Disclaimer: Not. Mine. Any questions?
A/N: I wrote this last week - My first real try at Beka's time...Tell me what you think! There'll be more up as soon as I get around to writing the next one, which, considering I have a youth event at my church this weekend, but I'll give it my best effort to have another one up in the next two weeks or so...Enjoy!

Rosto the Piper sat in his throne at the Court of the Rogue. He was slumped in the throne, one leg extended to the edge of the dais, the other bent to keep him in place. His white-blond hair was neat, but his black eyes were far off. His left arm rested on one of the armrests of the throne, while he had the joint of his right thumb resting on his lips while he thought.

Nothing remotely interesting or important had happened in the Rogue for days, giving Rosto plenty of time to think. His thoughts drifted, first to his childhood in Scanra, then to how he'd met Kora and Aniki, and how they had ended up in Tortall. Finally they shifted to the dealings they'd had with the Shadow Snake, when he'd become the Rogue. That had been an interesting time…and Beka, sweet, fierce, determined, obstinate Beka.

'No, Rosto, stop that, you know better. She's a Dog, and you're the Rogue. She's told you that more than once. She's not interested in being anything more than friends, barely friends at that. It wouldn't work, and you know it, he reasoned with himself. After all, she was a member of the Provost's Guard, and he the King of the Rogue, maybe she was right. But maybe she wasn't. She hadn't really given it a chance, but then, really, neither had he.

He'd chosen the Rogue, initially as a rusher, when he'd come to Tortall. He did remember the occasion when she'd said that she would never marry, be courted by, or allow herself to be romanced by a rusher. Not after what had happened to her mother.

Rosto sighed. He really did like Beka, but he knew that she wouldn't accept him unless he was a free man, not bound to the Court of the Rogue. That was just how she was. Now Rosto did have his pride, he was the King of the Rogue after all. The Rogue was his life – it had been in Scanra as well, but more so here, since Kayfer's fall.

Those had been an interesting few days, before, and after, he'd defeated Kayfer Deerborn. He'd even managed to steal a kiss from Beka after the duel, when she wasn't expecting it.

It seemed like as he thought her name that last time, she and her old Dogs, Mattes Tunstall and Clary Goodwin, entered. Of course, Happy Bag, he'd forgotten when they were coming to collect that. Beka glanced at him as they passed; her ghostly blue-gray eyes met his obsidian stare for just a moment before she looked away.

Goodwin, who had been watching Beka at that time, glanced at him, too, a slight frown on her face as she gazed at the Rogue. She, too, looked away after a moment, but not for the same reason as Beka.

Rosto watched them come and go without moving from his position. He realized something then. Yes, he had his pride, but sometimes there were things that were more important to him than that. Beka was one of them. The Piper's pride was nothing next to her. He couldn't give up the Rogue, but he could see if she'd accept him for who he was, not what he was…