Daemon's relationship with Nettles

Daemon Targaryen’s relationship with Nettles develops within a military hunt for Aemond Targaryen and Vhagar, but the chronicles make it more than a matter of battlefield necessity. Daemon keeps Nettles beside him as they search the Riverlands, while accounts of their shared routines and his care for her leave the nature of their bond disputed. The distinction matters: the same closeness that could be explained as sound dragon warfare is also presented, by some witnesses, as personal attachment.

A Wartime Partnership

After Queen Rhaenyra planned to send Daemon to find Aemond and end the threat posed by Vhagar, Daemon took Caraxes to the Trident with Nettles and Sheepstealer. Their base was Maidenpool, where Lord Manfryd Mooton had welcomed them because he feared Vhagar might descend on his town. Aemond instead struck at settlements across the Riverlands, including Stonyhead, Sweetwillow, Sallydance, Bowshot Bridge, Old Ferry, Crone’s Mill, and the motherhouse at Bechester. He repeatedly escaped into the sky before Daemon and Nettles could reach him.

The pursuit gave Daemon and Nettles a common, urgent purpose. Each dawn they flew out from Maidenpool, climbing above the Riverlands in widening circles to search for Vhagar; at dusk they returned without finding her. Their failure was not for lack of effort. Aemond’s sudden attacks and rapid departures made him difficult to track, and the threatened communities were scattered across a wide area.

Why Daemon Kept Nettles Close

Lord Mooton suggested dividing the search so the riders could cover more ground. Daemon refused. Vhagar, one of the three dragons that had come to Westeros with Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters, had grown to nearly the size of the Black Dread. Though slower than before, she was still immensely dangerous: her fire could melt stone, and neither Caraxes nor Sheepstealer could match her ferocity alone. Daemon judged that the two dragons had to face her together.

That decision explains why he kept Nettles at his side, day and night, both in the air and at the castle. It establishes the practical basis for their proximity without settling every question about it. Their paired patrols were not simply a sign of affection: in Daemon’s assessment, separating them would weaken their chance of surviving an encounter with Vhagar. At the same time, the account of their daily life at Maidenpool suggests a closeness that exceeded the bare requirements of coordinating a search.

Care, Intimacy, and Conflicting Accounts

Mushroom presents Daemon’s attachment as romantic, claiming that he had fallen in love with Nettles and taken her as his lover. The text treats this as a claim rather than an established fact. Nettles was seventeen and Daemon forty-nine, a disparity that makes the allegation consequential, but the account also emphasizes that Mushroom’s testimony must be weighed rather than accepted automatically.

A different kind of detail comes from Maester Norren’s account in the Chronicles of Maidenpool. He reports that Daemon and Nettles ate supper together every night and breakfast together every morning, and slept in adjoining chambers. He describes Daemon as doting on her as a man might on a daughter, teaching her ordinary courtesies and how to dress, sit, and brush her hair. Norren also records gifts: an ivory-handled hairbrush, a silvered looking glass, a rich brown velvet cloak bordered in satin, and soft leather riding boots. These particulars document sustained attention and care, but do not by themselves prove a sexual relationship.

The accounts therefore leave two interpretations in tension. Mushroom gives their intimacy a romantic explanation; Norren’s description supports a close, attentive bond that could be understood in familial terms. Daemon’s decision to remain with Nettles also has a clear military rationale, since their dragons needed to confront Vhagar together. The record does not resolve whether that rationale and personal affection coexisted, or whether one account has mistaken the nature of the other.

Significance in the Campaign

Daemon and Nettles’s partnership binds the private question of their relationship to the public danger of the war. While Aemond burned settlements and avoided capture, the pair’s repeated flights from Maidenpool made them both hunters and potential targets. Their cooperation depended on trust in the air as well as on Daemon’s conviction that Sheepstealer and Caraxes could not safely meet Vhagar separately.

The surviving evidence ends with the hunt still unresolved: Aemond has evaded them, and the reported closeness between Daemon and Nettles remains open to interpretation. Rather than confirming a single explanation, the chronicles set tactical necessity beside reports of intimate daily companionship. That uncertainty is central to the relationship as recorded: Nettles is at once Daemon’s indispensable partner in the search and the subject of competing accounts of the affection he showed her.