Vhagar

Vhagar hatched at Dragonstone during the Bleeding Years, and the maesters named it after an old god of the Valyrian Freehold. It grew up for war: when Aegon Targaryen decided to cross the narrow sea, Visenya claimed it as her mount, and the two of them were never apart after that.

During the campaign against the Vale, Vhagar rode with the fleet Daemon Velaryon led toward Gulltown. Ships of House Arryn sank that fleet and killed Daemon, but Visenya set what was left of the enemy navy ablaze from the air. The naval defeat pushed the Three Sisters into rebellion against the Arryns and cut off any attack by sea.

Visenya then flew Vhagar to the Trident, where Aegon gathered all three dragons before the army of Torrhen Stark. The King in the North chose to yield rather than risk his people against the beasts, turning down his brother Brandon Snow's plan to sneak into the camp by night and kill them. With the Vale, Vhagar crossed mountains no army could pass and landed at the Eyrie itself; young King Ronnel Arryn climbed onto its back while his mother Sharra knelt before Visenya, and with that surrender the kings of Mountain and Vale came to an end.

In the south, Vhagar flew alongside Balerion and Meraxes at the Field of Fire, the one battle of the Conquest where all three dragons burned together. Between them they killed four thousand men and wiped out House Gardener along with its king. Years later, after Rhaenys and Meraxes died in Dorne, Visenya and Vhagar spent two years burning every Dornish town they found, except Sunspear.

When King Aegon I died in 37 AC, it was Vhagar who lit his funeral pyre with its own fire. Four years later, at the wedding where King Aenys named his eldest son Prince of Dragonstone, Visenya stormed off; it was said the moon turned as red as blood when Vhagar crossed it that night.

When the Faith Militant rose up and Aenys fled to Dragonstone, Visenya asked him for leave to burn the Starry Sept in Oldtown with Vhagar. The king refused. He died soon after, early in 42 AC, and within the hour Visenya left the island to fly to Pentos, where her son Maegor lived in exile.

With Maegor crowned, Visenya flew back with him toward King's Landing over Blackwater Bay, and before his wedding to Tyanna of the Tower she flew to Driftmark to talk Alyssa Velaryon into attending. When the Faith kept resisting the new reign, Visenya used Vhagar to burn the villages of five minor houses in a single night, Lychester among them.

Visenya died at Dragonstone in 44 AC. For the first time since the Conquest, Vhagar had no one left to answer to.

Vhagar soon found a new rider: Prince Baelon, son of King Jaehaerys I, claimed it and flew alongside his siblings Aemon and Alyssa on Caraxes and Meleys. Meleys was faster, but few argued about which of the three was the biggest dragon.

In the Fourth Dornish War, Vhagar helped burn the Dornish fleet together with Vermithor and Caraxes; a spear went through one of its wings without doing serious harm. By nightfall the ships were still burning, as if the sea itself were covered in lit candles.

At the Myrish Butchery, Baelon flew it down on Tarth howling for vengeance, and Vhagar cut through his enemies in fire. The prince died at King's Landing in 101 AC, and Vhagar was riderless once again.

In 105 AC, a twelve-year-old girl named Laena Velaryon became Vhagar's third rider. When she married Prince Daemon Targaryen, the two of them crossed the narrow sea together and toured Pentos, Volantis, Qohor, and Norvos; in every Free City people came out just to watch Vhagar fly alongside Caraxes.

Back at Driftmark, Vhagar, Caraxes, and Syrax often flew together, with Laena, Daemon, and Princess Rhaenyra each on their own dragon.

Laena died in 120 AC, and Vhagar went without a rider for the third time, until Prince Aemond Targaryen, only ten years old, managed to claim it soon after.

By 129 AC, when civil war broke out between Viserys I's children, Vhagar was nearly as large as Balerion and no living dragon in Westeros matched it. Aemond flew it to Storm's End seeking Lord Borros Baratheon's support for King Aegon II, and there he ran into Prince Lucerys Velaryon; Lord Borros forbade him from attacking while both were under his roof.

Lucerys left on his dragon Arrax, and Aemond followed on Vhagar. The two dragons clashed amid lightning over Shipbreaker Bay, and Vhagar beat Arrax quickly; the young prince's severed head was recovered days later along with the rest of his body.

Aemond kept flying Vhagar through the war, and at the Battle of Rook's Rest he and Sunfyre ambushed Meleys and its rider, Princess Rhaenys. Aegon II came out of that fight so badly hurt he could no longer rule, and Aemond took over as regent in his place.

Convinced that Daemon Targaryen, who was gathering troops at Harrenhal, was the real threat, Aemond left King's Landing undefended and flew there, only to find the castle empty: Daemon had already ridden out to attack the capital. Aemond then fell out with the Hand of the King, Criston Cole, over how to run the war, and went off to burn the Riverlands on his own; without Vhagar to cover them, Cole's army was surrounded and destroyed at the Butcher's Ball.

Daemon and his dragon Caraxes, together with Nettles and Sheepstealer, went hunting for Aemond, who was still terrorizing the Trident; Lord Manfryd Mooton let them use Maidenpool as a base, feeling safer with them there against any attack by Vhagar. After the Battle of Ladera, Daemon waited at Harrenhal, and thirteen days later Vhagar appeared in the sky with Aemond and his lover Alys Rivers aboard. Vhagar and Caraxes killed each other over the Gods Eye, but not before Daemon drove Dark Sister into the last eye Aemond had left. Vhagar's body was left in the water and wasn't recovered until years afterward, still strapped to its saddle with Aemond's bones; it had lived a hundred and eighty-one years.