It had been a long day of following her mother around during council meeting, Techeun interviews, and reviewing a whole bunch of other, boring-er etiquette stuff that Mara had been too sleepy to acknowledge at the time. She flopped into her bed at the end of the day, snuggling under the covers, and her twelve-year-old self was soon fast alseep.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans for her, plans that most certainly did not involve a full night's sleep. Her dreams were interrupted by the sound of a door being open, but the noise soon faded away back into her child's-mind dreamscape. What ripped up the peaceful illusion of sleep, ripping her tot he waking world however, was much more violent.

She panicked as a heavy weight slammed onto her from above, and she opened her mouth to call the guards, or her parents, or anyone really, when she realized she was looking into a pair of wide, golden eyes that could only belong to one person in the entire asteroid belt.

"Uldren!" she hissed angrily at her five-year-old brother, who was now sitting on top of her. "I was perfectly asleep!"

"But Mara, Dad's gone off again! AGAIN!" he gasped dramatically, opening his arms wide to indicate just how much their father was 'going off', and flopping backwards onto her bed for emphasis. She rolled her eyes, and opened her mouth to speak, but her sibling interrupted her, bouncing back onto his hands and knees, and clapping a hand over her mouth.

"Wait, no! We have to be quiet!" he whispered very seriously. He pressed a finger to his lips. "Like super-sneaky ultra-spying kind of quiet. You know; THAT kind of quiet."

He tugged at her hand, trying to get her out of bed. She remained firmly in place, and he crawled to her side and shoved at her to no avail.

"MOVE YOUR BIG BUTT, YOU STUPID SISTER!" he cried. Yeah; super quiet. She jerked out of his trajectory, and he fell across her lap on his stomach.

"Uldren, we are not going on a steak-out!" she told him firmly, glaring at him. He looked up at her confusedly.

"But Mara, we had steak for dinner, just tonight! Dad said it was important from the Last City." he told her.

"'Imported', Uldren, not 'important'." she corrected. "And a steak-out isn't just a word for cooking steak; it means you spying on someone, from a distance, for an extended period of time. I am not leaving this bed."

She threw herself backwards, pulling the covers over herself once more, grumbling mentally to herself. Maybe if she took her mental training seriously, like she was supposed to, she could tattle on him with her powers. She tried, and failed, only giving herself a headache and a bone-chilling cold flash as a result. She pulled the covers around herself more to compensate.

"Well..." Uldren huffed, in that arrogant young child voice. "I'm not getting off you till you come with me."

With that, he crossed his arms, resting his chin on them, remaining splayed across her legs on his stomach, stoutly refusing to budge even when she stuck her knee into his gut.

Of course, that last tactic didn't work simply because by the time she tried it, he had, in his usual fashion, fallen asleep before he could could follow through on his threat completely. Lifting her head to look at him, she considered rolling him off the side of the bed just to be mean.

She wondered what he would really think when he knew about the Crows, the spy network their father run? Their parents had told her about it when she was ten. She wondered if his curiosity would get him into trouble with them. Maybe father would tell him early, just to get him to stop digging; honestly, if a five-year-old ended up following the leader of the Crows to some place dangerous, it would end badly for everyone involved.

Deciding against rolling him off the bed, as that would be very un-princess-like of her, and very un-sisterly(plus, their mother would kill her), she dragged him next to her and threw the covers over him. His snore level was surprisingly bearable tonight; sometimes she could hear him through the wall!

With the warmth of her younger brother beside her, the Princess of the Reef closed her eyes and drifted back to sleep, to her dreams, where all the futures looked perfect and without incident, like it would always be like this, like her family would always be whole, and she would never need to wear a crown.

Such were the dreams of children.

And dreams... never lasted.

Okay, so with Wolfsbane being so Reef-oriented, I felt that a little bit of fluff action should be taken. I rarely write fluffy stuff like this. You should go to Amberstar, if your looking for fluffly one-shots galore. But this little scene has been stuck in my head for a while, and I thought I might as well use it for the Heartbusters-Wolfsbane intermission.

I hope you all enjoyed little Uldren and Mara!

Cheers!^^