VISENYA'S FACIAL EXPRESSION PULLED into a frown after leaving the garden and the prince's presence. She had planned to speak with her mother about the recent events at the Small Council and whatever position the crown would take regarding Vaemond and Lucery's petitions.
However, a look of disgust crossed her face upon entering her mother's room. Seeing a small servant, kneeling with her face down the floor.
"Mother?" Visenya questioned, finding the situation uncomfortable.
The child wept, as Queen Alicent's gaze held disappointment in them. But they were a cold gaze of a woman who no longer had a heart.
"I brought her here immediately." Talya, Alicent's most trusted advisor referred to the servant girl.
"She's seen no one else, Your Graces." Talya squirmed at the presence of the princess.
"What is going on?" Visenya glanced at her mother and at the girl. She had expected her mother to turn her away, to see the girl face an unexpected punishment. But the room was silently eerie.
Talya left the room in a hurry, the doors echoing.
And for the first time in Visenya's life, she felt unheard. Her mother wouldn't dare to look ar her, mayhaps Alicent was lost on what to do. Seeing what her family had been dragged down to.
"Come here, sweetling." She offered the girl her hands.
The child quivered, curtsying to her majesty the Queen and the princess in the room. Visenya's face was still monotonousโconfused as to what was happening.
"Tell me your name." Alicent attempted sympathetically.
"It's Dyana, your grace. If...i-if it please you." The girl stuttered. Visenya glanced down at her as she noticed the girlโ pale hair, pale skin, always scared as she walked down the hallways trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.
"Dyana, what a pretty name." Alicent smiled, glancing at her daughter for support.
"A beautiful name indeed." Visenya nodded.
Alicent paused, looking for the words to say about Dyana's newfound problems. "I understand you've found yourself in some trouble." The princess furrowed her eyebrows, "What was the matter?" She whispered to the Queen.
The servant girlโDyana, looked down the floor, inhaling. "I was fetching the Prince his wine, and then I put it on his table, and when I turned...I didn't see him." Dyana looked at Princess Visenya.
This was her betrothed she spoke about, and she knew that if the princess did not believe her, things could get bad for her.
"I asked him to stop, Your Graces. I did, truly. " Alicent closed her eyes, looking down her shoes. She had allowed her eldest son to turn this way. Aegon's antics were stranger to none, his laziness and gluttony for the wine. His escapades, the way he glanced at the maids and found himself in the right to touch them.
Visenya's face was one of the most utterly disgust, she was to marry a pig. A drunkard pig. And she wanted nothing more than to throw up after Dyana's testimony. Her brother, Aegon, was a rapist.
He had raped a girl who was no older than ten and four.
"You must believe me." Dyana fell to her knees in front of Princess Visenya, clutching on Visenya's hands like a sinner begging for forgiveness.
"You must believe me, princess! I beg of you! I never tried to seduce him, I only attempted to do my job." The child cried.
"Get up." Visenya breathed, holding in her own tears.
Dyana did as she was commanded, standing up on the princess orders. "You are strong, Dyana. Stronger than any knight. I don't wish you to come and beg me to believe you, I don't wish to see you grovel. I believe you." Visenya nodded, cleaning the tears that threatened to fall from her eyes.
She hugged the child, eyeing her mother with rage and disgust. How could she still be betrothed to Aegon?
Alicent sighed, hugging the child after Visenya. Shushing the servant down, "thank you for telling me Dyana. I know it wasn't your fault. We believe you."
Alicent licked her bottom lip, her hands swiping away the tears of Dyana.
"Y-you do?" the girl breathed.
"I do. But what I worry about...is what others might believe." The Queen stepped back from the crying servant. Visenya glanced at her mother in confusion, fuck the others, they were royalty. What they said goes, no?
"You were alone with the Prince, were you not?" Alicent raised an eyebrow. "Yes...I-" Dyana whispered.
"And no one else saw what happened between the two of you. If anyone else were to hear about this..." This was a changing turn in Visenya's life.
She had seen the Queen enraged at Driftmark, mean with her commentary about Rhaenyra and whoever else did not fit her standards.
But Visenya had never seen her mother act so cruelly.
Was this the role of a Queen, to be ruthless to those who come to you for help?
"I haven't...I haven't told anyoneโ" Dyana exclaimed, fear in her eyes.
"Mother..." Visenya whispered, hoping Alicent would not do anything uncalled for.
"...And though I believe you are not to blame, others might not be so trusting. They might think you were trying to besmirch the Prince, or worse, that you're the sort of girl that might have enticed him in the first place. And you know what happens to girls like that."
Visenya's eyes widened, what the fuck?
"She is a child!" Visenya exclaimed, looking at her mother as though the Queen had went mad. "We are the crown, our words are not discussed, they are followed!" She shouted.
"We will speak of this, in another instant." Alicent said gravelly to her second daughter, before turning her attention to the servant girl.
"I, I wouldn't dream of breathing another word to anyone, Your Grace." Dyana stuttered and cried, shaking her head helplessly. "I swear it on my life."
Alicent nodded, looking down the floor as she considered what must have been done.
"I know you won't." Alicent smiled, grabbing a bag of coins.
"For your troubles..." She whispered, and the doors opened once more. Revealing Talya once more.
"The tea, Your Grace." The advisor held a cup of tea in her hands.
Visenya watched the exchange, moon tea, a bag of coins. She almost wanted to laugh at how incredulous the situation was. Her mother was attempting to buy Dyana's silence, by sending her away and making sure no royal seed would take place in a measly servant's womb.
"It is best to be certain." Alicent sighed as she handed Dyana the cup. Visenya shook her head.
After the exchange, Ser Erryk was handed with the task of escorting out Dyana without being seen by the commonsfolk. The girl would no longer be protected in the walls of the Red Keep, not that she found any protection in the end anyways.
"You sent her away." Visenya whispered, "You...you, she was a child! Yet you made her drink the tea? Do you think that by giving people small pouches of gold will ever remove the pain etched in their brains?" She shouted, punching Alicent's desk.
"I am well aware, but we cannot protect her here. It is best if she buys a place of her own, find somewhere to work and try her best to forget." Alicent's tone did not change.
Visenya shook her mouth again, tongue poking against her cheek as she glanced at her mother once more.
"Do not make me marry him." She pleaded.
"I cannot break off an arrangement that has been done for over six years, the people will grow suspicious, Visenya!" Alicent shouted, this was not the first time this discussion had happened.
"He is a rapist!" Visenya exclaimed, and Alicent's clutched her daughter's cheeks in her hands, shutting the girl up. "This must not be spoken of. Measure your words accordingly." Alicent warned.
"I must speak with your brother." She sighed, before leaving Visenya alone.
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