Chapter Text
“In the year 93 AC, Aemma Arryn – the fifth born child of Rodrik Arryn and the only one by his second wife, Princess Daella Targaryen – wed her cousin, Prince Viserys Targaryen – son of Baelon Targaryen, the heir to the Iron Throne, and his sister-wife, Alyssa.
Despite her young age of only one and ten, she brought forth a child within the first year of their marriage, on the seventh day of the seventh month in the year 94 AC. The babe, a boy, was named Baelon after his grandsire, who doted upon his very first grandchild. It was said that, as his son handed him the boy only hours after the birth, Baelon the Brave smiled for the first time since the death of his dear Alyssa, ten years prior, and named him, in a jest, Baelon the Babe.
Prince Daemon Targaryen, the boy’s uncle, did not seem to share his father’s fondness for the child. On the babe’s first name day feast, an extravagant affair the Old King himself hosted in the Red Keep, an argument erupted between Viserys and Daemon. Some said the younger prince accused Viserys of stealing the name he wished to give his first son, others that he confessed to coveting the Iron Throne for himself, though neither story seemed believable for a boy of three and ten.
The matter was resolved some days later, when the family returned to Dragonstone. Prince Daemon had retrieved an egg from the Dragonmont and insisted it be placed in Baelon’s cradle as a gesture of goodwill, despite both Viserys’s and Aemma’s protests. The boy’s egg never hatched, and some suggested it was due to his parentage: Aemma had never claimed a dragon, while Viserys had managed to ride the dragon Balerion three times before the Black Dread passed, less than a year after being claimed.
Their second child, however, proved otherwise. Born on the twenty second day of the tenth month of 97 AC, Rhaenyra Targaryen was regarded as a miracle by her parents, who had suffered many miscarriages after the birth of their first child. The egg her uncle Daemon provided her hatched the very first night the girl slept in her cradle. Rhaenyra and her she-dragon, who she later named Syrax, became rather inseparable from that moment on.
Prince Daemon seemed entirely besotted with the young princess. Not a fortnight past her birth, the nursemaids woke Dragonstone with their screams as they found the nursery empty. Daemon had strapped his niece to his chest and taken her to fly on his newly claimed mount, Caraxes. The wrath of Viserys and Aemma convinced Baelon the Brave to send his son to Runestone and wed him to Lady Rhea Royce, according to Queen Alysanne’s advice.
The Rogue Prince escaped the Vale quickly after his wedding, and his whereabouts remained unknown until 101 AC, when his father, Prince Baelon, died of a burst belly. Wishing to avoid a crisis of succession, the Old King Jaehaerys called for a Great Council to name a chosen heir. Prince Daemon gathered a small army of sworn swords and men-at-arms at Harrenhal in support of his brother, Prince Viserys, who was chosen as heir and ascended to the Iron Throne in the year 103 AC, following Jaehaerys’ death.”
– from Fire & Blood, Being a History of the Targaryen Kings of Westeros, written by Archmaester Gyldayn