Elissa Farman Steals the Dragon Eggs

Elissa Farman Steals the Dragon Eggs begins as a farewell from Dragonstone and becomes a breach of the Targaryen family’s control over its dragons. Elissa left the island, but she did not merely leave behind Queen Rhaena Targaryen and Princess Aerea: three dragon eggs disappeared soon after her departure. Their eventual sale in Braavos transformed a private rupture into a matter of royal security, while paying for the ship Elissa had long dreamed of building.

Departure from Dragonstone

Elissa had grown unable to endure life on Dragonstone. She told Rhaena that the sea was calling and that it was time for her to leave. Rhaena received the announcement without showing emotion. “I have asked you to stay,” she said. “I will not beg. If you would go, go.” Her restraint did not make the farewell painless: Aerea wept, clung to Elissa’s leg, and pleaded either for her to stay or to take the princess along. Aerea wanted to sail the seas and have adventures with her. Elissa shed a tear, gently pushed her away, and told her, “No, child. Your place is here.”

Elissa sailed from Dragonstone the next morning for Driftmark, then crossed the narrow sea to Pentos. She continued overland to Braavos, a destination neither Rhaena nor Aerea knew. Rhaena believed Elissa had gone no farther than Driftmark. That mistaken impression left the queen unaware that Elissa had continued east, and that the parting was also an escape beyond the reach of Dragonstone.

The Missing Eggs

A fortnight after Elissa’s departure, Ser Merrell Bullock, commander of the castle garrison, brought three frightened grooms and the keeper of the dragon yard before Rhaena. Three dragon eggs were missing, and days of searching had failed to find them. After questioning everyone with access to the dragons, Merrell became convinced that Elissa had taken them.

Rhaena’s anger exposed the force of the apparent betrayal. She ordered Merrell to question the grooms and stableboys more sharply. When the questioning produced nothing, she removed him from command and expelled him from Dragonstone, along with his son Ser Alyn and a dozen other men she considered suspicious. She also summoned her husband, Androw Farman, and demanded to know whether he had helped his sister. He denied it; their argument grew so loud that their shouts echoed through the halls. Rhaena sent men to Driftmark and then to Pentos, but the trail ended there.

The Crown’s Alarm

Only after the searches failed did Rhaena mount Dreamfyre and fly to the Red Keep to tell her brother, Jaehaerys Targaryen, what had happened. She believed Elissa wanted gold, not dragons, and intended to sell the eggs to pay for a ship. Jaehaerys completed her thought: they were worth “a fleet of ships.” Grand Maester Benifer offered a possible limit to the danger, observing that eggs might not hatch away from Dragonstone, where the heat was thought necessary. The king did not treat that uncertainty as reassurance: if the eggs hatched, another dragonlord could arise outside the royal house.

The theft had already become common knowledge on Dragonstone, even among the fisherfolk, and the whispers spread beyond the island. Acting through the Pentoshi master of coin and agents in ports across the narrow sea, Benifer organized a search for news of Elissa, the eggs, or dragons. The inquiries yielded many reports, some useful to the Iron Throne for other reasons, but none of the rumors about the eggs proved reliable. Jaehaerys ordered that the matter be kept secret, but the secret had already escaped the royal household.

The Braavosi Sale

The account later reveals what the searches in Westeros could not discover. Before reaching Braavos, Elissa adopted the name Alys Westhill, a bastard name she devised for herself. She had been driven from Fair Isle and disowned by her brother, Lord Franklyn Farman; in Braavos, the assumed identity helped her secure an audience with the Sealord. His famed menagerie provided a buyer for the eggs, which the Sealord purchased.

Elissa entrusted the gold from the sale to the Iron Bank of Braavos and used it to finance the building of the Sun Chaser, the ship she had dreamed of for many years. The eggs’ disappearance thus joined two ambitions: the royal family’s fear that dragons might pass into other hands, and Elissa’s determination to reach the sea on her own terms. The departure that Aerea experienced as a personal loss had carried Elissa beyond the island—and funded the voyage she had wanted for so long.