Rhaella Targaryen always knew that there was more behind her mother's death than what she was told. Alysanne was a healthy, strong woman, and yet she was gone in a couple of days because of a mysterious illness. Rhaella was only a child when the tra...
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KING'S LANDING
122AC
RHAELLAoften wondered how it felt, to be able to fly. The question crept into her mind whenever her eyes laid on the Dragonpit, or when she was lucky enough to see one of the Targaryen's dragon wandering between the clouds above the Red Keep. Having a dragon was one of Rhaella's biggest dreams, especially because she wanted to understand what it meant, to be able to touch the clouds, feeling the wind breeze caressing her skin while speeding through the sky. She had begged her mother numerous times to let her fly ― please, mommy, let me come with you, I'll be good ― but none of her pleads had ever worked. Her mother had firmly asserted more than once that she was too young to fly, and that it was dangerous.
It didn't help that most of Rhaella's cousins who were the same age as her had a dragon of their own. Jace, Aegon, Halaena ― even baby Luke ― they were all dragonriders. It didn't matter that some of the dragons were so young they couldn't be mounted yet ― like Vermax and Arrax. They would fly, eventually. Rhaella was the only exception, along with her cousin Aemond. The reason why Rhaella didn't have a dragon of her own was quite known. She wasn't born in King's Landing ― she had arrived in the capital when she was two years old ― and her mother's dragon was male, therefore no dragon egg was put in the crib beside her. Moreover, her mother didn't want her near unmounted dragons. She was only a child and those beasts were so massive she could get badly hurt if she tried to claim one of them now.
Rhaella didn't know why Aemond didn't have a dragon. He didn't like to talk about it ― whenever she brought out the theme he lashed out on her, and she had learned not to talk about dragons at all when she was near him. Moreover, it seemed like Aemond had been caught sneaking in the Dragonpit more than once, putting his life in an incredible danger, and Rhaella didn't want to encourage such behaviours. He could end up badly hurt, or worse, dead. She liked Aemond ― even though he was a bit mean sometimes, he was family. Her mother, along with her uncle the King, had always taught her that there was nothing more important than family. She had told her she should never give up on family like she did, and that she was lucky, because her brothers forgave her.
Alysanne Targaryen was the third child and only daughter of Baleon Targaryen and his sister-wife, Alyssa. She had a twin brother, Aegon, who died short before they both turned one. While Rhaella knew every detail of her mother's childhood ― how she used to fly above the Red Keep with Daemon on Caraxes and Aelyx, or how Viserys used to tell her stories about their ancestors to make her sleep, occasionally singing a lullaby ― she knew very little about what happened after that. Her mother rarely spoke to her about it and never started those kind of conversations if not asked. Rhaella could see that, while she would try to answer her questions with a smile, her eyes were filled with sadness. The young Princess never meant to make her mother sad, but she was also a very curious child, and moreover, she wanted to know more about her father.
