Rhaegal

The egg that became Rhaegal was so dark a green it looked almost black, crossed with veins of bronze that seemed to shift when someone turned it in their hands. Illyrio Mopatis gave it to Daenerys Targaryen as a wedding gift, along with two others, claiming all three had come from far away, out of the Shadow Lands.

When Khal Drogo died, the maegi Mirri Maz Duur spoke of a blood price owed for a life returned. Daenerys burned her husband's body on a pyre, bound Mirri Maz Duur herself to the wood, and set the three eggs among the flames before stepping into the fire herself. By dawn, three hatchlings had come out of the ashes: Rhaegal, Viserion, and Drogon.

Crossing the Red Waste, Daenerys settles on a name for the green-scaled hatchling: Rhaegar, the brother she never knew, dead before she was born.

In Qarth, Rhaegal and his two siblings become the wonder the whole city talks about. When news reaches her of the usurper's death, Daenerys holds Rhaegal in her lap: the dragon stares fixedly at the messenger with molten bronze eyes and opens his jaws to show black teeth as sharp as needles.

Rhaegal is already about the size of a hunting dog by the time Daenerys reaches Slaver's Bay. There she buys the Unsullied and turns them against the masters who sold them; in the middle of that uprising, Jhiqui slips Rhaegal's chains so he can fall on the slavers.

Over the years, Rhaegal and his siblings grow wilder and start misbehaving: one careless moment is enough for him to bite Irri, and his head now outsizes a horse's. When word spreads that Drogon has killed a child near Meereen, Daenerys orders Viserion and Rhaegal chained and locked away in a cellar beneath the city.

Chaining Rhaegal proves harder than his brother: the walls are thick, but he still hears Viserion's roars and fights back. They catch him sunning himself on a terrace, wrap him in a net of chains, and need three days to get him down a back stair while he thrashes and bites the whole way. Six men come away with serious burns before the beast is finally shut in. Around the same time, the first rumors that the dragons have returned start reaching Westeros.

Prince Quentyn Martell arrives in Meereen set on stealing one of the chained dragons to carry it back to Westeros. Rhaegal will not be ridden: he wraps the prince in dragonflame and burns him alive.

The same fire that kills the prince snaps his chains. Rhaegal escapes the cellar and makes his nest in the Great Pyramid of Yherizan, moving through its shadows like some jewel-draped, orange-hued shape. The pyramid is left in ruins, and those who lived inside it die or flee. According to Ser Barristan Selmy, by then Rhaegal has shown himself the more dangerous of the two brothers, ahead of Viserion.