Sleep - that strange yet beautiful property that surrounds and enfolds, protecting from the harm of just simply living. . . that thing that not even the most brilliant scientist can explain, but that we all desperately need from time to time. Sleep, the most wonderfully welcoming promise to the weary traveller of malls and beaches; Sleep, the only precious moments of privacy in a young woman's life; Sleep. . . .
Broken by the shrill shout of "Ilsaaaaa!", the insane battle cry only capable of being uttered by mothers, fathers, parental figures, and other such crazies who never seemed to sleep at all.
     There it was - always if Ilsa did not respond almost immediately. What did she expect anyway? That Ilsa would disapparate down the stairs? - the hand placed roughly on her back, shaking her out of warmth and dreams, and into a new, harsh reality.
"Come on, it's a beautiful day, don't spend it in your room! Opaya's called for you twice already - "
"Opaya doesn't know the meaning of 'vacation'," seventeen-year-old Ilsa Lendene mumbled into her deep, soft pillow, and she buried her face beneath it to finish the statement.
Lilandra Lendene was completely nonplussed. She threw aside the blanket, and proceeded to drag Ilsa out of bed by her ankles.
"Quit it, I'm awake!" Ilsa howled, and tried to kick Lil, but the Jedi ducked out of the way, and resumed her speech about 'wasting your best years of life inside a stuffy room, hidden by blankets.'
"Besides," she finished, "Mara and the twins arrive today, and I probably won't be here to meet them, so I need you to set up beds and show them around and stuff."
"Why can't Cace do it?" Ilsa whined, and stood up, feeling dizzy as she wiped the sleep out of her eyes and smoothed her bedhead of black hair.
"Cace is on Terapinn," Lilandra reminded her, and breezed down the stairs, still giving instructions.
"Now," she said when Ilsa arrived in the kitchen. "Breakfast is on the table. . . Opaya's number is on the counter by the comm - call her. . . 'extremely important', she said." Lilandra paused, and looked across the table at Ilsa, who was fumbling with her spoon with tired fingers. "New boyfriend?" she asked.
"Search me," Ilsa replied sourly, and dug the spoon into her porridge at last. "This stuff is gross. Why'd you have to buy melon flavour?"
"It was in the back of the cupboard. Calm down,I'm going out to do a shop today. Ilsa, look at me!"
Ilsa looked. There wasn't a lot to see except for her brother's eight-month pregnant and somewhat stressed-out wife running about the kitchen and the living room like a headless bantha in a sandstorm, snatching things off tabletops and shoving them into her purse.
"Where are you going in such a hurry?" Ilsa questioned sourly, and shoved her bowl aside, trying desperately to wash the melon taste out of her mouth. "Melon juice?!" she shrieked and spat her mouthful into her napkin.
"I have an interview with a general-store owner in fifteen minutes, which is why I need your full attention, honey - gracious me, are you alright?"
"Melon juice," Ilsa informed her, and contorted her face into a puckered grimace. "Go on."
"Well, the keys to the shed are on the rack in the hall - Emmalee needs to be fed. . . lets see, what else? Oh yes. If Cace calls, tell him I'm out, if Marsalis calls, tell him I'll get back to him, and if Harbrin the greengrocer calls, tell him I'm dead."
     With that, Lilandra blew Ilsa a kiss and flew out the front door, letting it slam behind her. Ilsa listened to her retreating footsteps, and drew the first real deep breath she'd taken all morning. Then,she dumped the rest of her porridge out the open kitchen window, being careful not to spill on the lacy curtains drifting in the summer breeze, and stomped back upstairs to bed.

    After four phone calls, though - one from Marsalis the civic lawyer in charge of Lilandra's double inheritances; two from Opaya Jakoen-Ardams, Ilsa's best friend;and one from Harbrin the grocer who hadn't gotten his receipts from the last shipment of wander-kelp yet that week - Ilsa was wide awake, sitting at the desk upon which the comm unit sat, wolfing down a bowl of melon porridge and scribbling messages onto a slip of flimsiplast.
"I'm sorry, Mr Harbrin, can you hold for a second? I've got another call waiting."
There followed some grumbling which Ilsa couldn't be bothered to listen to, so she punched in the next caller.
"Why did you hang up on me?" Opaya demanded.
"I'm sorry, my sister-in-law's sister's boss called about a missing shipment of wander-kelp, and he sounded pissed. Forgive me?"
"Always, bestie," Opaya replied, sounding distinctly more sunny. "So anyway, like I was saying, I met him at the beach yesterday, and he took me shopping in the market. Is that not the sweetest thing you've ever heard?! He likes shopping-"
"Opaya, can I call you back? Mr Harbrin's still waiting."
"Oh, sure thing. Actually,nevermind. I'm coming over. I was thinking we could go to the beach,whatsay?"
"Opaya, it's not a good d-"
"You can? Great! See you in ten minutes!"
Ilsa sighed and transferred the connection back over to Harbrin. She'd been trying to say that it wasn't a good day for beaching it, what with Mara's impending arrival, but that really wasn't the sort of thing you told Opaya, who seemed to have a constant case of verbal diarrhea.
"Mr Harbrin, I'm so sorry about your shipment. . . I swear my sister will take care of it when she rises from the dead, alright?"
"How can she be dead? I just talked to her an hour ago and she sounded fine,yammering on about some lawyer and a pet cy'een-"
"It was very sudden,sir," Ilsa said, trying to hide her frustration behind mock sadness.
Mr Harbrin paused."I don't really think I should be discussing this matter with a teenage girl. Tell you what, I'm going to come over there and see your sister in person. I'll bring some flowers and my condolences if she really is dead, Miss Lendene."
"Sir, I really don't think-"
After mumbling something about the infamous Ocott incompetence, a jab Ilsa supposed was intended for Kerryna, the actual owner of Ocott ranch, Harbrin said, "Excellent. See you and your sister in about ten minutes."
Ilsa groaned and cut the connection, only to find the light blinking again.
"Mr Marsalis, I already told you, she's going to be back around twelve-"
"Ilsa? This is Mara."
Ilsa sat up and put the bowl of porridge on the floor so she could grip the reciever with both hands.
"Sorry, Mara. . . having a busy morning."
"Lilandra there?"
"Gone to work,ma'am."
"What work?"
"Being interviewed by a potential customer of Ocott Kelp Industries."
"Boy,she brings a whole new meaning to the phrase 'don't quit your day job'." Mara's voice was filled with admiring awe.
"Are you kidding? She brings a whole new meaning to the words 'insane, crazy, nutters, outrageous, wound-up-'"
"She's incredible," a new voice put in.
"What makes you say that, Jacen?" Ilsa asked without missing a beat. She leaned back in her chair, distinctly satisfied.
"Well, for one thing, she's pregnant, but that doesn't stop her from doing a million things at once. In fact, I think she's taken more on than she can handle."
"Oh, that's why I'm here," Ilsa said somewhat bitterly."Which reminds me, I have to go through the rosters from Harbrin about the kelp feed and draw up his darned receipt, thank you, Jace."
"No problem,but-"
"Oh, and I've still got to feed Emmalee, patch the hole in the dock, meet you guys at the station - which reminds me of another point: when are you arriving?"
"In about ten minutes," Mara said."We're on a pay-comm at the docking bay in Glitterglass City, waiting for the shuttle to Glimmer."
"Shavit," Ilsa moaned. "Has anyone ever told you how bad your timing is?"
"No, not-"
"Good, I'm the first. Hold on, let me just calculate something. . . Harbrin talks for at least half an hour, plus another twenty minutes for going over the rosters and drawng up the receipt. . . Opaya will drag me to the beach for five hours minimum, ten minutes going and coming each way, and Lil will detain me with questions for another half hour. . ."
"And?" Mara prompted, wondering what in hell the calculations had to do with anything.
"Well, I should be round to pick you up at about ten to midnight tonight. Sound good?"
There was a long silence.
"We can always charter a ferry, you know," Jacen suggested softly.
 
      Five minutes of delicious peace and silence later, the comm went off yet again. Ilsa'd been dozing in her chair, the bowl of half-eaten porridge attracting bugs on the floor, and she jerked violently awake with a scream of shock.
"What?!" she snapped into the reciever.
"Whoa, who got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?" an almost welcome voice asked in surprise.
"I did, no thanks to you, Lil. Aren't you supposed to be in an interview?"
"Well, Marsalis called me, so I'm bringing him back to the ranch for lunch. I have to talk to him about the Ilkhaine property and the rest of that inheritance, so I re-scheduled the interview for tomorrow. I'm on my way right now."
Ilsa shut her eyes and whimpered.
"Something wrong, dear?"
"No, no. . . nothing's wrong. See you in five, Lil."

    From the second the comm unit was switched off, Ilsa was in panic mode. Wide awake now, the first thing she did was stamp on the myrmins congregating around her forgotten bowl of porridge, then wiped up the bodies with a damp cloth. She threw the cloth in the garbage, wondering how her sort-of, long-distance boyfriend Jacen Solo could stand to be so fond of the six-legged bugs.
"Ick," she murmured, and smooshed one that had escaped her feet and was now fleeing up her arm. Urgency kicked in again almost immediately as she flew to the dining room, grabbed four extra chairs, and tried to arrange them artfully around the kitchen table. The effect came off more as chaotic than aesthetically pleasing.
"Food," she remembered.
   Two cups of water, three veggies and one packet of diluted gravy powder later, a pot of stew sat simmering on the stove cooker. The stuff looked like vomit to Ilsa, but smelled edible enough. "Damn if they don't want to eat it. I'm not a cook," she spoke to the room, and ran out the front door to where Emmalee had begun making a racket in her pen.
    "Alright, geez, shut up, Em. I'm coming." Ilsa jogged along the porch to the pens, threw the leftover veggies into Emmalee's stall, and unhitched the gate. The gold and black cy'een snorted appreciatively, and blew some salty water into Ilsa's face as thanks. Then, it was gone with a flicker of golden scales, the food tucked in it's mouth.
Ilsa shuddered.
"Who would keep one of those things?" she wondered aloud,and turned to run back into the house to check the stew. "How can anyone deal with wildlife on such a regular basis nowadays? I certainly have no desire to. Not anymore, anyway."
    She collided with Opaya on the porch.
"There you are!" Opaya exclaimed, and threw her arms around Ilsa in a hug. "I was beginning to think you were mad at me, or dead, or something, cause you just hung up on me! Oh I'm so glad you aren't angry! Now, as I was saying. . . "
Her words went in one ear and out the other as Ilsa became aware of the roar of a boat motor, getting closer.
"Crap," she muttered, and flung open the screen door. Opaya followed her into the hallway, still talking.
"So I said to him, 'honey, if you want to buy me a drink, you buy me a case'. . . "
"Ooh, you go girl," Ilsa said distractedly as she hurried up the stairs with Opaya behind her. She slammed the bedroom door in her friend's face, and opened it again without missing a beat when she realized the endless flow of chatter had been stopped.
Opaya blinked, and looked Ilsa up and down.
"You aren't even dressed!" she pointed out, as if she'd only just noticed Ilsa standing there in her white pajamas.
It was Ilsa's turn to blink.
"Thank you for that reminder," she muttered through gritted teeth, and slammed the door again.
Two seconds passed.
"HARBRIN!" Ilsa screamed in frustration at the sound of the doorbell, and was back in action without a second thought. She could've sworn she heard footsteps running back down the stairs. . .
    Barely a minute later, Ilsa emerged from her bedroom dressed in a clean pair of black mechanic's pants and a sleeveless brown shirt. She threw herself down the stairs, only to trip over the bottom step and land in a heap at Opaya's feet.
The pink-haired fairy was leaning on the doorframe, chatting up the fat, disgruntled grocer Harbrin, a sweet, innocent yet dangerously, disgustingly seductive smile on her face. Harbrin was eating it up, rubbing his hand over his bald head and fidgeting with his apron like a smitten schoolboy.
"Oh boy," Ilsa groaned under her breath, picking herself up and almost feeling grateful that neither person had seen her fall.
"Mr. Harbrin!" she exclaimed brightly, but then heard the rumble of another boat motor. "Opaya, why don't you take Mr Harbrin here to the kitchen. Please. Oh no, oh no, oh no. . . ."
    Opaya led the man to the kitchen, and seated him in one of the displaced chairs. Ilsa caught her grin before dashing out the door, not bothering to shut it behind her, and skidding to a stop on the porch just in time to see a clean-cut, wholesomely handsome Neiman Marsalis plunge through the unrepaired hole in the dock.
There was the wet snap of rotten wood, the creaking of foundations, the splash of water, the screams and curses of one very wet lawyer.
"Kreffing A-!" screamed Ilsa and Lilandra at the same time, as Marsalis surfaced, spluttering.
"Why didn't you fix it?" the two women hollered at each other across the broken dock. Lilandra was lying spread eagle on the broken half of the dock, holding desperately to the other half with replete strength to keep herself from floating out to sea.
   Marsalis dragged himself onto the dock as another boat appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. Distracted, Lilandra released the dock as she turned to realize the newcomers.
Ilsa covered her eyes. She didn't need to see what was happening. . . the screams and curses and shouts of alarm were enough to tell her that Lilandra's slip had sent herself and Marsalis back into the waves; the approaching boat, seeing them bobbing there, had slammed on the brakes, spraying everything within a mile of the ranch with a beautiful rainbow arc of salt water, including Ilsa and a certain Harbrin who had come out to investigate the source of the noises.
   Dripping, distraught, and overtired, Ilsa removed her hands from over her eyes, and surveyed the damage.
Her sister and her guest were treading water by the side of the broken half of dock,collecting the pieces of wood formerly known as the Lendene family porch. In the boat, a perplexed and apologetic Jacen Solo leaned over the wheel, while the twins shrieked with laughter and Mara slumped over in her seat, her head in her hands. Harbrin was swearing blue and green at whoever would listen, shaking his fists and screaming till his face was crimson and the mole on his chin stood out like a pimple on a bantha's bum.
   Above it all, stifling a few giggles of shame in the high, dry safety of the doorway, was Opaya. She'd missed it all.

    "Sorry," Mara mumbled for the hundredth time since her arrival. "Jacen's too embarrassed to apologize, so I have to do it for him."
"It's alright, really," Lilandra murmured icily, glaring daggers in Ilsa's direction. Her voice was already sounding strained, as if she were coming down with a cold.
"Why are you glaring at me?" Ilsa cried defensively from her repose at Jacen's side on the couch. Lilandra was seated in a chair, wrapped in a blanket and looking positively murderous. Mara was seated on the floor, Marsalis and Harbrin had left in disgust, amidst a flurry of half-sincere apologies and retaliatory curses, Opaya had gone to drag her new boyfriend into the city for some more shopping, and the twins were exploring the contents of Lilandra's pantry.
     "I only asked you to fix the damn dock," Lilandra muttered, and sniffled indignantly.
Ilsa scowled at the hair of the woman seated across from she and Jacen, her fuming sister-in-law, noting with a certain degree of jealousy that Lil's dark blond coif was already perfectly dry and loosely curled. Her own tangled black hair hung matted in her eyes, giving her a dark, mysterious look that only someone as loving as Jacen would find endearing. Other men - namely Harbrin and Marsalis - had called her, in slightly harsher terms, "the incompetent little psycho", and "deranged idiot".
     There was a long, uncomfortable silence, during which the only sounds that could be heard were the distant clatters of the twins' investigation of the kitchen.
"I guess I can scratch Harbrin off my client list," Lilandra sighed at last, lacking her previous conviction. It seemed that the significant profit loss that would result from the incident was finally starting to dawn on her. "My sister is going to be so angry with me. . . and Marsalis! If he stays angry enough, my inheritance is going nowhere but to the government, and they'd probably blow it on an expensive lunch!"
"Marsalis has no business with the government," Mara laughed easily,and Ilsa made an evil-sounding noise in her throat, directed at Lilandra, who reciprocated with a diabolical sneer.
"I am not the government," she muttered.
"I'm sure both men will get over it once they warm up and get dry," said Jacen reassuringly.
"I won't!" Lilandra protested to him, hugging her blanket tighter around her swollen stomach. "How embarrassing!"
She caught the expression on Ilsa's face and sneered again. "Oh dry up, lazy bones."
      Before Ilsa could fly completely off the edge of sanity, two unified screams and a series of rather disconcerting clatters and thumps burst forth from the kitchen, followed by a long, keening wail of "Mama!"
Mara was on her feet and through the door to the kitchen before Lilandra could blink, and there was a shout of dismay.
    "I don't want to know," Lilandra moaned, covering her eyes, but rising and crossing to the kitchen anyhow.
"Aw, Lil. . ." Mara started, and Lilandra nearly passed out when she saw the state her kitchen was in.
     Several of the table chairs had been overturned and were lying in a heap by the door. The cupboard doors all hung open, their contents strewn about the tile floor in glorious disarray. The pot of stew on the stove obviously intended for lunch had overboiled and the smell wafting from the burner was enough to induce Lil's gag reflex. The oven door was open, the warmth radiating from it indicating quite clearly that it was on full heat. . . and in the middle of all the chaos sat a sheepish Nathen, holding a bag of stale biscuits, and a deeply distraught Tanya, pointing at him and screaming something about her brother being a pig.
     "Before you murder my kids," Mara explained hastily to her friend, who was absolutely shell-shocked, "perhaps you should sit down."
Lilandra did not move, except for her eyes, which darted rapidly around the room, drinking in every single thing that was wrong with the picture, and Mara winced. Even Tanya stopped crying and looked worriedly between her mother and her Lilla.
     Lilandra drew a deep, shaky breath, put her hands on her stomach, screwed up her face. . .
"MY KITCHEN!!!" came the roar only a pregnant and highly frustrated woman could manage, followed by an incredible stream of very Kerryna-esque swear words, insults, and general words of anger.
    In the living room, Ilsa ducked habitually.
"You see what I have to live with?" she squeaked, peering up at Jacen.
"I think that's our cue to make ourselves scarce," Jacen suggested, but before either youth could move, Lilandra screamed, "ILSAAAAAAAA!"
"I didn't do it!" Ilsa shouted back, and leapt off the couch like she'd sat on hot coals. "Let's go," she hissed. The couple ran, handfast, from the living room and up the back stairs.
"Stay away from the bedrooms!" Lilandra yelled as an afterthought, for only then had it dawned on her that she'd left two romantically involved teenagers to their own devices.
"Lil, breathe!" Mara cried, springing into action by snatching her children off the floor and thereby revealing the only two clean spots in the room: where the two twins had plunked their bottoms to enjoy the panic.
"C-can't. . ." Lil stammered. Through her eyes, the room was spinning, faster and faster until the mess was so blurred it was almost pleasant-looking. And then, Lilandra dropped faster than a stone off a cliff, seeing only the ceiling until things faded into a stunned, stupefied, very welcome blackness.