The rest of their meal passed in silence, and finally, after more than two hours had passed since they first sat there, their host put down his fork and knife with a satisfied look, signalling to the tired slaves that their master had eaten his fill, and that they could take a short break... before they had to begin preparing for the next meal.
Having been forced to sit idle at the table for almost an hour(due to etiquette) after he had finished his meal, Viserys was, safe to say, not in a very good mood.
So while walking towards their respective chambers, when Viserys saw the smile on his sister's face as she discussed her plans to have another outing with her maid, he became very irked.
He then also remembered how the girl had undermined him before while they were eating, so he decided to teach her a lesson.
"You will not leave the mansion from now on," he ordered using the strongest voice that he could use, and he was very satisfied when the smile abruptly vanished from his sister's face.
"What? But why?" Daenerys asked in a small voice, her steps coming to a halt in the middle of the hallway.
"Because it is dangerous out there," Viserys replied without missing a beat, "The Usurper's assassin could be out there waiting for a chance, and you going out there is simply serving yourself on a platter."
"But you go out every day to go to the brothels, so why can't I—"
SLAP
Viserys backhanded his sister without holding back, sending the thirteen-year-old girl straight to the floor.
The horrified maid immediately went to help her, but Viserys raised his hand, stopping her in her place.
"Do not talk back to me, ever," Viserys growled in a low voice, bending down to look at his sister without a hint of warmth in his eyes, "What I do, where I go, is in no way any of your concern, because I am your King. Do you understand?"
Daenerys answered with a shaky nod, her palm holding her face as her long hair fell down to hide her wet eyes that remained stuck to the floor.
"Answer me!!"
"Y-Yes," she whimpered in a small voice, her whole body shivering in fear.
"Good," he replied in a pleased voice as he straightened up and left for his room without another glance at his sister.
A few minutes later, the maid finally could not hold back, "You will get cold sitting on the floor like that, princess. You should go back to your room."
Danaerys nodded her head as she slowly stood up from the floor and began quietly walking towards her room.
Her eyes and her face always remained lowered as she did not want the maid to see her tears.
"I will not be needing you for now," she said to the maid when they reached the door to her room, trying, but failing to stop her voice from trembling
"But..." the maid hesitated for a moment before she nodded, "As you say, princess. I will be here when you need me," she said, bowing her head as Daenerys entered her room.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Daenerys slowly walked towards the chair in front of the big shiny mirror and took a seat.
The moment she looked at her face in the mirror and saw the bright red handprint on her cheek, her lips quivered involuntarily, and the tears began flowing from her eyes once again.
"Why is it so hard?" she sobbed as she rubbed her eyes fiercely, wanting to stop her tears, but no matter how she tried, her body just would not stop shaking.
She could not quite remember the first time that her brother had hit her cruelly, but she knew it must have been during the months that they were on the streets in Braavos after being kicked out of their house with most of their valuables stolen by their own servants.
Things were difficult during those times; they both had to go from place to place, trying to survive by selling the few trinkets that they had managed to keep safe.
But thankfully, somehow things never reached the extreme, as whenever they were on their wits' end and were on the verge of being starved, they would be somehow found out by the servants of local nobility or a wealthy merchant who would invite them into their homes for the prestige of hosting the last heirs of Targaryen dynasty.
But then, not even a few months would pass, and their hosts would begin to get tired of Viserys's various demands.
They would try and tolerate him at first, but then, sooner or later, her brother would cross a line and anger their host, resulting in them getting kicked out and becoming homeless once again.
And then as they moved from place to place, from Braavos to Tryosh to Myr to now Pentos, from begging this noble to host them one day to the next, her brother's personality began changing.
He became more short-tempered and started taking everything as an offence to him and his family. He also started becoming more violent with her whenever she did something that displeased him, he called it waking it 'waking the dragon'.
While they were in the red house, her kind uncle, William Darry, had always protected her from her brother whenever he got irritated or went into that strange mood of his, but after his death... There was no one left to keep her safe anymore.
Things eventually got so bad that every night before going to sleep, she would hear him mutter all kinds of threats, things that he would do to all those who had slighted him, that he would make them suffer a torturous death when he got back his kingdom.
It became an obsession that occupied every waking moment of his...
It was concerning and scary at the same time...
One day, she finally managed to muster up her courage to say to him that maybe they did not need to go to Westeros, and maybe they could just live here in Essos and that they did not need to try so hard to fight a war, to recover the kingdom that she had never even seen.
His face got so livid after hearing that, that she did not even recognise him for a moment...
His anger was almost unquenchable, and he kept on hitting her no matter how much she cried for him to stop.
She had feared that he would kill her that day, but fortunately, he eventually got too tired, and she managed to survive... with bruises that lasted for weeks.
She never defied after that day, as she knew that the last shred of kindness her brother had towards her had finally disappeared...
So, so safe to say, the slap she got hit with earlier was not even the worst she had suffered at her brother's hand, but for some reason her heart just hurt especially too much today.
She felt just so... alone.
"Chi!! Chi!!"
Her sobs had just gotten under control when she heard a small squeaky sound from behind her.
Daenerys slowly turned her head in a daze, only to see tiny but clear words written in thin, inky lines on the lower end of the wall behind her.
Hello!!
"Hello?" Daenerys mumbled in a confused voice, "Who left this? Has this always been here?" she asked herself in a confused voice, thinking that the previous occupant must have written it in his boredom or something.
But then she heard the squeaking sound once again, but this time from the vanity mirror in front of her.
And when she turned around, she was shocked to find that words had suddenly appeared on the mirror during the scant few seconds that she had looked away.
Hello, Daenerys Targaryen.
"Wah—" the girl was so startled by the sight of her own name written on the mirror, that her body automatically jerked backwards, making her and the chair fall straight towards the floor with a resounding thud, "Ouch!!"
The door to the room suddenly opened as the maid standing outside of her room entered the room after hearing the sudden scream from Daenerys.
"Are you well, princess?" the maid asked in a concerned voice as she hurried forward to help Daenerys up, "What happened?"
"That—" Daenerys began while raising her finger towards the mirror, but when she turned her eyes there, she was shocked to find that the tiny words on the mirror had suddenly disappeared as if they were never there, leaving behind just a faint blue smudge as if someone had wiped them.
Her face now deathly pale, the last Targaryen girl in the world turned her head around, and sure enough, the first Hello had also disappeared from the wall behind her.
"Your grace?"
"N-No, nothing," Daenerys replied to the maid's concern by shaking her head, "I was just a little distracted and accidentally fell down. Sorry for bothering you."
"Are you sure?" she asked as he picked up the chair and helped Daenerys sit on it, "Do you want me to stay with you?"
"No, I am fine. Thank you,"
"As you say, princess," The maid bowed before vacating the chamber, leaving little Daenerys all alone once again, with her eyes frantically darting towards every corner of her room in paranoia.
'Maybe it was just my imagination,' she tried to convince herself, but her mind wouldn't believe her, 'What if it was real?' she thought, 'What if there really is someone inside the room with me?'
"Is someone here?" she whispered in a scared tone, fidgeting in her seat as her mind came up with one scary conjecture after another, ranging from a scary assassin from the infamous House of Black to a vengeful witch.
But no one answered even after a while, so she began to relax, thinking that it had really been a hallucination all along, but then suddenly Daenerys heard the dreadful squeak from behind her once again.
"Chi!!" the girl jumped and immediately turned her head around, and sure enough, the tiny strange words were there on the wall once again.
Yes, I am here.
Her shock this time was much smaller, so she did not take long to control herself, and when she did, she immediately became inquisitive and asked the invisible air in a small, frightened voice, "A-Are you an assassin?"
No, I am not an assassin. I am, in fact, a... relative of yours, who only recently found out about you and now wants to help you.
"M-My relative?" Daenerys stuttered in a stunned voice, before a suspicious look crossed her face, 'But I don't have any relatives who are still alive, do I?'
"Are you perhaps a ghost of one of my ancestors?" she tentatively asked, a hint of hope in her timid voice, which she knew was very stupid of her, because never in any of the stories she had ever read was the result of a ghost encounter good for the health of the victim. But she just could not help herself...
"Chi!!" the squeak arrived with the letters once again, this time from the right.
No, I am not a ghost. I am a normal living being, just like you...
"You are? T-Then, why do you not come out in front of me?" she asked nervously, hoping but also dreading that the answer would be positive.
I can come out, but only if you promise not to scream
"I won't, I-I promise," Daenerys replied hurriedly nodding her head as she forced her lips close, swearing to herself that she could not scream no matter who arrived in the room in the next moment, whether they be a scary ghost or one of her ancestor or even a dragon... she would not flinch.
"Chi!!"
This time, when she turned her expectant eyes towards the squeak, coming from beside the mirror on her vanity, she found not the familiar words but a small rat standing behind a box, nervously waving its tiny claws at her.
'So the rat was the one writing the words...' Daenerys' eyes widened in comprehension, 'No wonder the words were so small...'
"But wait! A RAT!!" she exclaimed with an absurd look on her face, "I-I have a rat as a family,"
///