They are saying those that lay their eyes on the ruins of Valyria are cursed.
Balerion the Black Dread is arguably the utmost well-known dragon in Westeros’ information. When Aenar Targaryen departed the Valyrian Freehold for the island of Dragonstone, he added a complete of 5 dragons along with him. Nevertheless, Balerion outlasted all of his counterparts, and took part in among the most pivotal events that normal the Seven Kingdoms for generations. He was ridden through Aegon the Conqueror whereas he got down to take over Westeros. His flaming breath melted the swords of the conquered into the Iron Throne. He become an machine of destruction all through the reign of Maegor the Merciless, and become final ridden via Viserys I Targaryen, performed in Home of the Dragon with assistance from Paddy Considine. Followers have seen many a dragon inside the spin-off’s first season, nevertheless Balerion’s legacy looms massive over all that would come after him, in addition to the world itself.
Earlier than he died of classic age in ninety 4 AC (After Conquest), Balerion become identified in the middle of the Seven Kingdoms as probably the most terrifying creature alive, and he changed into little question probably the most fearsome asset to Home Targaryen’s rule. As highly effective and dread-inducing as he was, Balerion become moreover the final dwelling creature to have seen the previous glory of Valyria earlier than it changed into introduced low by the use of the Doom. Throughout the reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, Balerion tried to return to the smoking ruins of the freehold, which inadvertently have turn into one of the horrible and tragic moments all via the reign of The Conciliator.
Jaehaerys’ sister Rhaena Targaryen changed into no stranger to tragedy. Her uncle Maegor I Targaryen murdered her brother/husband and made her one amongst his “Black Brides,” and despatched the youngest of her twin daughters by utilizing her former husband to Oldtown to coach as a Septa. Nevertheless, trying to keep away from Maegor’s legendary cruelty, Rhaena managed to flee her vicious husband alongside together with her daughter Aerea, placing ahead her help for Jaehaerys and bestowing him the Targaryen ancestral blade Blackfyre. When Maegor died abruptly atop the Iron Throne, reduce and stabbed to ribbons, the youthful Jaehaerys took his space and transform well-known as one of many best monarchs contained in the historical past of the Seven Kingdoms. Rhaena may spend a great deal of his reign on Dragonstone alongside together with her daughter Aerea. Nevertheless, Rhaena become a reclusive form, and refused to permit her daughter or closest confidants to go away the island. Rhaena’s psyche grew even darker in subsequent years, as her lover Elissa Farman left Dragonstone in opposition to Rhaena’s wants while stealing three dragon eggs from the island’s hatchery. This disillusioned Aerea particularly, who Farman had grown close to with and had promised to coach the way in which to sail. Rhaena and Jaehaerys’ mother Alyssa Velaryon moreover died within the birthing mattress quickly after, with Rhaena blaming the child’s father, Lord Rogar Baratheon. She remarked to the Storm Lord that if he ever remarried, she might kill him herself.
Balerion and Aerea Targaryen
Tragedy struck as soon as extra on the fingers of Androw Farman, Rhaena’s 1/3 husband who turn into overtly mocked through the household on Dragonstone and for whom Rhaena had no precise love for. Utilizing a wonderful poison known as the Tears of Lys, Androw poisoned Rhaena’s closest buddies on the island, killing all of them. He confessed to his crimes, nevertheless sooner than the infuriated queen could wish to have him seized, Androw jumped from a close-by window, killing him upon landing. In an act of revenge, Rhaena had her former husband’s body hacked into parts and fed to her dragon Dreamfyre. The so-known as “Queen contained in the East” fell right into a deep melancholy, incessantly locking herself in her room and lashing out in any respect individuals who tried to talk together with her.
The lack of Elissa Farman and the callousness of her mother weighed closely on Aerea Targaryen, who speedy grew to hate Dragonstone. She started to behave out and misbehave in defiance of her mom, abusing her servants and insulting any visitors in court docket. Regardless of their estranged relationship, Rhaena nonetheless believed that her daughter want to say a dragon of her private. Nevertheless, terror gripped each Dragonstone and King’s Touchdown when Rhaena rapidly discovered that her daughter had fled the island on the decrease again of Balerion himself, who had made his lair on Dragonstone after the lack of lifetime of Maegor the Merciless. Rhaena flew to King’s Touchdown, questioning her daughter had headed to the metropolis she incessantly dreamed of, nevertheless turn into educated that neither Aerea nor Balerion had been seen. King Jaehaerys despatched ravens to each nook of the Seven Kingdoms, demanding any information referring to the Targaryen princess or the Black Dread. Tales throughout the Slender Sea in Essos even commenced to crop up, however most of the evaluations had been each unreliable or fabricated inside the want of a reward.
The Loss of life of Aerea Targaryen
After over a yr, the Conciliator began to worry that his niece had died, thrown from Balerion’s returned wherever the dragon had chosen to fly. Nevertheless, on the thirteenth day of the fourth moon of fifty six AC, the blast of a horn had sounded in the middle of the metropolis to signal the sight of darkish wings, pitch black in the direction of the clouds overhead. The Black Dread had been gone for goodbye that some smallfolk had feared that Maegor the Merciless had risen from the grave and had claimed Balerion but once more, looking for revenge. As a substitute, the knights and servants of the Pink Hold decided Princess Aerea, practically completely unrecognizable, touchdown with Balerion close to Maegor’s Holdfast. She slid from the decrease again of the big dragon and begged for assist, her limbs “as skinny as sticks” and carrying little numerous tattered rags. Ser Lucamore Sturdy, Knight of the Kingsguard, lifted the girl into his fingers and immediately launched her to Grand Maester Benifer for scientific help. Ser Sturdy may later inform human beings that as he carried the princess, the heat from the fever wracking her physique can be felt even via his heavy armor. Her eyes had been bloodied, and Ser Sturdy additionally remarked that there was one thing alive contained in the princess, inflicting her to contort and thrash as she turn into carried.
Aerea Targaryen’s circumstance had worsened so dramatically that after King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne arrived to the Grand Maester’s chambers, he denied them entry, mentioning that they might not wish to see the princess in her cutting-edge nation. The only completely different particular person to see Aerea in her circumstance become Septon Barth, who changed into despatched inner to carry out the correct rites for the demise. King Jaehaerys and his Queen remained exterior the door, and hundreds crowded into the Pink Hold’s Sept to hope for Aerea Targaryen. Late into the night time, Septon Barth emerged from the Maester’s quarters to announce that the princess had died.
It turned introduced that Aerea had died from a horrible fever, and dialogue on the princess’ demise become saved to an absolute minimal. The most convenient information that recount Aerea’s final moments are these of Septon Barth, who revealed {that a} fever changed into finest the beginning of the torment she become going through. Barth remarked that Aerea’s pores and skin wasn’t simply scorching, it turned burning. When he laid a hand on her head to really feel for himself, he wrote that it turned as if he had “thrust it proper right into a pot of boiling oil.” Beneath her gaunt pores and pores and skin had been bulges that would enhance and retract. Milk of the poppy didn’t something for her ache, she begged for demise via “cracked and bleeding lips” and smoke rose from nearly each orifice on her physique. After a while, her eyes burst from the sheer warmth inside her.
The Actual Horrors of the Story
The best horror got here when Benifer and Barth tried to decrease the kid into a bathtub of ice. The sheer shock of the temperature is claimed to have stopped Aerea’s coronary heart, or no less than Septon Barth had hoped so, to spare her from what occurred subsequent. Creatures that had been residing inside the princess’ physique started to burst out, they usually terrified the Septon and Maester. They had been referred to in Barth’s writings as:
Worms with faces… snakes with palms… twisting, slimy, unspeakable issues that appeared to writhe and pulse and squirm as they got here bursting from her flesh. Some had been no greater than my little finger, however one no less than was so long as my arm… oh, Warrior shield me, the sounds they made…
Happily, the horrors that erupted from the princess’ corpse thrashed and died inside the ice tub, as that they had been actually creatures of smoke and flame. With that, the physique turned organized, and Aerea’s stays had been cremated in a funeral supplier in keeping with Valyrian subculture. Nevertheless, Septon Barth nonetheless questioned as to by which the princess and Balerion had gone. Stories in Westeros had didn’t yield penalties, and nobody inside the Free Cities had credible reminiscences about each. Balerion himself turn into actually too massive to miss, however how had he escaped phrase in each Westeros and Essos? The Septon had deduced that the inaccurate query had been requested. As a substitute of questioning by which Aerea had taken Balerion, it become additional appropriate to ask by which Balerion had taken Aerea. In any case, the princess changed into not even 13 however, and there was in actuality no approach she might have masterfully commanded the Black Dread on dragonback. Clearly, Balerion had lengthy gone wherever he thrilled, and Barth decided that the oldest and largest dwelling dragon tried to return to Valyria.
On the time of King Jaehaerys, Balerion was the one residing creature that had seen what Valyria turned like earlier than the Doom turned it right into a burning wasteland. Causes for the Doom of Valyria range, with some blaming their gods and others their follow of blood magic and different darkish arts. What is thought is that each hill for lots of of miles exploded, the volcanoes of the Fourteen Flames fired molten rock into the air, and dragonglass fell from the sky. Earthquakes ravaged great temples and palaces, and ash and smoke and hearth choked the sky so densely that dragons died midair and fell to earth. The Valyrian Peninsula changed into fragmented, rising the Smoking Sea, and adjoining japanese cities and islands have been obliterated by the use of tsunamis. For the reason that Doom, few have ventured close to the ruins on account of tales of demons roaming the place alongside aspect different unspeakable horrors and risks.
Regardless of this, Balerion under no circumstances seen the Doom for himself, as Aenar Targaryen’s daughter Daenys the Dreamer had seen the cataclysm in a prophetic dream, in the end essential the upstart dragonlord to are looking for refuge on Dragonstone. The Black Dread probably sought to return to by which he turned born, and easiest found lack of life and destroy. We’ll by no means understand what occurred while Balerion and Princess Aerea reached the ruins, nevertheless even the potent dragon didn’t return residence unscathed. When he touched down, probably the most fearsome dragon in Westeros’ historical past possessed a 9-foot gaping wound on his left aspect, along with a number of 1/2-healed scars. No matter must hurt Balerion on this style might in all probability do some factor it needed to the youthful princess, and given her scenario on her return, evil had infested her from head to toe.
To carry this horrific occasion from ever routine, King Jaehaerys positioned Balerion contained in the newly-finished Dragonpit and fashioned the order of Dragonkeepers. The group of seventy seven keepers may make sure that any attempt to steal away Home Targaryen’s dragons would fail. Moreover, the king declared a model new edict: Any ship getting back from the Smoking Sea could be denied entry to the Seven Kingdoms, and any Westerosi who tried to journey to the ruins of Valyria might be executed. Since then, simplest probably the most daring of adventurers have gotten remotely near Valyria, and the neighborhood is universally often called one in all lack of life and melancholy. Sadly for Princess Aerea Targaryen, she had no want nevertheless to be taken there, and we may additionally by no means understand what terrors she witnessed and become in the end plagued via.
