The air was thick on Dragonstone, carrying whispers of change and tension. Here, in this volcanic island stronghold—the last outpost of Old Valyria—House Targaryen had taken refuge over a century before, guided by the prophetic dreams of Daenys "the Dreamer." Her visions spared them from the Doom and preserved their Valyrian blood, dragons, and ancient wealth.
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Aegon Targaryen, born to Lord Aerion Targaryen and Lady Valaena Velaryon, embraced his inheritance with determination and ambition. Alongside his sisters, Visenya and Rhaenys, he was raised on Dragonstone and amidst dragons: Balerion the Black Dread, Vhagar, and Meraxes, and spent his youth plotting in the Painted Table room, its massive carved map of Westeros a promise of conquest.
Aegon, unlike his father, had immense ambition, and his pride was as great as that of the Dragonlords of the now-doomed Valyrian Freehold in Essos. They saw themselves as superior to those without dragons, and Westeros didn't have dragons.
The plans had been created, and while they weren't as detailed and sophisticated as they could have been and maybe should have been, they were relatively good enough.
The Targaryens had a simple thought process. They were dragons, they rode dragons, and the others didn't. Therefore, they would triumph.
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When the hour came, Aegon and his now sister-wives, Visenya, his elder sister, and Rhaenys, his younger sister and one true beloved, landed on Westeros's eastern coast: Blackwater Bay.
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The nearby lords were the first to face the invaders. Rosby yielded to Rhaenys, while Stokeworth submitted after Visenya demonstrated how little protection a castle roof offered against dragonfire. Lords Darklyn and Mooton attempted to resist with three thousand men, but Balerion descended upon their host and shattered it. With both lords slain and the mouth of the Blackwater secured, more houses began bending the knee.
It was at the Aegonfort that Aegon received his first coronation.
Visenya placed a circlet of Valyrian steel and rubies on his head, while Rhaenys proclaimed him Aegon, First of His Name, King of All Westeros and Shield of His People.
Only a handful of lords witnessed it, but it marked the moment when the Lord of Dragonstone openly declared himself the sole King of the continent.
From there, the three heads of the dragon struck in different directions.
Aegon flew to Harrenhal, where Harren the Black trusted in his newly created castle with walls of stone so immense that no army could breach them. Harren, however, hadn't prepared for dragons. And dragons did not need to breach walls.
Balerion rose above the towers and spewed fire down upon the castle until stone started to melt, and towers glowed red. Harren and all the inhabitants attempted to hide in the catacombs, but perished alongside his entire family, being cooked alive. A gruelling end, and the start of a gruelling conquest.
The riverlords, led by Edmyn Tully, then bent the knee after hearing about Harrenhal, and Aegon named Tully Lord Paramount of the Trident.
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In the Stormlands, Rhaenys Targaryen and Orys Baratheon defeated Argilac the Arrogant during the battle remembered as the Last Storm. Argilac died fighting, and his daughter Argella Durrandon was forced to surrender Storm's End.
Orys went further and took her as his wife, adopted the crowned stag and words of House Durrandon, and became the first Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. He changed the name of the House. House Durrandon became House Baratheon.
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The Kings of the Reach and the Rock attempted to halt the conquest together. Their combined host numbered 55,000 men, five times the strength Aegon could raise to fight against them.
Arrogance became their undoing as well. For numbers meant little when three dragons - Balerion, Vhagar and Meraxes - took to the sky together. The battle became known as the Field of Fire.
House Gardener, the kings of the Reach, was destroyed, King Loren Lannister surrendered, and the stewards of Highgarden, the clever roses, House Tyrell, were raised to rule the Reach as Lords Paramount.
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Others chose submission and humility over destruction and pride. King Torrhen Stark, who had initially marched south with 30,000 northmen, remembered Harrenhal and the Field of Fire, and laid down his crown rather than condemn his people to dragonfire.
This decision wasn't taken as well in the North as one would have liked. Thereafter, he was remembered as the King Who Knelt. The mummers and singers only told what they wanted, keeping the fates of those who stood against Aegon and the Targaryens out of their songs. The fact that Torrhen saved 30,000 lives that day was ignored, and only the fact that he knelt was remembered.
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The Vale likewise surrendered after Visenya Targaryen flew her dragon Vhagar directly up the mountain and into the Eyrie's inner courtyard, rendering its usual high altitude, gates and castle walls useless.
Visenya was a bad and arrogant woman who knew how to back it up, though.
Lady Sharra Arryn found her son and heir, Ronnel, sitting on the knee of Aegon's queen, who didn't realise the situation they were in and asked to fly on the dragon.
After flying three times around the Giant's Lance on Vhagar's back, Ronnel Arryn became Lord of the Eyrie and Aegon's Warden of the East.
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After the North, the Vale, the Westerlands and most of the Reach had been conquered, only the Kingdom of Dorne and the Iron Islands remained.
Rhaenys flew to Dorne, but rather than confront the Dornish spearmen guarding the Prince's Pass in the Red Mountains, she flew above the pass on Meraxes to Vaith and Godsgrace, but found the castles abandoned, and when Rhaenys reached the Planky Town, she found only women and children.
This was unprecedented and had never happened before. She had hoped to take over differnet houses as she went toward Sunspear, but couldn't.
At Sunspear, seat of House Martell, she found Meria Martell, the aged Princess of Dorne, waiting in her abandoned castle. The woman was blind, but despite all this, despite facing a young Dragonlord-Queen and her dragon, she didn't care.
And the talk between those women would become legendary.
Meria: I will not fight you, nor will I kneel to you. Dorne has no king. Tell your brother that.
Rhaenys: I shall, but we will come again, Princess, and next time we shall come with fire and blood.
Meria: Your words. Ours are Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. You may burn us, my lady, but you will not bend us, break us, or make us bow. This is Dorne. You are not wanted here. Return at your peril.
Thus queen and Princess parted, and Dorne remained unconquered.
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Oldtown offered no such resistance as Dorne, however. Lord Manfred Hightower opened the city gates upon the advice of the High Septon, who had foreseen Oldtown's destruction should it defy the dragons.
In the first year after Aegon's Conquest had started, so 1 AC, inside the Starry Sept, the High Septon anointed Aegon with the seven oils and proclaimed him King of the Andals, the Rhoynar and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.
Aegon returned to the settlement surrounding the Aegonfort and made it the seat of his new kingdom. He permitted the defeated lords to retain their lands and customs so long as they obeyed the Iron Throne and kept the King's Peace.
After every victory, Aegon had collected the swords of those he had defeated, and after he was crowned, Aegon had melted those swords, using Balerion's dragonfire and turned them into a jagged throne.
The Iron Throne.
This would serve as a reminder of their enemies' submission to the Targaryens.
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In 2 AC, Aegon crossed to the Iron Islands and ended the chaotic infighting that had followed Harren Hoare's death, allowing the ironborn to choose Vickon Greyjoy as their new lord.
Only Dorne remained outside his rule. Aegon first attempted diplomacy, but a year of negotiations achieved nothing.
Thus, in 4 AC, the First Dornish War began.
The Targaryens seized castles rather easily. Rather than fighting Aegon's host in the Prince's Pass, the Dornishmen instead withdrew, choosing to burn their crops and poison their wells. They abandoned their watchtowers in the Red Mountains and blocked a mountain pass with a wall of shorn and rotting sheep carcasses.
Aegon declared victory left and right, only for the Dornish to emerge from deserts, mountains and hidden places once the dragons had departed. Garrisons vanished, supply columns were ambushed, and every lord who submitted to Aegon was later slain or driven out.
The Dornish led guerrilla warfare against the overwhelming might of dragons. Because they understood that while a dragon was powerful in the air and could kill what he saw, he couldn't burn what was hidden and struck in the dark.
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In 7 AC, Rhaenys gave birth to Aegon's first son, Aenys, bringing a brief moment of happiness to the royal family.
Three years later, however, in 10 AC, that happiness was shattered. At Hellholt, a great scorpion bolt got lucky and pierced Meraxes through the eye.
The dragon fell from the sky, destroying part of the castle beneath her, and consequently, crushed Rhaenys Targaryen with her.
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Aegon's grief turned into a terrible wrath. For two years, he and Visenya descended upon Dorne again and again, burning almost every stronghold in the land, ignoring the madness of it and allowing their grief and rage to reign over their actions.
This period became known as the Dragon's Wroth.
Yet even this devastation could not force the Dornish to submit.
Dornish assassins soon came for Aegon in King's Landing. Visenya helped cut them down with Dark Sister and warned her brother that ordinary guards could no longer protect him. At her urging, Aegon founded the Kingsguard: seven exceptional knights sworn to defend the King with their lives.
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The war still raged in Dorne, and the realm held its breath for the 8th consecutive year. But in 12 AC, amidst this war, which was marked with fire and blood, in typical Targaryen fashion, Visenya had just given birth to Aegon's second son, on Dragonstone.
The babe was a strong and healthy one, and his cries echo through the black halls even now, a newborn prince born into fire, loss, and great ambition, a special moment taking place before the eyes of the realm.
Visenya sweated and was out of breath. The birth had been a particularly hard one for her, as the babe was bigger and stronger than usual. Aegon held his son in his arms and smiled happily. He was happy about having another son, despite having been grieving after losing Rhaenys, who was his true love.
Visenya looked at Aegon, her younger brother, whom she didn't want to marry but had to, since it was tradition.
Ever since Aenar Targaryen had heeded his daughter's vision and left Valyria 100 years earlier, their family had continued to adhere to the tradition of old Valyria and engaged in incest and inbreeding to increase their numbers and have mounts for their dragons.
But Visenya didn't like her brother that way, and lying with him took great mental strength on her part. She knew that he didn't love her that way either, and she disliked their union just as much. So she was more than content to finally not have to do that again.
"What shall be his name, Your Grace?" the midwife asked.
Aegon wanted to say something, but then stopped and looked at Visenya. Sweat stuck to her body and had drenched the sheets together with blood. She took deep breaths and stared at him. He smiled and nodded, allowing her to name their son.
"Maegor..." Visenya said weakly.
"Maegor Targaryen. I shall announce it, Your Grace."
So, Maegor Targaryen was born, and it was clear that he would be special even among the Targaryens or those of the Valyrian bloodline. He would be a king among them.
That very day, the newborn was presented with a dragon egg, a tradition for every child of House Targaryen. Aegon approached Visenya's room, followed by his firstborn, Aenys, whom Aegon had brought with him from King's Landing.
In his arms, he held a dragon egg. This one was smaller compared to the others they had access to. Aegon, despite loving his son, knew that his firstborn, Aenys, was to be King and as such would need a dragon. Therefore, Aegon chose the smallest dragon egg, hoping that the dragon's stature would follow the size of the egg and make Maegor a good supporter of his elder brother.
They entered the room, and Aegon placed the egg in the cradle.
But unlike any in recent memory, the egg began to tremble almost as soon as it was placed beside him.
Cracks spread across the shell, and within moments, a hatchling emerged.
*Gasp*
"It hatched, Father!" Aenys shouted.
"What... is that?"
What surprised everyone present the most, though, was that the young dragon was no stunted wyvern, which the Targaryens were adamant about calling dragons.
No, this one was a true dragon: four-legged, with small wings on its back and deep, intelligent, yellow eyes; its tiny roar echoed through the chamber.
Aegon and Visenya exchanged astonished glances. This was an omen they could not yet read. What were they to make of this? After thinking about it for a long time, they agreed to keep this matter close and watch carefully over the boy and his dragon, for they sensed the bond between them might shape the realm's fate.