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 foremost councillors. Ever since, she has grown into a proficient diplomat and competent politician, earning the respect and friendship of many at court, particularly Queen Visenya. She rides her late husband's dragon, Seastar.

Appearance and Character
The bright platinum hair she so loathed as a youngster has long faded to a light gold, seemingly answering her childish prayers. After blossoming into a great beauty, with delicate features and porcelain skin, the Lady of Summer is now aging with grace. When she's silent her quick, blue eyes are constantly gazing her surroundings, pensive and careful – when she speaks, instead, they turn bright and lively, and quite unable to conceal her formidable wit.

From a shy little thing, living in the memories of her past, the last child of the rebel Prince has bloomed in the Red Keep, where she's an active, respected presence. Though introverted by nature, she has learned to speak the tongue of the court with ease: her moments of solitude, spent in the sole company of a dusty tome, remain a sacred part of her day.

The Mummer's War
An uneventful childhood in the Stormlands saw an abrupt end 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 – when Maekar was murdered 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 their seat was firmly under the control of the Crown. Men left there by Rhaenys Targaryen, the newly appointed Princess of Summerhall, 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.

Motherhood and Loss
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 period that followed her wedding was a dull and unhappy one for young Gael, forced in a position she had never desired.

Lord Lucerys had initially forced the girl to consume Moon Tea regularly, to avoid an unwanted pregnancy – a request that Gael complied to. A discussion that the young woman had with her mother at the Tourney of Summerhall in 418, however, made her change her mind. She persuaded Lucerys to start a family and, in no time at all, she was expecting her first child.

As her pregnancy drew to its end and winter loomed over the shadows, Gael wrote to her mother, requesting the hospitality of Highgarden, her council and her forgiveness. She eventually earned all of those things and more. Both pregnant, the two women rekindled sharing at once the powerful bond between a mother and a daughter. Alas, this bond was not meant to last. While Gael gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Lady Leona Tyrell died giving birth to her sixth child. Heartbroken, Gael vowed to share a deeper bond with her Tyrell siblings.

The Silent Mistress of Coin
Back in King's Landing, as her relationship with her husband grew beyond a mere obligation of her status, Gael got to learn, grow and, eventually, thrive in King's Landing. Her husband's position as Master of Coin ensured her contact with important dignitaries of the Seven Kingdoms and beyond and his trust in her abilities made her an experienced financier in little time. The years that followed Maekar's birth were not only spent as Lucerys's lady wife and mother to her son – Gael kept herself busy by cultivating political ties, accompanying her husband in the East at the King's behest and finding new friends and pupils amongst the younger generation at court. It was perhaps Gael's absense of a mother that made her a nurturing mother to her son as well as to the children at court. She didn't merely maintain a solid relationship with her Tyrell siblings and her husband's baseborn children – Lady Zahra Waters chief amongst them. Gael befriended the princess Visenya in her childhood, long before she was to become Queen and the Dayne siblings, long before the Lady Elyanna was to become one of her greatest allies. It was she that suggested that Vorian Dayne should become her husband's Page, effectivelly beginning his grooming as Master of Coin. This unwitting implulse to look out for the young is something that still inspires Gael's actions to this day.

Her power and influence would end with her husband's death in mysterious circumstances. A widow at only twenty-seven, Gael elected to remain in the capital and not to remarry, grieving yet another loss in her life.

The Lady of Summer
Though stripped of her fulfilling role as advisor and burdained with the loss of the man she was just beginning to love, Gael did well for herself, improving her financial standing and her position within the court. Her renown was aided by her new status as a dragonrider: the elegant Seastar, her late husband's mount, remained docile in Gael's presence - thanks to Lucerys's efforts to acclimatise his young wife to his dragon, for fear of losing her to another family member. One day, with no little reluctance, the women finally claimed the She-dragon for herself – from that day, their bond grows ever deeper.

During the years she has cultivated many close relationships at court - chief amongst them her bond with Queen Visenya. Their relationship has developed from mutual admiration to friendship and cooperation and now Gael is Visenya's left hand, always next to the queen and ready to give her her counsel. Other close friends include fellow wings like the Lady Elyanna Dayne of Summerhall and Prince Baelor but they extend outside that close-knit group, as well. Recently, even some romance has begun to blossom between her and a member of the Small Council, the Lord of Rosby, although they do their best to keep it away from the prying eyes of the court.

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