Silverwing

Legend holds that Silverwing hatched from an egg her sister Rhaena had left in little Alysanne's cradle, back in the year 36 after the Conquest.

When the royal family had to flee the capital during Maegor's reign, Silverwing carried Alysanne to Maidenpool. Before that, her flames, together with Sunfire's and Vermithor's, had lit King Aenys I's funeral pyre.

Alysanne was already flying her by 48 AC. That same year, after Maegor's death, Silverwing crossed the sky to King's Landing alongside Jaehaerys and Rhaena, so that Jaehaerys could claim the throne.

The following year, Jaehaerys and Alysanne fled on their dragons to Dragonstone to marry in secret. They stayed there through the rest of the regency.

Jaehaerys spent much of his reign visiting his lords and holding audiences across the realm, riding Vermithor. Alysanne always flew beside him on Silverwing. In 54 AC they reached Oldtown for the High Septon's funeral, and Silverwing settled atop the Hightower, fanning its flames with her wings and startling the whole city.

That same year, when Rhaena flew into the capital on Dreamfyre searching for her daughter Aerea, Silverwing and Vermithor took to the air roaring, and for a moment it was feared the two dragons might come to blows.

In 58 AC, Alysanne set out alone on a progress north. She began at White Harbor, where tens of thousands of northmen watched Silverwing with as much awe as fear. Lord Alaric Stark, invoking the burning of Harrenhal, forbade her from crossing into Winterfell, though Alysanne eventually talked him into approaching the dragon.

Tired of waiting for her husband, the queen carried on to the Wall, stopping at Last Hearth and other keeps along the way, including the village later renamed Queenscrown in her honor. The men of Castle Black stood frozen before the dragon, who herself seemed ill at ease so far north, hissing and growling at every gust of wind.

She was considered a relatively gentle creature, friendly even with strangers. Alysanne herself once said of her: "Send me to the ends of the earth and wed me to the King of Mossovy or the Lord of the Grey Waste, and Silverwing will bring me home again to Jaehaerys."

In 92 AC, a disagreement with Jaehaerys over his decisions on the succession led Alysanne to fly Silverwing to Dragonstone, where she remained for two years.

The reconciliation came about through the intervention of her own daughter, the septa Maegelle. Before that, in 93 AC, Alysanne rode Silverwing for the last time in her life; after landing, she dismounted with difficulty and wept.

Alysanne died in the year 100, and Silverwing was left without a rider.

Archmaester Gyldayn later wrote of what flying had meant to her: "Silverwing had borne her to Oldtown and to the Wall and a thousand places in between, and Alysanne had seen them all as few others ever would, from the clouds."

After Alysanne's death, Silverwing returned to Dragonstone and settled to nest in one of the caves of Dragonmont.

She remained there, riderless, until the year 129, when the civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons broke out and Prince Jacaerys Velaryon began searching for new riders for the island's masterless dragons, convinced that his mother Queen Rhaenyra's side needed more dragons than it already had.

Unlike almost every other dragon on Dragonstone, Silverwing appears not to have killed any of those who tried to tame her. The jester Mushroom claimed he tried it himself, though all he got out of it were breeches on fire.

The one who finally succeeded was a soldier known as Ulf the White.

Soon after, rider and dragon fought in the Battle of the Gullet alongside other winged beasts. Later, during the fall of King's Landing to Rhaenyra's side, Silverwing landed beside Vermithor on Rhaenys's Hill, before the Dragonpit.

At the Battle of Tumbleton, Ulf and Hugh Hammer, Vermithor's rider, switched sides and abandoned Queen Rhaenyra. Together with Tessarion, the dragon of Prince Daeron Targaryen, they set the city ablaze.

When the second Battle of Tumbleton broke out, Silverwing and Vermithor were south of the city. Their riders could not reach them, and both dragons took to the air on their own at the sound of battle.

Silverwing circled the area for hours and did not land until nightfall, while the rest of the dragons killed one another below.

It is said that as Vermithor lay dying, Silverwing came down beside him and tried to nudge him back into the air with her snout, though Archmaester Gyldayn suspects it is nothing more than a tale spread by singers.

After Ulf's death, Lord Unwin Peake offered a thousand gold dragons to any highborn knight who managed to tame Silverwing. Three came forward: the first lost an arm, the second burned to death, and the third backed out at the last moment.

Silverwing left the ruins of Tumbleton and settled on an island in Lago Rojo.

The Privy Council even considered having King Aegon II claim her as his mount after Sunfyre's death, but by then the king was too weak to reach her lair.

Silverwing remained at Lago Rojo through Aegon III's regency, and died at some point during his reign.