Dear Diary:

Oh yes, I never did tell you about my wonderful coworkers. Allow me to introduce them:

Vice Minister Naikel is in charge after me, and he fits the whole "large and in charge" idea. He's not only a big guy (lay off the cream puffs, Naikel!) but he's also got ridiculously fancy facial hair. His voice booms and he likes to act self-important. He's probably my least favorite, but he could be worse.

Lezteh is the oldest and the nicest. He wheezes when he talks and seems to really worry about doing his best.

Aroiles is just a guy. Like, if I ever forget a senator, it's him.

Loriev is weird. He's super fat but super jovial, and he adores Micaiah (back off, she's mine!), and he's a surprisingly big patron of the arts.

Damiun is okay, but it's pretty clear he wants to make Naikel like him. Good luck with that, since Naikel only likes himself. Also he is really bad at growing facial hair. Me too, so no judging.

Mevalot is just crazy. He has a very high pitched laugh and he shows disdain for absolutely everyone. He's actually more likeable than Naikel, if only because he laughs so often and it's kind of nice that someone is having fun.

Then our secretary is Zukai, and he really needs to see a chiropractor, but his penmanship is out of this world.

Then there's me, Prime Minister Pelleas. They were all kind of upset that I was promoted ahead of them so fast, but that's their problems. The people of Daein actually like me! They liked me even more when Micaiah and I got engaged. I don't think they know about the blood pact, which has a number of unfortunate implications about how much they enjoyed the war against the laguz. But we've done a decent job at undoing some of the anti-laguz propaganda that went on during my fa – Ashnard's reign. A lot of it was Rafiel, the heron prince, going around with Nailah and healing everyone with the power of his birdsong, with Nailah pointedly not eating all of them. This made everyone love the herons, and considering that all the herons are in relationships with other laguz, it spread.

Awkwardly enough, Daein's favorite after Rafiel is actually Naesala, which has, from what I heard, been a little hard to swallow for the bird tribes. Not that Naesala has to worry, because he's now married to Leanne and she will single-handledly murder anyone who goes against him. She's one of those people where you're not really sure how she will do it, but you just know she will. The fact that she's pregnant just makes it more obvious.

Oh, speaking of relationships, Queen Elincia got married a few months ago to Geoffrey, who is now Prince Consort of Crimea. She hasn't had any sort of rebellion or anything ever since that nonsense with, um, that guy. You know the one. I forgot his name, which is okay because he's dead now.

Sothe is still in Begnion, last I heard still dating Sanaki although they don't advertise the relationship that much. The fact that she never heard the voice of Ashera actually endeared her to her people more, considering that Ashera turned everyone to stone. (You know, in retrospect, I wonder what she actually said to the prior Empresses. "Excuse me Ashera, what should I do about this famine?" "SMITE THEM ALL IN MY NAME!" Awkward.) Anyway, she abolished her senate due to the deaths of almost all of the senators, and no one has heard from Sephiran since the end of the war. I hope the poor guy is doing okay.

Who else... Most of Micaiah's friends are still around. You know, the activists. Norton, Tedward, Donatello, Lauren, Aaron, uh, Lanvega's daughter. The armored knight girl when back to her family, Zihark is um somewhere, so is Jill, uh… Wow, I'm not good at this. At least I remember they were called the Dawn Brigade!

Skrimir is now king of Gallia. I expected a declaration of war from him on someone, anyone, but none came. I think we all have Ranulf to thank. No idea what Caingehis is up to, but if he's smart he will stay far away from us because Mother made no secret of her crush on him. Although on second thought, it would do her well to get a boyfriend who is not Ashnard… Ugh, am I picturing matchmaking for my mother?

Let's see… oh, Goldoa's borders are opened up for the first time since the war against Yune some thousand years ago. But it turns out most people don't want to go there because they don't want to get eaten by dragons, go figure, but the dragons are slowly leaving to see the world for the first time. Mother and I visited once. Ena had a baby, which was surprising for a number of reasons. She claimed it was my uncle Rajaion's, and no one can really argue with her because no one knows the gestation rate for dragons. If I had to guess, I'd say it was probably Kurthnaga's. Which makes the baby my cousin regardless, which is kind of a weird thought. Adopted cousin.

Oh, speaking of family, Soren is still with the Greil Mercenaries, who are back to taking low-paying jobs in northwestern Crimea.

This is bringing me to my next point. I'm not entirely sure what to do about this. Me, Uncle Kurthnaga, and my mother know that Soren is in fact the blood heir of both Daein and Goldoa. I tried to tell Soren, but I don't think he was listening. So, do I go to find the Greil Mercenaries and try to convince Soren to come to Daein to visit his mother? Or do I let them go, and accept my fate as Almedha's lightning rod of love? Now that I'm writing it out, if I can't get Soren here, I can try to drag Cainhegis here. If that fails, then maybe I can convince Tibarn and Reyson to break up, because Mother had a crush on him too. Sephiran's old and powerful, I bet she'd be into that too. If all four of those plans fail, I'm just screwed. Not, er, literally.

Okay diary, my hand is getting tired and I have a senator meeting in the morning. It's Loriev's turn to bring snacks, and his are the best.

-Pelleas