Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

He was beginning to remember.

The feeling, deep in his gut. A faint tingling, caress up his spine. Like swaying on a boat, a boat sliding up and down the Sunset Sea over titan waves ravenous with foam. Yes, thought Joffrey, a deep sense of familiarity tickling his tongue. Like saltwater. Saltwater spraying his face as the small yacht reached the crest of the wave and time stopped. It was one of those seconds that lasted longer. That eerie instant when the boat tips just over its equilibrium. The second between deep breaths. Joffrey tightened his grip on the worn wooden tiller, an acid itch covering his shriveled skin. Drenched in saltwater, the tang of dead kelp sneaking up his nostrils. Distant thunder roared ahead, surly clouds battling the titan waves crashing against the horizon.

This was the moment he first heard the Song in its entirety; the Song in the Sunset Sea. Just a moment. A single second when everything connected together, every sensation captured in awareness as thoughts wisped to nothing and blank clarity remained. This is reality, he remembered thinking. This is consciousness. The melody that is.

He'd journeyed a long way since then. What had at first been fleeting glimpses had slowly become streaks of awareness. Sansa's warm flesh slithering against his skin. The brilliant fireworks titillating over the Sealord's Palace. The sonorous churning of hammers powered by watermills. The surging crowds of Jhala on market day. Moments of connection; all a piece of a single puzzle. Joffrey didn't think infinite lives were needed to understand that. The lengthy span of his life had only been necessary for him to begin paying attention. He remembered the first days of his life, crying on Ned's lap and meditating by the Heart Trees. He hadn't known it then but the elusive peace he sought had been the Song. Those healing moments of timeless instant that built him back together.

Meditation was a counterintuitive exercise, and he did so now; rather than thinking about nothing, he concentrated on the tapestry of sensations holding his attention. The tug of gravity, the sense of balance, the weight of soaked clothing, the rushing saltwater breeze. He sunk in it, tasted it to its tiniest constituent sense-moment-second. Many years after crossing the Sunset Sea he'd realized that awareness could be reached anywhere, anytime. No Heart Trees needed, no preparations necessary. Just take a step back from the constant stream of consciousness and listen to the instant. The second. Even the Purple's long journey was but a blip beside that breathless moment.

He wallowed in it, tasting all those sensations like a fine dish, the stormy ocean rumbling in the distance. The boat rocked from side to side as he leaned on the railing and gazed down at the sea, the churning waters revealing crystal clarity before morphing to heady greens opaque beyond death. He was beginning to remember; how the Silence had throttled that Song, drowned the instant, a cover opened wide. The Purple and the Comet, two sides of a coin. A connected whole of one fabric, one being. One Song.

His wife arrived like a summer breeze, arms enveloping him from behind and locking him into a tight hug. "I don't recognized this place," she said.

"It's deep in the Sunset Sea," he said, grabbing one hand and nestling it on his neck. "I sailed here, after decoding the Deep One's message."

"You never really talked about that life," said Sansa, resting her chin over his shoulder as she sat behind him, next to the tiller.

Joffrey examined the crawling lightning, illuminating dark nights like a second sun. He supposed that was true. "There were three, actually. Two drowned by the sea, the third cut short inside the Structure."

"What was it like?"

"I felt sharpened. Lean." Joffrey gazed at his weathered hands. "Like hard leather. I thought I was reaching my journey's end." Distant storms wracked the skies, "I thought I was going to die."

Her grip tightened, her voice barely audible though she was whispering to his ear, "And now, what do you think?"

Joffrey closed his eyes, leaning into her touch, "I think we're nearing the end." One way or the other. He could feel it in his bones, a nameless wisdom borne out of immortality.

"Father… is he..?"

"Yes," Joffrey whispered. They held each other, the trundling waves of the Sunset Sea reaching up for the sky. They failed with restless sighs, collapsing into themselves, whirlpools of murky green. Never again would he see Ned Stark gazing solemnly at Winterfell's Heart Tree. Never again would he hear him working till late in the Tower of the Hand. Never again would he feel his strong grip, proud and affectionate after trading blows in the training yard. Getting him into one had taken a battle in and of itself, he remembered with a pained smile. He could feel Sansa's grief in waves; a wounded thing clenching every time she thought it through again. "Have you… have you seen any of the others?" he asked.

"I glimpsed Jon leading some troops south down the coast, though I couldn't tell how many."

Thank the Gods. "Anyone else?" He felt her shake her head, red curls tickling his shoulder. Sandor. Robar. Tyrion… he must be alive somewhere. Walking practically under the snow and periodically dragged out of it by a stout Umber man, smirking at the sight. Tyrion of course japed right back, laughing in the midst of the bleak march; some much needed humor during the end of days. His throat tightened at the imagined sight. Please let it be…

Sansa wiped seawater from his forehead, "There are parts of the Wall that didn't collapse, and even where it did there are some who survived. I see groups of them scattered all over the Gift, but they're cut off from each other."

He swallowed something bitter. "We need to evacuate the North."

"I've already given the order," said Sansa, "But you need to get back to Winterfell, Joff. The Kingdom needs its Warrior King."

"We're making as good a time as we can in this weather." He took a deep breath, "You probably know more than I. How bad is it?"

Her pained silence said much. "The collapse has already begun. You saw how little time the Second Line bought us."

"Lord Tarly?"

"Retreating in good order. He's slowing the wights as much as he can, but they're already roaming the countryside around him in force, and entire columns have melted into the wilderness. Dispersing to find easier prey, I think. It's a mess, Joff. There's plenty of survivors from the Wall making their way south, but they're survivors fleeing from catastrophe, not any sort of army."

Joffrey mulled that over between the waves, gritting his teeth as distant thunder echoed again. Without ravens, runners, maesters, and horn-bearers Joffrey felt like a cripple, flailing around in the dark. Sansa filled him in with what information she had, and it all served to paint a picture even grimmer than she probably realized. Towns and villages would be overrun no matter what they did, all he could change was the severity of the massacres to come. With the Wall broken and the bottled dead unleashed, there was simply too much territory to defend, too little infrastructure for too many people. People to feed, to clothe, to get moving… and a single false step could mean a collapse of the entire front and a swift invasion of the South, the undead swelled beyond stopping as they feasted on the living.

"You'll have to guide them as best as you can while I rebuild the chain of command. Probably until I make it back to Winterfell."

"… I'll do it," she said, "But… the army around the Crystal Palace. It hasn't moved, Joff. They're still standing there. If it were human I'd say it knows of its vulnerability. It… it may have guessed our plans."

Joffrey closed his eyes. Not even after the savage mauling we gave 'em at the Wall? Could it have calculated the odds, that crystalline mind in fractals crowned? Or had another species tried the same and somehow the Comet remembered. Grim darkness settled in Joffrey's belly; an emptiness, an ice cold dread. He stared at his palsied hands, trembling ever so slightly. The sea around the boat had grown silent, the waves still; an eternal pond stretching in every direction. "What if it never moves that host, Sansa? What if it prefers to escalate -and damn the power- before leaving itself open?"

"Could we fight it there, bring an army-"

"To the Lands of Always Winter?" Joffrey snorted, mirthless, "How? Marching a hundred thousand men through an icy wasteland filled with only the dead and the wind? We'd starve long before we reached the enemy." And even if they'd somehow manage to accomplish such an impossibility, Westeros would collapse long before they got to the Palace... if it didn't in the next few weeks. It was impossible.

"So what, it's hopeless?" Her hug turned fierce, possessive, her breath tickling his ear, "I don't believe you."

Her timeless faith in him served to jump start his mind, warmth fighting against the cold dread. He tried thinking about stratagems, about battle plans and campaigns, ways he could turn around this grim ending. But his mind kept returning to the Comet, its face opened wide and so familiar. He hadn't asked Sansa how she would rally those distant survivors, closer to him than they were to her. He didn't need to ask how she'd reached across a thousand leagues to speak directly into his dreams. Sansa had changed, nameless insight radiating from her presence; he wasn't the only one who'd glimpsed reality's secrets, back when their enemy tore the fabric of reality.

He felt her divine his line of thought. "When the Comet opened… I saw inside of it, Joff. Beyond…"

He remembered. Like Baelor's Sept but filled with fractal mechanisms as far as the eye could see. "Beyond…" he whispered, the word small but its meaning so vast. Beyond through reality, a fabric of existence conjoined to all. The Comet was somehow anchored into the world, into the Song. Like the Purple. But whereas his ancient curse flew between the strands of the Song, the Red Comet was like a spreading plague, seeking only to Silence it. That must be why even much more powerful species had failed to destroy the Comet by conventional means; how could you destroy that which had wormed into all that is? A hole in reality, he remembered Marwyn's last words, and shivered. A flimsy cover. And beyond its cover he had glimpsed a piece of all that is.

"When it revealed its core…" he said slowly, "There can be no question."

"We share the same creators," she said.

Joffrey nodded, "The same building blocks. The same language; those timeless depths held by pillars written in fractals. Don't you see Sansa? That means we can exert influence on it. We can navigate inside the Comet, just like when we repaired the Purple. We almost did it when it escalated over the Wall."

"You're thinking of reaching out to it through a bridge. Like the Walkers did to us back in Carcosa." Thoughts flew between them now; insights shared.

"Why not? It should be possible to make it work the other way; to reach through the platforms to the Comet." Joffrey breathed deeply. "If we can make it reveal itself once again, at least."

She was tense with fear, same as him but thinking it through, "It'd be beyond risky. We'd have to bait it into escalation again. Somehow. And then establish a connection it can't shake off, but through what? Stabbing Brightroar through a random Walker?"

"No. It'd turn into an attrition match no different than in Carcosa. We'd be absorbed." Giddy zeal wormed its way through his veins; a chance. He understood now how his predecessors had been subsumed during each Cycle, and how it had almost happened to him in the Dawn Fort and in Carcosa. The White Walkers -through their crystalline blades- had been the connector in both instances, the bridge from Comet to Purple which enabled a true confrontation. It had been a narrow bridge, however, one which the Comet had filled from end to end with its might, leaving no room to maneuver, to sneak, to outflank. It had been like two armies battling on a long and narrow rope-bridge; an engagement in which the Purple's nimble strength had run out far, far sooner than the Comet's own colossal power reserves. No, they needed a bigger connection. Big enough so they could squeeze into the Comet's guts before it could turn it into an attrition match that, as he'd learned in Carcosa, would last seconds.

Something better than a run-of-the-mill White Walker.

"That's it," he said, "The Night King."

"Who?"

"It's what the men at the Wall called it; a different type of Walker that oversaw the battle." Now that Joffrey thought about it, he never saw it take part of the battle itself. And neither had the one at the Dawn Fort, not willingly at least; he'd had to ram the Dawn Legion into it in turn, hoping that a kill would've slain the others… "I've seen its like before, back at the Dawn Fort. When it died and nothing much seemed to happen, I thought… well, I thought it was just a bigger, badder sort of Walker…" Joffrey took a deep breath, "But they're not. They're a nexus in the Silence. A confluence of power within the Walkers themselves."

"It makes sense," Sansa said after a while, "The Comet needs the Palace for its power to reach the Walkers… but we're far from the Palace indeed. Perhaps when a host gets sufficiently big it needs to create one of them to keep a handle on things."

It seemed barely saner than marching an army into the Lands of Always Winter. To somehow bait the Comet into a big field battle where it was forced to gather a majority of its host and thus the Night King... And then push it into escalation and fight their way to the Night King itself… which, going by its conduct during the Battle for the Wall and its brother's in the Siege of the Dawn Fort, would not be leading by the front…

Joffrey shook his head. "Whatever happens next, we have to survive the coming months," he said, "Salvage what we can out of the North. Avoid a complete collapse." He sighed, "Old Gods help us, Sansa. Winter is Coming." A war like none in written history. A war fought in every village, in every man, woman, and child. An avalanche of death had been unleashed on the Seven Kingdoms, and now it was up to him and Sansa to lead that desperate defense.

"Stand, soldier," she said, kissing him in the neck before an insistent hand shook him awake.

-: PD :-

"Our scouts found several wight piles here, here, and here," said Jorrick, marking the map of the North with charcoal scratches. "Two of 'em were still smoking."

"Tarly's been busy. He'll burn through the Outer Wolfswood at this rate." Joffrey tapped his chin, leaning back on the chair. The cabin was cramped and heavy with the smell of sweat, but the lords, knights, and centurions clustered around the table didn't seem to mind. If anything, the combined body heat was a welcome respite from the cold. Another group of survivors had joined up with them around midnight, and some of the fight was beginning to return to the eyes of his men. "We know there was a battle here, and here," he said, tapping two locations on the Kingsroad. "He's anchoring his right flank on Long Lake; clever, that way he can ferry supplies and wounded up and down the White Knife."

"I'm sorry, Your Grace," said Lord Cerwyn, "But how do you know of those battles?"

"I spoke with the Queen last night."

"Ah," said Lord Cerwyn. A ripple of solemn nods spread throughout his war council, hushed whispers surging and dying in seconds. They held awe rather than dread; for those that'd lived through Wallfall, the superstitions of old now meant rather little. Seven-Blessed or Sorcerer-Seer, the fact that their Queen held power not of this world was a relief to these men.

"The wight army seems to have split up after Wallfall, advancing upon the North through a string of lesser hosts. One of the bigger splinter groups is pressing Lord Tarly hard; right now they're probably fighting it out somewhere around this fishing village—Knifeboats." Joffrey looked up at his men; a veteran core of wight-fighters who'd survived an icy apocalypse and come out the other side alive. Unkempt beards framed their hardened faces, as patched as their plate and brigandine. Their hands were never more than a few inches away from their weapons. After a night's rest with a roof over their heads, they looked a lot more dangerous. "We're getting back into the thick of it, and the first thing we'll do is hit that host in the rear."

"We're with you, Your Grace," said Centurion Donric, "They won't tear a chunk out of the Kingdom without a fight."

"Westeros heeds the call," muttered Lord Cerwyn.

"Hear, hear," said Lord Piper, tapping the table with the back of his axe. Though the manning of the Wall's castles had been mostly homogeneous as far as which regions occupied which sections, the fall and the subsequent mist had jumbled up survivors from all corners of the continent. Something had happened to them during Wallfall, something which had hardened their wills. Something which made them look at him not as a man but… something else. Joffrey wondered what eldritch truths these men had seen within the clash of wills between Weapon and Comet.

"Ser Vardis," he said as he turned to the Vale knight, "You'll lead the forward contingent with what's left of our horse and strike the wights hard. Then you'll retreat to this valley, where we'll be lying in wait." He marked the clearing with a bit of charcoal, but stopped when he heard some sort of commotion outside. He frowned, turning to Jorrick, "Go see what's that all about, will you?"

Jorrick slapped his breastplate and squeezed between those assembled, who grumbled all the way as he made for the door.

"Centurion Gibbs," said Joffrey, "Still no sign of Tribune Fayse?"

The man shook his head reluctantly, "None, ser."

"Then you're promoted to Tribune effective immediately. Take command of the First Cohort and merge it with what's left of the Third. You'll sweep Long Lake's western approaches as we get in place for our little trap, joining with the rest of the force by noon. I'll lead the main force to this valley here and prepare the ambush, while Lord Cerwyn-" he nodded at the lord as he kept speaking -"And the men of Clan Wull will scout our approach and make sure we're not ambushed in turn. If the wights take the bait we'll bloody 'em good, and take the pressure off Lord Tarly… perhaps enough that we can sneak by and link up." He eyed the map, calculating distance, supplies, and morale with the ease of long experience. "If they don't take the bait, or too many of them do, we'll retreat to a rallying point near this hill, west of the Kingsroad," he said, frowning as he added in the rigors of marching in winter. As experienced a general as he was, that was an area in which his long lives had relatively little to say about. He'd have to look out for that. "I was told Lord Karsark's second son was here."

A youth in northern furs anxiously made his way forward, "I'm here, Your Grace. Name's Torrhen."

"You fought with the Freefolk volunteers Beyond the Wall, correct?"

The man nodded half-way, eying him nervously, "Aye, Your Grace."

"Good. You'll be by my side as we march. I'll be bouncing some ideas on you; how we might navigate this weather, for one."

He blinked, "Your Grace! I- It would be my honor- OW-" a stray elbow caught his chest as Jorrick made his way back, muttering half-hearted apologies.

Joffrey hid a smile, "Well?" he asked his aide.

Jorrick told him in a low voice.

"… what?"

"I said Lady Jeyne-"

"No, nevermind." He turned to the rest of the war council; young and old, hefting bearded axes with easy grips or thumbing their dragonglass daggers as they waited. As traumatized as they were hardened, it would now take something beyond Wallfall to shake these veterans of dawn. "Alright, that's it. Go to your men and get those sleds moving; make sure they don't pack anything they'll be dropping off twenty leagues from here. And keep a tight formation until we leave the worst of this mist behind, we're losing enough men as it is." He gave them a deep nod, "The Walkers gave us a hideous blow at the Wall, now it's up to us to make them regret reaping what they sowed."

"Westeros!" shouted someone, all the pent up horror of Wallfall raw in his throat.

A wordless snarl rippled throughout the war council, and Joffrey shared their mighty threat, "Westeros indeed," he said in a low voice.

They filled out in good order beyond the occasional shove, and Joffrey followed them outside to find Lady Jeyne.

She was flustered, stopping her pacing as she saw him. "Your Grace, the men outside wouldn't let me in-"

"They would've let you in had you arrived at the beginning," Joffrey told her, "The Handmaidens deserve a voice for all the good they've been doing."

"We're far too busy to watch the men play with-" she trailed off, color rising to her cheeks, "Anyway, that's not why I'm here."

Joffrey sighed, "I know. I-"

A horn sounded in the distance. Joffrey waited for two more, tense. The Armies of Dawn had inherited the Night's Watch signaling methods as far as horns were concerned. One for allies, two -though now largely disused- for hostiles, and three for Walkers. A tense beat later, Joffrey made his way to the palisade. From there he spotted a column of survivors coming from the northeast, flying tattered banners and pulling sleds with the wounded, not too dissimilar from Joffrey's own march. And at their head…

Joffrey felt a rare smile lit up on his face as the survivors merged with his own camp. Strangers greeted each other like long-lost family, joining for news and supplies. He made his way to the scarred man at the head, "Too fucking ugly for the wights, eh Sandor?"

"Joffrey," he said, sighing as if he'd been forced to carry a mountain on his back till this moment, "Boy, am I glad to see you-"

Joffrey bear hugged him, unable to contain himself. "Stupid dog," he whispered, blinking quickly, "Thought I'd lost you there for a moment."

"Me too, Joffrey. Me too," he rasped back.

Leaning back to see him better, Joffrey spotted no less than three new hideous scars, two of which crossed his 'good' cheek. Wallfall hadn't improved Clegane's looks by one bit. They swapped stories as Jorrick guided them to one of the communal campfires. It seemed largely similar to Joffrey's own tale of scavenging and survival. "After we were cut off the wights just kept expanding the breach. They pushed us the other way, don't know for how long, and then…"

"Wallfall," said Joffrey, turning to look at the survivors still streaming in around the camp.

A by now familiar harrumph interrupted their conversation. Sandor turned to Lady Jeyne with his most fierce scowl, burnt eyebrow rising up indignantly. His fresh scars bulged in horrific dread. "And you are?" he growled.

"Lady Jeyne Westerling. And you must be the Hound," she said, holding her head high. This rather unusual reaction from the female gender left Sandor at a loss for words. She turned towards him, "And I must insist about that matter, Your Grace."

Joffrey gave out a weary sigh, "Yes, that. See to your men, Sandor, and come find in half an hour. We'll be marching shortly." He nodded at Jeyne, "Lead the way."

She guided him and Jorrick outside the encampment, snow once again falling from white skies. It drifted down gently; little feathers which could turn into whirling knives in minutes, though that usually meant there was a Walker close by. Joffrey, annoyed by the waste of time, went through the day's marching route in his mind, and tried to avoid looking at the Red Comet perched above them all. We have to move quicker than Tarly's retreat, else we'll end up cut off for good. And according to Sansa there was another host marching over what was left of Castle Black right now. Sometimes, Joffrey wished he could be in several places at the same time; it would solve a great many problems. Kind of like the Song, when the Purple thrums between lives. When the fractals wind back the flow of time.

Eventually, a lone sentinel pine emerged from the mist, surrounded by a dozen people. Most of them were guardsmen, two of them holding a black-haired man both bloodied and tied. He was smirking at a mouse of a Handmaiden, who sat on a nearby rock, fingering her golden armband. "Tecylla," said Jeyne, kneeling by her side. "The King's here."

She looked up, but her gaze seemed to pierce him and go to a place far, far beyond this hole in the mist. She was comely, he supposed, in a defenseless sort of way… though the two big bruises and the distant look somewhat marred the effect. The serjeant overlooking the local guardsmen trotted up to him, "Commander!"

"Serjeant. Why isn't that man dancing with the dragons?"

"The very question I've been asking myself," said Jeyne, jaw clenched.

"Lady Jeyne, please," said Joffrey, holding a hand.

The serjeant eyed Jeyne warily; Joffrey suspected they'd been arguing the whole morning. "Well, we were gonna to, but then he, the man that is, started spouting off about being a lord and all. So we thought; well, that means the King has a hear him 'fore we make him dance."

Joffrey eyed the serjeant with both weariness and approval. Legally, he'd been right… though Joffrey resented the damned waste of time. He had a campaign to direct. Campaign… sounds better than evacuation. He rubbed the dirt out of his eyes, throttling down a sigh. If the New Westeros was to last beyond he and Sansa, then the law had to become more than a King's whims… or at least, not an inconsistent whim. "Alright then, let's hear it directly from the source." He turned to Tecylla, "Victim first."

She looked at him, hands clenching her northern leather hose. Out here in the front, handmaidens didn't wear dresses. Joffrey frowned.

Jeyne cleared her throat, "She's mute, Your Grace. Since Wallfall."

Joffrey realized he was resting his hand on his mace's pommel, a lax sort of strength filling his limbs; like Stars on the edge of a leap. A mute huh? Hard to come by easier prey. He breathed slowly, "Lady Tecylla. Did that man-" he pointed at the accused, his face now blank -"try to rape you in the early hours of the day."

She nodded once, firmly.

"She's lying!" the man shouted, "Don't believe her, Your Grace! She invited me into her tent, then set the Guard on me!"

Joffrey eyed the man, craning his neck, "And your name is..?"

"Ramsay Bolton, lord of the Dreadfort," he said, standing straight, "My father was Lord Roose."

"You're the bastard I legitimized last year, are you not? I remember that letter."

"Yes Your Grace." He nodded eagerly, "I fought with my lord father at the Wall; we hardly slept throughout the battle, giving it our all even as the wounds piled up. The vigor of youth must have helped me overcome them, but for my lord father there was no such hope. He was stabbed by a wight in the middle of the second night." His eyelashes fluttered as he shook his head, "A terrible loss, but I did my best to rally the men. Been doing so throughout the march, helping those with frostbite reach the Handmaidens. It was there I met the Lady Tecylla, actually. When she invited me into her tent in the early hours of the morn, I, well-" he gave him a guileless smile -"It had been a while, Your Grace, so I accepted. Next thing I know these fine guardsmen are hauling me out here and that lady there-" he jutted his chin at Lady Jeyne -"started shouting her silly head off."

Lady Jeyne for one looked ready to rip Bolton's head off, "You son of a-"

Joffrey placed a hand on her shoulder. The only obvious wounds he noted on Ramsay were the three fresh scars on his face, raked through his left cheek. A quick glance at Lady Tellyse's nails confirmed where that had come from. Hadn't attended any of the war councils either. "Serjeant, I understand you have a witness?"

"Aye, Yer Grace," he said, "Dolan! Come over here! King wants to speak with ya!"

"Your Grace," said the guardsman, giving him a courtly bow instead of the guard salute.

Joffrey smiled slightly, "What's your house?"

He seemed surprised, "Nightsong, Your Grace."

"Fourth son?"

"Fifth."

"Hm. Well, what did you see?"

"I- ah. Sometimes I like to check on the Lady Tellyse, make sure she's alright." At Joffrey's raised eyebrows the man -boy really- turned beet red, "Nothing like- like that Your Grace! It's just, after the Wall fell, the lady helped me out so, so I've been trying to return the favor. Make sure she's been having no trouble." Their eyes briefly met and both of them looked away. Joffrey noticed the missing middle finger on Dolan's left hand. Three guesses as to which Handmaiden took that out.

"So?"

"So I went to check on her after morning muster. She didn't answer when I called for her-" At Joffrey's raised eyebrow the boy blinked, "Well, ah, she usually taps the tent pole with one of her instruments when it's okay to get inside."

I bet. Joffrey only hoped they had been using the moon tea Sansa had made available to all Handmaidens, no questions asked. This war was no place to have a baby in. "Continue."

Dolan's mouth did a funny little thing, his halberd trembling in his hands -"I didn't hear the tap, but I did hear as if… she were choking, or drowning. So I tore inside and found that animal atop her, forcing her hands away as she tried to claw him off. He didn't bother to clamp her mouth shut, Your Grace," he said, voice so tight it almost squeaked, "He didn't have to."

"He's clearly a spurned lover," said Ramsay, "Manipulated by the lady so she can keep a shred of dignity after being discovered like this." He smiled, shaking his head as if it were obvious, "To accuse a lord of such things with so flimsy a witness' account… why, it's enough to make the blood boil, Your Grace."

"You fucking liar!" screamed Dolan, launching himself at Ramsay. Two guardsmen intercepted him before he could land a blow, and they carried him back.

Ramsay Bolton shook his head, "You see, Your Grace?"

Joffrey walked up to the tied lord, who still had that sick smile that didn't reach the eyes. "I think you're full of shit," he whispered in his ear, "You know why? Because I see myself in you." Ramsay's fake smile dissipated, his eyes cycling rapidly through Joffrey's face, "Yeah. Even now, always looking for an angle. Another lie to keep you moving forward, searching for the perfect thing to say. To make me a friend. To avoid being hurt. Maybe you even believe them yourself; I know I did." Closer still to his ear, almost kissing it, "You reek of it. I know it because the same monster is now begging me to take this hammer and plant it into your skull; watch the blood fall and feel right. Complete. Just. Everyone here would cheer me on. No one would stop me," Joffrey said, painful longing thrumming through his being. "It grew to dominate me, very long ago. That drive to impose myself above all others. To rend flesh and tear wills because we deserve it! Because it is owed to us!" He retreated half a step to find Ramsay staring at him, mouth agape. "Because it is the only way to…" Feel-love-live "…be." Joffrey breathed, and let go of his hammer.

"Help me," whispered Ramsay.

"I am," said Joffrey, his eyes lingering on the serjeant's stern face.

"No- Wait!" he said, his cry cut off as the serjeant placed the noose on his neck and pulled it tight. "Unhand me you imbeciles! You can't do this!" he screamed, "I am a lord! My blood is that of the Red Kings!" The serjeant threw the rope over one of the pine's sturdier branches, the four guardsmen by the other side receiving it.

His voice cut through Ramsay's rant like Valyrian steel, "I, Joffrey of the House Baratheon, first of his name, King of the Andals, the Royhnar, and the First Men. Protector of the Realm, and commander of this host of dawn, do sentence you to die."

His eyes turned wilder still, "No! That filthy whore!" he screamed at Lady Tellyse, "She was begging me to do it! Screaming it with her eyes! She've not the strength to even voice her mind-"

"Serjeant."

"Pull!" shouted the serjeant, and Ramsay was cut off with a gasp, the rope reeling him up like a freshly caught trout. He dangled up there, swaying with the cold wind as he shook this way and that, struggling to breath. But there would be no Purple for Ramsay Bolton, no fractal purgatory to break him down and make whole again. And always, he thought, gazing at the hand which had gripped the hammer, always, something remains.

It must have been a first for him. The realization he wouldn't just walk away from the consequences. His struggle ended gradually, bits of drool falling down his mouth as empty eyes stared north. Lady Tellyse watched it all, not blinking once. When he lay still, she turned to Joffrey and curtsied respectfully before walking towards the camp and losing herself in the mist. Perhaps the worst of his and Ramsay's curse was the blindness; the hunger that distorted the truth of others. Lady Tellyse was not weak but strong.

Though even the strongest of souls can get lost in this gods-be-damned mist, he thought as he eyed guardsman Dolan, who was nervously peering after her disappearing silhouette. "Guardsman! Make sure the lady finds her way back to camp," he said, though he was halfway through it when the soldier sprinted after her. "And then get back to your duties," he said more to himself. He looked up at Bolton's body, still spinning gently though his struggles were now over. "We've all got work to do."

"Thank you," said Jeyne, coming to stand by his side.

"You'll be helping the good serjeant here lower the body."

She formed a silent 'O' with her mouth.

"What? You didn't think we'd leave it here for the Walkers did you?" Joffrey smiled at her, "Thought I doubt even they would take him in."

Jeyne crossed her arms, "Is this revenge for 'wasting' your time?"

"I believe your patron would say 'don't ask questions you don't want answered'." He turned to the serjeant, "Pull him down and burn him!" The mist sawallowed him as he made way back to camp, Jorrick hurrying behind him. Though he worried about others getting lost in it, for Joffrey himself it had never been a real concern. The Red Comet was always up there, even if he couldn't see it. His own personal north pole; a compass for his soul. How could he get lost when always, always it stood above the horizon. Watching. Waiting.

"Soon," he told it.

"Your Grace?" said Jorrick.

"Let's get back into the war, First Serjeant."

-: PD :-