And here's another chapter! Now we're getting a slight idea of Simon's home life, not too much different from Kovu in the movie. Though Lawrence isn't infested with bugs. He's just not loved.

The hut was small by anyone's standards, a square twenty by twenty foot soddy with one bed, but it was homey enough thanks to Simon's sister's knack for prettying up plain, simple things. Now, while waiting for their mother, she sat with her older brother, the latter watching as she stitched together a sweater vest for the boy. That would please her mother, certainly more so than the behavior of Atherton's son.

"Petaline!" Lawrence said suddenly, after a good hour of sneering at the "S" she had stitched onto the garmet, "Where's that piece of gos-se Simon? The 'chosen one'?"

"Lawrence!" She said. "Where's Simon? Did you let him wander off again?"

"If he's gonna be captain of Serenity, he's gotta learn to be on his own," Lawrence retorted.

Petaline frowned. "Mother's gonna be mad. She told ya to watch him!"

"Who gives a jung chi duh go-se dway?" Lawrence said. "I'm the oldest, the strongest, the smartest...it don't make sense that I'm not the chosen one. Atherton wasn't even Simon's father!" He stepped on a bug, twisting his ankle around and hearing the crunch of the exoskeleton. "I could be a leader if she'd just give me a chance!"

Petaline raised an eyebrow. "I'd like to see you tell that to her."

"Don't think I won't!"

"Yeah?" his sister said, looking amused. "Well, here's your chance."

Lawrence jumped at the sight of his mother, nearer to him than he'd realized. "Mother!" he said, too loudly, "Mother, hello!" He ran over to stand in front of her, then realized that she and Simon had no plans to stop walking. He jumped out of the way. "Mother, I crushed a really big bug, it was probably headed for the food source so basically I..." he trailed off. "Um..."

Saffron pushed Simon away from her, then turned and slapped Lawrence hard across the face, knocking him to the ground. "You were supposed to be watching him!"

"It's not his fault, Mother!" Simon said. "I wandered off."

She turned on her favorite son, eyes flashing. "What were you doing?"

"I just wanted some of the old medical..."

"Who has banished us from the sky?"

"Malcolm Reynolds!"

"Who killed Atherton?"

"Malcolm Reynolds!"

"And what have I told you about all of them?"

"I'm sorry!" Simon said. "But she didn't seem so bad, she's younger than I am! How evil can she be? I thought maybe she and I could..."

"What?" Saffron said. "You thought you and 'Little Kaylee' could be friends?"

"I..."

"So that was your plan," Saffron said sarcastically. "You thought if the daughter would like you, then Reynolds would just welcome you with open arms and give you access to him, his family, his ship, his precious 'Little Kaylee'...really, Simon, incredible idea..." she trailed off, her eyes widening, her next words coming without derision. "Simon. Incredible idea!" She picked him up and held him over her head, twirling the two of them around. "You are a brilliant boy!" She lowered him, hugging him tightly. "I am so proud of you. You have the same conniving mind, the same vision that made Atherton so powerful."

Lawrence snorted. Petaline jabbed her elbow into his side.

"Oh Simon," Saffron said, tossing the covers off the bed and picking the boy up, tossing him onto it. "You have set my mind at ease. I now see the path to our glorious return to Serenity." She looked out the window of the hut, Serenity in the distance, eyes wide with hunger.

Simon frowned. "But I don't want-"

"Hush!" Saffron said. "Hush, little one. You must get your rest. Tomorrow your training will intensify, to prepare you for the day when you're big and strong and captain of a Firefly!"

"I'm not tired," Simon said. "Perhaps that book I was..."

"Nonsense," Saffron said. "You are tired. You don't realize it. Perhaps the exhaustion is manifesting itself as something else, stress, hunger, anger...you know what I do when I can't sleep? I think of all the things that soothe me, of all the dreams I want to dream, of all the dreams I have dreamed that we can make a reality."

"Like what?" Simon said.

"Well," Saffron told him, "I tried forgetting the past. I probably could just learn to forgive them; survival of the fittest, whatever, but I don't let go of things that do my family wrong. It may be petty, but the crew of Serenity needs to die, and so I think about that, think about how it will be."

"How will it be?"

"Bloody," Saffron said frankly. "But you know? That sounds good to me." Her eyes lit up. "Oh Simon, to hear the sound of Malcolm Reynolds' dying gasp!" She stood up, looking out the window. "'Little Kaylee' squealing in my grasp! Inara Serra's mournful cry – that's my lullaby!"

Simon frowned. Regardless of what Saffron had told him about Malcolm Reynolds and Inara Serra, he didn't like the idea of Kaylee falling into his mother's hands. But at the same time, Saffron rarely lit up the way she did, and he was glad to see her happy.

Lawrence, irritable as usual at the attention his half brother was getting, grunted to Simon, "will you just sleep already?" Saffron turned to him, raising her eyebrows, and he added to his sentence, "sweet, precious little brother?"

"Night, Simon," Petaline said, bending and kissing her brother on the head.

"Night," Simon said, frowning as his stomach growled.

"I'm so sorry you're hungry, darling," Saffron said. "That will change soon. We were all done wrong, but payback time is nearing." She ran her hands through Simon's hair, smiling with approval when the boy yawned. "And then Serenity will fly through a blood red sky. That's my lullaby."