Year of the Boar, Fourth Month, Day 16.

I believe my mother is suffering from the "female affliction". Either that, or she has some more serious malaise that is causing her to lose her mind. I simply cannot believe that she has confined me to my rooms. Actually posted one of her personal honour guard outside my doors to ensure that her orders are obeyed -not one of those at whom I can flutter my eyelashes and get what I want, either- I am furious. In fact, I am beyond furious. My own mother keeping me prisoner, having me escorted to the bath house and the banquet hall and quizzing me interminably over dinner to ascertain whether I have adequately absorbed the "self-improving literature" she sends to my room every day. It really is too much, I think I would rather she had had me thrown in the dungeons, and of course, any attempts to discuss things with father are interrupted, I do not believe father realises that mother seems to be losing her faculties.
Mother simply will not be reasoned with - I have always known that she is "unusual" - although these days what I have always viewed as her "empyheadedness" seems to be degenerating into something much, much worse. It is as if she is deliberately trying to ruin any chance I have of ever being happy. It is almost as if... as if she wants to relieve me of my personality and turn me into her clone; vapid, vacuous and bland. I do not think I love my own mother... and she in turn would rather see me trapped in a miserable marriage, settling down to do embroidery over pastries every afternoon, preening over my status as a Lady of whichever House, than see me happy...
It is as if she is oblivious to all that happens about the Kingdom - about her own House even. She refuses to acknowledge that injustice, poverty, and violence exist. Everything in her world is fluffy and light; pointless, vapid, vacuous and ... devoid of meaning. It is difficult to understand how I came to be the product of her loins, it really is strange that I resemble her neither in looks nor spirit. If it weren't for the fact that I have a twin, I would simply believe that I had been found on a hillside or something.
I suppose in a way, it was my own fault; I should have anticipated that mother would react in such a fashion... But it was intolerable - neither she nor father would listen to reason and what happened at Dying Crane was just. So. Wrong... I learned from my network that added to the terrible happenings at Silent Thunder, Lady Yuika of Dying Crane had been assaulted by Lord Shigeru of Fallen Sakura. I say "assaulted" - why beat around the bush? He raped her. Not only that but it became apparent that he had been doing so for years, since we were children in fact. Her closest maid is one of my spies - I was indeed lucky to get her into Dying Crane, usually Itsuki, the Court advisor from Hell, vets all staff with eagle eyes but with a recommendation from me, and a letter begging for Dying Crane's help in aiding my maid, Nanami, to get a position nearer her ailing Grandmother, her only living relative, who hails from the Lands of Dying Crane - I managed to place her right in the centre of things... Nanami remains loyal to me, although she has become very fond of Yuika. also and she wrote to me in distress asking for my advice.
According to Nanami, Yuika was eleven when Shigeru took her into an empty room with the promise of a special birthday present at the Talks, and Yuika was too innocent to know what he was doing. The blood boils in my very veins at the very thought of it... in fact, I believe I may even remember that night, myself... another round of awfully dull tutorials after a session of the Talks had run on... Taiji and I were about to return to our parents' suite along with a few other Children, Rise was there, I think and Taira, Yuika of course and Shunsuke for some reason... we were going to play cards, of course we had been sent up to get ready for bed really, but none of us wanted to go... Yuika had been told to go and dress to play the koto at her mother's little after hours soiree. The rest of us were not supposed to know that Yuika got to stay up half the night and eat sweets but of course we did. Shigeru called out to her as we passed one of the larger matted rooms and she went to him, telling us not to wait. There seemed nothing odd in it - he had been a friend of Dying Crane for many many years - he was as an uncle to her... but I do remember Yuika looking unwell the next day and asking her if something ailed her... and her reply that she felt... funny... Of course, I realise that it seems odd that I would remember something in the so distant past, and I probably would not, were it not for the fact that I was trying very hard to befriend Yuika. She was not at all the sort of girl my mother wished me to have as a friend; willful, disobedient, rowdy, either lazy or stupid in our tutorials... and yet she had this astonishing talent for the koto and she was so beautiful, even as a little girl. I had admired her from afar since we were tiny - believing that if I watched her closely enough, perhaps some of her beauty and talent would attach itself to me... how foolish I was as a child...! For her part, of course, Yuika hardly noticed my mousey existence but after that round of Talks, she became withdrawn, barely speaking even to those she considered among her friends and by the time we were attending Precision School she was aloof, haughty, arrogant, addicted to opium by all accounts, and sleeping with another woman's husband. Now, of course, I know the truth.
These changes in Yuika were not her fault, could she be any different? If I were in her place, I believe I could not have carried on living - she is much stronger than I... I would still be her friend if she would have me, yet she is close to no one, confiding in Nanami only because she is in such a pitiful state. Nanami tells me that Shigeru broke several of Yuika's bones; that in a rage, he beat her horribly before he raped her. She refuses to discuss the attack or confide in anyone further than she has already done so - Nanami says Yuika was fairly delirious when she intimated what had been happening and since that night, she has refused to talk about it further, telling Nanami that nothing is wrong. That she simply does not wish to leave her rooms. I am so angry I could spit blood, how does this sort of thing happen?! No one, not even the worst sort of harlot deserves that kind of treatment and despite rumours to the contrary, Yuika is no harlot.
Upon receiving Nanami's letter, I began devising a plot to rid the Kingdom of Shigeru... It was complicated but I believed that I could execute it sufficiently well that his death could not be traced back to Pale Twilight. Just as I was about to set the wheels in motion, so to speak, another, more favourable opportunity presented itself. It seemed that the other Houses were listening to the accusations against Shigeru and they called an emergency summit to debate his guilt or innocence and what was to be done about it. Mother and Father refused to go, saying it was not their business, not up to the Houses to decide Shigeru's fate since it was not a Diplomatic matter but a matter of Yuika's word against Shigeru. I was incensed. We argued about it for three days - Taiji of course, refused to stand up and say anything at all, and at the end of the third day, mother said she was tired of my tantrums, that it was not my business and that the matter was closed: Pale Twilight would not be present at the summit, Pale Twilight would abstain. My response to that was to send a messenger in father's livery with a forged letter apologising for Pale Twilight's absence at the summit but saying that father was unfortunately indisposed at present but that he would be pleased if the summit would acknowledge Pale Twilight's feeling that Shigeru had woefully wronged Yuika and that he should be punished with deposition if not death... Indeed all went well until the Houses tied in their judgment, with three refusing to vote at all and the letter came to tell father of the result of the summit... There was no point in denying the episode; Aki could not possibly have had the brains and Taiji would never have had the courage to have so blatantly disobeyed mother and father... and so, I remain confined until mother deems me fit to return to society proper. At least she has not discovered my network, or the fact that my carrier birds have access to my windows...