A/N: A massive nod of acknowledgement to Samuraiko and her Royal Tutor one-shot 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik,' which the reading thereof made me wonder how the rest of the Von Glanzreichs handled thunderstorms…

Yet another night, yet another thunderstorm, and yet another 'episode' on behalf of Prince Leonhard, and I unfortunately happen to be here to witness said episode on account of a late-night study session.

I gather up my papers and give Prince Leonhard an unimpressed look. 'Really, Prince? I thought we've been through this before…'

Leonhard peeks out from beneath the quilt over his head. 'Well, I — ' Another clap of thunder and he yelps, diving beneath the quilt.

He finally makes an appearance again and says, 'We did, I know. But it's so loud — I can't help it if I get startled!'

I look him up and down. 'Is that why you've got that quilt over your head?'

'…Maybe?'

'Does it work?'

'Actually, it kind of does…'

My brow creases. 'I should have thought of this last time, but… if you are any indication then how does the rest of your family handle thundersto— '

Another thunderclap, and faint screaming echoes down the hall. I leap to my feet. 'What was that?'

Leonhard glances in the direction of the noise, and shrugs. 'Licht, probably?'

'He screams like a… girl?'

'Kind of. I mean, his voice is stupidly high-pitched. But I think that was those girls he's always with, just now.'

...I don't even want to know what they're doing at the palace this late at night —

'Licht says it's a terrible nuisance if it happens to storm while he's got company,' Leonhard remarks. 'He's got to comfort them all individually and apparently it's quite time-consuming.'

I choke, cough, and head for the door while waving away Leonhard's alarmed enquiries as to my respiratory health. 'Well, good night, Prince. I'm just going to — ' I open the door, only to see Sir Shadow gambol past with Prince Kai chasing after him.

'Prince Kai?'

The prince catches sight of me and draws to a halt. 'Oh, Teacher. Hello.'

'Isn't it rather late?' I ask, and glance down the hall at Sir Shadow's retreating form.

Kai smiles, a touch guiltily, and heads after Shadow while talking over his shoulder as he goes. '…Couldn't sleep. And I heard Shadow barking outside because of the storm, but — '

'Eeek! Ugh, Sir Shadow! Wait, stay — stop!'

Kai flinches and sprints down the hall. 'Sorry, Helene! I-I'll clean it up…'

Helene and Kai cross paths, trying to manage a load of metal buckets and the rampaging dog respectively, and I realise what the problem is — Shadow is tracking muddy paw prints all over the hand-woven carpets of the palace corridors.

Helene skirts around the dog whilst trying not to trip, and says in a panic, 'I'm sorry, Prince, I'd try to catch him but the kitchen roof is leaking and I've got to — watch out!'

A clap of thunder and Kai trips, narrowly missing grabbing Shadow, and he crashes to the muddy carpet. A second later he's on his feet and sprinting after the dog, taking the corner with a slam and charging down the hall. 'BAD SHADOW! HEEL!' he roars.

Helene steps back, and continues on her way towards me. I cautiously raise a hand. 'Are you all right, Helene?'

She trots past me with a wave, as well as a wary smile over her shoulder. 'Oh yes, thank you. I've just got to take these down to the kitchens — '

'Ugh, d_it!'

On the cue of another thunderclap, Maximilian and Ludwig come around the corner, soaked through from the epaulettes of their guard uniforms right down to their waterlogged black leather boots. 'If I ever take front gate duty again with a storm on the horizon, you can know I've ruddy well lost my mind!' Maximilian rants.

'You're the one who said we could make it back inside before it hit if we needed to, d_it!'

'How was I to know we'd get a cloudburst like that? Oh, for — '

The two of them nearly bump into Helene before they finally notice her standing in the hallway.

'…Ah,' Ludwig says. 'Pardon us, we wouldn't have… vented our frustration if we'd known there was a lady present.'

She shakes her head, curls bouncing. 'N-No! Not at all! D-Do the two of you need towels?'

Maximilian shakes himself as dry — or as less damp — as he can, and grimaces. 'We need to strip these clothes off before we catch a cold — '

Ludwig smacks him over the head and takes the metal buckets off Helene, shoving them into the younger guard's arms. 'Mind yourself, you indecent prat! And carry these wherever Fräulein Helene is going — quick march!'

'What?! Why meee?!' Maximilian protests.

'Because you're being d_ annoying! Oh, pardon,' Ludwig adds as an aside to Helene.

She shakes her head violently. 'N-No! It's a… d_ shame about all this mess, isn't it?' she says brightly. She tips her head and raises her eyebrows, enquiring as to whether she used the word correctly.

'Er, yes, quite…' Ludwig says, somewhat dazed.

Maximilian accurately sums up the situation. 'She's too pure.'

The three of them depart, but I don't even have time to take a step before Adele runs down the hall as fast as her tiny legs will take her, blasting past me in a blur of pink. 'Grandmother, the sky is angry!' she wails. A crack of thunder and she screams, shrieking all the way down the corridor.

And hot on her heels, Viktor's high steward chases after her, begging, 'Princess, wait!' The two of them take the corner and I can hear her wailing and sniffing even from here, followed promptly by the queen mother trying to reassure her in a rather flustered voice.

I sag against the doorframe of Leonhard's room. Dear goodness, it's like a zoo in here. I think I'll get run over if I dare even take a step.

A nearby door slams and Viktor emerges from his chambers, with his hands resting on the doorframe as though it were pillars on either side, and looking as though he'd been asked to bring down a temple a la Samson and was too tired to even bother. In other words, he looks anything other than well-rested. I cover my mouth with a hand, not trusting myself to be able to help laughing as he walks up. The king of the realm has shadows under his eyes and his hair is messed up, and he's muttering expletives in a dozen different languages under his breath.

'Your Majesty?'

He looks up and sees me. He manages a weak grin. 'Oh, Royal Tutor.'

'You look dreadful.'

'Charmed, I'm sure.' He joins me, easing into a position leaning against the wall.

'Can you not sleep either?' I ask

'I haven't even tried to sleep yet; I only just finished with work.' A thunderclap, and Viktor looks out the window with a rueful grimace. 'I was about to collapse into bed, but then this carnival kicked off out here…'

'You can sleep through thunderstorms but not — ' I pause and gesture in the direction of what sounds like a circus mid-performance, ' — all of that?'

'Yes, like a normal person,' he complains. He tips his head back and closes his eyes, the picture of misery. 'I was looking forward to actually getting some sleep and then this happens…'

'You're rather cute when you're irritated, you know.'

'What on earth…'

'I'm merely drawing a comparison with Prince Leonhard. You handle sleep-deprivation almost as badly as him — it's quite impressive.'

Viktor buried his face in his hands. 'It's not funny, Heine…' However, he still chuckles nonetheless. . 'Nnnh… D_it. I don't even think I'm going to be awake enough for receiving audiences tomorrow. Do you think I could get Licht to cut his hair and go in my place?'

'…You've officially lost it.'

'Correction, I either left in my office or dropped it on my way down the hall.'

We share a wry grin, but then his expression as well as mine blanks at something completely out of the blue — violin music.

We both look up.

'Well… to each his or her own coping strategies,' I finally say.

After a lengthy pause, Viktor says, 'Is that... "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik?"'

'I think the more relevant question would be, "Is that Bruno?" Your Highness.'

'I think the more relevant question would be, "Has everyone gone completely mad?"' Viktor takes a halberd from a nearby suit of armour, and after taking careful aim, he hits it against the ceiling. 'BRUNO?!'

Plaster dust showers the carpet and the violin-playing screeches to a halt. After a moment, someone cautiously knocks against the floor of the room above. '…Father?'

'Bruno, son, I love you a lot — but for the sake of everything holy could you please let the rest of us get some sleep?'

A brief moment of footsteps sprinting downstairs and Bruno swings out from a stairwell, with his violin over his shoulder and resin on his gloves and an embarrassed smile on his face. 'Of course, Father, my apologies. But…'

We all take a look down the hallway. Between Viktor's steward accidentally knocking Helene into a mortified Ludwig's arms, and Maximilian tripping over Sir Shadow and spilling another load of metal buckets all the way down the corridor, and Licht's girlfriends milling in the halls, shrieking about leaking roofs and wet hair while Licht makes as much progress with reining them in as you would with herding cats, and the queen mother and Kai chasing a wailing and panicked Adele as she spins around the rooms in a tizzy, and Leonhard trying in vain to pull any single one of his brothers aside in an attempt to get them to shut up, overall, it's probably the rowdiest we've seen the palace in months.

We can't even hear the actual thunderstorm over the noisy storm inside the palace itself.

Bruno loses his words for a moment. '…but it seemed as though everyone was still awake?'

'Isn't that just the understatement of the century?' Viktor says with a weary grin.

'Methinks you were trying to address one problem in an attempt to fix twenty, Your Majesty. Also, I think you're the only one who's actually trying to sleep around here.'

'I think you would be right, on both counts.'

Bruno dusts off his resin-stained gloves on his pants, and says, 'Actually, Father, you were the one who gave me the idea. To play during thunderstorms,' he says with a rueful smile.

'I was?'

'You taught me how to count the seconds to measure how far away the storm was, remember?' Bruno laughs. 'I was so busy counting that I forgot how to be afraid. And later on, it struck me as a convenient time measure for playing the violin.'

Viktor blinks. Then chuckles. 'Way to turn it back on me, you rascal.' He rests a hand on Bruno's shoulder and pulls him close, hugging him briefly. 'Sorry to spoil your playing. Get back to it and play to your heart's content.'

Bruno blushes slightly, then smiles and puts his arms around Viktor as best he can while still holding the violin. 'Thanks, Father. Good night.'

Viktor drops a kiss on Bruno's forehead and gently pushes him towards the stairs. 'Good night. Love you. And play as loud as you can!' Viktor calls after the prince as he ascends the staircase. 'If we're going to be up all night then we may as well have some decent music playing!'

Bruno rests his elbows on the railing and says with a smile, 'Love you too, Father.' He disappears again. 'And I will!'

Bruno's door slams shut and I can practically see him unpacking a box of sheet music in the brief moment before he starts playing again, this time blitzing through the 'William Tell Overture' with far too much vigour, especially for this time of night.

Viktor gathers his resolve and pushes off from the wall. 'Well, I guess I better face reality and try to get some… rest…' He stumbles and nearly takes a spill, but I steady him just in time.

'Dear me, you weren't kidding. To bed with you — '

' — at once!' the queen mother cries, rushing over. 'You look ghastly, Viktor!'

'I'm fine, Mother, please don't fret.' He lightly knocks me on the shoulder, and jerks a thumb down the hall. 'Seems a king's work is never restricted to office hours, eh, Heine? Care to help me with…' he gestures in the general direction of the total and utter pandemonium up ahead, '…that?'

I sigh and rub the back of my neck. 'Relying on me for crowd control again? Shame on you, Your Majesty.'

He puts an arm around my shoulders and we walk down the hallway. 'None of that, and we don't have any two-by-fours just lying around the palace, you silly thing. Just back me up, and let me do the heavy lifting.' He winks. 'And we'll meet up for a drink afterwards, what do you say?'

I lightly crack my knuckles and glance at him with a smile. 'I say "Sure."'

He lets me go and we head down the hallway into the thick of it, and even in the middle of arguing with the princes and avoiding getting trampled underfoot, I can't help but smile at a random little thought.

Family doesn't have office hours — it's a twenty-four-hour job.

The End

A/N: Reviews welcome, and thanks for reading!