Hi! Thanks for clicking on my story. The plot o come is really cute, at least I think it is. Hope you enjoy, and let me know what you think…

I don't own anything, blah blah blah…

4:30 PM

Royal Gardens

Ha. So they think I take too much stress? Way to go, dad. Makes me feel SO MUCH BETTER to hear that on my BIRTHDAY, right? I mean, come on, a girl turns 16 and you expect something more then a stupid diary. A diary with leather straps and a silly little pen pocket, no less.

Meh. Well. I might as well be reasonable and make the most of it, and use it like a good little princess.

Sudfhiosdhfiosdufiosduifousdiofusdfuidsfuodfuidfuoidsfu-

Or not. I could just scribble. But that would mean that I'd be wasting my ink. Hmm. Tough call.

Well at least this isn't the only present I'm going to get. Hopefully all the people coming to my ball tonight will have a REAL present for me. Not some cheap diary. I'm a princess for godsake! I was expecting…hmm…a tiara! Yeah, like Mum's got. Except hers is kinda ugly. Maybe one like Aunt Machlondria (Mac for short, WHAT were her parents THINKING?) Hers is cool, with these aquamarine jewels and delicately carved frame…sigh.

Sorry, just slipped off for a moment there. Why am I saying sorry to you anyway? You are just a diary. See what Dad did? He's making me go mad.

Well I'm pretty crazy to start with. Being a princess kind of sucks I mean the whole ball thing is pretty cool (Come on, what girl in her right mind does not enjoy a good ball? Princes and other nobles and dukes simply fawn over me, wanting to dance, carrying drinks for me, fanning me in the summertime… sometimes they even fight over me. Its way cool) but apart from balls and getting all the attention, it's really boring.

And…well…no one really knows the real stuff about you, you know? Like my greatest passion (and this is going to sound weird) is climbing. I love climbing the parapet of our castle, scaling the fortifications, climbing anything at all. I've spent a lot of my childhood climbing the trees in this very garden. Actually, I'm in a massive oak right now. Yup, between these lofty leaves, I've got a bird's-eye view of the back of the castle and the whole garden. You'd be surprised how many proposals I've eavesdropped, and how many gross nobles I've had to watch kiss with a servant girl… andhow many conspiracies I've overheard being discussed.

But don't tell anyone ;)

5:45

Mother's dressing room

I'm dying. I really am. I'm hiding behind Mother's bookshelf. It's a good thing I'm pretty skinny.

I'm hiding from my extremely formidable mother. She's in her HUGE, and I mean HUGE as in half the size of the dining room huge dressing room. She's chucking random clothes out, and the heap of gowns is steadily growing.

'Baby, try on the scarlet one, it'll go lovely with your hair.' She yelled, buried somewhere deep and unfathomable in the hideous dress. I have no time or patience for dresses. I don't mind looking pretty but I don't go gaga over them like some people…ahem. I don't have a choice for this ball though; the princess must look lovely at all times but especially gorgeous (not possible in my case) for a party held in her honor.. Someone kill me now…

'Kiara, the aquamarine one looks lovely on you, it'll bring out your eyes but it is so last fashion, no? Maybe the silk black but I don't want you to look too somber, maybe we can just get the neckline lowered…' Mother mumbled as she finally emerged from the closet. Her mouth was full of pins as she stabbed them one by one into a fuchsia lantern-style skirt.

Ewwww.

I really don't want to wear pink…it's just so…loud.

Maybe I can dress up like a servant girl and enjoy the dance properly like I did last year.

Yeah, right.

7:00 PM

The Alcove in the Ballroom

So.

I wore that turquoise dress after all. It does bring out the color in my eyes, I suppose, but after taking one look at my long black hair hanging around my face, Mother said I look like a ghost of a girl and promptly did my hair up in a complicated French twist thing. It looks pretty now, with pearls woven in and through my hair.

The Hall looks absolutely magnificent. Pierre, the head butler, has really outdone himself. There are soft blue cloths thrown across the lamps to give the room a soft, calming glow and scones in the shape of seashells along the walls. Keeping with the underwater theme, most of the guests are dressed in shades of blue, except my mother. She's wearing a radiant rose colored sheath dress, and she's practically glowing, surrounded by a mass of blue.

Yeah. You're probably wondering why, exactly I'm hiding out here in this tiny alcove tucked behind the drinks counter.

Well, I'll tell you, Diary. Take it as a sense of trust, as my new confidante.

Well basically here because…

I hate the sea. Isn't it ironic? My parents didn't even bother asking me if I'd like a sea theme. Not that I'd have told them why I hated the sea in the first place. Like hell I'd tell them something like that.

And my main reason for hiding in here, spying on the rest of the guests, is because before entering the ballroom I climbed up onto the roof of the castle (figured out a secret passageway when I was six to reach it) and spied on the ballroom, while it was getting decorated.

And guess what I saw…

I saw two men hiding behind a pillar, almost completely camouflaged. And one was holding a long shiny knife, which, from my high vantage point, was glistening rather menacingly.

Happy Birthday to me.

7:15

The Drinks Table

Of course, the obvious thing to do would have been to alert the guards, for all I know they could just have been party crashers…with really pointy knives. But I didn't want to ruin my party.

So here I am, trying to look inconspicuous, and drinking some champagne (ahh, the benefits of turning 16) and keeping a wary eye out for the intruders/kidnappers/assassins/murders/conspirators/thieves/pirates/revolutionaries just to name a few possible enemies the Crown may have made.

Ohh, Mother is coming my way, and she doesn't seem pleased to see me scribbling this down, ignoring the princes…

7:25

The East Balcony

Great. Juuust great. Mother got all annoyed and red like an overcooked lobster and nearly fried me along with her.. Jeez. How was I meant to know that I had to actually mingle?

God, how I hate that word. When mother says mingle she means be social and pretty and polite and obligingly dance with all the young men and laugh at their funny-but-not-really jokes. Mingle to me means put up a fake smile and let them ogle me and brush me 'accidentally'. I don't know which meaning is worse.

Bleh. Feh. Meh.

Ok I'm done being sulky now. I promise.

So here I am, on the East Balcony, facing the woods behind our castle. It's my favorite view of the trees.

I'm trying to relax but I keep fidgeting and my heart is wildly pounding for no good reason.

Or maybe…for a good reason…you see, he two men behind the pillar were gone when I last checked.

And just like that, two armed unwanted visitors were on the loose in the Palace of the Crowned.

7:32

In a Muddy Ditch. Don't Ask.

So you asked. Well lets just say we can be pretty sure that hmm….MY LIFE IS IN DANGER.

Here is what happened:

I was standing on the East Balcony, scribbling to you in the meager moonlight, minding my own business, when all of a sudden…

Argh, I suck at being dramatic.

Ok. Well. Here goes. I was just standing there and out of nowhere a hand reaches out and pulls on my hair from behind, really, I mean really hard. I yelped and screamed and squealed with all the surprise and rage a princess can muster (not much, trust me).

But luckily, my instincts from climbing tons and tons of trees kicked in and before my assailant could say 'Gotcha!' I leapt up onto the balustrade that surrounds the semi-circular balcony.

So there I was, looking pretty impressive (I hope) with my hair coming loose and flying in the wind, my torso framed by the moon, and then…I toppled over.

I know, I know. You'd think I'd have a little more balance, but hey, it's not everyday I get attacked. So I fell, thankfully straight into a clump of shrub below the balcony. And all I could think of was this story my father used to read me about a boy named Aladin, and how he managed to look like he was balancing on her rail when in reality he was actually hovering in mid-air on an enchanted carpet.

I want a magic carpet.

So I lay there in the shrubs till I heard absolutely no noise at all and then I pushed myself out and it turns out I was on a small hill of dirt. So I tumbled out, rolling over and over and I couldn't stop…until I landed here, in this disgusting bug-infested ditch.

I guess I'm just lucky.

7:45

Still In the Ditch.

Thank god I've found this candle stub otherwise I might have gone mad, waiting here for all sounds to subside until I can get out of here.

Lalalalalala. I'm bored.

I bet Mother is going to have me killed for ruining my own party. She'll have a heart attack seeing me all wild and dirty and...and filthy. So she'll kill me.

Naah, that's way too nice. She'll kill me and then resurrect me and then kill me again, slowly and painfully.

I hope those men are happy, now. They probably think I'm dead. I bet the King of Derudia sent them; he's my father's greatest enemy. Yup, the assassins should be long gone by now, probably enjoying the party in disguise or something equally -

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Hel...

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Author's Note: Dun dun dun. PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE review, I really need to know whether or not to continue!!! Even if you really can't be bothered and your finger is really tired and your mum is yelling at you to get off the PC…click on the little blue button and

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Lol.

Take all my readers out there, and till we meet again… (hopefully sooner then I think I can).