A Lioness Still Has Claws | Female Tywin Lannister | ASOIAF/GOT

Epilogue: Dany

298AC

Daenerys Targaryen had never been the centre of attention in her family. Given how she was far less bold than the other children, she had often been told that she took after her mother. The Queen Regent was calm, clever and kind, all agreed, so she did not mind the comparison. But sometimes being meek little Dany grew a little wearing, especially living in the shadow of Aegon's charisma, Viserys' temper, Visenya's pride, Daena's charm and even Valaena's wicked tongue.

Her nephew Aegon - crowned king before he even turned one year old - took after his mother, Princess Cersei, in the sense that he could charm a room easily to have them eating out of her hand. Even aged fourteen, he had a silver tongue and an earnest way of listening and asking thoughtful questions that made people think he truly cared about what they were saying. He was charismatic, intelligent, and even in the training yard, where he was not naturally skilled, he was diligent enough to be a decent fighter, if not an extraordinary one. 

All of that would have made many boys insufferable, though to Dany at least, he was anything but. The young king had a good heart, much to the joy of his Targaryen grandmother and the annoyance of his Lannister one. Aegon was perhaps Dany's favourite, not that she would ever say so. She always had the best conversations with him; deep down, the two of them were rather similar, dreamers at heart. And her nephew was not so much of a force of nature as Viserys, Visenya, Daena and Valaena, often happy to step back from the limelight seeing as he was in it so often.

Force of nature was the right word to use. Though Visenya - Rhaegar's eldest child, the only one with the dark hair of Ashara Dayne - despised the Hand of the King, she certainly seemed to act like the woman a lot of the time. Proud, ambitious, sharp-tongued and often scathing, her demeanour was unconsciously similar to Lady Tya's, save perhaps for her hot temper. Dany suspected that deep-down she fancied herself as queen rather than Aegon as king, not that the girl would ever voice such a thing. She took after her namesake Queen Visenya at any rate; dark sister she certainly was.

Visenya's sister Daena was nowhere near so ambitious or haughty, though she was just as bold as her sister for other reasons. She was the most sociable person Dany had ever met, constantly surrounded by a stream of friends and admirers, and could talk for hours uninterrupted whilst somehow still remaining entertaining. She constantly had a smile on her face or a laugh at her lips, was always fun and never boring, and had an incredible knack for making the best of any situation. Admittedly she took very little seriously, falling behind in lessons and being hopeless at embroidery, but was such a joy to be around that most overlooked this.

Valaena was slightly more restrained than her elder sisters, though her sly smiles, wicked looks and cleverness made her just as formidable. She was irreverent of everyone and everything, always had a quip on the tip of her tongue, and her wit could run circles around anyone brave enough to try her. She liked to read, and could often be found in the library with Tyrion Lannister; her bookish side came out around the dwarf, and she dropped her sharp exterior to pester him with questions or argue about various scholarly topics.

And then there was Viserys. Dany's brother was seven years her elder. Old enough to remember when their father had been on the throne, old enough to remember how Lady Tya had worked with their brother Rhaegar to force him to abdictate, and old enough to remember how Rhaegar had almost torn the kingdoms apart for the sake of some foolish prophecy. Viserys had seen the bloody knife Tya Lannister had used to stab their father in the heart, and had seen their mother sobbing over Rhaegar's gruesome corpse, wheeled into the courtyard on a wagon as the city burned.

Viserys certainly held a lot of resentment, though to who exactly, Dany was not sure. Rhaegar, for turning out not to be the brother he idolised and ruining everything. Their mother, for standing by and crying instead of fighting against her eldest son's death. Lady Tya, for moving all the players around like they were pieces on a chessboard, and for being the one to kill their father. Aegon, for being crowned king as an infant, rather than Viserys himself.