The Wild Dragon

Chapter 1 - Alaera

Princess Alaera Targaryen could not remember a time she had not felt guilty. For no one would think to blame the first child of a Prince of the Realm and his beautiful young wife for being a girl. But no one could ever forgive a second living child, born to the now king and his queen after many lost pregnancies and stillbirths, for being born a girl. Nor could that child forgive herself every time she heard her mother, again and again over the years, screaming from the pains of birth only to be left without a living baby son in her arms. She most definitely blamed herself for the untimely death of her mother, if not for the one of her long awaited brother Baelon shortly after. She thought she saw accusation in the eyes of both her father and her older sister.... If only she herself had been a boy, none of this sadness and lost hope would have plagued her loved ones. For she dearly loved them all even when they paid little attention to her. What value did a second daughter have for a royal family in search of a son and heir to the throne of the Seven Kingdoms?

At only seven years of age, after losing her loving mother and seeing her older sister Rhaenyra become heir to the throne of her father, did Alaera see an opportunity arise: as second born she could evade the traditional roles of a princess and, instead, become who she wanted to be. And there was only one thing Alaera Targaryen wanted to be: free. If only her love for her kin didn't keep her forever entwined in their destinies.

On her way to freedom, a nine years old Alaera had effortlessly bonded the - until then wild - dragon Rexhor, who had hatched in the Dragonpit some forty years prior out of a clutch said to have come from Vermithor and Silverwing. It had been the first time Alaera had truly felt acknowledged by her father. Everyone knew the younger princess spent much of her time in the Dragonpit, where she had even been found asleep as early as with only four years of age. Unlike all other babies of their family, Alaera did not receive a dragon egg in her cradle. After landing for the first time in the Dragonpit on Rhexor's back, she did ask her father about it. He then smiled abashedly and said he had wanted her to choose her own, that he knew her will would be stronger than to have her dragon selected by fate, that she would make her own choice when she found her match in a dragon. Ever since that day he was often heard speaking fondly about Alaera as his "wild child" as he obviously loved her despite her fault in missing some essential male parts. Let it not be thought that Viserys ever said anything of that sort to anyone.

Never did the king utter a word of disappointment about his Alaera. None of the guilt that clouded her bright eyes had ever come from her loving father. After all, she was the one that resembled him most of all the children he fathered in his life: just as beautiful as her mother Aemma Arryn had been, Alaera loved to read the histories of Westeros (after but also before the Conquest) and, even more, all there could be found about old Valyria, about its gods and especially about its dragons. Yes, she had an energy and a restlessness that reminded him more of his brother Daemon, but her pacifying nature was most definitely inherited from him. That trait forced her to spend much of her teenage and adult years flying between King's Landing and Dragonstone as the only constant tie between King and his chosen heir. For although the seven year age difference between sisters meant there had been no great friendship between them growing up, love had never lacked. More than once, after the death of their mother, had the young Alaera cried herself to sleep in the arms of her older sister.

Rhaenyra hadn't paid her very much attention growing up and later, so caught up in her new role as future queen, even less. The added drama of their father marrying Rhaenyra's childhood friend, Alicent Hightower, and fathering not one, but three sons (and a daughter) made the rift between the once true friends even bigger. It didn't help that her older sister was trapped in a marriage of convenience with their Velaryon cousin who, everyone knew, preferred his male companions in every way. Or that their three sons resembled the handsome Sir Harwin Strong and lacked the silver-blond hair and purple eyes of both Targaryen and Velaryon bloodlines. That is not to say that the relationship between the sisters was cold. Rhaenyra knew beyond a doubt that her little sister would forever be her ally, even if the whole world would be against her.