Year of the Boar, Second Month, Day 20.

There are those who describe me as spoilt, those who describe me as pampered, as a despot, as vindictive. And those who merely describe me as thoroughly unpleasant. Perhaps some of them are right... perhaps they all are. I shall tell my story and any who read it may decide for themselves. I take no responsibility for being pampered or spoilt, I hardly decided to spoil myself... *that* was the work of others. In any case, I am not too interested in how others describe me, or see me, so long as my wishes are carried out. I am a Lady of the Ninth Kingdom - I do what I must and if others get in my way... well.... I deal with it. Callously, some have said with indifference, I have ...dealt with several of my enemies, several who have threatened my House. Swiftly, cleanly and without question. Some have lost their heads, others have been disemboweled, but they are gone. They will threaten my House no longer. It is not without some pride that I tell you that there has never been another to rise to power as young as I did. Granted, fortune had a lot to do with that - it was not a choice I made, nor would I have made if it had meant my Mother living longer. But that is old news and 13 Summers I had when I Rose to Ruling Lady... A Regent would have been appointed had I only 12, and she would have Ruled until I reached my majority, but at 13, the scrolls say, a Lady can Rule herself. And as a little girl who had just lost her Mother, who could refuse me anything...? And they did not. Servants I did not like were quietly removed to other parts of the Castle, or dismissed... our House was the first in the Ninth Kingdom to acquire a stable full of beautiful horses even though in our lands we do not travel by horse. And I, I ate sweets from morning til dusk, it is a wonder that I did not become obese... and my wardrobe was of the finest silk to be had in the Seventh Kingdom... the envy of the Ninth since we are close to the borders of the Seventh and trade is free... other Houses are not so fortunate... I shall continue in a while... for now.. my pipe awaits and I must smoke it ere the symptoms set in again...