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Purple Days (ASOIAF Joffrey Timeloop) (AU)
Thread starterbaurus
Start dateNov 1, 2016
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Threadmarks Interlude: Daenerys.
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baurus
Special Circumstances Agent
Jul 19, 2019
#6,536
Interlude: Daenerys.
"But must he keep plying me with feasts and wine in the meantime? Why are the Pureborn taking so long?" Daenerys said as she fed Drogon a bit of meat. The tiny black dragon snapped it up eagerly, the charred piece of lamb swift to disappear into his gullet.
"These things take time, Khaleesi," said Jorah, frowning at Drogon and the other caged dragons. He was always careful around them, keeping his distance and leaning a hand on the pommel of his sword. Ever his armored protector, Jorah stood in such a way that the double doors to the finely decorated room were always in his sights. The arched windows let in the sound of peddlers and highborn children playing by the street beyond the low walls, and Daenerys smiled as she remembered their awe the other day when she finally took a few to look at her dragons. At a distance, of course.
She crossed her arms as she considered sitting on one of Xaro's lounges; the stylized Quartheen chairs were a welcome luxury after the harsh journey over the Red Wastes, but she was beginning to feel restless. Some mornings she awoke with a tight throat, as if she were being throttled in her sleep. "I'd feel better if Xaro had something else but empty promises each time he came back from the Hall," she said as she opened the lacquered ebony doors, going out for a walk.
Jhogo helped open the door for her with a lazy smile. Of her three bloodriders he was the one that hated dragon-guarding the most, bored out of his mind to be locked inside her room for the whole day.
Curious how plentiful luxury can feel stifling after weeks of thirst and hunger, she thought.
Jorah grunted noncommittally as he took her side, and they took the scenic route past the wing's gardens, filled with many-feathered birds and screeching monkeys; the latest in the Merchant Prince's long string of gifts. It was beginning to grow suspicious, all the more so after she learned about a particular Qarthi custom regarding weddings.
They went down an open set of stairs with ivory balustrades, each the shape of a different man or woman, sinuous curves holding the weight of the heavy railing as the stair formed a half circle over the patio. There was some sort of commotion near the gate, where a few of her dothraki and a group of Xaro's slaves were arguing with someone.
"What's the matter?" said Daenerys as she gestured at one of the slaves, his collar incrusted with sapphires and amethysts.
His bow almost took him to the floor, "Some men wish to sing for you, Mother of Dragons," he said as one of her bloodriders took out his arakh and spat a glob of spit.
"Sing for me?" she said, an abrupt smile growing on her lips. The semi circled stair held four ships made of marble, whose prows peaked out of the stonework and fed water to the pond by the base. There was a big wagon just a bit past the gate, by the left end of the patio, its sides painted in reds and blues and depicting all manner of fantastical beasts; from manticores to mountain lions to even dragons.
"Kahleesi wait," said Ser Jorah, but she waved him off as she reached the base of the stairs, looking curiously at the man wheedling and begging in low valyrian against an unimpressed Aggo and three of her dothraki, which now surrounded him.
Aggo turned to her with a start as she crossed half the distance, bowing his head, "Peacock's slaves let them through without your permission. Say the word and I will take this fly's head for you, blood of my blood," he rasped in Dothraki.
"Spare your blade for now, brave one," she told her bloodrider with a smile. "Where do you hail from, goodman?" she asked him in low valyrian, stopping some ten meters from the wagon as Ser Jorah placed a warding hand over her chest.
"From sun-bathed Myr, oh great Mother of Dragons! City of glass and marvelous culture!" he proclaimed as he stood atop his seat at the front of the tall-wheeled wagon, the horses neighing in thirst as they tried to inch closer to the fountain. One of her kahlassar held the reigns of both horses tight though, preventing them from moving. "My name is Master Faedyl," he said with a perfect Free City bow, gesturing at the back of his covered wooden wagon which now opened hatches from one side, revealing a great array of puppets and two women quickly preparing more, hanging them from long sticks which then jutted out of the wide hatch. "And this here is the marvelous Company of Truth, acclaimed performers from Pentos to Lys and beyond!" he said with a great theatrical flourish.
Daenerys stifled a chuckle, looking at the paintings on the wagon. They did look a bit faded, and that along with the hungry look in the woman's eyes was enough to connect the dots. She'd certainly never heard of any 'Company of Truth' during Viserys' bumbling voyage from city to city, or during her stay in Illyrio's manse.
"You seem to be down on your luck, Master Faedyl," she told him, not without a bit of sympathy escaping her voice. She could understand the man all too well, and unlike her these low level performers didn't have a bunch of dragons they could show off for gifts and courtesies. The two woman at the back slumped a bit, their iron collars evident to the eye.
His smile seemed to lose a bit of its luster, "You've a sharp eye Kahleesi," he said as it turned into a grimace, "It is a sad day when the free daughters of Valyria spurn true artists in favor of animal shows." He said the last with true disdain, a twisting frown marring his features, "We've come east seeking the generosity of the Quarthi, but the esteemed Master Xaro's aide has just given us the latest in a long line of rejections."
"And you thought you'd perform for me instead?" she said, considering it despite herself, "I warn you I've not the money to spare for such a fine performance as the Company of Truth seems to offer."
A true statement in more than one way, she thought silently. They'd been selling as much as they could of all the gifts the Qarthi had been filling her with, but funds were still extremely short. They could buy maybe a couple of galleys, let alone the armada that would be needed to retake Westeros from the Usurper and his dogs.
The Myrishman deflated like a kicked puppy, "We're willing to take payment after the show, Mother of Dragons." He hesitated for a moment, "Perhaps in food as well."
Ser Jorah took her by the arm gently, "Kahleesi, Xaro would arrange for an entire festival in your honor if you but asked. Do not waste your time with the likes of these," he said as he gazed at the man in suspicion.
"Look at the hunger in his slave's eyes. We were just like them not two months ago," she whispered.
His eyes softened as they sometimes did when counseling her on matters close to the heart, like a caring father trying not to crack something cherished. "Remember the wine peddler. What if the very same slave drops a bit of poison into your cup when you're distracted, or the man draws a knife in the middle of the act."
It seemed impossible that the ailing Master Faedyl were capable of such a thing, holding his hands nervously as his eyes drifted to the other end of the patio where the free-walking birds of this palace wing trundled, eating dates left on the floor every day by the slaves. Her heart wobbled when she realized he was staring at the dates, not the birds.
So hungry he'd not waste a breath before joining the birds in on their meal. Daenerys had felt that kind of hunger before, a black knife twisting through the belly, crying in pain with every memory of food. In the end even imagination became a tool of torment, fooling the mind and the stomach both with empty promises.
She was about to walk the rest of the way for the wagon when Xaro's slaves by the entrance bowed, opening the gate and letting in none other than Pyrat Pree in a hurried stride. "Mother of Dragon!" he said with an urgent intonation, "I come with-" the black-robed man stuttered to a halt, as still as a statue.
Daenerys frowned, looking at the paralyzed Warlock. "Master Pree?"
He was staring at something up by the balustrade. She turned to the sight of a simple raven, looking down at the Warlock with an eerie stillness. "… Undying One?" she asked, returning her gaze to him.
"I… I bring-"
The raven cawed, interrupting the man as he returned his gaze up once more. He seemed to grow even paler, eyes fixed on the black bird as Jorah gripped his sword's pommel. Daenerys felt nervous as well, looking from the raven to the Warlock in confusion. She'd never seen him scared before.
He bowed to Daenerys. "It's been a true pleasure, Mother of Dragons," he said before walking away even faster than he'd come.
"Wait! Master Pree!" she said, but he was already out through the now closed gates, the slaves standing back with practiced precision once more as the two house guards replaced the bar.
She frowned, turning to look up. The bird was gone though, not a feather left in its passing.
"Have you ever seen him like that?" she asked Ser Jorah. Pyat Pree always walked with the stride of a man who knew everything about all there was to know, gazing down on you with black-pale eyes from his long, copper ringed neck. Always with an uncanny half-smile; never hurried, much less scared.
"Never," said Jorah, eyes narrowed. "Something must have happened in the Hall of a Thousand Thrones. You should retire for the evening and send someone to find Master Xaro, Kahleesi."
Daenerys nodded reluctantly, letting herself be carried by Jorah's arm as they turned for the stairs. She had a bad feeling about this. Has Xaro betrayed me? Were the Civic Guard even now coming to take her dragons? The Spicer's Guild had already made it clear that no price was considered too high for her children.
Spoiler: Music
"Wait! Kahleesi please!" said Master Faedyl, standing again from his seat at the front of the wagon, "Just one short show! It's all I ask!"
She'd all but forgotten about him, and she grimaced reluctantly as she stopped by the base of the staircase. "I'm sorry Maester Faedyl, I'll put in a good word with Master Xaro for you, I promise."
"Kahleesi I beg of you," said the man, his low valyrian growing strained, filled with drawn out 'e's and 'o's, "It will be better this way, for you and all of us!"
Daenerys frowned, Jorah's grip on her arm suddenly growing fierce. Master Faedyl blinked, thinning his lips before he thumped the wagon twice.
"Now!" shouted a voice in the common tongue as the sides of the tall wagon fell apart from top to bottom, revealing twin rows of kneeling crossbowmen as Ser Jorah spun in place and hugged her close.
He jolted, grunting in pain before taking off at a run up the stairs, carrying her along by the arm. "Run Kahleesi! Run!"
Searing hot adrenaline flooded her body, her breathing ragged as she ran up the stairs and almost tripped on her feet. Roars and screams rung out from below, and she gasped in shock when they reached the top of the balustrade and looked down at the patio.
Her fierce Aggo was on the ground choking on a bolt, and most of her Kahlassar had followed him down. Those who hadn't were being mobbed even now; dying with shrill screams as rugged-looking men jumped out of the wagon and slipped steel shortswords from every side. Another group took for the stairs, Xaro's slaves screaming in fright as the two house guards by the gate were shot at point-blank range by the two women still atop the wagon.
"Keep running Kahleesi!" roared Ser Jorah as he pulled her savagely, shouldering open the door to her room. He pushed her onwards as he turned to bar the door, and Daenerys took a corner and screamed as she found Jhogo by the wall, two bolts on his bloodied chest as four men in light leathers clustered around her dragons.
"Pocket! She's already here!" one shouted in the common tongue as he turned.
'Pocket' and another one rushed her almost at once, "Do'nt ya' move Targeryen!" he roared.
"Drogon! Dracarys!!!" she screamed. Her dragons let out short streams of fire, setting the two men closest to their cages ablaze, fire clawing up the fine Qartheen rugs. She stumbled back, her heart drowning her ears as the two men reached her with grime-covered hands, though one stuttered as he turned back in horror; his two companions burned even now, stumbling around the room and setting fire to the furniture as they collapsed.
"Get your hands off her!!!" roared Ser Jorah as he slammed his blade clean through the distracted man's chest, though Pocket took the opportunity to slip his shortsword through Jorah's armpit in turn. His valiant knight slammed a vambrace against the last assassin's face, sending him tumbling backwards as he held her close with the other hand.
They ran for the dragons as the assassin kept his distance, holding his nose in pain. Jorah gripped her arm painfully as his bloodied lips grew close. "Run," he whispered, "Take the dragons and keep running!" He took a second to cut the scaling rope attached to the end of an iron hook by the window, a sudden scream cut short by a muffled thump by the other side.
"You're coming with me!" she commanded, her voice shrilly as she opened the sizzling cages, her hands smoking as she bit her lips through the hideous pain.
Pocket was back, sidestepping left and right before lunging at Ser Jorah with a low guard. The knight barely managed to deflect the blow, striking his half-plate harmlessly. His own sword drew a long gash along Pocket's neck, almost decapitating him as blood bubbled like a fountain and the assassin gasped in surprise.
"Pocket!!!" roared one of the 'slave' girls by the other end of the corridor, her shortsword just as bloodied as the ones of her comrades as half a dozen more assassins reached the room from where she'd come.
Ser Jorah's hands trembled as he clutched her, squeezing her even tighter than the dragons now perched on her back and shoulders. "I love you Daenerys," he said, kissing her stunned lips. She tasted his blood before he pushed her onwards, turning to the rest of the assassins with a menacing growl as he took two steps forward. They recoiled on instinct, Ser Jorah swinging his blade from side to side as he roared again.
Three crossbow bolts jutted out of his back, a long trickle of blood even now smearing the floor, a trickle that ran from here to the doors and the patio.
Black smoke filled the room's ceiling, and she stumbled to the back door for the servant's corridor as her knight jumped at the assassins. Their blades slipped in and out of his flesh like stabbing water, and Jorah gasped in ragged breaths as he took another one down with him.
Daenerys ran down the servant's corridor, moaning with each breath as stunted tears leapt from her eyes. Her dragons hissed in near panic as they scuttled over her back and shoulders, pockmarking her skin with their claws as they turned and snarled at every shadow and she took turns blindly, reaching the last door as she broke into daylight.
There was a woman kneeling over a slave's body, jerking out her shortsword. The palace's stables surrounded her, hay stacked high for the many horses which would have to be tended to during one of Xaro's frequent banquets and feasts, his guests always bringing their finest steeds to the gatherings.
"There she is!" said the other assassin by the woman's side as he took out a dagger, and Daenerys screamed without air. Her dragons let out thin, concentrated torrents of flame which took them both in the chest, spraying fire on a wide cone in front of her.
She passed by their screaming forms, the hay erupting into flames which were soon reaching for the skies. She could scarcely see past the sobs now wracking her, but she somehow reached her silver horse, mounting it as it whinnied in fright.
"Go silver! Go!" she managed, galloping out of the burning stables and past the wide opened servant's gate, Xaro's house guards sprawled on the ground with crossbow bolts on their chests. The fires spread across the street as she galloped as fast as she could, her dragons clutched in the midst of frenzy as they screeched in her ear.
She screamed in heart clenching fear as the raven cawed right by her side, her dragons smearing the bakery by the side of the road in streams of fire, but the raven flew away unharmed. It circled above her as it cawed once more. "Dracarys!" she screamed each time it got too close, galloping down the streets amongst stunned slaves and panicked merchants, her dragon's streams of fire not enough to reach the circling vulture. They did set a trail of fire by her sides, silver's main growing singed as market stalls erupted into flames and the children there screamed in agony, crisped fruit sliding out of their tiny hands.
The raven followed her everywhere, cawing again and again, and she soon found out why. She took another blind turn as the tall plumes of smoke crept up from the city and into the sky, and she lowered her gaze to find a group of mounted Westerosi by the other end, a man taking aim with a crossbow as he shouted.
"Glyra! Orders?!"
"Kill her!" said the woman.
Daenerys gasped as the bolt took her in the shoulder, her dragons bellowing fire in fright as silver almost buckled her out of the saddle. One of the streams caught the raven, its death-caw sending shivers down her spine as it fell on the thatched roof of the house by her side, setting it afire as well.
Daenerys kept galloping, her mind a stream of incoherent images and sounds as the city bells tolled and the fires raged out of control. She galloped past the wide-open city gates as people ran from the budding inferno as fast as they could, gripped by panic and ice-cold fear.
Her shoulder burned, her ragged breaths keeping her conscious as silver galloped. Daenerys swayed atop the saddle as she blinked, the Red Wastes welcoming her back as she left Qarth behind.
No, not again, she thought, but she couldn't stop silver, she could barely hang on as it made for the red sands, the sky black with the smoke of burning Qarth.
-: PD :-
Last edited: Jul 19, 2019
308
baurus
Jul 19, 2019
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Threadmarks Chapter 70: Secrets.
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baurus
Special Circumstances Agent
Aug 14, 2019
#6,642
Chapter 70: Secrets.
Spoiler: Music
Was one's character determined from birth? Or was it molded by life's smith; experience?
Joffrey spread his arms, leaning forward on the balcony; the orderly sound of Lannisport at work barely reached him this high up in the Rock. The morning sun had peeked out of the Golden Tooth some hours ago, and with it had risen the workers and merchants of the city, plying their trades out of short-legged cogs intent on the Reach or the Iron Islands, their square sails dotting the horizon at sea. Smaller boats, carrying fishermen and coral divers, zigzagged around the bigger ships like schools of shrimp avoiding the shadows of sharks; as intent on their work -their survival- as their bigger brethren. The city itself was a hive of activity, but of a different sort than the capital's. The streets were straighter than most, and the biggest intersections were regulated by the city watch, dictating flow.
He felt the smooth granite of Casterly Rock with one hand, sighing deeply. He was asking, at its core, the question which had hounded him his entire life. Maester Yondlin had proposed that human beings came like smooth blankets into the world, not a chink in their surface and ready to absorb whatever the world threw at it. Maester Donold had debated the point vigorously, asserting that people- great, small, king, peasant, came into this world with but one course dictated from the day they were born. The stories of their debates and antics kept doing the rounds around the Citadel even decades after they'd died, their adherents arguing with chains filled with copper and platinum.
Joffrey grabbed the letter on the small bench by his side, reading it again.
-We found her horse, dead, but something is clouding my sight further into the Red Wastes. I'll keep searching in the meanwhile, but the Raiders had to withdraw from the whole region lest the Pureborn realize it was us-
He let out a mighty sight, crumpling the letter again. Am I a hypocrite?
His entire life had been an experiment Maesters Yondlin and Donold could have only dreamt of; the basest scum in the world given over to life's smith to hammer and hammer till he broke or changed. And he had changed; he'd found a father, a crew, a brotherhood, a lover, and through them peered deep inside himself in search of the answer to that question. Is this all I am? Is there something more there? Can I change? Great mountains and deep seas whispered secrets, glimpses of the answer that consumed him beyond the Purple, beyond the Deep Ones, even beyond the Red Comet.
Who am I?
So short a question; so complicated an answer. Boy-King, Abomination, Stormking, Bloody Lion, Dawn Commander; labels through which the world had branded him. But within; passionate, vindictive, lover, petty, dreamer, spoiled, curious, dauntless. In the end he'd come down on Yondlin's side; how else could he? His life was the answer to that question, his struggle the essay on its validity.
And yet he'd sent assassins after a scared young girl, armed with three infant dragons and the lies of a never-world whispered by her dead brother. He could make hay about it; Glyra had had orders to capture if possible, both Daenerys and her dragons, if the opportunity showed itself. But at the end of the day her and Pocket's mission had been as clear as the sun now bathing Lannisport's thatched roofs, all angles and wooden windows boasting tasteful reliefs.
Her end as a threat, one way or the other.
I ordered her killed because of what she would do, he thought. And therein lied the matter, didn't it? What she would do, not what she might. Every single life he'd lived to see her designs, he'd been horrified. Death, ruin, and devastation seemed to follow Daenerys whenever she lived long enough. Madness, most of all, a crazed and overwhelmed would-be-queen hitting his homeland from the back, like a dagger slipping through an ailing watchman wracked with disease.
She cracked every time. Eventually, one way or the other, she cracked; three dragons her counselors. How could he look at his legions, at his knights, at his people and their children, how could he look at Myrcella in the eye and let that loose end fly with the wind? He opened the letter again.
-I'll find her eventually, even if I have to scour the Red Wastes with seagulls and ravens. Shadowed or not, her mobility died with that horse-
His lover was not a woman to take failure easily. He snorted, leaning back from the railing as a warm breeze buffeted the top of the world. Much like myself, I suppose. One would think they were two halves of a whole.
He wondered how it would've played out if the Purple had chosen Daenerys. Would he have woken up to daggers in the dark every life? The Hand's Tourney would have been the best time to do it; the city drunk and filled with coin, foreigners and peddlers from all over now packing the streets. A Sorrowful Men when making his way back to the Red Keep. It would have been easy.
Gods, how right she would have been. Every time Joffrey took power, his reign took Westeros into deeper and deeper circles of the Seven Hells. Each time he was not stopped, the people of King's Landing died; to famine, to war, to crossbow bolts fired from on high with a sick laugh.
The Sorrowful Men would have said sorry as they knifed him, but that Joffrey should've thanked them instead, praised them for a job well done. Daenerys would have been right to kill him, to never even give him a chance.
His fists curled, the weight of the plate nothing to him as he straightened.
He didn't regret his decision. Any accommodation Daenerys would have even considered at this juncture would have led to more death and destruction before the War for Dawn. His own lords would have lynched him if they'd ever heard of even half the potential solutions he'd been thinking of offering the exiled princess; his power base, his very legitimacy as a ruler, his authority, was anathema to the name Targeryen. His strongest supporters had killed and stolen land from her strongest supporters; to seek an accommodation with a dragon-armed Daenerys would have been tantamount to throwing the very power base he needed to do so at the wolves. Or at the girl's dragons, in this case.
He would have dedicated a life to it, if he'd been able. If he'd had time. That much he could say, as pathetic as it was. It would have almost generated more problems that it solved, but maybe, just maybe Daenerys could have been swayed to take Dragonstone and the Narrow Sea as his Lady Paramount. The Stormlands would have howled, Tywin would have probably rebelled. But with a few lives dedicated to it, perhaps him and Sansa could have pulled it through without so much bloodshed.
The Dragons though… they changed everything. A ticking clock that transferred authority from him to Daenerys every month they grew, an insidious whisper on the ears of the loyalist lords, a beacon of rebellion pervading from Dragonstone and flooding the Crownlands and beyond. Look at how they grow, they'd whisper. Look at the might building up in Dragonstone. Every day the whispers would have grown stronger, no matter what Daenerys would have done. Even if she'd been sane and devoid of all ambition, even if she'd had a silver tongue to try and convince the lords otherwise. The pressure would have been relentless, until someday, perhaps months before the Walkers marched on the Wall, those whispers would have boiled over. Perhaps I'll try my chance. Perhaps the Restoration will work. Perhaps I can take back everything they took from me…
Joffrey lit up a match; part of the first batch out of the manufactories at Riversteel. They were making their way all over Westeros right now, filling his coffers with gold and his alchemists with grateful tears. The long stick sputtered to life with an acrid smoke, a rebellious flame tilting to its left before calming down. He used it to light up the small censer by his side; a keepsake from the Yitish envoy now in King's Landing. The smoke brought memories of tents and laughing onesuns, pale sand crawling beneath them all, and he let himself adrift in the memories for a moment, the letter burning in his hand.
It was wishful thinking in the end. Danerys would have never agreed. Time favored the dragons and thus her; why risk living within a stone's skip from the Red Keep and its assassins when she could bide her time? Why settle for Dragonstone when the Usurper and his dogs took everything else from her.
No. Daenerys had signed her death warrant the day those dragons hatched. It was unfair. It made him a hypocrite. But this was no longer just about him. It was about his family. About a continent. About a race. About a light to keep. He could take no chances now, not when even the fate of sentience itself might depend on him getting it right this time.
The Deep Ones cannot see beyond my time, he remembered, shivering under the wind.
The censer died out as he gazed at Lannisport. His grandfather had built an organized, prosperous city, a pale mirror to the Lord of Casterly Rock. Did Tywin think often of the Reyne's and the Tarbeck's? He'd been sure of the answer before he spent two months living under his roof, but now he was not so sure. Did he wonder about Ellia and Rhaenys? About little Aegon smashed to pieces? Did he think about what could have gone differently? Did he muse about parallel worlds, where King Aerys built his canal through the neck and Tywin stood proudly by his side, his Hand during Summer and Winter?
Joffrey made his way down the granite corridors filled with statues made of gold, Ser Robar a broad-shouldered shadow garbed in silver. "No gaggle of boys to shepherd around, Robar?"
The Lord Commander of the Silver Knights rumbled something which might be relief, "They're waiting out by the inner courtyard." A beat. "Father bless…"
Joffrey chuckled as they walked down the lustrous red carpet, deeper into the soaring thumb of rock that had been the Casterly's pride before Lann fed the last of them to the trees. Some of those noble scions had a decade of age on him and Robar both, but the Lord Commander understood the true meaning his words all too well.
After Dragonstone.
Not all the gilded armor in the Westerlands could make Joffrey see that gaggle as anything more than boys stumbling in the dark for that ever elusive glory, unaware that the dark bit hard. Marbrands, Crakehalls, Braxs, minor Lannisters; he could have made a half cohort out of them all, if he'd felt particularly wasteful. They were his part of the bargain to keep, one of Tywin's conditions for the deal, and the Old Lion had made good use of it already. He'd used those honors as a heavy-handed carrot to clobber his banners and shore up his Paramountcy; effectively casting himself as the bearer and arbiter of the King's gifts, the door to King's Landing all Westerlanders had to pass through if they wanted their sons and daughters in the capital. Joffrey hadn't minded much; all those pages and knights and even handmaidens would be quite useful, though he suspected not even Tywin knew how hard he and Sansa were going to grind them. All the uselessness cast out; hardy officers and bureaucrats left in their wakes. Ladies of healing and organization. Bearers of a new culture, a new continent. His soldiers for the war.
He stifled a smirk, nodding at the servant moving like a ghost in the other direction. They always moved quetly inside Casterly Rock, even when Tywin was out hunting or being feasted by his vassals. They had worked the kinks out of the process by now, especially in Sansa's case. Her handmaidens had taken handmaidens themselves, and the networking web which his wife had built now dictated fashion out of the Dragonpit with aplomb. He'd seen its effects even here in Lannisport; from dresses to even common phrases.
He supposed Ser Robar would get the worse of it, as quite a few seemed promising candidates for the Silver. For now their gazes balanced between awe and envy every time they saw the a Silver Knight, belittling his sworn order behind closed doors in taverns and urban estates even as they whispered about the Battle in the Mist in awe. Ser Robar would have his work cut out for him, when they reached King's Landing.
Tywin's current study was flanked by twin golden statues, man and woman holding arms up in an arch, each encrusted with a different sort of precious stone at its crown; Joffrey found within it some twisted sense of irony he wasn't sure the Old Lion registered. Amusing, considering it was the primary reason why he'd come to the West in person.
Tywin stood up respectfully, bowing his head before taking his seat again. "I thought you'd leave this morning, Your Grace," he said as his eyes returned to quill in his hand and the parchment on the desk.
"I am," said Joffrey as he took off his light overcoat; it got rather chilly atop the Rock. He walked to the side of the room and looked at a painting depicting some old Lannister in a hunt, both of their silences now locked in all-out war. Even after two constant months of getting his hand metaphorically chopped, Tywin still insisted in playing this little game. He honestly thought the man incapable not to.
Joffrey was in a pensive mood, so he was happy to let his grandfather write his letter for as long as he wished to. Paintings of Lann the Clever –looking more like Tywin himself than a First Men warg clad in furs- dotted the room, accompanied by wider landscapes of the Westerlands depicting stolid forests and rolling hills that hid crooks and bogs. The people were missing.
Tywin cracked first. "I've arranged for an escort to the Golden Tooth, they'll be waiting at the courtyard."
Joffrey didn't draw his eyes away from the painting. He imagined where the village should be, right under the wing of the third hill and next to the fallen oak. "Thank you my lord, but they will not be needed," he said as he felt his eyes narrow. He didn't feel like playing this game today.
"The safety of the Crown is my first priority. I insist, Your Grace," he said as he flicked a glance at his letter, as if the matter was settled.
Joffrey could have turned it around into an insult of his own lands, implying Tywin thought the Westerlands unsafe. He could have changed the tone into a questioning of the Silver Knights' prowess and ability to keep the King safe; an affront. Another day, he might have very well said something along those lines; such tedious verbal maneuvering turned into a necessity if he wanted Tywin to actually absorb what he had to say. His grandfather always sought the upper hand in even the most innocuous of conversations, like the eponymous old lion straining to show he was still at the top. There was no changing his mind if one spoke from below; King or peasant, it mattered not.
Today though, he felt raw.
"And which Crown is that, Tywin? Mine, or the one you feel on your brow?"
He grew still, green eyes swiveling from the letter with a slow weight. "And what is that supposed to mean, Your Grace?"
Joffrey walked past the painting, taking a seat on Tywin's desk with care. His lips thinned, but he said nothing as Joffrey tilted his head lightly and stared through him. "I heard a rumor. That you were searching for a new husband for my mother."
"Where did you hear about this?"
"Is it true?" he asked as he met the steely-green in his eyes.
"There have been a few inquiries on whether-"
"A simple yes or no will suffice, Lord Tywin."
Tywin's head leaned back by a fraction, "Yes."
Squeezing every bit of usefulness from what he had. The worst part was Joffrey couldn't blame him for trying, even though there was a dark voice whispering for him to draw his arming sword wide. He dismissed it with the ease of long practice. "Why did you break the terms of our agreement?" he asked in a dangerously low voice.
A minute scowl ran through Tywin's lips before smoothing away to nothing. "I did no such thing, Your Grace. I would remind you that under the very terms of the deal Cersei will be a Lannister again, and as such under my full purview as head of- "
"You will remind me of nothing," he said as he leaned towards Tywin, "Because I remember the deal with crystal clarity. And we agreed no such thing would happen without my mother's consent." He could smell Tywin's breath, his nostrils flared as Joffrey tilted his head, "Now did she, or did she not give that consent?"
The Lord Paramount of the Westerlands hesitated for half a beat, his grip white on the quill, "Not as of this moment."
Joffrey leaned closer still, "And that moment will not come, unless it springs from her own free will, with no threat whether implied or direct in between. Do you understand, Lord Tywin?"
"I will not countenance-"
"A simple yes or no will suffice," he said, so close he could see the white in his eyes fill with tiny red veins, bit by bit. "Think carefully, Lord Tywin. A simple answer to a simple question." He lowered his voice, "Do not make it complicated."
"… Yes," he all but spat, glaring at him.
"Good," said Joffrey as he stood up. He picked up his overcoat, folding it around an arm. "You've won the game Tywin. Your house has inherited the Iron Throne and the Lannister name will live on in history as long as there are people in this continent."
He paused by the door. "You've already won, Grandfather. Bask in that achievement, revel in it. Do not hold on so tight so as to break what you spent your life chasing after." His eyes drifted down, to the quill snapped in half in Tywin's hand, the letter filled with fresh ink. "Goodbye, Grandfather."
He stood up stiffly, bowing halfway, "Goodbye, Your Grace."
-: PD :-
The journey down to mother's room was longer, or at least it felt that way to Joffrey. "Not this time, Robar," he said as the knight made to follow into the wing. His protests died when he saw his face.
Joffrey walked alone past marble statues and beautifully carved cabinets, hushed servants dispelled by his gaze. Cersei would live in luxury, surrounded by art and gold and keen handmaidens from the Westerlands. A bird in a golden cage, for the good of the realm.
"Ser Jaime," he said lowly.
His Father stood in attention, bowing his head as he kept watch by the last door, "Your Grace," he said, voice inscrutable. A golden knight to protect the golden cage, until the day one of them died. If Joffrey had his way, he'd never see King's Landing again.
"It's good you're outside the room," he said.
Ser Jaime frowned, but Joffrey shook his head as he pushed through, closing the door behind him. Mother was by the balcony; an eerie mirror of his own pose higher up in the Rock. She was gazing to the east instead of the city though, to the rolling hills of the Westerlands and the town houses that melted into grassland and animal pens before reaching a forest just within sight, devoured by the white horizon.
"I'm leaving today, Mother," he said, placing his hands behind his back.
She didn't answer, taking a sip from the goblet in her hand. She'd screamed at first, back in King's Landing. It had turned to bargaining in the Kingsroad, but by the Golden Tooth her cries and screams had turned to silence.
He sighed, tapping his thigh as a smile lived and died on his lips, an ugly smirk dominating it after a moment. "I still love you, did you know that?" He breathed shallowly, "I don't know how. After everything you've done…" He grunted, "Somehow, I still do." The Purple could go fuck itself, this was a mystery he would never understand.
She didn't deign to face him, taking another sip from her goblet as the wind caressed her hair. He'd played with it, when he'd been a boy afraid of the dark. It had calmed him. To Robert he might as well never have existed, but Cersei was his refuge during early childhood. His shelter. She'd held him when he'd lost his mind, centuries ago, his consciousness diminishing with each suicide as he lost the will to live. She'd been the only one to care enough to visit him, tending him in his bed in the Red Keep month after month, life after life as he lived and died in silent despair, too far gone to even move his own body.
That's how it was with her. Silence.
Joffrey breathed deeply, his chest made of molten lead as it swirled within. His hands curled into fists, the mail clinking. He realized he was shaking, something crawling out of his mouth and rattling his teeth.
"I know I'm Jaime's son."
She turned. The goblet hid her mouth, "Now where did you hear such slanderous-"
"Don't you start!" he shouted, pointing a finger at her. It shook visibly, the vambrace clinking against the mail. He took another big breath, lowering it as he stood ramrod straight. "Don't you start," he said, his voice leaner.
She turned white as summer snow, wine dripping down the half turned goblet.
"No more lies, Mother. Please. No more lies," he said, blinking repeatedly.
She held a hand against her mouth, looking at him as if he were a crazed cat, some maniac bellowing for truth in a world without any to give, and so now the silence returned; perhaps, without lies, she was unable to speak at all.
What am I even doing here?
He didn't know, but he spoke all the same. "Why?"
He held her eyes as if she were a charging knight, the words crawling out, "I want to know why."
She jutted out her chin, trying to hide the fear, the pride, the lust and the shock. She hesitated, wilting under his glare. Joffrey didn't know what he felt; anger, disappointment, despair, rage, love. Finally, she spoke.
"He completes me. I love him, Joffrey."
Joffrey shook his head, crushing his eyelids as tears streamed down. He opened them with massive force of will, his voice somehow even, "Goodbye, Mother."
He turned to the sight of an opened door, Jaime staring at him, jaw wide open. "Joffrey I-"
"Don't speak," he said.
"I need to-"
"Don't speak again," he said, his voice choked, "Or I'll kill you." He would. By the Purple and the Comet, he would kill him right now, right there where he stood.
Jaime Lannister did not speak, but his eyes sought to; fear and longing, pride and disappointment. Joffrey forced his own gaze away before he could keep reading him, walking through the door but keeping the distance as much as he possibly could.
At the far end of the wing he was reunited with the Lord Commander of the Silver Knights. "Let's go home, Robar," he told him.
-: PD :-
The journey back to capital was slower, running herd over almost half a thousand Westerlanders from every house under the sun. Much as Tywin looked down at the Lannisport Lannisters, the man knew how to bargain. Joffrey split from the column around Brindlewood, going into the nearby patch of woods alone.
The camp had been well guarded, though the Raiders numbered less than a score. The Hound smiled monstrously when he saw him; it meant he could finally stop stomping about in the woods looking over his fat charge; the end of this elaborate secret had come.
Said charge lied tied down and gagged, constantly watched by no less than four people at all times. Now though the heavy tent laid empty, only him and the Spider alone in the woods. There was a poem there somewhere.
Joffrey took off the gag carefully, standing back and sitting in front of Varys, though the man still lied tied to the tent's main post. "Come to do the deed then, Your Grace?" he said, working his jaw. "Would have preferred if you'd done that a year ago, the forest and its little critters never suited me."
Joffrey smiled grimly, "No doubt about that. Not your kind of little birds, are they?" He looked worse for wear, skinnier than Joffrey had ever seen him, his skin a far cry from the powdered, easterner sophistication of his days at court. Now it bore the marks of a hundred branches and a hundred trips around the woodlands of the Crownlands, a harsh toll even if he'd never been harmed by his captors directly. Too dangerous to let loose, too valuable to kill outright; the spider's conundrum had proved a tough one. Alas, all things came to an end, and he knew that just as surely as Joffrey did.
"Torture won't work. I feel I should tell you that."
"I know," said Joffrey, "No one is going to torture you."
He raised non-existent eyebrows at that, "I sense a half-truth somewhere in that statement, oh gracious King. Call it a master's intuition."
Joffrey's smile turned grimmer still. "I was hoping you'd humor me, before we got started."
The Spider nodded graciously.
"When did you learn about my mother's affair?"
"Days before she even married Robert," he said without missing a beat, "Their methods were even cruder back then, Ser Jaime still traipsing around awkwardly after the King on his many hunts and being the butt of the joke. It served to make them even bolder; small miracle that only my little bird saw them in, ah, action." The man had a mummer's flair, even now.
"And you kept it hidden."
"Some secrets age badly, like cider left on an opened barrel. This one though," he trailed off, a tiny smile playing off his lips. The Spider was dead, and they both knew it; he was relishing every moment. "This one aged like the finest Arbor Red, growing stronger with every bastard sired."
"Increasing in potency like the wildfire buried under the city," said Joffrey, "Twin explosions under your sleeves, one physical, the other political."
"Fascinating," said the Spider, "Is it still you inside that skull, Prince Joffrey? Or did the thing that take you leave naught but crumbs?" He turned pensive, "It really is hard to tell, one way or the other."
"It's still me, just an older one," said Joffrey as he leaned back on the small cushion. "I've lived this life a thousand times before, knew almost everything about you by this point."
If that statement shook him, he didn't show. "So I really didn't have a chance then. At least I made it further than poor Baelish. Where is he, by the way?"
Joffrey smiled despite himself. Even at the doors of death, the Spider trawled for information. Much like Tywin and his pride, sometimes it was hard to tell if the task formed the man, or the man sought the task.
"Currents must be dragging him around the arm of Dorne by now," Joffrey shrugged, "It's a problem all the schemer types have with me; they derive their power from manipulating information, but all their tricks only worked once. The next time I'd be prepared, and they never knew it."
Varys blinked, considering it as he swayed his head, "That's a terrifying notion. So I did win, once?"
Joffrey shook his head, "Afraid not. Your fake Aegon died like a welp every time."
The Spider seemed a statue then, closing his eyes quickly.
"What a mess he would have made on the throne," said Joffrey, "Your twin secrets might have helped him get a solid foothold, but in the end… well."
He sighed, looking up as he gave it a try anyway. "You won't like this, Varys. Please believe me when I tell you neither you nor I will take pleasure in it." It was worth a try, it really was. "Answer me this question and I'll slit your throat so quickly you'll barely feel it. It'll all ground to black and you'll be free. I'd know, I've seen it," he said with a sad smile.
The Spider opened his eyes defiantly, piercing Joffrey with a glare.
"How do you give actionable orders to Illyrio?"
"It's too late," said Varys, "It won't do you any good."
"No, we've been sending him the stand-by signal for months now. He thinks you're on the run."
He went paler still, the red scar by his cheek growing ugly.
Joffrey sighed. He stood up when fabric rustled behind him, and he felt himself lifted as he gazed at his wife. "Sansa," he whispered, hugging her tight as she did the same.
"Had to tidy things up in the Dragonpit first," she said, taking off her hood with one hand and revealing her braided red hair. "You okay?" she asked as she reared back and cupped his face.
"I'm fine. Some old memories got rattled back in Lannisport," he said, covering her hand with his own. "Is Daenerys-"
"Still no sign of her," she said, shaking her head. "I will find her-"
"Don't strain yourself," said Joffrey, tapping her heart, "Remember you've a life here too." He bet Sansa had been spending some all nigthers without him to stop her. "How much have you been sleeping?"
She demurred, but Joffrey held her gaze until she huffed and planted a kiss on his lips. That meant he'd won. Gods, it felt good to be back home.
He slipped a glance at the Spider, silently observing the proceedings. Well, near enough home as to make no difference.
"Are you sure?" he asked Sansa.
She nodded, biting her lip softly as she looked at Varys. So be it then.
"I'm sorry, for what it's worth," he told the former Spymaster.
"I won't talk."
Joffrey looked down, "You won't have to."
Sansa kneeled by the Spider's side, a thumb on his forehead. "Show me," she said.
Varys seemed surprised by the notion, frowning as he tilted his head and he took the longest breath of air Joffrey had ever seen. The terrified, gut-wrenching scream that followed would haunt his nightmares by the Red Wolf's side.
-: PD :-
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Aug 14, 2019
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Threadmarks Chapter 71: Kingdoms.
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