Chapter 12: 11 Of Ale and Mountains
After spending months freewheeling between free city taverns with the crew of the Swift Winds, court life seemed so… boring and lifeless. Those were the words. Everything anyone with power did was worry, scheme and trade polite barbs in the never ending fucking game of thrones. They probably didn't spend all their time doing that, Joffrey was sure, but it sure as hells seemed as if that was what they did all day.
The highlight of the first day of this life was when he actually won a bout against the hound, fair and square. He had spurned the heavy padded clothing and opted for light armor, and he had used his reflexes and moves learned under Nakaro to land a storm of blows against a thoroughly surprised Clegane, winning the bout. After that the cat was out of the bag though, and Clegane made sure to be ready to his hybrid style, handily winning all the next bouts.
"Where the hells did you learn that?" asked the hound, slightly winded. He made a stark contrast next to Joffrey, who was groaning in the ground, breathing every last puff of air he could before exhaling and doing it again. "Here… and… there…" answered Joffrey, between breaths. "Gods… I didn't remember being… so unfit for this" he said before halfheartedly examining his hands. "They're so… smooth and white and weak." He said despairingly.
"Huh?" grunted the Hound.
"Never mind Hound."
The Hound raised one if his burnt eyebrows stoically. "If you keep practicing it should get easier with time." He said, privately wondering what had happened to the little shit last night that he seemed like another person.
"Yeah, until the bloody next time" he muttered before flopping his head back down into the mud and just staying there in front of the whole courtyard.
-.PD.-
The caravan started North again, and Joffrey didn't feel any need to escape just yet. He was still pondering on what to do when sudden inspiration struck him. Predictably, the imp had been the catalyst.
Tyrion had defrosted enough with his friendly demeanor that they had taken to riding out ahead of the main group, sometimes even taking detours and spending the night in sleepy hamlets or other, more interesting places. Joffrey thought that a big part of making him at ease so quickly could have been his frequent meditations. He had never quite left that habit from that fateful life with Ned, and it almost never failed to center him and sooth his sanity. The imp had been waiting for the other shoe to drop for a week, but he had eventually given up and had even joined one or two times to find out what the deal was.
He had concluded he preferred whores.
"My reading is still shit, uncle. I really need some way to get it to improve beyond just sitting through Pycell's lessons. I think I came out of his study actually reading slower than I did before." Said Joffrey, shaking his head.
The imp hummed as they walked through the heavy forest, the slope had been getting steadily steeper as they kept walking, and the sun was already right above them. "What you need, Nephew, is a project" he said matter of factly as he grabbed his wineskin and tried to take a sip, only to find it empty. "Shit. This little trek took longer than I thought." He said. Joffrey snorted as he tossed him a second wineskin he had been carrying on his totally unprincely backpack. "I applaud your forethought Nephew!" Said Tyrion as he merrily took the clasp out and took a drink, only for his eyes to widen. "Arbor Gold? How did you-"
"You are a creature of habit, uncle." Said Joffrey, rolling his eyes. Tyrion gave him the stink eye for a few seconds. "What happened to my Nephew?" he asked, apparently serious.
"Bumped his head on the wheelhouse" replied Joffrey, not missing a beat.
"Not a problem for me, the ceiling can't get me" said Tyrion, glibly.
"No, the stairs are your enemy, that and his Bannerman, Dornish Red" said Joffrey, totally straight as they kept walking.
He looked back and saw the imp struggle for a few moments before a wheezing snort came out of his mouth and finally both of them shared a good chuckle.
"You win this time, Nephew" Said Tyrion, a hint of pride on his voice. "They grow so fast" he said supposedly for himself. "Faster than you!" said Joffrey, entering the game of wits again.
"Winning" his first verbal sparring against the imp had given him more satisfaction than all his years as King combined, though he sadly suspected the imp was going soft on him.
"Growing, as all things in life, must be taken slowly, to fully appreciate them" said Tyrion airily as he scaled a boulder that was in the middle of their path.
"Yes, your trip down the stairs was slow, now that I think about it" said Joffrey as if trying to remember a difficult math problem.
"Slower than the Dornish Red coming out of your throat, that's for sure!" Said the imp triumphantly as he looked at him and wiggled his eyebrows.
"GAAAHH" Joffrey guffawed as he shook his head. "Point, uncle. And remind me never to drink Dornish Red again."
"Believe me I will, those were my finest robes!" Tyrion exclaimed in mock anger.
"I only had 3 cups!" said Joffrey.
"Yes, that was the problem" said Tyrion instantly. Ouch, triple hit. Yep, he had been going soft on him.
They kept walking-kind-of-slogging through the thick sapplings and branches for a while until Joffrey asked again. "A project, uncle?"
"Aye, you told me you found reading for the sake of it interesting but incapable of holding your attention? But if it was something practical you'd learned it in no time?" Asked the Imp.
"Yeeeeeesss… kind of" said Joffrey, slowly.
"So, you make it practical. Set yourself a goal and convince yourself everything you study that's even remotely tied with it will help you reach it" Said Tyrion as if were the most obvious thing in the world.
"hmmm… Sometimes your intellect terrifies me" Said Joffrey as he dodged a particularly spiky branch.
"The whores never say that" said Tyrion.
"Ahh not again!" Said Joffrey, exasperated.
"They most definitively never say that!" said the damnable imp, not missing a beat.
Joffrey resolved to keep quiet for now lest he give his uncle more fuel, trawling his mind for possible "projects".
-.PD.-
"Making your own carriage?" tossed the Imp.
"No" said Joffrey.
"Visiting every whorehouse in the Riverlands?" asked the Imp.
"What? No" said Joffrey. The slope was now almost nonexistent, they were finally approaching the top of this hill.
"Look, I was thinking about something more… ambitious." Said Joffrey, carefully.
"hmmm… Make your Mother like me?" he asked tentatively.
"Not that ambitious" Said Joffrey trying to stop a totally unprincly snort.
They bulled through one last shrub and finally the thick forest was behind them.
"What a view…" said the imp with a light smile on his face.
From atop the hill they could see the winding rivers of the Riverlands, its fields and some of the small hamlets. To the other side was the Vale, with its mighty mountains of the moon in all their grey and green splendor, topped by manes of lustrous white.
Joffrey and Tyrion spent a while there basking in the early afternoon sun, eating the bread and ham they had brought with them and passing the wineskin between them.
"It's truly a magnificent view" said Joffrey, eying the titanic, steeply jagged mountains.
Tyrion took another gulp of Arbor Gold before tossing it to Joffrey "That it is, imagine how much more magnificent it must be from atop of it." He said with a dreamy smile.
Joffrey had been shaking the wineskin with his hand and noting with annoyance that the Imp had drained every last drop when he suddenly perked his head up.
"The top… Uncle you're a genius!" he said as he excitedly bounced back into his feet. "Gods, you could see the Vale, the Riverlands and the Crownlands all at the same time, maybe even the sea! The top of the world…" said Joffrey, his eyes in a haze.
Tyrion laughed out loud at that. "Aye, that'd be the view" he kept staring at the peak, then sneaked a glance back at Joffrey, who had stayed silent.
"… you're serious?"
Joffrey smiled. "I am" he said with quiet conviction.
-.PD.-
Joffrey stayed a grand total of 2 days at Winterfell, trying to avoid Lord Stark and the bittersweet memories he elicited. After paying the appropriate respects to the Starks, and feeling an immense sense of Déjà vu as he did, he finally rode out in the morning after one of the great feasts when everyone was asleep in a drunken stupor.
Cercei was throwing a fit of epic proportions, whirling about and shouting at Tyrion with her every breath. "I knew this would happen! I knew you would stray my son with your evil ideas and your wretched mind!"
Tyrion was seated on his chair calmly sipping his wine. "Please go on" he said amiably. Cercei's face turned even redder as she whirled on him again "And what in the seven hells is he hopping to find in Last Hearth?! A frozen tundra even worse than this one?!" she screamed.
Tyrion shrugged his shoulders innocently. "He said something about 'climbing gear'" he said glibly.
Cercei gave a wordless, muffled scream and stormed out of the room.
Tyrion smiled and gave a silent toast to rebel sons and amusing Nephews from all over the world.
-.PD.-
This was not how he envisioned his procurement expedition to Last Hearth.
"DRINK!" Bellowed the Smalljon as he slammed another mug into Joffrey's hand. It was bigger than his head.
The pale northern ale swirled inside the mug like a hypnotic miniature hurricane.
It was really mesmerizing.
…
Joffrey thought he was a bit drunk.
He frowned, pondering that thought for a while.
Was he?
Fuck it!
He downed the ale in one go and stood up, spluttering all over the Smalljon and his brothers who found the whole spectacle incredibly funny for some reason. Not that it stopped them from chugging down their own ales.
Joffrey shambled towards the Smalljon and grabbed him by the shoulders.
He had ridden here in an important mission, a project! He had to ask the Smalljon about their climbing tactics!
"Smalljon…. Mountains… their so beautiful!" he slurred.
He was rewarded with a titanic gaffaw and a blast of foul smell as the Smalljon seemed to open his big mouth and wheezed a rumbling chuckle that shook Joffrey's brain.
Suddenly the door creaked open, and everybody froze as a looming figure entered the room, walking sideways.
The silence was deafening as the Smalljon recognized his great uncle, Mors "Crowfood" Umber, his stoic figure walking unrelenting towards them.
Mors finally turned around to face them properly… that's when they noticed his beatific smile and the cask of ale under his enormous right arm.
The men of house Umber cheered so hard Joffrey thought his ear drums would rupture. He forgot what he had been thinking on at that very moment, but the ale barrel bigger than his torso that Mors deposited right in front of him seemed to hide the answers within itself.
"There's only one way to know" said Joffrey as the Smalljon and his brothers nodded solemnly, gripping their mugs like Knights before the charge.
-.PD.-
Pain….
UNBEARABLE PAIN.
Joffrey turned to the side and emptied the contents of his stomach.
That's funny… I don't remember dying…
That's when he noticed his vomit had landed right on a sleeping Osric, the Smalljon's "smaller" brother.
…
How did I get here again?
The migraine that assaulted him right then obliterated that thought, and Joffrey spent the next hour composting on the chair he had awoken upon as he tried to remember what happened yesterday.
He had arrived at Last Hearth because of the rumors about the tools they used for climbing some of the steeper cliffs of their lands, or for when they had to go and speak with the mountain clans in the middle of winter.
He had arrived at midday and had spent a while speaking with the small village's blacksmith, who seemed to know his stuff and dazzled Joffrey with different tools and metal gadgets he could only guess at their function.
That's when an enraged Smalljon had bursted into the smithy and demanded to know why a Prince was visiting his home without presenting himself first. Joffrey had spluttered a few apologies before the Smalljon demanded he present himself properly to mend the insult, practically manhandling him towards the Castle.
It was only when he noticed that the small room he was shoved into was not the main keep, and not until he saw the Smalljon's presumably smaller brothers entering through another door with barrelfulls of ale that Joffrey had realized the truth.
It's a trap.
Still, he stoically decided to brave the famous Umber gregariousness and use this opportunity to learn more about climbing.
His memory got a bit spotty after that.
His introspection was suddenly interrupted when Osric woke up suddenly and tried to get up, incidentally grabbing Joffrey's chair for support and shaking it a bit in lateral motion.
Oh boy.
Joffrey's face turned into an unhealthy shade of green and poor Osric didn't have the chance to grunt a confused "huh?" before another face full of vomit impacted him right in the nose.
-.PD.-
After cleaning themselves, the Umber boys were chastised by the Greatjon in the main keep, right in front of Joffrey, to both his and their eternal chagrin. The Greatjon had struggled to maintain a serious façade as he scolded his sons and welcomed Joffrey properly into his keep. Though even the Lord of Last Hearth laughed out loud with his sons when a suspiciously clean and composed Mors Umber, face totally straight and composed, speculated out loud that Joffrey was probably already under guest rights given the contents of his belly.
There would be a feast tonight, much to Joffrey's exasperation. He was sick of feats. Apparently a Crown Prince of the seven kingdoms had never in history visited Last Hearth, and that was a Big Deal, worthy enough for a great feast for the merriment of all.
Merriment that apparently started with a 'small' lunch right now, accompanied, of course, by a mug of ale bigger than his head.
Oh boy.
-.PD.-
Joffrey's carefully thought out timetable was blown to pieces when the Umbers managed, not entirely against his will, to make him stay there for a full week. Things only got worse when a one man rescue party (or half-man rescue party as he liked to call himself) arrived at Last Hearth to "make sure he was alright".
Things degenerated completely when Tyrion somehow managed to orchestrate a double team drinking competition between him and Joffrey against the Jon's.
It had been an epic encounter worthy of being written in by a Maester and stored in the Citadel for future generations to come. They must have been surrounded by the entire living population of Last Hearth as the main keep's table resounded with each empty ale mug crashing against it, Lannisters facing off against the Umbers. Joffrey had completely lost control of his motor skills but had still somehow managed to see the whole thing. He had been taken out early and Tyrion had withstood the Great and Small Jon's tag team for a straight hour before he drunk the Smalljon under the table and only the Lord of Last Hearth remained, eying the half man as one would survey an enemy commander.
The battlefield was a table filled with empty tankards and barrels, spilled beers, and the bodies of the fallen that had joined one side or the other.
"Uncle… don't!" had muttered Joffrey, pleading with his groggy eyes from his chair next to the Imp.
Tyrion had a small serene smile as he gripped his tankard, wobbling from side to side. "Lannister's never quit, Nephew" He said with a faraway look.
The Greatjon nodded with infinite respect as they both toasted their tankards, and downed them in one gulp.
Fifteen seconds passed as the two contestants watched each other, and the hall was silent as everybody looked on in expectation.
Suddenly, the Greatjon rolled his eyes and his head bumped against the table, fast asleep.
Tyrion, face absolutely serious, raised both his arms in silent victory, not having the strength to say anything.
The keep went absolutely fucking mad.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone