Rhaenyra Targaryen was the eldest daughter of King Viserys I. Her right to claim the Iron Throne was challenged by her younger half-brother, Aegon II, sparking a civil war known as the Dance of the Dragons. From the age of seven, she rode a she-dragon named Syrax.
In her youth, Rhaenyra was beautiful and widely beloved, earning the name "Light of the Kingdom." During the Dance of the Dragons, the Blacks seized King's Landing, but Rhaenyra's oppressive rule cost her the people's affection. They began mocking her as "Maegor with Teats," or simply "Maegor's Teats," the latter becoming the favorite curse of King's Landing's common folk for a century. Her brief reign also earned her the nickname "Half-Year Queen."
Rhaenyra's personal arms were quartered: two quarters bore House Targaryen's red dragon on black, one bore the blue-and-white moon and falcon of her mother's House Arryn, and the last bore the silver seahorse on sea green of her Velaryon husband.
Rhaenyra was indulged by her parents from early childhood, for she was their only surviving child. As a little girl, she possessed all the otherworldly beauty of House Targaryen. Radiant and brave, she was praised by singers as the "Light of the Kingdom."
Pregnancy, however, ruined her figure. Though only in her twenties, she never lost the weight she had gained while pregnant, her thick waist, or her heavy breasts. By contrast, her stepmother, Queen Alicent, was twice her age yet remained slender and attractive, which people said only deepened her hatred of the queen.[2] Proud and stubborn, she often opened her small mouth to unleash furious tirades.
Rhaenyra inherited the appearance of the Valyrian families. She wore her silver-gold hair in a long braid after the fashion of Visenya, Aegon I's warrior queen, though Rhaenyra herself had no taste for