Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

Breathe.

Joffrey inhaled deeply, concentrating solely in the air slowly filling his lungs. The peace of the Red Keep's Godswood was undisturbed as he let the air out, the outside world shrinking to nothing as he let his senses feel everything and nothing at once. Pain and pleasure, cold and heat alternating with each hammering of his beating heart as time slowly ceased to have meaning.

His breathing was steady, calm. His eyes closed, with only a twitch of a smile as the strange pain in his chest bloomed and then quickly quieted.

Joffrey's eyes opened slowly, his smile widening under the Godswood as he lifted his left hand and felt Star's fur, the Silver Lion purring as it sat by his side, content yet vigilant.

The Godswood was deserted at this hour of the morning, the sun barely starting to peek over the horizon. It had taken days of almost continuous meditation, chasing after the elusive sensation he'd felt under the storm that had crashed against King's Landing weeks ago, but his effort had paid off. His search had taken him deep within, to a place neither mental nor physical, a bizarre frontier between the here and the not here. It was there that Joffrey had come to understand the sensation he felt every time he saw the Silver Lion… and used it as one might a rope, following it deeper within. Though he had not yet reached the place it came from, already Joffrey had to take several minutes to come back to reality, his consciousness slowly returning to lucidity as a lazy bubble climbing out of the depths of a still pond.

He leaned back from his rigid posture, letting the oak have his weight as he absentmindedly scratched Star's neck, quickly entangling the wild tufts of fur that made his black mane. The big lion was content to lie in the grass beside him, their wills strangely entwined.

He was quickly becoming exhausted though, so he let Stars go, his presence at his side slowly dissipating until he was alone again in the clearing.

Almost four minutes… and no fainting too… he thought with a satisfied smile. He was improving.

He stood up and walked back to the Red Keep itself, ignoring the strange looks the Stark guardsmen gave him. They seemed wary, tense… same as the Stormlanders that Renly kept close whenever he was in the Red Keep.

Though he had seen no overt signs of escalating tensions, the mood around the Red Keep had again been getting steadily more foreboding with the passing weeks. Joffrey didn't know what was the cause behind it, but it was probably nothing good. Had Ned Stark found indisputable evidence of his bastardry? Was there something going on somewhere else in the realm that he was not privy to? Bran was safe and sound here in the Red Keep, and Tyrion too. There was no sign of raids in the Riverlands, and Stannis was keeping quiet back in Dragonstone.

So what was going on?

Joffrey shook his head in frustration… it was only now that the monumental task he had set upon himself was starting weight him down, and he wasn't even King yet!

So many players, so many variables…

He shook his head again as he walked, the prospect of another visit to Nalia's cheering him up. At least there was one person in King's Landing that understood him.

-.PD.-

The midday visit was, like always, a balm to Joffrey's soul. Nalia's gentle ministrations and curious questions centering his mind in the present in a way no manner of meditation could compete.

"I just don't know if it's too late to stop the coming war," Joffrey said as he put on his doublet.

"Maybe, maybe not. You never know until you try, Joff," said Nalia, her delicate fingers buttoning his shirt. They were in their usual room, a calm oasis safe from the steadily rising tensions that were flooding King's Landing.

"Perhaps…" Joffrey said with a small smile, her optimism cheering him up. "But I feel my many month's long introspection may have left me disadvantaged…" he said.

"That's never stopped you before… have thought about what you'll do?" Nalia asked him as she tucked a wisp of blonde hair behind Joffrey's ear.

"A bit… I've been thinking about sending a raven for Archmaester Ryam at the Citadel. I've got a few ideas I want to run through--" he suddenly stopped as he tilted his head sideways, his whole body tensing.

"Joffrey?" asked Nalia, her smooth hand cupping his cheek, "Remember to breathe," she said with a vaguely reproachful look.

Joffrey shook his head slightly, his fond smile returning. "Sorry… it's been hard to… relax my reflexes, I suppose…" he said as he grabbed his arming sword and strapped it to his side.

"Good luck kiss before I go?" he asked her with a raised eyebrow.

Nalia shook her head fondly before kissing him, her tongue teasing him slightly before she stepped back, "The rest is for tomorrow," she told him with a cheeky smile.

Joffrey chuckled as he walked towards the door, only to stop abruptly and tense once more.

"Joffrey? Again?" asked Nalia.

A twinge of nervousness in her voice.

Joffrey stood still for ten seconds, silent. Suddenly, he grabbed the nearby chair and slammed it against the door, making it impossible to be opened from the outside.

"Joffrey?! What-" Nalia asked but Joffrey was already dashing past her, running like a madman towards the wooden wall only to jump at the last second, both feet angled towards it.

The fake wall collapsed as he smashed into it, extracting a strangled yelp from the other side. Joffrey stood up like lightning, his hand jutting in amongst the dust and the smashed planks and swiftly extracting a thin, coughing man from under the planks.

"Fucking spies! How long have you been listen--" Joffrey stopped suddenly, his brows furrowing as he stepped back, still grabbing the thin, black haired man in simple but fine noble clothing by the neck.

"…Littlefinger..?" Joffrey asked, absolutely confused.

The man kept coughing as Joffrey held him, struggling for air as Joffrey stopped squeezing.

"Pr-…Prince Joffrey," he wheezed, his voice dry.

Joffrey was shaking his head slowly, not quite understanding the situation. "Baelish… how long...?" he asked, blinking slowly.

"My Prince"- he started with a tentatively gentle smile -"let us discuss this calmly li--" his retort died under Joffrey's relentless, steel like grip, his body feeling strange as he kept squeezing the Master of Coin's throat.

"How. Long," he repeated his voice oddly neutral.

"Mhok…..mhooaah…. months…" croaked Littlefinger.

Nalia's voice became a drone in the background as Joffrey walked, dragging Baelish to the room's balcony. The man's eyes widened as he registered what Joffrey intended to do. He fumbled for the dagger at his waist before Joffrey slapped it aside carelessly, tumbling down to the street below.

"What were you planning?" he asked calmly as he shattered the wooden rail with a kick before holding Baelish in midair, one hand at this throat and the other on holding his fine doublet. Baelish's legs swung wildly as he struggled for air, his panicked eyes looking down to the streets and back to Joffrey every second.

He coughed, red faced before Joffrey let him take a gulp of air and his feet managed to find a slight purchase against the edge of the balcony. "I was only tasked with keeping watch over your health my Princ- NO PLEASE NO!" Joffrey interrupted his excuses as he let go of his throat, the hand grabbing the Master of Coin's doublet the only thing stopping him from falling backwards to his death.

"What were you planning, last chance," Joffrey said truthfully, the gaping pit inside his belly growing wider and wider.

"Ahh! Ah! A change of heir! A change of heir!!!" Petyr confessed as he gripped Joffrey's hand with both of his own, holding on for dear life as the people below shouted.

Joffrey shook his head again, nonplussed, "Robert would never believe your word you stupid fuck," he spat.

"He believed Lord Renly and Ned Stark!" he blabbered as he kept staring down, hyperventilating as a small breeze shuffled his hair, "I brought them here and- please my Prince, I can help you fix this-"

"AND WHAT?!" Joffrey roared, extending his arm and almost letting go of him.

"They saw! The crown prince is mad! Filled with visions of despair like King Aerys come again!" Baelish screamed, the abrupt circumstances making him blurt out the standard response he'd no doubt been seeding around the Red Keep.

Joffrey could somehow hear the rush of blood inside his head, slowly drowning out everything else as he struggled to understand. "But Mother would never allow this… She'd kill Robert before… Oh…" he suddenly realized.

"That's exactly what you wanted, isn't it? Fucking Petyr Baelish… always, somehow, seeding chaos wherever you go… why did you… why did you have to ruin this… I… I needed this… I…" Joffrey slowly stopped speaking as everything turned red, the rush of blood drowning Baelish's scream as he shoved him, sending him flying through the air towards the ground.

He turned around like a White Walker, the sound of pounding fists on the room's door also growing inconsequential as he stared at a petrified Nalia, standing next to the bed. "…You knew?" he asked her, his voice hollow.

"Joffrey please! I had to! He said I'd-" her wailing also became indistinct as Joffrey walked towards her, a hollow, pleasurable smirk emerging from his lips as he drew his arming sword.

Nalia's previous ministrations where nothing compared to the joy she was about to bring him now.

Her eyes widened as she stumbled backwards, hitting the wall and opening her mouth to scream though Joffrey could hear no sound as he slashed at her leg, then at her arm, and at her beautiful chest, again and again, her hot blood feeling like a balm over his body as he hacked her apart… but he was going to leave her face for the last. His greatest work, his masterpiece.

When the door broke down and two of the local armsmen stumbled through with swords drawn, the bloodied form of Joffrey turned towards them, a savage smile on his lips as he charged with a wild screech.

-.PD.-

The rest of the day was a blur to Joffrey. It was only next morning that he regained enough lucidity to really comprehend what was going on. He jumped out of the small hummock he'd been sleeping on, rushing out the door and up a set of small stairs only to almost fall down the side of a small trade cog.

"I trust the accommodations were good enough?" grunted a man behind him.

Joffrey whipped around only to find a small, unassuming man with a small purple beard, a sardonic smile at his lips. "Paid enough gold for that," he grunted again as he shook his head in mild disbelief.

"Wha-" started Joffrey but the man held up his hand.

"Don't worry, we chucked the clothes to the sea. I don't know who you murdered, though it must have been a fat bastard… and I'm not asking. That is unless, you want my payment back?" he asked nonchalantly. Joffrey didn't need to guess what would happen if he said yes, sailors were not the subtle kind… and the two burly mercenaries at the man's back would be quick to reassure him if he tried to disabuse that notion.

"Keep it," Joffrey grunted as he turned back, leaning heavily on the wooden rail.

Gods… Nalia… what have I done..? Said a distant voice inside his head. He rubbed his face compulsively, trying to rub off her blood. He looked at his reflection through a nearby water bucket, and though his face seemed clean he couldn't stop rubbing it, trying to shake off her remains.

"Gods… no…" he whispered as he fell on his bum, the cog coursing through another wave as the sailors secured sails and swept the deck, not any one of them giving him more than a quick look.

I hurt her… I tortured her… I enjoyed it… the thoughts spiraled inside is head, threatening to make him loose his mind.

He remembered savaging Nalia with his arming sword, and later when he butchered the armsmen that came to stop him, as well as vague impressions of him walking through King's Landing… but there was a part of it where his memory went black, where he couldn't remember even a hazy impression, only blackness… the moment right before he started on her face.

The hollow pit in his stomach deepened as he contemplated what manner of horror he must have inflicted upon her for even his mind to block it…

Why does everything I touch turn to ash? Why am I this way?

The sea had no answers and neither did the crew… Joffrey thought nobody ever would.

-.PD.-

It was only when the ship arrived to Tyrosh that Joffrey came to the realization that he'd left his home to die again.

He'd stood there in the Tyroshi pier, the harbor of the great fortress city constantly moving in a frenzy of trade and commerce as he dumbly stared at the side of a dock warehouse.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" He screamed as he punched the wooden wall. The pain barely phased him even though he'd almost punched clean through the wall, blood running down his fist.

He leaned on it as his legs gave out, slowly sliding to the floor as a nearby beggar shuffled away and the man behind the fruit stand gave him the evil eye.

Does this change anything? He asked himself, the question heavy with too many feelings flashing like lightning through his gut. He closed his eyes as he tilted his head up, the noon sun flooding his sight through his eyelids. Was what he'd felt at the top of the Red Keep that night just a mirage? A lie?

His mind felt strangely still as he pondered that question before he lowered his head and opened his eyes, blinking away the splotches of color flooding his vision.

"No," he said, savoring the simple word. He may have been cursed by the Gods themselves, he may be nothing more than a vicious animal beneath a thin veneer, but he'd long since accepted he was the master of his own fate. He'd made his choice at King's Landing, he was going to honor it. He could be a horrible person, a sadist at heart no better than Maegor the Cruel… but that didn't cancel the fact that only he had a realistic chance to stop what was to come, to give the Seven Kingdoms and maybe even mankind a fighting chance against the abyss…

It was probably impossible to salvage much of anything at this point in time though, after Baelish's scheming and the prince himself disappearing for weeks… either he was already branded as an insane illegitimate bastard or Cercei had gotten to Robert first. Either way the Seven Kingdoms had started their descent into madness, and there was nothing much he could do about it after all that had happened… too much damage had been done to his reputation to do anything about it. The Walkers were going to slaughter his friends and family again, if they didn't do it themselves first.

If you don't kill them first, whispered a hateful, treacherous voice inside his head.

The certainty of that thought hit him like a runaway carriage, yet he steeled himself against the blow, a snarl escaping his mouth as he closed his bloodied fist. Their sacrifice was already a fact, no matter if he died right now or twenty years hence…

He'd have to make the most of it, finally get to the bottom of his wild chase.

He stood up in one swift movement, eyeing the trio of thugs looking at him greedily not half a dozen meters away. He didn't have anything but the clothes at his back, and not even a dirk to defend himself.

Joffrey cracked his neck twice, taking a deep breath as he walked right towards them. He was going to have answers, and Gods and Walkers were not enough to stop him.

-.PD.-

Ax Island was the eastern most of the Basilisk Isles, a foreboding thumb of rock jutting from the ocean like an enraged Leviathan. The island was absolutely covered in green, and even though its jungle was said to pale in comparison to the green hell that was Inner Sothoryos, Joffrey thought it was a wonder anyone even lived here at all.

A rasping cough echoed from behind him, the black stone all around him muffling the sound and almost turning it into a whisper.

He turned back to the sight of a bloodied corsair in black leathers, slowly crawling away from him with his arms, his legs barely more than a dead weight for all the help they were giving him.

Well, a wonder that anyone used to live here anyway, he thought as he walked to the man, stomping a boot against his back and placing his boarding cutlass just over where the heart should be.

"P-please! I-I can give you gold! Women! I can aaaaghhh," Joffrey interrupted the headache inducing stream of bastard valyrian and pidgin ghiscary with a quick stab, blood pooling around the corsair's chest as his arms gave out and he hugged the cold, dark stone.

Joffrey shook his head as he wiped the blood off the cutlass with the man's body. For all the bravado and arrogance the motley crew of corsairs had displayed, Joffrey had found their skill profoundly lacking.

Serves the idiots right for attacking a simple explorer… Joffrey thought with a snort, striding towards the last set of stairs and through a ruined, threadbare cloth door.

Joffrey estimated that the corsairs had been squatting in the fort for less than three months, given the supplies and haphazard repairs all around the area. He doubted a full year of rebuilding would have made a difference though, for the fort of the much dreaded Xandarro Xhore was falling to pieces.

He raised an eyebrow as he kneeled, vaguely offended as he felt the black stone with his hand. It was obvious to anyone with even a passing knowledge of construction that Xandarro Xhore had been no architect. The black stones the man had looted from ancient ruins around the island were solid enough, eerily similar to the ones found in Old Town or the Five Forts… but the arrangement and the mortar the Qartheen pirate of ages past had settled on made very little sense indeed.

He took a deep breath of fresh sea air as he stood up, smoothing his ragged leather armor as he scanned the horizon for signs of any other pirate, corsair or even the occasional foolhardy trader. He swore he could almost see the tantalizing shore of Sothoryos to the south, the deadly continent where none save the Brindled Men could hope to settle and live.

With the horizon clear of any ships Joffrey was content to turn back to what he'd been doing before the damned corsairs had interrupted him...

He was hopeful, after all, Xandarro had to have looted the black stone from somewhere on the island…

-.PD.-

The rainstorm sounded strangely muffled under the massive canopy of leaves and branches, the torrent of water pouring from above reduced to only a few natural causeways by the leaves and dark brown branches. They were spread out in such a pattern that the water was naturally directed towards the tree's trunk like a Braavosi conductor might lead an orchestra, each branch and leave carefully positioned to make use of slopes and gravity to ensure its water supply. The competition was cutthroat though, with rival trees placing their leaves atop the others and carefully growing bone white spikes of wood that drilled into enemy trunks when the trees where close enough.

Joffrey was startled out of his reverie by the feather light touch on his arm, and not screaming was all he could do as he gazed at the beautiful yellow and green butterfly lazily flapping its wings, its tiny legs finding purchase over his light leathers. Joffrey staid still over the black stone he'd been sitting on, the frustration after not finding a single carving dissolved to nothing as he stared at the butterfly in dread, not daring to move an inch.

The butterfly stretched its wings a few times before deciding that Joffrey had been a good enough support pillar and that he didn't deserve to die, flying away with barely a sound. Joffrey collapsed on the ground with a heavy sigh, compulsively scratching his arm in relief.

He stood back up, giving one last look at the useless would-have-been obelisk before strapping a length of rope to it. He walked for a bit, making sure the rope was tense as he reached a small clearing. The thick, green canopy of Ax Island stopped as if it had slammed against an invisible wall, no trees growing close to the carriage sized hole at the middle of the clearing.

Joffrey strapped the rope to his waist before making sure his sealskin bag was tightly tied to his back, taking one long look down the dark hole before standing with his back towards it, letting the rest of the rope fall.

"Why, oh why couldn't they have left the freaking clues in the Summer Islands," he grumbled as he jumped down.

His gloves ran hot as the rope slipped through them, his body tumbling through the twilight darkness of the huge cave, the paltry light coming from above barely enough to see his hands. Inside the cave he could hear great echoes of fury, roars of slamming waves against rock and stone as he kept going down deeper into the abyss.

He engaged the iron break on the rope, stopping his descent and leaving his hands free to take the small torch tied to his belt. He carefully put it under his left hand before jamming the rings he wore on both thumb and index finger, the sudden sparks from the flint and steel dazing him for a second before the torch was lit.

He let the torch fall, following its uncomfortably long decent into darkness until it hit the ground with a dull thud, the rope just barely reaching its side.

Good, I'll be damned if I had to get even more rope… he thought as he let go of the iron break. As it was he'd nearly stripped the small corsair sloop of all its rigging. Perhaps the corsairs had not been as useless as he'd thought...

He finally reached the ground with only a few meters of rope to spare, the sound of the waves inside the huge cave almost deafening. He walked a bit to his right and saw the furious waves crashing against the hard, oily black stone, the torch now in his hand aiding little to his task as he gazed at the veritable lake inside the cave, jagged cliffs of black stone flanking its sides.

"Must be connected to the sea… an underwater tunnel maybe…" Joffrey mused to himself as he gazed at the black waves. He turned back towards the edges of the cave, looking for any signs of runes or pictograms, squinting and staring closely to every single patch of rock inside the cave.

He scratched his small, scraggily beard before nodding, a crazy smirk adorning his features as he carefully climbed down the steep black cliffs, towards the inner lake itself. He spent a while going in a circle around it, checking every single side of the cliffs. He almost missed the small opening just above the sea-level, a triangular tunnel boring into the rock.

Joffrey's heart beat wildly as he reached the tunnel, the light from his torch illuminating the carvings at the sides. The murals were the same as in Bonetown, a man standing up in defiance or despair or something, then it showed the figure being torn apart by a mob of other men and then scattering all over the tunnel. There the pattern ended, only for it to repeat a few steps later.

Joffrey kneeled besides one of the black seals that were spaced every dozen meters, grabbing the man shaped handle and pulling it pack with all his strength. For a moment he thought it wouldn't budge, but suddenly there was a dry click and it gave way. He kept pulling it, whistling slowly as a triangular prism of purple-black stone emerged from the wall.

"Obsidian…" he whispered, running a hand through its scarred and pitted surface. The blocks were thus that any sort of weapon could be fashioned from them, from arrow tips to even longswords, if someone had been foolish enough to try it.

A gift from the past… and this time not looted by traitors to mankind…

He left the shard there, continuing through the tunnel as his heart beat soared and his mouth suddenly felt dry. A section of the tunnel was angled downwards, strangely bent, and Joffrey cursed out loud as he saw water. It seemed something had given out above the tunnel, though its construction had been so sturdy that it hadn't cracked open. Instead it was bent, and water flooded the section completely.

Joffrey stared at it for a few seconds before taking off his leather armor, leaving only his small clothes and his sealskin bag on his person.

"Let's go for a swim then," he whispered before he dived.

The water was freezing, leeching the warmth out of his body as he pumped his arms and his legs, pushing himself ever forwards… and ever downwards. The light from the torch quickly turned into a distant memory as the passage turned darker and darker, Joffrey's hands growing dimmer until he could not even see them.

It felt like decades before he touched the ground, his hands feeling the rising slope that would take him back towards precious air… but his lungs were already burning.

He swam with all his strength, his hands still feeling the corridor's floor as it kept angling upwards, the burning pain spreading around his chest like wildfire, his mouth begging to be opened for just. A. Tiny. Second.

The corridor's upward slope became the only constant in Joffrey's life as he kept swinging his legs and everything turned dark, his own body invisible to his eyes as his strokes grew lazy and the corridor seemed to stretch to infinity, an infinity as deep as the Purple filled with unending fractals and shadows andpain—

Joffrey took a harrowing breath as his head broke the waterline, immediately expelling it and gulping for air again, wild coughs spraying water all around him as he splashed wildly, his hands frenzied and not really sure about what to do.

He breathed again and again as his hands found something solid and maybe drier, desperate strength pulling him out of the water and collapsing on the ground belly up.

A screaming, bloated Joffrey stared back at him. His hands clawed at his throat in despair, eyes almost squished under the pressure of the Strangler. From its sides tendrils of fractals and strange silhouettes flowed like water atop the trees just above the cavern, snaking through the chamber towards the center, where Joffrey knew his message awaited.

He rolled with a huff and a strain of effort, standing up in a bit of a daze as he got back his bearings. He was already going through the motions of taking his oil lamp from his sealskin bag when he realized he could already see.

He dropped the bag in stupefied amazement as he gazed at the final scene of his wedding illuminated by wild streaks of bright green moss and frail looking yellow mushrooms, hanging from crooks and crannies all over the chamber.

He stumbled to one of the flat topped mushrooms and the pale, beautiful yellow light emerging from its underside, his hand almost touching it.

He stood there for a moment, mesmerized before he shook his head and lowered his arm. It was probably poisonous, like everything else in this godsforsaken island.

"Alright, what have you got for me," he said out loud as he strode decisively towards the center of the chamber, kneeling over the small circle filled with half dead scribbles and constellations. It seemed to be of the same design as that of Bonetown, though time and erosion had wiped away different parts, leaving Joffrey with new insights.

He hand traced the shape of a small building with seven sides, complete with tiny doors and windows if one stretched the imagination a bit and ignored the scars of time.

A Sept, thought Joffrey. The Sept. it was strange though, the Sept was surrounded by four extra dots…

He kept staring at the carvings, finding the remnants of what he now knew should be the Heart Tree and the Broom, exactly where they should be if they were whole, followed by other shapes.

A man with a hammer held high, a long and slim tower, a robed figure with a skull in its hands…

Joffrey went to his bag and brought it back, taking a cloak from it and wrapping it around his shivering body. He sat again just besides the carvings, thinking hard as he took out the oil lantern and lit it, the small warmth helping him fight the cold as he shook off the last of the water. He took out a strip of beef jerky, munching it for a good long while before drowning it back with a long gulp of his wineskin, the looted Ghiscary swill purging his throat rawer than the Strangler.

He took in a deep breath as he laid back, tired. "A lunch fit for a King," he declared to no one in particular.

So… Bran the Builder, The Watchtower and The Stranger..? He thought, images of stars and constellations cartwheeling through his mind. Those were the ones he had been able to identify immediately, though there were a few more he could likely salvage by comparing them with the other incomplete ones from Bonetown. That was a sight he was never going to forget.

It was strange though, some, but not all, of the constellations had one, two or as much as ten dots around them, while in other parts one or two dots stood alone, as if standing in for a constellation. They must add some extra meaning to each specific instance of the constellation, because he'd seen two Septs, one with four dots and one with three.

He gazed at the center again, his eyes lowering towards the inscription and filling in the letters he still remembered from Bonetown.

"V…R…Y…NE…" He spelled out loud, filling the missing letters with what he remembered. "EVERY..?" he sampled the word in his mouth, frowning. "EVERYONE..?" he asked himself. "EVERYONE B… H… PR..P…L… PURPLE?" he said out loud, sounding out the words. He kept going on through the small sentence again and again, trying to decipher some kind of meaning between what he saw, what he remembered and pure conjecture.

EVERYONE B- something H-something PURPLE something something TO something RIGHT?

By the Gods, I'm so close…

He could feel it in his bones, he was close, so tantalizingly close…

He turned back to the constellations, memorizing every single detail. He was going to need more to decipher this, but the question was… where?

Joffrey absentmindedly ate another piece of jerky, tapping the black stone with his fingers.

He took another drink from the Ghiscary swill, emptying the wineskin as he looked back to the constellations.

There's one other place I know of that boasts an ominous oily black stone construction…

It was talked about in hushed, dreaded whispers in the pirate havens of the Basilisk Isles, in restrained greed and resignation in New Ghis…

It was madness to even contemplate it... but then again, Joffrey was bemused and somewhat saddened when he realized he'd done worse.

He eyed the murals one more time as he nodded to himself, the last seconds of his first life staring down upon him.

"South," he said out loud, "I need to go south," he repeated, his eyes distant as he imagined the dread jungles of Inner Sothoryios, the distant shadow of the Ruined City of Yeen.

-.PD.-

The chair sized, long legged bird had multicolored feathers, a riot of color meant both to daze predators and attract mates. The feathers swayed almost with a mind of their own as the bird took one carefully measured step under the thick jungle, head tilted just so it could hear the tiny worms scuttling under the earth. The dark green canopy left the jungle in perpetual twilight, the light barely reaching the ground as if even the sun were scared to tread upon the ancient lands. The bird stood still, straining to hear the sounds of the jungle and its riot of life… but this far into Sothoryos the jungle was oddly quiet, the gentle, careful steps of the rainbow colored bird almost unbearably loud.

It took another step, right besides a clump of hardy looking bushes that had somehow been able to grow despite the paltry light that reached them. All around the bird numerous, numberless thin and thick tree trunks stretched towards the air in a maddened arms race for sunlight, while parasitic growth roots spread from treetop to treetop, strangling the very same trees that gave them life or sapping their strength with blood red roots. The ground was full of leaves and roots and moss, a veritable bed of nature that hid the very ground from sight.

Suddenly the bird struck, darting its long, needle like beak right through the leaves and even the mossy dirt, lightning like speed extracting a thumb sized squirming worm. The bird slurped it almost immediately, taking a second to luxuriate in the sweet basking of victory before deciding to fly away.

That extra second cost it its life as the bushes behind it suddenly darted forward, what had seemed like just another mound of dirt opening itself to reveal a double row of razor sharp teeth that closed with a cataclysmic crash, the strength of the thing's jaws strong enough to cut the bird in half and sent part of it tumbling away with a squirt of bright red blood. The apparent mobile mound of dirt and bushes revealed itself as something more as it swallowed its meal and considered whether to dart forward in search of the other half. The crocodile like beast was the size of a long table, with thick green scales, brown snout and a long, spiked tail. It opened its huge nostrils as its beady reptile eyes scanned the ground, taking a long smell for even a hint of another being close by.

Content with its safety, the big, lumbering beast stomped its way towards the other half of the bird, the bushes that grew from its back swaying to and fro.

As it devoured the other half, the tree to its side slowly opened two eyes, just a few meters above the beast. The pale green irises seemed to inspect the beast for a dozen seconds before a whole part of the tree collapsed with barely a sound. The man sized lump of dried bark and fresh leaves landed atop the beast with a fearsome roar, the steel tipped spear piercing right through its neck scales before the beast rolled aside with a wild screech.

The man sized lump of dirt, sap, bark and leaves landed on the cushioned ground, rolling before seamlessly standing back up, shedding leaves and pieces of wood everywhere.

The beast barely had time to shake the spear off before the man rushed towards it. It opened its huge maw and closed it faster than a free falling iron portcullis, but the man was already spinning to its left, jamming his serpentine like dagger in the same place where he'd stabbed the spear.

The beast screeched in agony, thrashing from side to side until it shuddered once more and staid still.

"… There's always a bigger fish. Well, lizard-thing-monster anyway," Joffrey sentenced as he kneeled down and flipped the beast with a grunt of strength, lean, powerful muscles bulging under the strain as he left the beast upside down.

"Hey! I know! Let's place the clues in the middle of the green hell known as Sothoryos! I'm sure the bastard will just love that!" Joffrey said out loud, slamming his dagger into the beast's belly and opening it up from head to tail.

"Excellent idea my friend! Let's place it so fucking deep inside he won't be able to see the sky sometimes!" he said as he started harvesting the body, cutting thick slabs of compact looking meat and leaving it on a bowl made of leaves to his side. His own skin looked like cured leather, tanned and pockmarked with scars and the odd missing bit of flesh.

"Yes! Yes! Maybe he'll spend so much time there he'll go crazy and start talking to himself!" he grumbled as he moved to the beast's head and started chipping away at its skull, expert strokes quickly opening the top and revealing its brain in plain sight.

"Ah, monster lizard brain, been a while since I've had this delicacy," he said to himself with not even a hint of irony. "How it can taste so good and not go bad in weeks I'll never know…" he said as he scooped it up and placed it in a wad of leaves he promptly turned into a ball.

He stood up and gazed at his half hours' worth of harvesting with a pleased nod, placing the meat inside his green leather backpack and grabbing his spear before scrambling off. This deep into Sothoryos half an hour was as much as he dared to stay beside a fresh carcass… There was always a bigger fish.

He hiked through the thick jungle, occasionally having to slash at the undergrowth with his saber and thanking all Andals for the gift of steel every time he did. Steel tools and maesterly lore had been the two things that had enabled him to survive almost one and a half (or was it two?) years in the hell hole known as Sothoryos. He thought the trip to Yeen by river boat would have lasted all of one or two months, but the entire Zamoyos river basin was a man eating death trap, as he'd personally found out. As it was he'd barely made it out of his skiff alive when the Brindled Men ambushed him twenty kilometers upriver from Zamettar… He couldn't complain though, the slightly gentler Brindled Men, those who lived closer to the coast and knew a scattering of the common trade tongues had warned him not to venture upriver like the semi-regular private expeditions from New Ghis. Even though one in five of those survived, the lust for the plentiful riches that lay upstream was enough for men to chance even those odds. Gems, gold, ivory, mahogany, tough exotic leathers, rare herbs and strange semi-precious stones. All enough to see every Ghiscary river galleys merrily sailing upriver slaughtered to a man by the Brindled Men who, Joffrey thought, must make somewhat of a decent living with the supplies those ships so obligingly brought to them every once in a while.

Still, by keeping himself well out of sight of the river he'd scarcely seen one of the massively muscled, big boned brutes past Zamettar. Instead, he got to meet every other happy denizen that made its living on the continent.

He was never going to look at a beetle the same way again.

Loosing sight of the river meant loosing the only obvious landmark to someone who did not outright live here though, and that had meant he'd gotten lost no fewer than seven times. Seven times he'd gotten completely, absolutely, hopelessly lost inside the green hell. One of those times he'd been unable to see the sky for three days. If he'd suddenly found himself in Gogossos, even though the damned ruin was in an island, he wouldn't have been surprised. As it was though, each time he'd managed to find his way again, and a week ago he'd finally sighted the river again.

It was noon by the time he made it to his base camp, starting a fire with the wood he'd collected last night and leaving some of the meat atop the small boulders he used to cook them. He collapsed with a sigh against a thick, fallen brown trunk conveniently located next to the camp fire, letting his back rest there as he looked down.

He was close, some mornings when he climbed atop the trees he could see the black domes of Yeen near the horizon in between the sea of green, a black beacon guiding him in. By now he shouldn't be more than half a week away at the most, assuming his regular marching speed. He was excited, relishing the payoff after months upon months of trekking up and down the thick jungles and fighting off everything from man eating worms to nightmarish monsters that looked like someone had slapped together a Shryke and a horse sized chicken.

His camp was now atop a small hill with a direct view of the Zamoyos, its lazy, murky waters undulating like a serpent across the landscape. Joffrey could just about see some sort of black building from here, right where the first big tributary of the Zamoyos river basin joined the main stream, a big black thing that could be a dome, an obelisk or something else.

He stayed there for a while, the sound of sizzling meat not enough to distract him from a very insistent feeling.

It was only when the fallen tree trunk was moving that Joffrey remembered there had been no such thing this morning. He tried to leap away but the thing was too fast, its huge, wood-like serpentine body wrapping around him impossibly fast.

His mind screamed as the brown colored snake squeezed, its ambush perfect. He managed to get an arm out before the snake locked him into position, the thing's impossible strength trying to crunch him into so much pulp. Joffrey screamed in pain, one flailing hand grabbing the dagger from the floor and stabbing the snake quickly. It wouldn't let him go however, the pain only making it madder as it turned its head towards him, blood red eyes and crazed tongue doing nothing to distract Joffrey from the real danger: the two dagger long fangs dripping with venom.

No! Not now! Joffrey thought as he jammed the dagger against the snake's body desperately, only for the Oak-like snake to slam its fangs against his shoulder.

"AAAAAAaaaaaaahhhh…" he screamed, feeling the sludgy, slow moving venom as it entered his bloodstream.

"No! NO!" Joffrey screamed as both prey and predator rolled on the ground, the snake's death grip unrelenting as it kept its fangs on the back of Joffrey's shoulder, pumping more and more venom into his body. He looked down the hill towards the river, the black beacon with his answers taunting him.

"NO!" he screamed as he pierced the snake's gums with his dagger, separating first one fang from the snake's mouth and then the other. They were still jammed tight against his shoulder but at least they were no longer pumping any more venom into him. The snake reared back its head, spilling blood everywhere as it screeched and tightened the death grip on his body, making him drop the dagger.

Joffrey could hear the sound of bones crunching as the birch like scales of the snake kept tightening around him, stealing his life but half a week's walk from his answers. He kept screaming as he searched deep within himself, the pain granting him an unusual clarity of mind, a deep thrumming that went beyond his breaking ribs, a roar that quickly drowned all other sound as a silver lion the size of a small horse slammed into the snake's head, pinning it to the ground with its great weight and savaging it with its teeth and claws. The pressure around Joffrey soon dropped, though the occasional spasm still sent him reeling in pain before he could disentangle himself from the snake.

Stars shoved the flaccid snake head with one of his paws, making sure it was dead before turning towards Joffrey and lowering his head. Joffrey grabbed Star's mane tightly, letting the big lion drag him away from the still spamming corpse of the snake.

"Tha… that's it… good boy Stars… good boy…" he mumbled as he dropped to his knees, one hand fumbling about for his backpack while the other crossed his chest and tried to dislodge the fangs from the back of his neck.

Joffrey bit off a silent scream, tears falling down his face as he rocked back and forth, his arm in agony… It appeared to be broken… and he didn't have the strength to pull the fangs out.

He stayed there, rocking back and forth as he rode out the pain, his other hand finding the set of boiled cloth bandages he kept in his backpack.

"Stars"- he said as he looked up at the Silver Lion's pale green eyes -"you're going to have to pull them out…" he whispered as he grabbed a small piece of discarded wood as well as a wineskin besides him.

Stars purred slowly as he stared right into his eyes. Joffrey nodded as he took a dozen breaths in two seconds, curling into a ball and biting down hard on the piece of wood.

Do it, Joffrey thought.

He felt Stars carefully positioning his muzzle over where the first fang lay, biting down gently for a second before his shoulder exploded in a storm of pain.

Joffrey screamed silently, huffing and mumbling in agony as he rocked back and forth like a madman, Stars keening in sympathy.

Don't stop, finish it! Joffrey thought in between the pain. He felt Stars quickly biting down on the second fang, and suddenly he was on his side, blooding running down his chest and pooling in the ground around him.

Joffrey shook his head slowly as he tried to sit up, stiffening under the returning pain as he tried to find Stars, though he was nowhere to be found.

Must have passed out for a minute or so, he thought in a daze, blood freely flowing down his shoulder and his chest.

He grabbed the wineskin like a drunkard, never more grateful for the cheap Ghiscary strongwine he'd looted from a beached crate, biting off the lid and taking a long gulp before spilling the rest on his shoulder.

He grunted as he rocked back and forth again in pain, taking another big gulp before tossing the empty wineskin away and grabbing a patch of boiled cloth, gingerly tying it around his whole shoulder.

He laid back on the ground as he took a moment to rest and think, closing his eyes as he remembered the work of Archmaester Volgin. He'd written the most complete compendium to date about the dangers and benefits of all manner of venoms and poisons to be found in Sothoryos.

"Think Joffrey… think… Volgin… Volgin…" he whispered to himself like his life depended on it.

…Fuck! It's been too long… Have to do it the hard way… He thought in despair as he remembered barely two dozen of the venoms and poisons instead of the 120 or so he had memorized.

He opened his eyes slowly, the burning pain in his shoulder slowly spreading around his body. He stood up, stumbling a bit before he got his legs under control and walked to the campfire. Joffrey ignored the half burnt meat as he took one of the raw chunks he'd left beside the campfire, taking it back to the still twitching corpse of the snake. Even in its death throe and covered in blood, the damnable snake still seemed like a fallen tree or an upturned root to him… Truly, everything in Sothoryos was capable of hiding in plain sight.

He grabbed the fallen dagger from the ground and promptly rammed it where the snake's fangs used to be, extracting it covered in gore and yellow, viscous liquid. He careful extended his broken arm forward, dabbing a bit of the venom on his unbroken skin.

He watched it slide down his arm and into the ground, the venom inactive against his skin.

Fuck… as I suspected… he thought as he placed the chunk of raw meat in the ground and did the same, placing some of the venom atop it. He cursed as he saw it fizzle gently, slowly, very slowly dissolving the meat into mush.

... probably an auxiliary digestive aid… leaving the skin unbroken so as to maximize its work time… He hypothesized as he counted the seconds it took for the venom to dissolve a chunk of meat the size of his nail, trying not to cringe as the pain inside his shoulder flared, the pain slowly spreading inside his body. It worked very slowly, but it didn't seem to be stopping.

Though the haphazard experiment would have been enough to expel him from the Citadel were he a real maester, Joffrey couldn't deny his eyes.

Prognosis… death, probably due to systemic shock in 12 hours… he thought as he gazed at the slowly sizzling drops, closing his eyes as he remembered his years in the Citadel.

No… from 12 to 36 hours after injection, depending on the patient's constitution and the size of the dose... no more than 48 hours due to probable acute heart failure.

Joffrey stood up, putting the essential back inside his backpack as he thought feverishly. Trying for a bloodletting without assistance was too risky, too big of a chance to bleed out on the spot… No, his fate was sealed this time.

… I have less than 48, probably 36 hours at the most before I'm turned into a bloody mulch from the inside out or my heart gives out… whichever comes first…

The pain kept creeping throughout his body, his face twitching in pain as he grabbed the spear from the ground, using it as a makeshift walking stick. He would have placed his arm in a cast, but he didn't have enough time, and he needed the mobility.

He was going to have to run if he had any hope of making it to Yeen.

Joffrey took a deep breath as the pain slowly intensified, taking off at a fast jog through the sparser edges of the Jungle, aiming at the black hills beside the Zamoyos.

-.PD.-

He jogged all day, through lianas and red colored trees, through cobwebs the size of inns and recklessly speeding through animal trails where he fervently hoped not to find any fellow travelers. By nightfall he'd reached the Zamoyos, and used it as a guide when the sunlight no longer shined over dark Yeen.

By the early morning the exhaustion was creeping in at an accelerated rate, and Joffrey found himself staring at the black domes in the distance in longing and disquiet. He rested for a while atop a big rock besides the river, catching his breath as the pain in his shoulder (and by now his whole body) kept getting worse and worse.

He watched the water carefully, ready to jump at the merest sign of piranhas.

There doesn't seem to be any, at least at this time of the day, he thought as he quickly washed his face, taking a dozen quick sips to refresh his parched throat. If he didn't die from the venom then he was sure to die from the bad water… not that he cared at this point.

Right, time to get moving, he thought, adjusting his backpack as he slid from the rock. The pain hit him like a runaway carriage in that moment, streams of burning lava spreading through his whole body at the sudden movement. Joffrey bit his hand, rocking back and forth as he rode out the shock.

He opened his backpack quickly, taking out a messily crafted wineskin the size of his hand, taking a long look at it before another blast of pain hit him, feeling something slow and sludgy swirling where his shoulder muscles should be. He took a short sip, the milky, water diluted sap sliding down his throat like a light wine. He had made the small wineskin himself from the leather of a particularly vicious Shortsnout, and used it to store the most potent painkiller known to the Brindled Men of the coast.

Red Bloom extract… I hope I don't regret this…

The pain slowly ebbed back down to reasonable levels, and unlike the milk of the poppy it didn't sap any of his energy. Its side effects were of a more… mental nature.

He tilted his head as far to the back as it could go, straining to see his back shoulder. What little he could see was… purple and swollen.

Don't think about it, just move, he said to himself as he leapt back to the riverside, running as fast as he could while still being able to dodge boulders and trees, the wild, chaotic jumble of bright greens and slender shapes crowned by the black dome in the distance, guiding him in.

-.PD.-

By the early afternoon, Joffrey's vigorous sprint had deteriorated to a fast walk, the living torture running through his veins leaving him incapable of any other thought.

He bit off a scream as he leaned on a burly gaboon, its great roots almost tripping him up as he breathed heavily. He looked down at his left arm, its slightly bloated shape sending shivers down Joffrey's spine as he tried to prod it with his index finger. His finger sunk unnaturally three or four times deeper than it should, the skin around it undulating slightly as if with internal waves.

Joffrey screamed as he collapsed on the ground, the agony wiping any other thought as he convulsed besides the tree, his legs shaking and kicking up dirt wildly with no plan nor forethought. When the agony passed, Joffrey was breathing shallowly, not daring to move a muscle as he stayed there on the ground, looking up at the leafy battlements of the great gaboon tree, a black bird of prey calmly watching him from a tree branch.

Joffrey realized the thing was waiting for him to die.

His hand move slowly, almost against his will towards his dagger. The serpentine edge almost glinted as Joffrey put it against his neck, the point piercing lightly into his skin and dropping just a sliver of blood.

…No… he thought as he let the dagger fall. Instead, he grabbed the small wineskin, biting off the cover and greedily downing all that remained, the disturbingly tasteless liquid almost eager to slip down his throat.

The pain ebbed down to the point where Joffrey could stand again, leaning heavily on his spear. He limped as fast as he could, guided only by his directional instinct as the sun slowly hid to the east and the few sounds of the jungle seemed to fade with it.

He stumbled to a halt when he saw a White Walker staring at him right in front, its icy blue eyes boring into his own, long white blade almost with a light of its own.

It's just the Red Bloom… It's just the Red Bloom… he kept repeating to himself as he seemed to drown inside the blue eyes of the Walker, the wights of Captain Shah and Captain Sabu standing at attention five meters behind it.

Joffrey limped with his spear right towards the otherworldly being, not stopping until his nose almost touched White Walkers's.

He stared at the thing's eyes, its shriveled eyelids, its bone white skin.

"I stopped being afraid of you a long time ago," he whispered, tilting his head slightly as he stared at it.

He walked around it, its deep blue eyes following him with unerring precision.

He gazed at the wights of Shah and Sabu, still in their scout armors, their decrepit flesh and hollowed out eyes a monument to Joffrey's sins.

"STILL WE STAND!" Joffrey shouted, slamming his fist against his chest, the pain distant.

The wights didn't move, but he could feel their acceptance as he kept walking, the otherworldly weight of Yeen pulling him like a magnet, his direction inerrant even as people shouted his name in the distance, the pleading voice of Nalia just at the edge of his hearing.

The pain kept getting stronger and stronger as the afternoon sun slowly settled, the moon unnaturally bright as his hands felt light and his spine twisted upon itself, each step unleashing ethereal spikes of pain that seemed to spread everywhere around his upper chest.

As if by magic, suddenly the trees and bushes and undergrowth were no more. From one step to the next, the jungle seemed to end. Instead, Joffrey found himself walking over dark stones, its construction perfectly level with the floor, a great walkway untouched by nature as it stretched forwards as if carved with a great ruler.

The great black road ran perfectly straight until it arrived to a small city of sorts, a land of domed black basilicas and triangular tunnels, all of it crowned by the great dome at the middle of it all.

Joffrey bit his lip, drawing blood as he limped towards it, each step towards the city an almost eternal agony, as if he were burning alive from the inside. He tried to call Stars, but he was so tired, so exhausted he couldn't bring himself to do it. He kept walking until he suddenly tripped, gravity bringing him crashing down on the floor.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhh!!!!!" he screamed with all his strength, taking a breath before he screamed once more, his hands fumbling for the wineskin. He squeezed it as hard as he could, but no drop of the precious extract would come from it.

He failed to contain another scream, almost blacking out under the agony as his whole body throbbed against the black stone.

He was crying as he grabbed the tip of his spear, not caring for the cuts in his hand as he jammed it against the wineskin, ripping it open and licking its interior desperately, the dry leather wounding his tongue.

He screamed again as he extended an arm forward, trying to crawl towards the black citadel, barely moving at all as he fought for air.

"Pleaaase… pleaaaaaase…" he begged as he stared at the black dome, hypnotized, his body unmoving. He stared at it for a moment, or a year, the black dome tantalizing, unmoving.

Something shifted to his right, and Joffrey slowly tilted his head to look at it, blinking through tear filled eyes.

It was a Brindled Men, its huge arms and shoulders framed by the dark jungle behind him. Its thick skin was patterned in the brown and white of his kind, but the dark red lines painted along its sloped forehead spoke of something more, something important.

The Brindled Men crouched very slowly, almost reverently, taking care to never touch the black road. It left an orange lotus on the ground, its cup like leaves almost brushing the side of the black highway… and then, without a word, it vanished back into the jungle.

Joffrey stared at the orange lotus dumbly, blinking slowly. He used his elbows to drag himself towards it, taking care to rest after each push, his quiet sobs the only sound in the entire vale. Each movement was pure torture, and it was through sheer power of will that he summoned the strength to crawl the measly six or so meters towards it.

When he finally reached it, he discovered that the tall, cup like flower was filled to the brim with Red Bloom extract, undiluted by water, enough to kill a horse. He lowered his mouth so very carefully, lapping up the white fluid as fast as he could, even taking chunks of the flower when nothing remained, eating it whole.

He flipped on his back as he finished it, staring at a completely clear sky for the first time in a long while. The stars seemed to shine brightly, The Stranger holding one skull in hand while the other pointed towards Yeen, the message clear.

I shall not be allowed beyond until I have answers… he thought, his body feather light as he picked himself up, the pain a distant memory as he opened his backpack and he took out a torch, lighting it with a flick of his rings.

He walked towards the Dark Citadel with only the moonlight and his torch, his path certain, his purpose clear. He absentmindedly saluted the redcloaks standing guard at the city entrance, their katanas glinting in the moonlight. Inside he made his way past servants and armsmen as they carried out their silent duties, walking in and out of the domed buildings and the triangular tunnels that opened up every block. He nodded at the Hound standing guard by his frozen room, the cold chilling him to the bone as he walked past it. He almost stayed there when he heard the soothing hum of his Mother, the gentle melody entrancing him for a moment before he kept walking.

The city had a strangely familiar layout, a spiraling form which made the traveler drift towards the middle…

But the Purple had never emerged from the center, it had always started its torment through Joffrey's throat.

He let his legs guide him, feeling the natural essence of the city beyond the buildings and the streets, following the abstract puzzle so very similar to his soul. He took a turn at one of the triangular tunnels, following its straight path, looking at his sides and the figures swarming and consuming the lone man as they always had, only to start again and again and again.

Joffrey wiped the thing messing with his vision, only to realize it was blood. He looked at the red smeared sleeve, confused as he felt not tears but blood flowing from his eyes. He blinked, dazed as he coughed, spraying blood all over the wall, the figures consuming it alongside the lone man.

He kept blinking slowly, the hallway growing longer after each blink, the cry of a woman in pain making him turn back. Nalia lay in the floor, rocking as she cried, both her hands covering her face. Her body was a bloody mess of gore and despair, his handiwork evident as one might identify a sculptor by the roundness of a chipped form or a painter by the weight behind each stroke.

Joffrey kneeled in front of her as she kept crying, breathing slowly as he gently grabbed her hands.

"…No, don't look," she told him, begged him.

"… I have to," Joffrey told her, begged her.

She lowered her hands slowly, her bloodied hair parting under Joffrey's gentle caress as he gazed at her face.

He stared at it, still as a statue even as his throat trembled, the whisper of his silent sobs echoing through the corridor, tears of blood freely flowing down his cheeks. He gently cupped Nalia's head against his chest, hugging her as he rocked her slightly.

"Never again… never again… my curse is mine to carry… my path alone," he promised her, promised himself. He stayed with her for a little while, gently smoothing her hair with his hand.

He kept walking, each step propelling him faster and faster until the tunnel dissolved entirely, a vast field of stars replacing it as Joffrey floated amongst the constellations, the guests at his wedding sneering at him behind cups of wine and plates of silver. He looked down at the millions of stars below him and the constellations in between, The Longship fiercely sailing against autumn storms and the flotsam of broken constellations, ravaged by time. Even as he looked the remains reconstructed themselves, piecing themselves together in a whirlwind of grey sand and dark water, emerging as definitive shapes with a will of their own.

He kept looking as a wise Greenseer judged him from beyond, withholding his judgment. He gazed at the rowdy Bannermen, swords and axes raised high as their many banners swirled with the wind. He contemplated the sly smile of the Hunter, bow in hand even as the other hid a dagger behind his back. He saw a great crown in the style of the Andals gleaming in the dark, seven points for seven virtues for seven aspects.

His vision grew progressively dimmer as he looked even further down, the specters of Andal script forming as if from shadows, cryptic beyond measure, a riddle from the past that was somehow the key to unlocking The Message.

EVERYONE BUT THE PURPLE PRINCE STEPS TO THE RIGHT, it read. He knew it was somehow the key to unlocking what the constellations were trying to tell him, but what did it mean exactly? A warning? Instructions?

Joffrey blinked slowly as he felt more and more blood running down his mouth, his ears, his nose. He felt very tired as he fell back, the void somehow cushioning his landing as the vast field of stars slowly turned Purple, the pain returning like an old friend.

-.PD.-