Nettles

Nettles was a dragonseed whose unlikely bond with Sheepstealer made her one of the new dragonriders sought during the Dance of the Dragons. Her story joins patient daily care to the brutal politics of the war: she became an important ally to Prince Daemon Targaryen, then a suspected traitor in Queen Rhaenyra’s eyes, and finally vanished from the court’s reach. Accounts disagree about her birth and about the nature of her relationship with Daemon, leaving her life partly visible through records that do not fully agree.

Identity and Background

Nettles was a young woman of uncertain birth. Munkun records her as a small brown girl of sixteen, while Mushroom calls her Netty and describes her as the bastard daughter of a dockside sex worker. Other accounts characterize her as black-haired, brown-eyed, brown-skinned, thin, outspoken, and fearless. The chronicles also preserve less flattering descriptions, but these are reports by other writers rather than an independently established portrait. The disagreement over her name and origins is part of the larger uncertainty surrounding her history.

The account of her childhood is similarly uncertain. One chronicler presents her as having grown up homeless, without a mother or money, on the streets of Spicetown and Hull. The surviving narrative does not establish how she came to seek a dragon, or what she hoped to gain from doing so. It does, however, record the practical method by which she succeeded: unlike the other seekers, she approached Sheepstealer repeatedly with food instead of trying to overpower him.

Claiming Sheepstealer

Sheepstealer was a vicious wild dragon. Other dragonseeds who tried to approach him were killed, and Alyn of Hull escaped only after his brother Addam drove the dragon away and beat out the flames on Alyn’s cloak. Alyn survived with scars, while many other would-be riders did not return. Sheepstealer’s danger made Nettles’s method consequential as well as unusual.

Each morning, Nettles brought the dragon a freshly slaughtered sheep. Through repetition, she taught Sheepstealer to accept and expect her presence. The account identifies her as the first and last rider of the dragon. Her success was part of the effort organized by Prince Jacaerys Velaryon to find new riders for the unclaimed dragons. Four new dragonriders were eventually found, but their recruitment came at the cost of deaths, injuries, and bereaved families. Nettles’s achievement therefore stood out not as a sudden conquest of a dragon, but as a gradual relationship built through food and persistence.

Service in the War

Nettles later flew with Prince Daemon Targaryen on Caraxes as they searched for Aemond Targaryen and Vhagar. They were based at Maidenpool at the invitation of Lord Manfryd Mooton, who feared that Vhagar might attack his town. The search was difficult: Aemond struck settlements across the riverlands and withdrew before the pursuers could reach him. Each dawn, Caraxes and Sheepstealer rose from Maidenpool and circled above the region; at dusk, they returned without finding their quarry.

Lord Mooton suggested that the two riders separate to cover more ground. Daemon refused. Vhagar was an enormous and dangerous opponent, and Daemon believed that Caraxes and Sheepstealer needed to face her together. He consequently kept Nettles close, both in the air and at the castle. Their joint mission placed her at the center of a high-stakes military pursuit, but its immediate objective remained unfulfilled: the dragonriders did not find Aemond during their searches from Maidenpool.

Daemon, Rhaenyra, and Suspicion

The chronicles offer conflicting interpretations of Daemon’s closeness to Nettles. Mushroom alleges that he loved her and took her as a lover. Maester Norren’s account of life at Maidenpool describes the pair eating supper together each night, breaking their fast together, and sleeping in adjoining rooms. Norren also records that Daemon gave her an ivory-handled hairbrush, a silvered mirror, a brown velvet cloak edged with satin, and riding boots. These details support an unusually close and attentive relationship, but do not establish that it was sexual. The book explicitly leaves that question unresolved.

That closeness became politically dangerous when Queen Rhaenyra’s council debated whether the dragonseeds could be trusted. Mysaria told the queen that Nettles had betrayed her and was sharing Daemon’s bed. This was an accusation, not a fact established by the records. Nevertheless, Rhaenyra ordered the arrest of Addam Velaryon and secretly instructed Lord Mooton to have Nettles killed, while sparing Daemon and sending him back to her. Her suspicion transformed Nettles from a valued war ally into a target, and the command placed Lord Mooton between the queen’s authority and the danger of acting against Daemon and the dragon.

Escape and Later Accounts

Maester Norren records that he showed Daemon the queen’s letter while Daemon and Nettles were eating a simple supper after another day of fruitless searching. Daemon recognized the threat and asked whether Lord Mooton’s men were waiting to seize them. Norren said he had come alone and falsely claimed that no one else in Maidenpool knew the letter’s contents. Daemon let him leave without exposing the warning. Norren later acknowledged that he had broken his maester’s vows by alerting them, while Lord Mooton refused to punish him and described the town as compromised by the choice it had made.

At dawn, Daemon helped Nettles saddle Sheepstealer. She fed the dragon a large black ram, following her established practice of feeding him before flight. The account says her riding leathers were stained with blood and her cheeks with tears; it records no spoken farewell. As Sheepstealer flew toward the Bay of Crabs and disappeared into the morning mist, Caraxes raised his head and screamed. Nettles was never again seen at court or castle. Daemon then left Maidenpool for Harrenhal, declaring that he would face Aemond there alone if his nephew dared meet him.

Much later, an account of the fighting in the Vale placed Sheepstealer and Nettles in the Mountains of the Moon. A group of men searching a cave for shelter disturbed a dragon; sixteen died and many more were burned before the dragon flew off with a woman clinging to its back. This was recorded as the last known sighting of Nettles and Sheepstealer in Westerosi annals. Mountain storytellers preserved a further, unconfirmed tradition of a fire witch living in a hidden vale, with local youths seeking her out and returning with burns as proof of their courage. The contrast between the sparse historical record and the later legend leaves Nettles’s final fate unknown, while extending her presence beyond the court and the war that first made her known.