Meraxes

Meraxes hatched at Dragonstone, from one of the eggs House Targaryen had kept since before the Century of Blood. She was named for an old god of the Valyrian Freehold.

Rhaenys Targaryen made Meraxes her mount and flew on her more than her two brothers combined. She dreamed of one day crossing the Sunset Sea to find out what lay beyond it, though she never got to make that flight.

When Aegon and his sisters crossed the sea to conquer the Seven Kingdoms, Meraxes was one of the three dragons that carried the weight of the war. Not long after the landing, the castle at Rosby surrendered the moment its lords saw Rhaenys arrive on her back.

Orys Baratheon marched against Argilac Durrandon, the last Storm King, and Meraxes went with the column. The lords Fell, Errol, and Buckler ambushed the army and then hid among the trees; Rhaenys loosed Meraxes and the whole wood went up in flame.

Rhaenys's flights over the enemy let Orys know how many men Argilac had and how they were arrayed before the armies ever met. At the Last Storm, rain kept the dragons grounded, but even from the ground Meraxes burned Argilac's vanguard and his own household knights.

Argilac died in the battle. His daughter Argella shut herself inside Storm's End and named herself queen, but when Meraxes flew over the walls so Rhaenys could parley, it was Argella's own men who handed her over.

Only once in the whole war did all three Targaryen dragons fly together, in the battle that came to be called the Field of Fire. Meraxes, Vhagar, and Balerion burned four thousand men between them; King Mern died, and House Gardener ended with him.

Meraxes was also in the Riverlands when Torrhen Stark, the King in the North, brought his army south to face Aegon. Torrhen knelt without a single flame needing to be lit.

Aegon rode on to Oldtown and sent Rhaenys to bring Dorne to heel on her own. Meraxes crossed the Red Mountains and flew over Vaith, Godsgrace, and the Planky Town, but found them empty — the lords and their soldiers had already left. At Sunspear, Rhaenys met with Princess Meria Martell, and still they had to turn back with nothing settled.

The second time the Targaryens rode into Dorne, Rhaenys led again. Meraxes burned the Planky Town on the way to Sunspear, but the Dornish war dragged on for years without either side winning outright.

Rhaenys died at Hellholt with Meraxes. A scorpion put an iron bolt through the dragon's eye, and both fell onto the Dornish sand.

Years later, Prince Nymor Martell sent Meraxes's skull to King's Landing as a gesture of peace. It joined eighteen other Targaryen dragon skulls hanging along the throne room walls of the Red Keep.

The rest of her remains stayed at Hellholt, baking under the desert sun for decades, until King Robert Baratheon, once the war that put him on the throne was over, had them taken down and moved into the dungeons.