The Current Riderless Dragons and How They Get to Westeros (Spoilers Extended)
At some point in TWOW (hopefully not too late lol), Daenerys will be heading home. There are numerous routes that she could take and different factions will be with her. But one of the biggest questions is the manner in which the dragons will be directed back.
Viserion and Rhaegal's flights to Westeros
Dragonrider
Since it seems that one must have valyrian blood in order to ride valyrian dragons, one option is that any character in the series who is currently alive and has valyrian blood is a possible candidate to ride one of them (as we see with Quentyn and Alyn Hull/Velaryon it is a prerequisite but not a guarantee), it is possible that any character currently in/coming to the area could ride either of them back.
Even for a son of House Targaryen, there are always dangers in approaching a strange dragon, particularly an old, bad-tempered dragon who has recently lost her rider. His father and mother would never allow him to go near Vhagar, Aemond knew. So he made certain they did not know, sliding from his bed at dawn whilst they still slept and stealing down to the great outer yard where Vhagar and the other dragons were fed and stabled. The prince had hoped to mount Vhagar in secrecy, but as he crept up to the dragon a boy’s voice rang out. “You stay away from her!”
Characters in/near Meereen that have Valyrian blood:
- Brown Ben Plumm (two drops of dragon blood in his ancestry and Viserion is already quite fond of him)
Her captains bowed and left her with her handmaids and her dragons. But as Brown Ben was leaving, Viserion spread his pale white wings and flapped lazily at his head. One of the wings buffeted the sellsword in his face. The white dragon landed awkwardly with one foot on the man's head and one on his shoulder, shrieked, and flew off again. "He likes you, Ben," said Dany.
"And well he might." Brown Ben laughed. "I have me a drop of the dragon blood myself, you know." - ASOS, Daenerys V
- The Tattered Prince
He is probably just as unlikely as Tyrion to have Valyrian Blood. But the commander of the Windblown (this post looks at the identities of each member of the company) is not only from Pentos but also:
Even the commander of the Windblown kept his true name to himself. Some free companies had been born during the century of blood and chaos that had followed the Doom of Valyria. Others had been formed yesterday and would be gone upon the morrow. The Windblown went back thirty years, and had known but one commander, the soft-spoken, sad-eyed Pentoshi nobleman called the Tattered Prince. His hair and mail were silver-grey, but his ragged cloak was made of twists of cloth of many colors, blue and grey and purple, red and gold and green, magenta and vermilion and cerulean, all faded by the sun. When the Tattered Prince was three-and-twenty, as Dick Straw told the story, the magisters of Pentos had chosen him to be their new prince, hours after beheading their old prince. Instead he'd buckled on a sword, mounted his favorite horse, and fled to the Disputed Lands, never to return. He had ridden with the Second Sons, the Iron Shields, and the Maiden's Men, then joined with five brothers-in-arms to form the Windblown. Of those six founders, only he survived. -ADWD, The Windblown
Does that line mean anything? Probably not, but it still sticks out to me.
- Tyrion (I don't think he does have valyrian blood, but its heavily theorized, so I included him for completion's sake)
I would like to note that I think there is a chance that Tyrion does ride a dragon later in the series, but it won't be due to him having valyrian blood.
Dragonhorn
It can be argued which horn exactly it is that Euron has, but it is quite possible that the horn will summon a dragon:
"I know as much of war as you do, Crow's Eye," Asha said. "Aegon Targaryen conquered Westeros with dragons."
"And so shall we," Euron Greyjoy promised. "That horn you heard I found amongst the smoking ruins that were Valyria, where no man has dared to walk but me. You heard its call, and felt its power. It is a dragon horn, bound with bands of red gold and Valyrian steel graven with enchantments. The dragonlords of old sounded such horns, before the Doom devoured them. With this horn, ironmen, I can bind dragons to my will."
Asha laughed aloud. "A horn to bind goats to your will would be of more use, Crow's Eye. There are no more dragons."
"Again, girl, you are wrong. There are three, and I know where to find them. Surely that is worth a driftwood crown." -AFFC, The Drowned Man
and:
"Woe." The Crow's Eye sipped from his silver cup. "I once held a dragon's egg in this hand, brother. This Myrish wizard swore he could hatch it if I gave him a year and all the gold that he required. When I grew bored with his excuses, I slew him. As he watched his entrails sliding through his fingers he said, 'But it has not been a year.'" He laughed. "Cragorn's died, you know."
"Who?"
"The man who blew my dragon horn. When the maester cut him open, his lungs were charred as black as soot."
Victarion shuddered. "Show me this dragon's egg."
"I threw it in the sea during one of my dark moods." Euron gave a shrug. "It comes to me that the Reader was not wrong. Too large a fleet could never hold together over such a distance. The voyage is too long, too perilous. Only our finest ships and crews could hope to sail to Slaver's Bay and back. The Iron Fleet." -AFFC, The Reaver
And now Moqorro has gotten involved
That night, for the first time, he brought forth the dragon horn that the Crow's Eye had found amongst the smoking wastes of great Valyria. A twisted thing it was, six feet long from end to end, gleaming black and banded with red gold and dark Valyrian steel. Euron's hellhorn. Victarion ran his hand along it. The horn was as warm and smooth as the dusky woman's thighs, and so shiny that he could see a twisted likeness of his own features in its depths. Strange sorcerous writings had been cut into the bands that girded it. "Valyrian glyphs," Moqorro called them.
That much Victarion had known. "What do they say?"
"Much and more." The black priest pointed to one golden band. "Here the horn is named. 'I am Dragonbinder,' it says. Have you ever heard it sound?"
"Once." One of his brother's mongrels had sounded the hellhorn at the kingsmoot on Old Wyk. A monster of a man he had been, huge and shaven-headed, with rings of gold and jet and jade around arms thick with muscle, and a great hawk tattooed across his chest. "The sound it made … it burned, somehow. As if my bones were on fire, searing my flesh from within. Those writings glowed red-hot, then white-hot and painful to look upon. It seemed as if the sound would never end. It was like some long scream. A thousand screams, all melted into one."
And the man who blew the horn, what of him?"
"He died. There were blisters on his lips, after. His bird was bleeding too." The captain thumped his chest. "The hawk, just here. Every feather dripping blood. I heard the man was all burned up inside, but that might just have been some tale."
"A true tale." Moqorro turned the hellhorn, examining the queer letters that crawled across a second of the golden bands. "Here it says, 'No mortal man shall sound me and live.' "
Bitterly Victarion brooded on the treachery of brothers. Euron's gifts are always poisoned. "The Crow's Eye swore this horn would bind dragons to my will. But how will that serve me if the price is death?"
"Your brother did not sound the horn himself. Nor must you." Moqorro pointed to the band of steel. "Here. 'Blood for fire, fire for blood.' Who blows the hellhorn matters not. The dragons will come to the horn's master. You must claim the horn. With blood." -ADWD, Victarion I
We also know that such horns were used by Valyrians:
She would sooner have returned to Meereen on dragon's wings, to be sure. But that was a desire Drogon did not seem to share.
The dragonlords of old Valyria had controlled their mounts with binding spells and sorcerous horns. Daenerys made do with a word and a whip. Mounted on the dragon's back, she oft felt as if she were learning to ride all over again. When she whipped her silver mare on her right flank the mare went left, for a horse's first instinct is to flee from danger. When she laid the whip across Drogon's right side he veered right, for a dragon's first instinct is always to attack. Sometimes it did not seem to matter where she struck him, though; sometimes he went where he would and took her with him. Neither whip nor words could turn Drogon if he did not wish to be turned. The whip annoyed him more than it hurt him, she had come to see; his scales had grown harder than horn.
And no matter how far the dragon flew each day, come nightfall some instinct drew him home to Dragonstone. His home, not mine. Her home was back in Meereen, with her husband and her lover. That was where she belonged, surely. -ADWD, Daenerys X
And Rhaegal seems to be focused on the bay (where the Ironborn/horn are):
The green beast was circling above the bay, banking and turning as longships and galleys clashed and burned below him, but it was the white dragon the sellswords were gawking at. Three hundred yards away the Wicked Sister swung her arm, chunk-THUMP, and six fresh corpses went dancing through the sky. Up they rose, and up, and up. Then two burst into flame. -TWOW, Tyrion I
and:
By the time Plumm and his companions came galloping back from the camp of the Girl General, the white dragon had flown back to its lair above Meereen. The green still prowled, soaring in wide circles above the city and the bay on great green wings. -TWOW, Tyrion I
Daenerys
Even before Dany and Drogon bonded, her dragons were becoming less and less controllable. I think the bond that has been created between Dany/Drogon could eliminate any lingering control that remains, that said if one or both remain once Dany returns to Meereen, it is possible they just follow her to Westeros.
"You … you mean to ride them?"
"One of them. All I know of dragons is what my brother told me when I was a girl, and some I read in books, but it is said that even Aegon the Conqueror never dared mount Vhagar or Meraxes, nor did his sisters ride Balerion the Black Dread. Dragons live longer than men, some for hundreds of years, so Balerion had other riders after Aegon died … but no rider ever flew two dragons."
Viserion hissed again. Smoke rose between his teeth, and deep down in his throat they could see gold fire churning. -ADWD, Daenerys VIII
There exists some other possibilities that exist such as long lost characters with Valyrian blood from characters who disappeared (I listed one in the Tattered Prince, but there are others), one or both dragons dying in Essos before being ridden, someone warging or even Moqorro using fire magic, but I think each of these is pretty unlikely.
I think the most likely scenario is that Rhaegal is flown using the dragonhorn and then Viserion is flown by Brown Ben Plumm but I am open to other opinions.
TLDR: Possible options for how Viserion/Rhaegal get to Westeros
Posted Sep 2, 2020, 12:39 PM UTC