Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

"It feels like a dream, sometimes," said Aegon, shifting his weight on the railing as he looked at his best friend.

Duck snorted, still a bit green over the swaying waves. "I know what you mean," he said, still looking over the great fleet anchored next to the protective bulk of a deserted atoll. The moonless night left more things to the mind than the eyes, but Aegon could still see his fleet's many bow and stern lamps dotting his surroundings. They enveloped him protectively, the aptly named 'Golden Fleet' and its auxiliaries, carrying over ten thousand of the best soldiers Essos had ever known. All there for him, all there believing in an ancient lineage now whispered within taverns and keeps all around Westeros: Targeryen.

"We've come a long way, my friend," said Aegon, and that was an understatement. From boyish pupil to acclaimed King of the Seven Kingdoms, now at the head of a host fit to slip through Dorne and knife the Usurper's get now squatting in the capital. The journey had been long and arduous, the wait almost unbearable throughout the years. Biding their time, Haldon Halfmaester and Septa Lemore instructing him in the ways of kingship for hours on end. Aegon had chafed through the long afternoons under their power, but he'd grown to appreciate their lessons now. Before embarking at last to fulfill his calling, he'd felt like a boy still, swinging mock swords and dreaming of women. Now though, after the word had come through Illyrio and then Jon, he'd felt as if the pieces were falling into place.

Is it fate? Aegon wondered. His early life roving from city to city now seemed like just another necessary step to reach the right he'd been denied by rebel lords and red-handed knights. Now he knew the plight of the common man, he understood how those bereft of nobility toiled under the sun. 'A Champion of the Smallfolk' he'd heard Jon refer to him once, though not to his face; perhaps the most informed prince on such matters since Aegon the Fifth, a King for the common man now chafing under the usurpers running Westeros to the ground. He'd been schooled in history and languages since he'd been six, educated to rule over them with a firm but gentle hand, and now he could confidently say those experiences had built the man he was; inexperienced -without a question- but fit to rule with mercy and justice as he learnt from his mistakes. He felt a half smile on his lips, looking at the assembled fleet dotting the dark surroundings with their lamps.

It was not only him that believed in that vision.

Ten thousand professional armsmen, hundreds more in auxiliaries, elephants clad in golden armor. He still felt as if struck by a lightning bolt every time he saw them; huge and majestic beasts bred for war and now his to command. His to command. The thought still made him dizzy. More happenings had piled up, as if destiny were aligning the stars; News of dissent in Dorne and of deals to be struck, for vengeance and justice. And now a rendezvous within the next few days right here at this atoll with another mercenary company out of the Summer Islands, carrying men freshly bought for the cause to augment Black Balaq's archers. Even the skies knew; the brilliant blood-red comet now streaking over the moonless night foretold his victory, slashing above them all.

But most of all, he felt the weight of kingship on his belt, the legacy of his ancestors, his to carry and prove once more in the face of past treason and humiliation. Only fitting for a Restoration to be carried out under the crystal-glare of the sword of kings.

The half-smile turned into a full smirk as he turned to his oldest friend, his sworn knight now soon to be something more. "Kneel, Ser Rolly Duckfield," he said as he took the pommel of the sword by his belt.

Duck raised his eyebrows in surprise. "Are you sure about this? Connington won't like it."

"Jon's asleep right now," he blurted, growing a little red as that statement echoed around the anchored flagship. The boy had spoken first.

He shook his head, now the King, "It is my right to bestow, not his". Jon had cared for him for years beyond counting, saved his life many times even, but now the old man had to understand that Aegon was King, not him; how could a King take orders from one of his lords, even if he loved him like a father? It should make him happy, shouldn't it? Carrying him to the Iron Throne had been Jon's dream for more than a decade now.

His friend smiled, kneeling over the deck of the great galleon carrying hundreds of sleeping armsmen thirsty for glory. The flagship itself was the biggest of all twelve galleons; it was freakishly tall, carrying over a thousand people in its gargantuan hold; Volantis knew how to build big ships, and their price had been well worth it, or so he'd been given to understand.

The sailors of the night watch gave them ample space as Duck bowed his head. They felt something beyond them was happening.

"Ser Rolly Duckfield," said Aegon, unsheathing the blade of kings. It reflected the nearby lamplight, crystals of light playing off Duck's body, hands on his longsword. He understood now why lords and kings coveted valyrian steel, why they were willing to do anything to get their hands on one of these majestic blades. Each priceless in its own way, each a bestowal of power. Aegon put the blade on his friend's shoulder, and through it felt the authority of his forefathers, conquerors that had brought a whole continent to its knees under fire and blood. He named his friend and loyal knight Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, to stand by his side through victory and defeat till the day he died.

It felt right to wield such power, to elevate a man by his own authority, to turn him into something more at his command. Lord Commander Duckfield stood up a changed man, a smile on his lips, but Aegon frowned as he looked to the horizon, beyond the anchored lamps floating in the dark.

A hundred fireflies had burst to life. They covered the horizon in a line from left to right, countless dots of red and orange blinking through the moonless night and the Red Comet above. The mercenaries had arrived, and with them started the Targeryen Restoration.

The red dots leapt from the horizon as one, a flurry of orange traversing high and almost reaching the Comet itself, before descending unto the Golden Fleet like falling meteors. "Aegon watch out!" shouted Rolly as he smacked into him, one of the fiery projectiles heading for the flagship with a whistling shriek.

-: PD :-

King Robert's Hammer rumbled through the waves with a constant growl, a juggernaut unperturbed by the lapping waves as mighty sprays of saltwater leapt high from its bow, twin fountains of foam cutting the sea in half. It sailed with wings of wood; four hundred oars rising and falling to the beat of its inner heart pulsing with flesh and sinew; a rhythm dictated by the thunderous drum-beat which now rattled teeth and drowned voice.

Between the misty saltwater spray leaping out of the ocean like a living wound lurked a stag rearing in fury; a gnarled, screeching beast rearing up at the night sky, it's thick antlers bisecting not only it's crown but it's body too; they descended from its head above the ship itself to down below the waves, a many jagged battering ram of bronze now tearing through the ocean.

King Joffrey of the House Baratheon breathed in that saltwater spray, his body limber, relaxed as the flow of the sea under his legs echoed within, a half-remembered lullaby of youth and the excitement of the unknown.

The necessary choices and the lesser evils, the agony of indecision and the screams of spiders tortured; they all melted away under that saltwater spray, his heart at a rhythm with the massive drums now thrumming through the deck, his face inching forward by the slightest margin, the weight of his antlers a mirror to the stag at his front. He stood as near the tip of the ship as could be, a hand on one of the forecastle's wooden crenellations as the Hammer smashed through another swell. The biggest war galley in Westeros was not a nimble lady, nor a piece of graceful art; it was a beast unleashed with no other purpose but war, no other use but death. It plowed through the waves with a hair-raising momentum that breathed to life within its titanic weight, growing stronger with each grunt of its rowers, its course clear and its purpose evident.

Behind him sailed the Royal Fleet of Westeros in a panoply of many-colored flags and soaring projectiles caught aflame, silver banners flying wide over their masts. Over sixty war galleys pierced the Pretender's Fleet like a knife in the dark, an arrow shaped formation of fire and leaping steel.

Chiefs and Centurions bellowed orders as sailors ran through the upper deck with scorpion bolts and heavy boulders, a contained chaos of organization flowing through Joffrey and away, an invisible tendril connecting him to his men and his fleet. Beyond the angst and the hesitation, beyond the self-doubt and the self-questioning, here and now Joffrey knew himself.

This was what he'd been made for; a channel, a conduit through which man became something beyond, pervasive and all-consuming. A behemoth to protect the light of thought or die trying. To win their future or die and leave a legacy so raw so as to mark the land itself like a Stygai of the West.

There was no gradual transition. King Robert's Hammer rumbled through the darkness in search of its prey, and then found itself surrounded on all sides by a fleet set afire, an anchored army awoken to a nightmare. Joffrey gazed right, to starboard as they passed within a spit's distance from an enormous Volantene galleon, flames encroaching from the score scorpion bolts covering its deck. A stone had ripped a hole right through the waterline, and the slowly tilting deck was filled with sailors staring at the war galley in paralyzed fear, holding on for dear life. Bleary eyed men ran out of hatches and gallery doors with hands upraised, squirming under the glare of the fires as captains shouted the alarm and the deck kept tilting towards the Hammer, bucket chains forming up as bows were handed out and sailors rushed up masts.

They fell like threshed wheat, a storm of broad-tipped arrows carpeting flesh and wood from point-blank range, screams and gurgles drowning the heart-pounding beat of the drums as buckets flew from limp hands and swords tumbled over the swaying deck.

Joffrey looked behind him, to the Hammer's lower deck now packed with archers as arrows with iron fillings were nocked and then set ablaze by running torch bearers, the Centurion bellowing again.

"By volleys! Draw!"

They did so, strained muscles growing taut as a hundred men drew in one breath, the Hammer tearing through foam like a crazed beast.

"Loose!"

The staccato of hits sang over the screams of the sailors as countless red streaks zipped through them like shrapnel. Armsmen of the Golden Company tumbled without direction, vomiting blood as flames lapped their clothes and sleeping tunics. Joffrey spotted a captain with golden bracelets screaming for bows, flaming arrows finding his silhouette as he gasped and fell overboard.

The Hammer rowed on, undeterred as it sought its quarry ever deeper within the Golden Fleet, flaming stones raining from above and lighting the sky red.

"Bronn," said Joffrey as he looked to his right, "Signal the wings; commence envelopment."

The sellsword's gaze seemed haunted under the flickering fires, but he nodded all the same before running down to the lower deck. "Light up the flares! Now!" he shouted.

Green stars began leaping from the back of the Hammer, flying up and to the sides before sputtering briefly, signaling the Second and Third Squadrons to close into a crescent formation, bottling the Golden Fleet against the atoll. There would be no escape.

Joffrey raised a far-eye, scanning the battlefield as stray arrows zipped far overhead. He smiled as he lowered it, turning back and gazing beyond the forecastle. "Captain!" he bellowed as he slashed a hand to the starboard bow, "Set course for that flagship!"

"Aye Your Grace!" shouted the Captain from the back of the ship, "Helmsman! Hard tiller starboard!"

The Helmsman repeated the orders as ten men shifted the enormous tiller, slamming into it as the Hammer tilted right. Arrows impacted the lower deck, wounding archers as Joffrey frowned, spotting a smaller galley making its way towards them from the left and throwing fitful volleys which killed the spotter by his side with a wet gurgle.

He strode to the back of the forecastle and gazed down to the long lower deck. "Catapults! Shift target to port galley!" he shouted.

"You heard His Grace! Load munitions!" said the Port artillery Chief. Men cranked winches and loaded oil soaked stones as the entire row of catapults on the Hammer's port side aimed for the galley, artillerymen squirming under the effort as they manhandled the platforms. The stones burst into flames as runners slammed torches into them, sailors flinging buckets of sand on the surroundings to fire proof the deck.

"Loose at will!" screamed the Port Artillery Chief, men striking down levers with one handed mallets made of reinforced wood. Far from the slow, ponderous might of the Dawn Trebuchets, the Hammer's catapults barked brutally and without forethought, slamming into their crossbars and unleashing their projectiles on almost flat trajectories. The hail of stones flew like unleashed hounds and tore through the light galley and its triangular sails, cutting screams short as sailors flew apart under the impact and masts collapsed under the pounding, oars swaying wild as fire spread through half rolled sails.

Ravens and seagulls cawed and called to the west, converging on the biggest galleon of them all, a scorpion filled flagship flying the command pennant of the Golden Company. There would be no failed Restoration. There would be no blood of his countrymen shed on Westerosi soil, not for petty ambition. There would be no bright eyed boy-king bloodying his homeland before the War for Dawn, only golden bracelets sinking to the bottom of the Narrow Sea.

This, at least, Joffrey could do with iron certainty.

The cranking of the crossbows from the Second Regiment followed the deeper winching of the bow-mounted scorpions, a sound deeply familiar to Joffrey as they loosed steel on the foundering ships around them, their faces hard and set like never before he'd seen them. He took a minute to examine the faces of his countrymen; Reachers and Crownlanders, Northmen and Riverlanders, Valemen and even a few Dornishmen. The Royal Fleet had recruited from every port in Westeros, augmented by officers fresh out of Guard Camps with a fervor that had honestly shocked even him. New Men, one of the Maesters running the printing presses out of the Dragonpit had called them. New Men. His soldiers for the Dawn.

The promise of the Festival seemed like decades ago, and it had spread like wildfire since then. Veterans talked about the Kingdom of Westeros deep in their cups, and Oldtown's elite dressed to the fashion of New Royale. Visions of something greater were spread even now by the Royal Trading Company as it plied every port and village in Westeros, leaving keepsakes and 'tavernprints' and most of all tales of something being born in the Crownlands, drawing in the hopeless and the curious from every nook and cranny of Westeros; taking those who'd lost hope and turning them into converts of a new empire in the making.

These men understand it the most, Joffrey thought, gazing at the synchronized, unflinching volleys and the alternating lines of crossbowmen on the forecastle around him, listening to the steady beat of the oarsmen throughout the lower decks. He'd spoken to his fleet, his army just before battle when the sun had been about to hide to the west, and been surprised. They'd already understood, beyond the reforms and the politics and the economics. They understood the essence, the spirit, they could feel it in their hearts between the silent weight of the Red Comet and the last cry of the Purple. They could intuit a transformation; the new Age.

They'd chafed, bellowed anger and rage; that a righteous boy-king of the past would seek to destroy that purpose, to subject them to the rules of old. The old order, the past, that had been the word which struck Joffrey the most. Targeryens; his Guard, his sailors, his people had said the name as if it were a curse. The old way. The old kingdom. The past. That's how he'd known.

New Men, they called themselves. A mantle bereft of blood, unlike the First or the Andals. Bereft of gender and lineage. Bereft of the physical. No, to be of the New Men was to be part of the transformation, to acknowledge the beginning of a new world and the end of the old. It was a mantle of knowledge, of purpose, of self-awareness. It was the Purple writ large.

A harrowing, crazed trumpeting drew him from his mind, an elephant squealing to the dark heavens as flaming projectiles crisscrossed the sky like a meteor shower. The great beast trundled amuck, smashing from side to side as the great cog which carried it swayed, crossing the Hammer's path before continuing to starboard. Men screamed as they jumped into the churning waters, flames consuming the back of the ship as the elephant trumpeted in agony, harsher than before, half-alight as its ropes strained and it smashed once more to the left. The entire ship groaned, capsizing in one ponderous instant as it aired the bottom of its hull to the night sky.

"It's happening again, tonight," said Ser Robar, a thick tower shield on his hands as he stood by Joffrey's right. "I can feel it."

Joffrey's smile turned grim as he saw the crazed, panicked sailors clambering atop the flipped hull in a frenzy of bubbles. The Hammer sailed past them with barely repressed grunts as rowers moved to the sound of the drums. "How does it feel from the other side?" he asked his knight.

Ser Robar sighed deeply, "Like speaking truth, Your Grace. Like guiding a starving man to the warm glow of a firepit."

"It feels like reaming that Aegon prick a new one," said the Hound as he reached his side, ever the practical sort. "Could have toned down on the fires though," he added as he shot a side glare at one of the burning galleons; war galleys moved between the shadows left by the sinking bonfires, silver lines painted on their hulls.

Joffrey raised an eyebrow, "Sorry about that, Sandor. No half measures though. Not this time."

"King's Landing will sing after this," said Robar, thoughtful.

"Victories are the dreams of empire. It'll be a catalyst," said Joffrey.

"You're closing something, here," said Robar, "What you started at the Festival."

"The end of the beginning," he said, eyes fixed on the flagship dead ahead, only now lifting anchors as the Hammer made for its exposed flank like a hound with a torn leash.

Joffrey took in a deep breath as arrows flew from the galleon, a scorpion bolt taking a crossbowman as arrows plinked against his full plate, silver cape fluttering under the western breeze.

"Ram her!" he roared.

"Oarmaster!" bellowed the Captain, "Set- ramming speed!"

The man-sized drum below Joffrey redoubled it's rhythm for a second, and then transformed itself into a new cadence, a gaiting tempo at a beat with the Song. The oarsmen bellowed in short gasps of strength and purpose every two seconds, four hundred oars slamming into the waves and churning whirlwinds of foam. King Robert's Hammer accelerated, boring down right for the middle of the huge, four-masted ship.

"Forward section! Suppress those missile troops!" Joffrey shouted, just as another bolt sent a sailor flying. It pinned him to the back of the forecastle with a breathless huff as Bronn reached the forecastle, and the sellsword winced as he took out his own bow. He helped the rest of the Guard and the scorpions sweep the attackers, the volleys growing disjointed. The percussive gasps of the oarsmen almost overtook the deep bass of the drums as the ship grew larger, the churning waters spraying saltwater as the great antlered ram made for the middle of the galleon and Sandor's face contorted under the light of the fires. "Brace! Brace you cocksuckers!!!"

Joffrey grabbed one of the back crenellations as the wall of wood grew impossibly tall in front of him, archers and sailors above screaming as they ran from the impact area and they struck. The impact was massive, throwing archers off their feet as Joffrey scowled under the furious shaking, the antlered stag tearing through the galleon like a dagger through the back. It tore open a massive wound on the flagship, but it didn't stop, couldn't stop yet as its massive momentum brought Joffrey further into the guts of his kill, into a dark cavern filled with startled screams. Rumbling wood and splintering planks made a choir unto themselves as the Hammer kept boring into the ship like a Sothori Fleshworm, tearing through decks and cabins without end.

It stopped with a final lurch as pale crewmen gazed from the upper decks, survivors of some incomprehensible earthquake as they blinked to the sight of an antlered stag shrieking still, the antlered king surveying the damage as he gazed below. The oarsmen chugged in the meanwhile, deep huffs resounding from the hold below, a beast pacified for the moment but ready snap at the merest sign.

Crossbows kept singing, Golden Company armsmen landing on the splintered forecastle with dull thumps, still in their sleeping rags. It was darker within the guts of the great galleon -almost a quarter of the Hammer now laid inside of it- but he could still see water flooding the lower decks, a dark formless thing of foam and flotsam eagerly worming into the ship. He scowled in pain as desperate sailors threw harpoons from the upper decks and one of them ricochet against his shoulder, Robar covering him with the tower shield then. Bronn got the man the following second, his arrow taking the sailor in the eye before he fell over one of the unloaded scorpions.

Joffrey nodded at him, then turned around to examine the damage to starboard as he crossed the forecastle and gazed down. Saltwater roared into the struck ship through there as well, a deep, harrowing sound flooding the lower decks as the Volantene galleon started to tilt towards them.

Good penetration, massive damage, Joffrey thought as an arrow thudded against Robar's shield, the screams of combat growing pervasive as some of the falling survivors kept a grip on their weapons. The Golden Star was floundering, a wounded armsman shrieking by his side before Sandor finished him with his blade.

"Again!" roared Joffrey.

The chugging beast roused itself, the waiting beat of the drums growing from standby to deep ums, calling reverse as the Captain bellowed instructions. Slowly at first, then faster as wood cracked and crenellations were torn apart, the ship retreated from the gaping wood and the tilting ship. The flaming sky of the moonless night beckoned them once more, war galleys circling the flagship as they intercepted would be rescuers, ramming and boarding as King Robert's Hammer grew still, like a bull lowering its horns.

The Golden Star tilted further to the side as water kept filling its lower decks, some of the armsmen from the company jumping overboard as other kept shooting from their bows, mercenary archers from the Summer Islands unleashing coordinated volleys which struck the men back by the tiller, but it was too late. "Ramming speed!" bellowed the Captain.

The beast huffed once more as four hundred oars moved as one and quadruple the men huffed in synchrony, adding their strength to the blow to come. The flagship kept tilting, dragged forward by unseen currents as another volley of Summer Islander arrows scythed through the sailors manning the tiller, white ebon arrows sprouting from their sides. The Hammer tilted to port, but it was too close for the flagship to avoid the blow.

The heavy war galley tore through the rear quarter of the Golden Star, sundering beautiful stained-glass panels and making them rain over the deck in a glinting hail, smashing apart dormitories fit for a King and cracking the keel in two; the stag tore off a distinct chunk of the ship's posterior, ripping a hole three times bigger on its stern. The Golden Star was dead on the water, already sinking as more galleys emerged from the darkness, the silver pennant flying high over their masts. This senseless stupidity crafted by Varys and Illyrio was over, Aegon's ambition a mere footnote in a Maester's book. Whatever survivors washed up on the nearby atoll would be easy pickings for the Guard, and the rest would dine with the fishes. It was over.

Joffrey breathed out. But this is not about Aegon, he thought, staring down at his right hand. It never had been. It's about sealing the circle. It's about birthing a tale. A vertex where it all comes together. An effigy which grounds the industry and the armies and the culture.

A focusing lens. A rallying point. An event. A legend.

'We will need authority and respect the likes of which Westeros has not seen in an Age.' Sansa had whispered the words as they burrowed under blankets in Jhala, winter chilling their little house by the beach. 'We must become living legends in the minds of our subjects, proportional in awe to the horror of the Long Night.' It had been sweet of her to put into words, and he'd reveled in that determination he so loved in his wife.

In truth she'd articulated a certainty Joffrey had long ascribed to. A flower he'd simply found one day in the landscape of his mind, already up and formed. He suspected the seed had been laid sometime around the Dawn Fort's last stand, when the might of the Cycle had crashed against the walls and he'd claimed the Armor of Dawn. He'd regretted the looks of awe in the eyes of his troops then, but now he would kindle it, fuel it, and ultimately use it as a tool to bind the Kingdom together. A mirror image of the Red Comet's glare. Hope to its despair.

And hadn't the Dawn Age boasted heroes of legend? Great leaders and warriors who'd grasped something beyond, who'd carried their people through glory and ruin? People who'd defined whole regions, whole peoples even as they had defined them in turn.

Why not the Age of Unity then?

"One Kingdom, Robar," said Joffrey. His knight's face lit up under the swirl of purple fractals now growing from Joffrey's hand, his face stern as granite as a glare of silvered gold lit up the night, an ugly smirk growing on Sandor's face as Bronn gripped the railing white.

-: PD :-

The flagship was burning.

The deck had tilted a third of the way already, but a determined core of armsmen had defied all wisdom even as the sailors took headfirst plunges into the cold sea, closing ranks around the way to the upper deck as they shook in unrestrained terror and flames lapped at their sides.

"Aegon!" shouted Joffrey, Brightroar tearing through a lightly armored armsman like water. Dead Summer Islander archers lay behind, and the half dozen armsmen retreated back in pale fear, Jon Connington at their head.

"What are you?" said Connington, face slack under the glare of the fires.

Stars roared the answer, leaping into the exiled lord like a catapult shot. The silver lion tore him apart savagely as Joffrey swung his blade from his back, cutting through armsmen like riding a war destrier. Some jumped into the waters in terror, and others fought with hysterical strength as Stars whirled around with brutal speed, claws flashing as Brightroar whistled through the air.

Poor fool, thought Joffrey, gazing at the mangled corpse of Aegon's Hand as Stars lifted his snout and sniffed, searching for their prey. He died thinking he fought for Rhaegar's son. Would the truth have been a kindness, or a cruelty?

Stars stalked between the flames with an easy gait as he thought about that, a predator on the prowl as the Golden Star sank by the stern, the tip of the ship rising above the fray. Joffrey squinted through the smoke, urging Stars into a dash as he ducked close to his body. They leapt out of the worst of the smoke and into the frontal upper deck with a mighty jump, Brightroar flashing by instinct and tearing the back off an armed sailor.

"Aegon!!!" he shouted, Stars echoing the cry with a thunderous roar as it's nails bit the deck and they slid to a halt. He was right ahead, squirming as far away from him as the ship would let him, gripping a piece of railing with one hand and Blackfyre the other.

"There you are!" said Joffrey, sliding out of Star's back and striding towards him. "Thought we'd settle the whole thing now and spare us the war, don't you agree?"

He was hyperventilating, squirming back against the wood as his eyes followed Brightroar's golden sheen. "Fuck off!!!" screamed a knight, jumping out from behind a stack of crates with a two hander. Joffrey ducked barely, and the sword clipped one of his antlers. He parried the follow up blow, frowning as he stepped back and help up Brightroar in a guard.

"And you are?"

"Ser Rolly Duckfield, of the Kingsguard," said the young knight, holding the two hander sideways. His face was occluded by a helmet, but the man seemed shaken, trembling. Despite the fear, despite the otherworldly, he'd remained by his liege's side.

"My respects, Ser Rolly Duckfield," said Joffrey as he inclined his head. The knight barely had time to step back before Stars slammed into him like the galley's battering ram. They flew halfway across the upper deck before Stars landed on top of him, slamming him against the planks with red claws.

Joffrey kept walking, and Aegon found something resembling a spine as he straightened, holding off Blackfyre like a talisman as the ship kept turning into a sloped hill. The fires illuminated a dozen galleys now, filled with silent archers as they circled around the ship like waiting sharks, their flags silver.

"Y-You have no right!!!" stuttered Aegon, swinging down his blade in a chop. Joffrey inched sideways, letting the blade fly by before ramming Brightroar through Aegon's chest.

He lifted the skewered would-be-king by Brightroar's pommel, the deck now almost vertical. "Neither do you, Blackfyre," he snarled in the boy's ear as he climbed the railing and stood over the prow of the ship. "The dead walk and you're in the way," he said before extracting the blade, Stars growling by his side as blood leapt from the boy's mouth.

The galleys circled the sinking ship, his soldiers staring up in awe as the fires reflected Brightroar's light and Aegon's corpse fell into the churning sea. Joffrey picked up Blackfyre, lifting it up high over the flames as the Targeryen sword of kings glinted in the night, black lines and jagged dragons crawling out of its pommel.

"One Kingdom!" he bellowed as he threw the blade into the sea, the Silver Lion roaring to the heavens, to the Comet high above as the sound thundered across the atoll. The subtle thrum of sinking Blackfyre echoed across the Song, and Joffrey smiled.

"One Kingdom!!!" roared the Westerosi.

-: PD :-