Summary:

The history books will remember Rheanrya as a horror, as a nightmare, as an evil thing. The artists would render her stocky, a caricature of who she was. The songs would exploit her, finding malicious deeds with every sideways glance. They would label her as an adulterer, a tyrant, and exploit every passing fancy.

Rheanrya Targaryen would be remembered as a woman who thought herself queen. The Bitch Queen. As Meagor with Teets. As Visenya Remade. But the history books are written by men, and Rheanrya was anything but. Through death and blood, representing the long line of Targaryens who paved her way to the throne, she would set the realm on fire to sit on her father's throne. She would claim the greatest and largest dragon in the world. The realm was doomed the moment she placed her hand on Vhagar's scales, and she'd make it bleed before handing her crown to a usurper.

[This story will feature a divergence from the history books. A reimagining of events told through the eyes of Eustice and Mushroom.]


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𝕺𝖓𝖊

𝓋𝒾𝓈𝑒𝓃𝓎𝒶'𝓈 𝓁𝑒𝑔𝒶𝒸𝓎

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They say Aegon the Conquerer married Visenya out of duty, but Rhaenys out of desire. They say she burned down cities, made them all bow to her, only for her to give the crown she earned to her brother. A younger brother at that. Rheanrya often wondered what Visenya had been thinking on her deathbed. Her brother and sister were dead, the kingdoms sizzling, her son Maegar away on campaign, and despite being of good health, her skin was practically melting from her bones.

Rhaenyra Targaryen had thought of Visenya often in the moments when she had spied Vhagar through the dragon pit on the days when she would ordain to show in Kings Landing. She, the unclaimed beast that Visenya had ridden to victory—had burned Dorne—and now would lounge around lazy, eating goats. Rhaenyra had barely reached out her hand when the great big eyes snapped over to her, the bright green irises almost completely constricted in black. Her scales were dark as bronze, but with highlights of blue that shimmered in the light when she moved. A horse could fit down her gullet, Rhaenyra had thought as she held up dark sister in her hands. The breath was so hot that she didn't have a hard time believing that it could melt a knight's armor, roasting him.

Rhaenyra lowered to her knees, and even in the dead of night, she felt no coolness of the clouds. There was only Vhagar's breath, brushing along a little girl's face.

"The egg hasn't hatched," Rhaenyra had screamed to her father. She was the only child, his only child, and a dragon. How could she be a dragon and not ride one?

"You recognize it?" Rhaenyra asked in High Valyrian. It was a language they both shared, something she knew they could match. Vhagar came from old Valyria and her father said that one day, all dragons returned there. She didn't know what she believed regarding that.

She had crept along the winding stairs, the great bounds of the castle where ghosts lingered in the walls, or so the legends say. The lewd tapestries seemed to move in the dark, beckoning her past the culture that she inherited. The voices always whispered to Rhaenyra, scheming and telling her where to go, where to turn, and when to stop. Be it madness or the dusk clouds ahead, she did not know.

"I'll never be heir, never have a claim to Dragonstone, never be a son, but I will have a dragon," Rhaenyra had told her mother, who had only stared at her with that forlorn expression that Rhaenyra did not understand. They looked identical, the whisperers would say, but Rhaenyra could only see the swelling of her mother's stomach, bulging and ready to would not be her, not now or ever. She refused to be nothing but a brooding mare, chained to the marriage bed.

Vhagar lowered her head, her pupils thinning as she let out a huff of air so hot that Rhaenyra almost dropped the sword. Her uncle would murder her twice over if she did, so her hands gripped tighter. She stared up at the great big beast, no fear present, no room for it past her own ambition. The voices whispered louder, guiding her, beckoning her, and forcing away all else but the crescendo of a dragon's breath.

"I am not Visenya," Rhaenyra whispered, and Vhagar only watched as she approached, carrying a blade that was not hers and claiming a dragon that could be. "And I am not destined for her crown." Rhaenyra lifted her hand up, lowering the blade in her other. Despite its nature of steel, it was heavy and it was a wonder her uncle could swing it with such ease. "But would you still ride with me?"

She waited with bated breath, understanding that she was moments from knowing. She blocked out the fear, resolve nearly overpowering her. She had an egg that would not hatch, but she'd take claim another birthright. She'd take claim to a dragon and feel free from the constraints that kept her wingless.

Vhagar moved, and the ground of the dragon pit vibrated with her crushing weight. The rocks and pebbles and old dry bones shook. Rhaenyra did not. She stared straight into Vhagar's eyes and kept her hand held up, waiting for her.

The dragon opened her gaping jaws, opened them, revealing the teeth that had torn apart grown knights. She was terrified, and she wondered if Vhagar could sense it. Confidence battled with fear, and the latter must have lost, for the dragon closed its jaws and Rhaenyra's fingers brushed along the rough scales of her snout.

Her eyes closed and Rhaenyra leaned into the dragon, her lips curled into a relieved smile. Giant, roaring bonfires could have easily erupted from Vhagar's jaw when she exposed fangs as large as swords. When she moved, talons sharper than knives sunk into the ground, sending dust and dirt into the air. She had a tail that could have destroyed the castle walls. A gallant and beautiful creature, Rhaenyra thought, mesmerized by the beauty and the power.

"Fly with me," she whispered, thinking of Visenya, thinking of great talons and a gaping jaw, waiting for her to move.

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Daemon Targaryen had gifted her with jewels and exotic gifts from his travels. She kept them close to her at all times, in a maple-carved box by her bed. A necklace from essos, reflecting the moon itself. A carved doll from Highgarden, with hair so stunningly silver that it might just be a Targaryen as well. She would take out her treasures at night, play with her dolls, and impatiently await his next visit to the capital.

Dark Sister was not a gift and Rhaenyra was determined to return it to his rooms before the chiming of the morning bells. She had snuck along the stone floors, her shoes soundless across the ground, and held the great sword in her hands as delicately as one would an egg. She had thought she had made it, gotten away with it, her hands shaking with the weight of the blade as she went to place it back on the armor stand. She was moments from doing so when she heard the first clap echo against the walls of the room.

She nearly dropped the sword, fumbling with it, and might have cut a jagged slit across her own arm if not for the sheath.

Daemon Targaryen stood near the door, his long silver hair cupping his cheeks, slight waves reflecting the moonlight from the dimly lit room. He wore dark red, garments exquisitely Targaryen, and her cheeks nearly ignited and might have if she had less control. Even when she was born, she was a baby that never cried. Her mother had nearly thought her unable to, had thought her stillborn, but then her eyes opened, a deep lilac of her ancestors, and they named her Rhaenyra.

Daemon was barely one-and-twenty and already had gotten the blade bloodied. He was a trueborn warrior that she dreamed of being.

"I wasn't stealing it," Rhaenyra quickly defended, her small voice echoing her own shame.

Daemon only smirked, walking forward as his boots made soft footfalls against the stone, each step displaying languid gait. "No, no you already did that. Most thieves don't return to the place they've pillaged." He made a tisking sound, his lips still raised with his own amusement. She had never seen her uncle angered, at least not around her, but she had heard her father screaming at him from up upon the dais. Even on his throne, surrounded by his kingsguard and the melted blades of the houses of Westeros, Daemon had never looked worried.

Her uncle strived in the chaos.

"I had every intention of returning it," she said, her fingers squeezing around the hilt. Her arms were covered in scratches, her thighs bruised, having not thought enough to saddle a dragon before she pressed herself onto the scales.

Daemon walked closer, holding out his hand. She reluctantly raised Dark Sister and watched her uncle grab it from her fingers. She could still feel the warmth of it, even as the night chill had set in. "You wander about the castle after dark, break into my rooms, steal my sword," he listed, his eyes heavily lidded as he stared down at her whilst unsheathing his blade to inspect the vibrant shine of the Valyrian Steel. She winced as he listed her crimes of the night, wondering if her mother would finally raise a hand for her actions. "And rise the fiercest and largest dragon in all of Westeros." He let out a loud laugh, finally lowering to her height with a smile so affectionate that she felt her heart nearly burst. "Now that is a story I'd like to hear, princess."

Her lips spread into a wide grin, chaos spiraling in the room as she recounted everything, as she spoke of the scales that cut into her flesh, the feeling of the wind on her cheeks, the rush of the sea breeze just outside of King's Landing. All the while, Rhaenyra didn't notice the blood dripping down her arms, and her legs nearly buckling from the bruising on her inner thighs.

She'd do it all over again, just to fly, Rhaenyra had told him as she dragged herself from his rooms. He didn't offer to walk her back or dress her wounds or even acknowledge the hurt.

She was a dragon and dragons could make it on their own.