Gael Targaryen

Gael Targaryen is the second daughter and youngest living child of Maekar Targaryen, formerly the Prince of Summerhall, and Lady Leona Tyrell. Her quiet and uneventful childhood in Summerhall was disrupted when, following the death of King Aenar I, her father rebelled against the Crown, starting a conflict that cost him his life. After the brief and ill-fated Mummer's War, lady Gael was sent to King's Landing, living at court as the Queen's ward and companion. In 417 AC, she was made to marry Ser Lucerys Velaryon, one of the Queen's courtiers.

Appearance and Character
The bright platinum hair she so loathed as a child has faded to a light gold, seemingly answering her prayers. The girl has only recently blossomed into a tall, lithe beauty with delicate features and porcelain skin - few, it wasn't for the gossips of the court, could ever imagine she was a spawn of the rebel dragon. The many hours she had spent inside reading poetry as a child have kept her pale, even in comparison to other Targaryens. She spends a lot of time inside, reading poetry and histories of the Seven Kingdoms. Youthful blue eyes are ever tinged with some quiet melancholy and the pensive gaze of a child forced to become a woman far too soon.

Living in her blurry memories from happier days and in the book she loved so much, Lady Gael lives a dull life as the young wife of a man she barely tolerates.

The Mummer's War
An uneventful childhood in her family home in the Stormlands was interrupted when her father, Maekar Targaryen declared himself Lord Protector of the Seven Kingdoms, openly challenging the rule of Queen Visaera Targaryen. The family moved to Oldtown, where her father was crowned, but the rebellion did not last long. Maekar was killed in Dorne and House Hightower, their hosts and supporters were quick to turn their back on their cause.

Leona Tyrell, Gael's mother, having lost a son by the hand of the Stranger and a daughter only days before refused to abandon herself to fate. At the first sign of danger, with the aid of her guard, Ser Byron the Blue, Leona and Gael escaped from Oldtown, headed for the safest place they knew: home.

Little did they know that Summerhall was firmly under the control of the Crown. Men left there by Rhaenys Targaryen, the newly appointed Princess, discovered the fugitive mother and daughter, promptly spiriting them away to the Capital.

Ward of the Crown
Maekar's war was lost, and so was any hope Gael had at returning to her former life. While Leona was forced to marry her own distant cousin, Lord Gareth Tyrell, now Lord of Highgarden and Lord Paramount of the Reach, and return to her childhood home, Lady Gael was kept in the capital as a ward and was only allowed brief visits to his mother and her new family. It was perhaps the little contact they had or the seemingly easy way in which Leona went to produce four sons by her new marriage that distanced the two and caused some resentment of young Gael's side. Abandoned into the care of a guardian that regarded her cooly, if not cruelly, Gael once again relapsed into her own imagination to escape from reality.

A Beautiful wife for a distinguished man
Her idealistic nature was shattered when, under her guardian's advice, she was made to marry Ser Lucerys Velaryon, one of the Queen's trusted courtiers. The match was seemingly one made in heaven - the lovely scion of a minor branch of the Royal family marrying an influential presence at court - but there was nothing farther from Gael's dreams. Still, as she had learned to do during ten years in Visaera's custody, she did her duty, exchanging her red dragon for a blue seahorse under the altar of the mother. The short period that followed has been dull and unhappy one for young Gael, forced in a position she had never desired.

Family
Father - Maekar Targaryen

Mother- Leona Tyrell

Sister - Rhaena Targaryen

Husband - Lucerys Velaryon

Quotes
"If only he knew how it felt to be a child without a parent, without a friend.

No one should suffer that way, not under her watch: Gael promised herself that she would visit them, later.

When she first wed Lucerys, they had been nuisances, fonts of gossip, but now after what Lucerys had just said, Gael felt some sort of affection for them, a sense of duty.

''She'd never have children of her own, not until her husband made her drink that tea, but she could try and be like a mother to them. A sister and a mother.''"

- Reflecting on Lucerys's Bastards

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" 'I want you content.' It seemed like he really did, hard as that was.

''"I want the same." She murmured back.''

''She really did, too. Gael might have not been warm and welcoming, but she was doing her wifely job. She was keeping his house to the best of her abilities - slacking and reading a bit too much perhaps - but she obeyed him, and always did as she was told.''

Did he appreaciate that?"

-To her husband Lucerys, at Summerhall

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"If wine showed a man's true heart, Lucerys was a horrible one."

-At the Masquerade at Summerhall