The Children

Note: I hate writing stories when you don't have half the details you need. But I'm in dire need of writing practice. This is the result.

I hope this is somewhat consistent with canon.

Chapter 1: Her Two Youngest Sons

It had been all right until Tom turned twelve. Then he was off, heckling Mother about his apprenticeship. Tom had decided, a long time ago, that he was going to work in the Border Sea, and woe be it on Mother to apprentice him elsewhere! He said the Lower House was too stuffy, the Pit too dusty, the Great Maze too dirty, the Middle House too boring, the Upper House all of the above put together and the Incomparable Gardens… Well, Sunday was mucking about around there, and he wasn't about to go work with his stiff of an older brother!

And so, while the Architect dealt with her second son, her third son was left quite alone. He was too young to be apprenticed yet. He was left to wander the house all he liked, playing the pipe that made everyone call him the Piper. Simple melodies, cheery folk songs, several concertos by Mozart— he played them all, he was so bored. He tried not to think back to the days before Tom turned twelve.

Back then, the two of them had loads of fun playing together. Tom was always coming up with the best ideas of what to do in the House: pretending at soldiers in the Great Maze until they got lost, stealing aboard a ship in Port Wednesday (how were they to know that it was owned by a pirate?), hitching rides with the Paper Pushers when they weren't looking. They had flooded the entirety of the Lower House once. All the documents were soaked; the Denizens were thrown into such confusion that the Architect threatened to throw them into the Pit. They tried to content themselves with beating Denizens into elevators after that.

But as Tom neared the age of twelve, he gave more serious thought to what he would do with the rest of his (probably very long) life. It was customary for a son of the Architect, upon turning twelve, to take up an apprenticeship somewhere in the House in order to learn a trade that would be useful in the running of the Universe. Tom would still play with the Piper, in the sense that he allowed his younger brother to tag along with him. But they no longer went to the Great Maze to play at soldiers; they went to inspect exactly what soldiers did. Or they went to the Lower House to watch the Ink Fillers dribble ink into bottles or to the Middle House to watch the Winged Servants of the Night drill. The Piper thought it was all very dull, but Tom watched every ink drop fall into those bottles as if it was the water of life.

The Piper much preferred sailing on the Border Sea to watching ink bottles get filled—this was quite something because the Piper hated sailing. He hated how the salty spray would always get in his eyes or how the rope burned his palms when he hoisted the sails (and sails were always having to be hoisted, it seemed). And somehow, he always felt like throwing up, even when the water was calm. This, Tom said, was quite an achievement; not many people could say they got sea sick in lake water.

Tom did agree with the Piper though—sailing on the Border Sea was much preferable to filling ink bottles. He took to haunting Port Wednesday, following various sailors, merchants or admirals, and pestering them with questions about their adventures or what a particular sailing term meant. This didn't leave him much time to play with the Piper, much to the latter's disappointment. He kept up asking Tom to play with him every time they saw each other.

But even during those rare times when Tom consented, Tom's mind was on the sea. Tom refused to play any other games besides sea-faring games: these usually consisted of the Piper pretending to be a ferocious sea creature or a nasty pirate and Tom pretending to be the self-styled "Mariner" protecting the House, the Universe, and Mummy. It would end, also as usual, with a triumphant Tom sitting on top of a crying Piper. Mother would come, scold Tom, then separate the two so that the Piper would find himself, once again, quite alone.

And now it seemed that he was to be permanently alone. There was no asking Tom to play with him ever again. Tom was on his way to growing up, once Mother admitted to having already apprenticed him to Lady Wednesday and he had run off to Port Wednesday, far too excited and impatient to wait for a Transfer Plate. It seemed to the Piper that that had been the last time he would ever see his older brother.

Mother was not particularly sympathetic to the Piper's predicament, no matter how much he moped about the House, or played long, drawn-out dirges squeakily on his pipe. (She knew, further, that the Piper was purposefully squeaking to remind her just how miserable he felt.) Raising three children had made her realize just how irritating children could be. It did not help matters that the Piper's emotions were irritating too; there was no logic to missing his brother, she thought. The Piper had known Tom would leave when he turned twelve.

"Why don't you start considering where you would like to be apprenticed," said the Architect, trying her hardest to seem patient. The Piper hooted a long note at her with his pipe.

He had already thought about it (there was nothing else to do when you were watching bottles of ink) and found that many of the jobs in the House did not appeal to him at all. Besides, he had only just turned seven and did not feel like thinking about his future. He only thought about how he would've liked a friend to spend the day with, climbing Tuesday's pyramid or (yes, he admitted this) watching the Ink Fillers fill the ink bottles. Anything was good, as long as he had someone else to do it with.

There were no children in the House. There were only fully grown Denizens who had been created for distinct purposes that made them quite useless at making mischief. There were the ones who were timid and became harried at the thought of ruining a task, the steely ones who concentrated so fiercely on their jobs that they never noticed him, and the scary ones who would pay enough attention to the Piper to make him feel like he was a waste of time, and if he ever bothered them again, well, not even Mother could save him. It was no use to try and make a friend out of a Denizen. The current Denizens anyhow.

Which is how the Piper ended up in the Academy of Sorcery with a hole peering into the Void.