His children just kept stalling for time, likely hoping that they could outlast his attention span, but they had no idea that all they were doing was digging themselves deeper into a hole. At this point, Kain had already decided on the punishment for them, and he figured that they would be very unhappy with it. As the clock chimed, Kain sighed and waved his hand.

Immediately the twins felt their power fall through the floor, and Kain simply walked away to finish the work that had started to pile up. The twins were going to be sent to learn some discipline, even if only for a few years. Teens would be teens, but the stunt that they had pulled was too much, even by Kain’s standards. While he himself wasn’t happy about it, he was sure that his kids would be even less thrilled once they were sent to a military boarding school far beyond Necrograd’s boundaries and made to live in a pseudo Boot Camp for a few years.

Of course, he and Alexis would be upset, as they actually quite liked being around their children, but even the sadistically playful vampiress had to acquiesce to the facts. The following days, weeks and possibly even months would see them trying to avoid a war, all without making any concessions. While their children had prevented their own kidnapping, they could have easily just handed their would-be abductors over to the proper authorities and told Kain what had happened. Instead, they sent Kain into a rage by deceiving both their father and the future enemy, nearly dragging Darksol into another war.

Technically speaking, both sides were in the wrong, but that ultimately didn’t matter now. The twins would need to learn some things, and both Kain and Alexis admitted fully that they had spiled them a bit too much.

Other things needed to be accounted for, and war just diverted their attention from those things. Besides, the people wanted peace, and while Kain was a very powerful person, he also did not wish for riots, protests, and demonstrations to occur. Both he and Alexis had been taking a gentler approach to ruling than they had more than 1500 years ago, and such a change had paid far greater dividends than the previous way they had ruled.

As much as it pained them, the twins needed to be sent away for a while, even if only so that they could be trusted to not pull such antics again. Tomorrow morning, they would wake to find their things already packed, their transport ready, and their new uniforms waiting for them. They were not going to have a fun time.

…

As his kids begged him to let them have another chance, Kain looked on with a sense of apprehension. He understood that this was possibly for the best, but also that being a good parent also meant wondering if this was, in fact, the right course of action and struggling with that. Besides, if the kids were better behaved after this and if they did reform properly, then there was a chance that their stay could be cut short.

In the end, although Kain worried that the twins would hate him for this, he hoped that they would come to appreciate this bit of tough love. This would, quite possibly, be the last outing where the whole family was together for quite a while, and sadly this outing was simply a way to transport the twins to their new school. Pluton fulfilled his duties wonderfully, being absolutely overjoyed that he could once again serve as Kain’s transport, even if only temporarily.

The family of four touched down outside the school, dismounting the massive, ebon-scaled undead dragon and walking towards the entrance. They had already been alerted ahead of time that they would be coming, and they had also been informed that the twins were to be treated as any other student would. The twins were not to be allowed to manipulate things, nor were they to be allowed any kind of luxury or favor that was denied to any other student here.

This would be a wake-up call for them, and they would learn to see the world through eyes that were less well-off than their own. All the duty, humility, dignity, and respect that could be drilled into them would be, all as though they had no connections, no power, and no fortune to call their own. Kain and Alexis saw their children off, waited around a bit to make sure that things went as they should, and then decided to take the slower way home on the back of the building-sized dracolich.

The ride home was quiet, and the two monarchs teetered between wanting to go back and spoil the kids again and steeling themselves for the future. Eventually, they returned home and were forced to deal with the mounting paperwork and other such things that their positions demanded that they complete. This took their minds off of the events of the previous days, and that was ultimately what they needed more than anything else.

When night fell, the two attempted to blow off some steam by having a heated night, hopefully using that enjoyment to avert their attention from the events prior, but neither of them could get into it and the two simply retired for the night. In the end, though, neither of them could sleep, and parental worry left them both to stay wide awake during the night.

Come the morning, both were more tired than they should have been, their naturally boundless stamina seemingly having lessened a bit. The stress was getting to them, but time was said to heal all wounds, and so they counted on it to do so. It would be a few more days after that before they finally managed to get a decent night’s sleep, and it would be even longer than that before they stopped being as stressed as they had been.

After two weeks had passed, they were essentially back to normal, but also sorely missing their children. They would have to wait for a bit longer before they could send a letter or visit, however, as the kids would need a bit more time of their own before the school would allow contact again.

Kain was right about one thing; the kids were almost certainly unhappy with things. What Kain hadn’t considered was his own unhappiness regarding the situation.