"What are you going to do about it now, Maegelle?" Selaria asked Visenya.

The girl was moved to another chamber until the effects of the fire will be removed in her previous one. She was just sitting on the bed, on which the dragon was moving clumsily. She was staring at him - or her? She had no idea - smiling. She felt as if she had been given new hope.

"This "thing" has a name." she replied, stretching out her hand to the dragon, and it immediately climbed on it, cuddling to her. "Maelia." she added after a moment's thought.

"Similar to your mother's name." Vis nodded, still paying attention to the dragon. True, she decided to name him, or her - Guess she'll just assume it's her - after her mother, but she had no intention of lamenting her fate and the fact that she never got to know her parents for the rest of her life.

In recent years she was very... Depressed. She preferred to submit rather than try to fight what happened to her.

Everyone can be broken.

Fact. But she herself contributed to being broken.

She still remembered that day. She had just had a lesson with Septa, she was an eleven-year-old girl at the time, but she wasn't stupid. She still caused a little trouble, and the septa shouted at her more than once for it.

She told her to name the Great Houses of Westeros, and still called her that insufferable name "Maegelle"...

As usual, she decided to spite her. As soon as the septa pointed to King's Landing, she beautifully recited: "House Targaryen. Sigil: A red, three-headed dragon on a black background. Words: Fire and Blood."

She didn't even have to look at the septa to see that she was very angry.
What word did she love to use? Oh yes, irreformable.

A short but unpleasant dialogue quickly broke out between them.

"Wrong. House Baratheon of King's Landing. Tell the rest." the girl remained silent, her eyes focused on the table with the map. "I'm talking to you, Maegelle!"

"But you shouldn't! My name is not Maegelle, but Visenya! Visenya of House Targaryen, princess of the Seven Kingdoms and...!" she didn't finish because the woman hit her in the face with a thin stick that she had previously used to show her places on the map. "How dare you...!" she was hit the second time.

"Everything wrong. You are Maegelle. Courtesy of Lord Tywin, you are alive and living in Casterly Rock. And thanks to this same kindness, you will get married someday."

"What kind of kindness is that? You murdered my mother, father and siblings! You make me dye my hair and call me some strange name that I don't even like! It's a prison, not kindness!" Septa hit her again, only this time not with a stick, but with an open hand in the face.

Visenya already knew that the idea to get rid of the septa, which had been in her head for some time, had a chance of succeeding.

She took a knife from the kitchen from the pocket she had sewn into her dress. Slowly and carefully, so that the woman wouldn't notice, she ran the blade across her hand and part of her forearm, under the sleeve of her dress.

"Repeat, Maegelle..." this time it was Vis who had had enough. She didn't even let the septa finish that sentence, she just spat at her.

And then the tide changed. The septa hit her so hard that the girl fell off the bench and onto the ground. At that moment, she decided it was time to try and implement her plan to get rid of the annoying teacher.

"Help, she wants to kill me! King Robert sent her to get rid of me!" she started screaming and crying, moving away from the septa, still on the ground.

"You little..." the woman only then realized how wrong she was doing by hitting her. "What have you got there?" she saw a knife in the girl's hand, which she quickly snatched away. She wanted to leave quickly and report Visenya's behavior, maybe even to Lord Tywin himself, who ordered her to study, but she didn't have time.

Vis knew full well that someone would hear her screams. She even suspected who.

She noticed that Ser Jaime was currently in the keep. He was supposed to leave back to King's Landing in a few days, but he was still here.

He had already defended her from Robert himself once, when, unaware of the king's visit to Casterly Rock, she wanted to go down to the courtyard. It's true that he simply covered her and took her out of there, but still - he defended her.

Now she was counting on the same thing and she didn't miscalculate.

Additionally, on her side, her cheek was red from the blows of the Septa, and blood from a fresh wound was still flowing down her hand. A self-inflicted wound from the knife the septa was currently holding.

So when Jaime burst into the chamber, alerted by Visenya's screams, the situation was clear to him. Septa was holding a knife, standing over a defenseless girl, crying, with blood all over her hand.

It was obvious how he would react. He didn't even let the septa explain herself, he just drew his sword and killed her.

He had to admit, he had always had a soft spot for that poor girl. She reminded him a bit of his brother, in how lonely she was. She didn't really have anyone to support her, so... Guess he wanted to become that kind of person, a support for her. To be the same person he was to his brother, except... Well, it worked a little differently. They weren't family.

Visenya was then convinced that she could get away with everything. That she has already managed to manipulate the situation to her advantage once, so she will be able to do it in the future, also successfully.

But...

Well, Tywin Lannister didn't have the same approach to the situation as his eldest son. He guessed that it was Visenya who provoked this situation.
Deep down, he admired that such a young girl was able to turn everything to her advantage so well, even hurting herself on purpose to achieve it.

Of course he never said it out loud.

Instead, he treated Vis very harshly, punishing her severely.
Over time, she pushed most of these memories from her mind, but still not all of them. Whenever she thought about that period of her life, she shuddered. From that moment on, she was afraid to disobey, afraid of what Tywin Lannister might do.

Besides, Jaime himself was also upset that he was stupid enough to be manipulated by a child.
But coming back... she won't recall those terrible memories anymore when they still chill her blood.

"We can't stay here, not now." she turned to Selaria again, this time looking in her direction.

"What choice do we have? Nobody will let us leave." here she had to admit Selaria was right, but she had no intention of giving up.

If life already gave her hope, in the form of this little being in her arms, she had to take it. She couldn't give up, she needed to reach deep inside herself again and find the Visenya who was not afraid to act, who was not easily broken. Who remembered who she was, thanks to Selaria's stories about her family.

"Maybe we can escape, with a little help..." an idea began to form in her head.

"Ser Barristan?"

"I'm afraid he took advantage of all the turmoil during the attack on the capital and then left... But maybe we could write to him and ask him to arrange a ship for us?" she asked. They won't forbid them to do that, send a letter, will they?

"Even so, how will we get to it? We can't leave the castle on our own, there's always at least one guard with us." true, it could have been a small problem... Although... Maybe not.

"Don't worry, I already have an idea." and she'll need Ser Jaime for this... If he really has any feelings for her, this could be the moment to use them. No matter how cruel it is to play with someone's feelings.

They were much crueler towards her and her family. Is wanting to escape and live on her own terms such a crime? Is it so much that she wants this little dragon in her arms to be safe?
Selaria, looking at the silver-haired woman, regretted very much that her old friend and the woman she had previously served couldn't see how her daughter had grown up. Maybe she inherited her appearance entirely from the Targaryens, but she saw in her the unbreakable spirit of the Martells. Maybe over the years she seemed to have lost all fighting spirit, maybe she had been obedient for most of her life... But they didn't break her, not completely.

She remembered the times when Visenya was not yet born, she remembered the time spent with Elia... She may have been her servant, but she was also her close friend.
She was always with her, holding her hand during difficult labors. She perfectly remembered the Maester's words after the birth of Aegon - Vis's younger, long-dead brother - that Elia would most likely never have children again due to her health condition.

But less than a year after that announcement, Elia was pregnant again.

This was the third and last birth she helped with with her presence. Visenya's birth.

She even remembered why the girl was named "Visenya". As she was born during the siege of the capital, this name after the warrior queen, sister-wife of Aegon the Conqueror, not only had a good connotation, but also gave a certain... Hope.

Although the girl seemed weak from birth and was sick a lot during her childhood, Selaria saw her take her first steps and learn to speak.

Every day, as she looked at this little girl - now a woman - she thanked the gods for listening to her prayers and thanked her brother for using the magic he had sworn to turn away from and saved her from death.

What she didn't know was that this magic also had an influence on the girl to this day. Something had changed in her, she was different.

She lived like in slavery, without power and without family, but she lived. Everything could still be rebuilt.

She taught her everything they didn't want to tell her. She talked about her family, about who she really was, and secretly brought books that the little girl had asked for so that she could learn High Valyrian - she had wanted it ever since she heard that this language was learned in her family.

"You are very much like your parents, Visenya." she said to her in a whisper, sitting down next to her and grabbing her hand. "Not just in appearance. Even now, when you're living the best you can... They would definitely be proud of you." in that short moment of silence, when Vis felt moved by these words of her maid, her friend, another thought came to her mind.

"Maybe... Dorne could help us somehow? After all, I am Oberyn and Doran's niece."

"You think they never tried? I had heard about it, rumors were spreading quickly around Casterly Rock." she sighed quietly, shifting her gaze to the dragon in Visenya's arms. "Lord Tywin always found some reason to keep you."

"But if I manage to escape from here, and maybe one day even try to claim the throne... They would support me, right?" Selaria looked straight into Visenya's purple eyes, squeezing her hand a little tighter.

"Certainly."