Year of the Boar, Tenth Month, Day 6.

Well. I scarcely know where to begin.
In the space of but a day, such a lot has occurred that I may not have the time to impart it all this evening. Yuika's scouts apprehended a group of scouts from the Sixth Kingdom somewhere near the border with the Seventh Kingdom. So great her paranoia about some sort of attack by Shigeru, Yuika has had scouts patrolling the borders constantly. They detected movement along the border and observed for a few days before capturing them. I wish I had been there to see that; as far as I am aware, none of Dying Cranes scouts can speak the languages of the other kingdoms and from what I have observed thus far, the scouts of the Sixth speak ours extremely badly! In any case, they were captured and brought to the House.
Yuika and I were both schooled in the languages of the other Kingdoms although it has been some while since I was required to use any and struggled to read the letter the scouts presented. Yuika demanded they were brought before her and surprised me greatly when she managed to converse with them as if she were herself, a native. Why it should have surprised me so, I cannot say for she always had a gift for languages. While I had no difficulty with reading, I always found speaking them a trial but Yuika struggled only with the social niceties required by each Kingdom - not that she failed to affect them but  she always managed to do it with such petulance, it bordered on rudeness. No such niceties were required to question the scouts from the Sixth in any case and it was mere fractions of a stick before she had discovered that the Queen of the Sixth is desirous of sending her daughter, the Princess Rani, on some sort of diplomatic tour.
What an interesting turn of events that is... how Yuika will cope with a delegation of royals from the Sixth, I do not know but we have several weeks to prepare for the Princess so I am hopeful that at the very least, we can avoid an inter-Kingdom incident. Sending scouts before an official delegation seemed like an extremely odd way to go about things to me and even after Yuika's conversation with them, I found myself to be highly suspicious. Not that I believed them to be anything other than scouts from the Sixth, but I could not understand why they had not come straight to the House or why an official delegation had not followed immediately so I spent some time in the library this afternoon and I have discovered that this is apparently how the Rulers of the Sixth have always done things. They prefer to see what sort of welcome their delegation is likely to receive before they go to the trouble of paying for it. In a strange sort of way, I suppose it makes sense, but I would certainly have preferred to have dealt with a delegation.
It is difficult to gauge Yuika's reaction to this; on one hand, she cannot be anything but relieved that Shigeru has not decided to invade (yet) but on the other, I am not sure how she will cope with the stress of a diplomatic visit in her current, fragile state. We cannot refuse though and the visit must go well lest it cause problems with the other Houses. I say 'problems' what I mean is, more problems. We already have more than enough...
She made vague noises this morning about giving me some sort of title. She was not making much sense at all although I gather that she does not wish me to leave Dying Crane which I suppose is a relief. Although as I have thought many times before, if she ever finds out that I am responsible for Nanami, she may well change her mind... I was forced to ask myself some probing questions after our conversation; if I am to remain at Dying Crane, must I renounce my claim to Pale Twilight's throne...? If I did that, would I be committing myself to remain a member of the House of Dying Crane for the rest of time...? Is that what I actually want...? I have no answers to those questions and as yet, I am unsure how much protection Yuika would really offer me if Mother found out I was here and decided to cause trouble. I must think on this further; there will come a time when I must decide where my allegiance really lies.