Aerea Targaryen and Elissa Farman

Aerea Targaryen and Elissa Farman shared a bond that made Elissa’s departure from Dragonstone painful for the princess. Aerea clung to her and pleaded to be taken along, imagining a life of sailing and adventure; Elissa gently refused, leaving Aerea to experience her departure as abandonment.

Aerea’s attachment to Elissa

When Elissa told Queen Rhaena Targaryen that she could no longer endure life on Dragonstone and intended to leave, Aerea reacted with none of her mother’s restraint. At Elissa’s farewell, the princess wept, clung to her leg, and begged her either to stay or to take her along. Aerea wanted to sail the seas and have adventures with Elissa, making clear that this was not merely a wish to avoid the island but a desire to share Elissa’s life beyond it.

The farewell and refusal

Elissa shed a tear, but pushed Aerea away gently and told her that her place was on Dragonstone. Her tenderness did not soften the refusal: the princess wanted to go, while Elissa chose to leave without her. The next morning Elissa departed for Driftmark and then sailed across the narrow sea to Pentos. Aerea’s appeal had not changed the course of Elissa’s departure, and the distance between them would become part of the princess’s later sense of loss.

Memory and aftermath

When Alysanne Targaryen later tried to comfort Aerea, the princess recalled Elissa as someone who had said she would take her, then gone away and forgotten her. That recollection framed the farewell as a promise broken, though Elissa’s recorded answer at the time had been a refusal: Aerea’s place was at home. Aerea also connected Elissa’s departure to her mother’s earlier flight to Fair Isle, telling Alysanne that Rhaena had given her away and flown off. In Aerea’s account, the two departures became linked experiences of being left behind, intensifying her anger toward her mother and her longing to return to court.