Obediah looked out at the river. "My father is the Ascendant," he said. "And he loves his rules. My mother, well, she hasn't ever known anything else and all she really wants is to please my father, make him happy. My brother too. I never learned how to do that. Didn't particularly want to. Which meant I was never good enough for him. I vowed a long time ago that if I ever started a household, there wouldn't be alot of rules or alot of restrictions and that my Beloved would never have to prove anything."