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Baela’s dragon, the slender pale green Moondancer, would soon be large enough to bear the girl upon her back … and though her sister Rhaena’s egg had hatched a broken thing that died within hours of emerging from the egg, Syrax had recently produced another clutch. One of her eggs had been given to Rhaena, and it was said that the girl slept with it every night, and prayed for a dragon to match her sister’s. (Fire & Blood)
Lady Rhaena of House Targaryen, brave Baela’s twin, had brought a dragon’s egg with her to the Vale … an egg that had proved fertile, bringing forth a pale pink hatchling with black horns and crest. Rhaena named her Morning. (Fire & Blood)
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They were flying to the Vale on Joff’s dragon. Rhaena wrapped her precious dragon’s egg in swaddling clothes and strapped it to her chest for the journey, like Princess Alyssa had done with her sons when she took them to the sky for the first time as babes.
Joff had looked askance at the arrangement, doubtful of its success. “What if the egg shatters during the flight, or it comes loose from the swaddling clothes and crashes to the ground? It would be much safer to send your egg to the Vale with our baggage, surely?”
“Princess Alyssa thought that it was safe enough to take my father and your grandfather flying in this manner, and she returned safely with her babe each time,” replied Rhaena. Prince Daemon claimed that he could remember clearly the first time he took to the sky atop a dragon while being strapped to his lady mother’s chest, though Baela and Rhaena doubted this, seeing as their father was barely a fortnight old at the time of that flight.
“If it is safe enough for a babe, then surely it is safe enough for an egg,” Baela added to her sister’s reply. She herself had carefully and meticulously tested the strength of the strap binding the swaddled egg to Rhaena’s chest, and had found it to be secure.
And moreover, Rhaena’s and Joff’s baggage would be sent to Gulltown by sea, before making its way to the Eyrie by land. Both routes were not immune from the danger of enemy attack, which was why it was deemed safer for Rhaena to fly to the Vale as Joff’s passenger on Tyraxes, rather than making the journey by those routes. “We can’t risk my dragon’s egg being seized and captured by the greens,” Rhaena pointed out. “The last thing we need is for their side to acquire another dragon. It would be a great calamity.”
“A truly great calamity,” Baela echoed her twin.
“We don’t know for certain that your egg will even hatch,” Joff countered. “It might never hatch, like Viserys’ egg.”
“Of course it will hatch!” exclaimed Baela, deeply outraged. “How dare you say it might never hatch?! Are you wishing that it will not hatch?”
“It will hatch, I am certain of it,” Rhaena replied, more calmly, although deep down, she was still fervently praying that this time, her dragon hatchling would be healthy, and she would live longer than a few hours, unlike Sundancer. It was the same prayer Rhaena had been reciting since the day Aunt Rhaenyra gave her this particular egg, her second dragon’s egg.
Moondancer and Sundancer had come from another clutch of eggs also produced by Aunt Rhaenyra’s dragon Syrax some years ago. Two of the eggs from that clutch were almost identical: pearl-colored with green swirls running across them, but in one egg, the green swirls ran horizontally, while in the other egg, the green swirls ran vertically. Princess Rhaenyra had given those two eggs to Prince Daemon and Lady Laena as gifts “for your precious twin daughters, and my future good-daughters.”
Baela and Rhaena had slept with their dragon’s eggs every night without fail, and had given their dragons matching names even before those eggs had hatched. Together, they had chosen the names Moondancer for Baela’s dragon and Sundancer for Rhaena’s dragon, because “Our dragons will be as nimble and as graceful as dancers in the sky,” Rhaena said, and because “The sun follows the moon and the moon follows the sun, each and every day. They can never be separated, just like us, Rhae,” Baela said.
Baela’s egg, the one with the green swirls running horizontally, had hatched first, bringing forth a fiercely-shrieking pale green hatchling with horns and crest the color of pearl. Rhaena’s egg hatched seven days later, but Sundancer did not shriek like Moondancer did. The hatchling made no sound, not even the groans or whimpers of pain, even though both of her wings looked like they had been snapped in half by a ferocious force.
Baela sobbed and Rhaena prayed, while Sundancer fought for life. Rhaena sobbed and Baela held her sister’s hand while silently cursing the gods, after Sundancer lost that fight. “You’ll have another dragon soon, Rhae, I know you will. Till then, you can fly on Moondancer with me. We’ll take you to the sky, until you can fly with your own dragon,” she tried to comfort her sister.
But now Baela and Rhaena were to be separated while Moondancer was still too small to carry even Baela’s weight, let alone the weight of both twins. “Joff can’t go to the Vale alone, he’ll stuff it up somehow, you know he will. We can’t afford to lose the support of Lady Arryn and the Vale. And Jace needs me here. I am to be his queen when he is king. I can’t leave him while he’s fighting a war. You are needed at the Vale, Rhae, and I am needed here,” Baela had said, when Rhaena pleaded with her to go to the Vale with them.
The new egg given to Rhaena was a different color altogether – pink, with flecks of black dotted all around it. If the egg hatched, Rhaena feared that in all likelihood, despite her nightly prayer, her new dragon would not be a match to her sister’s dragon. They would not be a matching pair, like Moondancer and Sundancer had been a matching pair, at least in appearance.
“You should not name your new dragon Sundancer,” Baela said, on the last night they spent sharing a bedchamber, before Rhaena flew to the Vale with Joff.
“Why not?” asked Rhaena, with trepidation.
“It could be a bad omen, naming your new dragon after the one who died,” Baela whispered.
Rhaena nodded. “This one must live. She must survive.”
“She must,” said Baela, emphatically.
“We will fly side by side on our dragons, like Mother and Father used to fly together,” Rhaena said, wistfully.
“And we’ll race them too, race them across the narrow sea and back, like Mother and Father used to do,” said Baela, grinning like a cat. Then, her expression turning solemn, she added, in a grave, earnest tone, “They don’t have to match, our dragons. They will still love each other like we love each other, Rhae, even if they are nothing alike.”
When her dragon’s egg hatched in the Eyrie, Rhaena chose the name Morning for the hatchling. Morning followed night, just like the sun followed the moon, just like Rhaena had followed Baela out of their mother’s womb. They could never be separated, morning and night, the sun and the moon, just like Baela and Rhaena could never be separated in their hearts, no matter how far apart they were physically.