3/16/08