"And to ensure I'm progressing in my treatment," Valyn explained, remembering his father's reasoning for being there. "He wanted to make sure I wasn't getting up to trouble. And to berate me over the stress I'm causing him simply for being in need of psychiatric treatment." If there was one good thing his father's visit had done, it was to allow him to pick up on the proper terms and manner of speaking for this strange world. He'd given up trying to convince anyone on the staff that he wasn't crazy, and being able to use proper terms for things went a long way in making him at least sound perfectly sane.

Or at the very least not delusional. He hoped.

"I know my father well enough to know why my problems upset him. First, as I mentioned, it's an embarrassment that reflects poorly on him. It's most likely in my file there somewhere, but he's a politician of some note. It's a rather cutthroat society, and having an insane son is nothing he wants to be common knowledge. Apparently everyone back home is under the impression I'm studying abroad for a graduate degree." Whatever that meant.

"Secondly, my father abhors any sign of weakness. It's why he was very adamant I not show any emotion - it's a weakness, you see. He couldn't abide my mother because she was 'weak'. She was mentally ill as well, though not the sort that can be treated. It's why he divorced her a few days after my brother and I were born. I've never even met her, to be perfectly honest with you." And he didn't think he wanted to. If his grandfather was a kind man, the entire ordeal had been wiped from her mind.

"But besides all of that...my brother is more interested in drinking and gambling and chasing women than anything else. Father has been grooming me since I was very young to follow in his footsteps. I'm...an investment. He likes to keep a close eye on his investments. And according to him, he's paying a great deal of money for my stay here, and wants to be sure he's getting his money's worth."