I don't think anyone is too surprised that this is the next story. I planned on having this posted after the finale of Verdant Green. But I tripped into a writing block. So this is getting released early. I'm basing this on the show timeline, as I feel like I can do more with it. That being said, I hope you have fun. 

Also, obligatory ‘I will be posting this to Royal Road’. 

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When one recounts the life of Rhaenyra Targaryen, it is hard to ignore the influence those around her had on the ruler she would become. Daemon Targaryen, her uncle. Lord Lyman Beesbury, a trusted advisor. Even the Dowager Queen, Alicent, can be found in many books written on Rhaenyra's life. 

However, if there is one person in Rhaenyra's life that can be considered overlooked, it is that of Ael Targaryen. The second and last daughter of Viserys Targaryen and Aemma Targaryen, born 102 AC. One would usually not look at her younger sister as such a crucial catalyst, yet it is possible that Ael may be the most important person of Rhaenyra's development into the Queen she would become. 

Boring! 

I beg your Pardon? 

You want to tell the story of my life? Yeah, no, I don't need some narrator telling that. Now, shoo, shoo. You'd tell it in the most boring way possible. You'd need to know me. All of me. 

Yep, I'm Ael. I've had a few other names. You might know me as Hinum. Or Kathrine. Or Elen. Really, I've gone by a lot of names. And as much as I'd love to punch some other version of myself, that's largely irrelevant. 

This the only time I'm going to Deadpool this, by the way. But yes, my name is Ael Targaryen, younger sister to Rhaenyra Targaryen. 

Now, Game of Thrones is not one of those universes I'd wanted to be in. But if I had canon knowledge, I might have a shot. The problem? 

I was born more than a hundred years before the show. Meaning that canon knowledge? Basically useless. How do I deal with that? 

Well, it is better to show, than it is to tell. 

Am I getting my job back? 

No, you're going learn about my real history, not the one you were taught. Because you were damn right about me being underrated! Though I admit that is my own fault. 

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“It's a girl!” The words were nearly drowned out by the infant's cries. Viserys could already see sparse silver hair, thin on her hair. The cries were vigorous and loud. Quickly, the baby was cleaned, wrapped in swaddling cloth. 

Soon, Viserys was holding his second daughter in his hands. She was a miracle, and he loved her already. She wasn't a male heir, but it gave him hope. 

“She's beautiful,” he said, bringing his newborn daughter down so his wife and Queen, Aemma, could see her daughter. Slowly, their daughter's wails ceased, eyes opening, revealing a pair of violet eyes. Her Valerian features showed strongly, as she looked up at the two of them with sparkling curiosity. 

“Yes, she is,” Aemma breathed, her voice strained and exhausted, but still warm. “Our little Ael.” 

The little girl let out a giggle, wiggling in the cloth that surrounded her. 

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Well, being a baby again sucked. There wasn't anything I could do about it, as I was trapped in a body that could barely move around, hardly see, and couldn't process most noises. 

All you could do was cry whenever you were uncomfortable. 

I'd been able to pick up little bits of information. I had scraps of information at present. Not many, but I could force them into a picture. A low resolution picture, branded, but still a picture. 

It was not a pretty picture. 

Of course, being a member of a noble house sounds nice. Decent standards of living compared to everyone else. It wasn't much of an upside. But it was an upside. 

But being a member of the fantasy Hapsburgs? 

Less so. 

Yep. I was somehow a Targaryen. Thankfully, my name wasn't Daenerys, or any other Targaryen I recognized. At least, as far as I could tell, my name was Ael. 

Which was a blessing. 

Maybe. The Targaryen's were not exactly the most stable leaders of Westeros, as far as I could tell. 

I looked up at the blur before me. I could barely understand what she was saying, before she lowered something into my crib. 

It was surprisingly warm, yet at the same time, I could feel almost, comforted, by its presence. My fingers rubbed against it, feeling almost rocky scales. 

Was this a dragon egg?

Okay, I accept this silver lining. 

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I was two years old. Not two name days, or whatever it was that Westeros used as its system, two years. I was going to be stubborn on this one. I would get them to use an easier term. 

But that wasn't important right now. The real problem was I was being held by my Uncle, Daemon. 

And I did not like my Uncle. At all. 

The man just gave me bad vibes. That, and I'd spent as much time as possible picking my mind. On everything I knew about a Song of Ice and Fire. 

Which wasn't much. But the name tickled something in my memory. 

Or maybe it was because I didn't like how my older sister seemed to always seek Daemon's attention. I could see why to an extent. The man had ‘I can fix him’ energy oozing off his every pour. 

Shame that was what I considered a red flag being put at the top of a mountain. 

I squirmed in his grip, clearly displeased. But his grasp was firm, clearly not wanting to drop his brother's kid. I could respect that. 

But I also didn't want him holding me. So I was going to solve the problem in the only way a two year old could. 

“I'm a dwagon!” I declared in the happiest, childish voice I could. 

“What?” Instead of putting me down, Daemon just gave me a confused look, a sign he didn't know anything about a two-year-old. 

Chomp!

The teeth of a two-year-old, versus the flesh of an adult. 

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Poor man didn't have a chance. 

To his credit, the man didn't drop me, but I was scooped away by Otto Hightower. Hand of the King of my father, the man was probably more of a fixture in my life, even more so than my Uncle was. 

And that didn't mean I liked him anymore than I liked Daemon. 

“I'm a dwagon!” To his credit, he tried to put me down. He just wasn't fast enough. 

Chomp!

With my thirst for blood sated, and Otto placing me on the ground, allowing me to toddle around in my cute dress. 

Yeah, I was a girl now. Not exactly great, given that this was Westeros. Princess or not, that was yet another case of God shitting in my dinner once again. Though it wasn't like I'd be considering the situation as unideal from the start. 

Still, I have to make the best of the situation with the resources I have available to me. 

Smiling, feeling proud of myself I began to make my way over to my new mother. She looked pretty, but at the same time, I was worried about her. She looked sickly. At least, she gave off those vibes. And it wasn't because she was sick, either. At least, it wasn't anything I recognized.

Not that I was a doctor or nurse in my old life. It really could be anything. I hoped it was nothing. But I doubt it was. 

Making my way up to her, waving my arms and flexing my fingers. She reached down, picking me up into her arms. 

“I'm a dwagon, mama!” I said, getting some alarming looks from those around me as I spoke. 

“Of course you are, sweetie,” she smiled, pulling my close. Like I said, my thirst for blood had been sated. My thirst for cuddles? 

Not so much. 

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Rhaenyra considered herself lucky in many respects. She was a Princess, an older sister, and had a good best friend. 

Of course, one of those was causing problems right now. It was the older sister bit. Ael, was, interesting. Her younger sister would likely start driving both her parents gray in a few years. She was already having her Septa start pulling her hair out. They tended to have separate lessons, though they had a few because she had to ‘set a good example’ for her younger sister. Or help her with her work. 

Not that Ael needed the help. Her sister was smart. When she was in a class, granted, one that Ael deemed worth her time, she was outdoing her and Alicent in some subjects. Knitting hadn’t been one of them. But Ael had attended those classes even if she didn’t need to. She was only three name days old. 

She’d learned quickly, making herself a nice sash. One she was now using to carry her egg with her at all times. 

But Ael’s habit of skipping many of the classes she did have left Rhaenyra with few places to hide herself. She usually didn’t consider the library, but at this point, she was bored, and getting desperate. 

What she hadn’t expected was to see Ael, sitting at a table, drawing on some formerly blank parchment. 

“Busy?” Rhaenyra enjoyed the little noise of surprise that came from Ael’s mouth as she bounced in the chair. 

“Rhaenyra!” Ael whined, as Rhaenyra looked over the pictures she had been drawing. The one to her left looked finished. “Don’t tell the fuzz I’m here, please?” 

Rhaenyra had no idea why her sister called her Septa ‘the fuzz’. It was one of the many oddities her sister had. It wasn’t that she was smart. It was that there was almost, a madness to her. At least she’d finally started to leave her phase of biting people behind. 

“I won’t. So long as you don’t tell the Septa’s where I am. And show me you’re keeping up with your High Valyarian,” Rhaenyra put a finger to her lips, as Ael nodded in agreement, turning back to her drawings. “What are you drawing, if you don’t mind me asking?” 

“Dancing dragons,” Ael answered, keeping her cadence perfect despite the complexities of the tongue, as Rhaenyra took in the drawing to the left. It seemed that her sister had a very unique, and incorrect, view of what a dragon looked like. 

The first, near the left upper corner, was covered in yellow scales, with a lighter patch running along its stomach. A horn rested a top of it’s head, alongside two small, thin bands. Unlike a dragon, this creature had arms. Which, compared to it’s rounded, almost fat body, seemed powerful and coiled. A small pair of wings on it’s back, at the very least, marked it as more draconic than the thing it was fighting. 

That was gaged and angular, lacking any wings at all. Unless the blade like protrusions on its arms and back were meant to be wings. Its body was a deep, dark color, with yellow on it’s belly and red on the rest of its torso. Even the head came to an angular and almost brutal point, like a sharpened battering ramp with a yellow star upon its snout. 

“How would it be able to fly?” Rhaenyra mused, mostly to herself. Ael, though, had clearly heard what she had said. 

“By moving very, very fast, sister,” Ael said calmly, looking back up at her. There was a twinkle in her eye, as if she knew something Rhaenyra didn’t. It was a look that Rhaenyra was already growing accustom to. “Though the full mechanics are a bit more, complicated than that.” 

“I’ll have to show you what a real dragon looks like,” Rhaenyra hummed, rubbing Ael’s hair before looking at the picture she was working on. 

Or perhaps, she didn’t need to do such a thing. The picture was wreathed in lightning, crimson and angry. And at the center was not dance. It was a clash. One of the combatants could have been mistaken for Balerion, the Black Dread, if it weren’t for the shape of his horns and the red lightning coating its wings and talons. 

What it was locked in battle with? Was not a dragon. Not any dragon she had ever seen. It did not have a pair of wings, but rather, two. Its scales were gray, almost like stone, rather than scales, while the wings gleaned gold. The same red lightning coated it’s body, channeled and extending its massive claws. But that wasn’t the oddest feature of the supposed dragon. It sported five heads with five necks, each like a serpent, coiling around its enemy, teeth sinking into its flesh. 

“Sister, what is this?” Rhyaenyra found herself asking. How had she even found the time to make this? It was more like a painting, rather than a simple drawing. And yet, Rhyaenyra could almost hear the crashing of thunder in her eardrums. 

“Bayle the Dread, challenging Placidusax the Dragonlord,” there was a twinge in Ael’s voice, one that Rhyaenyra was not used to. Usually, her sister was happy, largely smiles towards just about everyone, with only a few notable exceptions. But the look on her face now was deadly serious. It was not the expression that one that had only been three name days old should have been able to make. And yet, there it was, written on her face. “That is something you need to understand, sister. That when dragons dance, all that results is ruin.” 

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I never quite figured out what that was all about. I wasn’t even a good drawer or painter, so I had no idea how I did that, close to a year later. 

Apparently, the Targaryen line has had members that could supposedly, see the future. That was kinda correct, as I knew what was going to be happening more than a century down the line. But a proper Seer? I could spin it as such, if I really needed too. I’d started to piece together a few things. Where exactly I was on the timeline. Good news? Dragons were here, and this was close to the peak of their number. The bad news? 

This was right before the Dance. Where the Targaryen’s pissed away their dragons, and most of their house, in a brutal civil war the line never quite recovered from. Which, at the end of the day, more or less guaranteed that I would be caught in the crossfire of. Best to avoid that, really. How I was going to do that? Not a single clue. What I know is garbled. I never paid too much attention to what went on beyond the show, after all. And naturally, the things that happened during this time period were lost to history, hardly mentioned by the cast of the show. Understandable from the perspective of the show itself, but it was kinda going to make this harder. 

But today? I had a fair more different goal in mind. 

Petting Caraxes, the Blood Wyrm. Or, as he should have been called, the most dangerous noodle. 

What, I was operating on the hardware of a four-year-old, sue me! 

And it was hard not too. It wasn’t like I got to see dragons all that often. And Caraxes was epically noteworthy. His body was, well, like a worm. Elongate and thin, covered in red scales, almost like a snake with wings. But Daemon, probably halfway drunk, had left him in one of the larger courtyards, all alone. 

Most of the people were keeping their distance from such an imposing dragon. But not I! I was going to knock something off my bucket list, here and now! 

For I was going to give a dragon chin scratches and belly rubs! 

Oh come on, like you wouldn’t! 

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"Have you seen my youngest?" Viserys asked. Rhaenyra was plenty of trouble on her own somedays, but Ael could be something else. For a girl as young as four name days old, she could be quite the problem child.

Ael was smart, that he did not doubt. The young girl was almost a genius, if a bit wild. The Septa's had a hard time keeping the girl in place for lessons. But Ael preferred to learn on her own. The number of times he had found her in the library sleeping, curled up next to her Dragon egg, was considerable.

That was another of the young girl's interests. Dragons. She consumed every scrap of knowledge she could get her hands on.

"I have, your grace," one of the guards spoke, an undercurrent of fear in his voice. "Your brother might want to see this as well."

Viserys felt his eyes move to his half-drunk brother, who also seemed to be somewhat surprised. What did his brother have to do with this?

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The scene before him was madness. He wanted to rush forward, to pull his youngest away from the threat. But.

"Who's a good danger noodle? Who's the most dangerous of noodles? That's you! That's you!"

If someone had told him what he was seeing, he'd assume they were a mummer and a drunk. If someone had told him that the fearsome Blood Wyrm Caraxes would be rolled over onto his back, as Viserys youngest daughter cooed over it in perfect High Valyrian, like she was petting a cat rather than a massive dragon, he'd have them locked up for making such a ridiculous accusation.

And yet, that was what lay before King Viserys and the eyes of his brother, Daemon. As for Daemon? The Rogue Prince looked several cups of wine more sober, mouth hanging slightly open.

"What am I even looking at?"

“Look at you! You are such a dangerous noodle!” Ael continued to gush, continuing to run her fingers along the underside of Caraxes chin. She was either uncaring for the crowd that had begun to grow around her.

Or quite possibly, just didn’t care. As far as Viserys dismayed, either was equally possible.