Year of the Crow, First Month, Day 14. Postscript.

 The bard board me to tears this evening which was unfortunate because my mind wandered around the Hall dwelling on all manner of nonsense which largely, does not even make sense. 

By the time he had delivered three stanzas of his epic poem "An ode to the Lady of the House of Silent Thunder" (yes, really.), I had come to some extremely ludicrous conclusions and had even convinced myself that the chef was out to poison me. I have since discovered that everyone's rice tasted strange because the kitchen boy had accidentally dropped a jar of cloves in it and rather than start again, the chef had thought he could get away with simply straining it and serving it as it was.

How he thought no one would notice, I cannot say. Kaede was singularly unimpressed and got rather cross indeed. I have not seen her become even a little bit annoyed over anything trivial since I arrived here so seeing her in a snit about the rice was at once amusing and concerning. She stopped short of demanding that the kitchen send up fresh rice for the entire Hall but I really did think she was about to have a tantrum to rival one of Yuika's. I do not think it was the rice that was really bothering her.

As I looked around the Hall, I noticed a few of the women look away when my eyes met theirs which I found surprising and a little hurtful. I thought I had made some friends here but they could not even bring themselves to return my smile. Now I know I am missing something. I must focus on what is important. In two days, I will be leaving them all to their own devices and I am fine with never knowing what is going on. But I am not fine. It will pain me deeply not to know everything. It is all so annoying.

News reached us today of some sort of contagion at White Lake. Apparently several members of the White Lake inner circle have succumbed. Not that I am fond of anyone at that House but if it spreads, we shall all be in trouble. I wonder if that has anyone to do with why Kaede is quite so rattled. Perhaps she thinks it will come to Silent Thunder...