Rhaenys Targaryen daughter of Aemon Targaryen

She was born at Dragonstone, the only child of Prince Aemon Targaryen and Jocelyn Baratheon, with her mother's dark hair and the purple eyes of the Targaryens. As the firstborn of an heir to the throne, much of the court assumed she would one day sit the Iron Throne; her own grandmother, Queen Alysanne, called her their future queen the moment she was born.

At thirteen she claimed the dragon Meleys, and soon after joined King Jaehaerys on a royal progress that took her to the Shield Islands. There, at Greenshield, she asked her grandfather's blessing to marry Lord Corlys Velaryon, twenty years her senior, and the wedding took place the following year with Rhaenys arriving on dragonback.

When her father died, the throne needed to name a new Prince of Dragonstone, and Rhaenys's name was weighed alongside her uncle Baelon's. King Jaehaerys chose Baelon instead, passing over Rhaenys and the child she was then carrying; she herself objected to the decision, and her husband resigned his post as Master of Ships before the couple withdrew to Driftmark. Months later her daughter Laena was born, and two years after that her son Laenor.

When Baelon died in 101 AC, the king summoned a great council at Harrenhal to settle the succession once and for all. Rhaenys and her son gathered notable support, including from her uncle Boremund Baratheon and several houses of the realm, but the assembled lords again favored a male claimant: Rhaenys's nephew, Viserys. It was then that the court jester coined the nickname that would follow her the rest of her life.

After Queen Aemma Arryn's death, a match was proposed between Rhaenys's daughter Laena and King Viserys, but he chose Alicent Hightower instead; Rhaenys's family, seeing it as a third slight, stayed away from the wedding. Years later a marriage did come to pass: her son Laenor wed the king's heir, Princess Rhaenyra, and the couple had three children.

In that same year, 120 AC, Rhaenys lost both her children: Laena died in childbirth, and Laenor was murdered at a fair in Spicetown.

Once war broke out between Rhaenyra and her half-brother's supporters, Rhaenys sat on the queen's council and flew Meleys to watch over the naval blockade of the Gullet. When word came that Aemond Targaryen had killed Lucerys Velaryon, she and her husband stopped the dead boy's brother from flying out to avenge him, and Rhaenyra, undone by the loss, put the couple in charge of her war council.

Days later, she flew to defend Rook's Rest, besieged by enemy forces. A trap awaited her there, laid by Ser Criston Cole: Aegon II on Sunfyre and Aemond on Vhagar descended on her at once. Against one dragon she might have stood a chance, but not two; even so, she did not flee, and charged them hoping to bring Aegon down with her.

She and Meleys died in the fighting, while the king was left badly burned and his dragon's wing shattered. The body found among the wreckage was too charred for anyone to confirm it was hers. Her husband, furious that Rhaenyra had sent her in her own stead and had forbidden their children from riding with her, carried the grief afterward; Rhaenys's death would open the way for the Blacks to later take King's Landing.