How are the relations between Ancients and Laesa? I seem to remember reading somewhere that they worked together to get some kind of safety in Elf neighborhoods, negotiated for by the Laesa with... KE? But then I seem to remember reading elsewhere that there's a lot of bad blood between the two.
"Me against my brother. My brother and I against my cousin. My family against the world"
They don't get along, but the reason they don't -- competing over the same territory -- is the reason they also don't indulge in open warfare or anything. They both want to be the chief smugglers in and out of the Tir, they both want to keep an ultimate handle over the Tarislar corner of Puyallup (in particular), they both want to look out for the community and be the gang little kids want to grow up to join, they both want to be the happy-go-lucky Robin Hoods of street-elves everywhere.
Because they want the same things, they squabble over it. But because of
what they want, they're not open, violent, rivals. The Laesa can't firebomb an Ancients chapter house (even ignoring the terribly violent reprisals, disparity in numbers, or anything else), because
then they're the assholes that firebombed an Ancients chapter house, right? I mean, to the average pointy-eared Tarislar kid, they might as well just go join the Spikes after something like that. They're all supposed to stick together, they can't go murder-facing one another left and right, or the trogs win/the humans win/the orks win/The Man wins.
So I, personally, see them like competing business operations. They recruit from the same talent pools (in the Tir and in Puyallup). They do many of the same types of jobs (though the Laesa focus more on courier work, and the Ancients more on smuggling and muscle). They want the same image...and neither one is QUITE willing to sacrifice that image in order to win. So they squabble. They probably play childish pranks on one another. They've both got spies in each others' organizations. They probably have to compete for the same jobs, from time to time. They don't like each other, they brawl and race in the streets and maybe every now and then one of them dies...but they'll drop that shit in a heartbeat if a Spike rolls into the neighborhood, or when a serial killer targets elves, or when a pimp (that isn't one of them) is running little elf girls, or whatever -- because they both have to
play the part, to keep selling their protective reputation to the people of the neighborhood.
For a much more friendly example? Army soldiers and Marines give each other shit all the time, they bicker over military spending, they're both trying to recruit the same kids, they both need to do the job in order to keep Pentagon funding, but when push comes to shove...
