The long journey to power

Dagereth was beginning to become angry. "Jarlan, I was able to do more than that at your age. I will not have my son so wound up on one particular struggle that he foregoes the rest of his priorities!"

"At my age you didn't have to spend time looking or building any kind of relationship, Father," Jarlan said stiffly. Even if he did find a suitable witch it would take some time to make her into the Dark Lady that he needed her to be. 

"You are right." Dagereth retorted, sitting further erect in his chair. His posture showed his irritation. "I had already done that by your age."

"Both of you need to calm down," Ksenia said, her voice as even as it always was as she glanced between the two. "I will start looking for her. That would probably be the best solution in any case," she said.

"Well some one is going too." Dagereth stated, simply, as he stood. "Jarlan you will either find a suitable wife by winter, or your mother will find one for you."

"I do not even get a choice in this matter?" Jarlan almost sneered at his father as he stood up as well. "I will have to live with her for the rest of my life," he ground out.

"You get a choice." Dagereth snapped at his son. "You can either take the damn time to find her yourself, or have your mother do it. I just stated that, Jarlan."

"Fine," Jarlan said coldly as he straitened up. "I will go start looking for her then," he said as he headed out of the study and closed the door behind himself.

Ksenia glanced over her shoulder at the door that closed behind her son. "I'm surprised you let him behave like that," she said calmly as she summoned a pot of tea for the both of them. "He has been locking himself in the library until well past midnight the past few days<" she informed her husband as she poured the tea.

"What has he been doing in there?" Dagereth asked. Disregarding her pervious comment.

He didn't care if she was surprised at how he let his son act, she was his mother and had every right to discipline him or tell him not to act like such a child. Dagereth would handle things as he saw fit, not as others thought they should be.

"Studying," Ksenia said simply. "He has been doing nothing but studying for quite some time now. I am starting to get worried," she said before taking a sip of her tea. "It's getting to the point where he is isolating himself."

"Is our son homosexual?" Dagereth asked, suddenly, blatantly.

His son was worrying him, and Dagereth didn't like having to worry about the sexual orientation of their son.

Ksenia laughed lightly at that. "No, he is not. He is just too focused on his future right now. But not all parts of it, as it turns out," she said.

"I give him far too much credit. You and I focused on our schooling, starting a war, and being betrothed to one another, when we were his age." Dagereth said, as he calmed down a bit. He still wasn't sold on his son being straight, now he was suspicious.

"I think he wants to be as strong as he can be before he steps out to do something important," Ksenia said thoughtfully. "Maybe he is working too hard."

"I think he is being unnecessarily studious." Dagereth replied stiffly.

"How long did it take you to find me?" Ksenia asked him curiously 

"To find you? No more than a few months. To mold you? Years." Dagereth replied effortlessly.

"He doesn't have years," Ksenia said frowning. "He should be married soon after he graduates." She sighed. "The fact is, he only has two years of education left. And he will only have one and a half of those to actually mold, as you say, his Dark Lady. I will start looking for a few candidates as well. We really should have thought of this when he was a young child."

"Yes, we should have." Dagereth concurred slightly, his face stilling. He let out a long breath. "He will need to work extra hard, and we may need for his betrothed to live in our manner as soon as he finds her, so that he is around her more.. to mold her."

"That's a good idea," Ksenia agreed. "Make the idea of marriage more real to him now."

"I will look for a few candidates and if he doesn't like them or hasn't found one himself by winter then we choose a betrothed for him," she stated calmly.

"Very well Ksenia." Dagereth replied, quite done with this topic.

He wanted to return to their chambers. "Shall we retreat for the night?"

"We should. It's quite late," Ksenia said as she rose from her chair.