Chapter 14: 13 Bones
Tyrion was reading an interesting tome about Brandon the Shipwright on the small solar he had in King's Landing, eying the jug of wine nearby and debating the merits of taking a detour to Chataya's before the trip north, when he had the scare of his life.
His nephew Joffrey suddenly bursted into his cellar, sporting a manic green and looking for all the gods like the happiest man on earth, almost shaking with some inner power.
Oh shit. He just murdered someone, was his first thought.
When he looked about the small cellar and saw him, his grin stretched even more, and his eyes sparkled with joy.
…He's going to kill me, was his second thought.
"TEEAAAAM LAAAANISTEEEEEER" He shouted as he jumped and tackled Tyrion right out of his seat.
-.PD.-
The Lannister's table made a grim sight, as Cercei and Jaime ate in silence, giving each other looks of pure meaning and foreboding. Jon Arryn had been killed… and it hadn't been them. Tyrion had picked up the tension, and was playing without much energy with Tommen, who sat beside him. Both Tommen and Myrcella had absorbed the table's mood and were halfheartedly eating, or more like moving their food around with the cutlery.
"OMN" crunched Joffrey as he devoured a chicken leg, slowly munching it down, savoring every last bite. He had been like that since he'd last seen him, last night when instead of stabbing him to death the mad kid had gotten both of them drunk, with a happiness that had come out of nowhere. He'd been a bit embarrassed the next morning and had refused to elaborate on what exactly they had been celebrating (not that he needed an excuse)… but whatever it was it had left him as if he another person…
CRUNCH
With one last bite, Joffrey slid back on his seat with a self-satisfied smile and a faraway, calculating look.
Interesting… thought Tyrion.
He wondered what it was all about…
-.PD.-
The small kitchen was a humble place, a tiny recess tucked into one of the less frequented parts of the Red Keep. It had probably been originally built for the servants attending the White Sword tower. It barely had any food stored and the table looked like it could use a carpenter or two, but that hadn't stopped Joffrey. Whatever madness that had possessed the Prince, it had compelled him to clean up the place… and start cooking in the small stove for some reason.
He set the steaming bowl with a hopeful expression, apparently waiting for the Hound to say something.
Why is the prince of the Seven Kingdoms serving me rabbit stew…?
The Hound was definitely off balance with all of this. He would later try to use that fact to justify the long series of events that followed.
Fuck it, if he's expecting me to fall to whatever jape he's playing, he's got another thing coming.
He took a spoon, dipped it in the stew and promptly ate it.
He didn't know what he was expecting at this point, maybe to taste the worst flavor ever devised or maybe to have collapsed into a fitful bliss.
He munched some of the more solid bits. It was… too watery, and lacked almost any flavor. He'd definitely eaten worse on the march, but not too much worse.
The little shit seemed to pick up on his expression, and scratched his head. "hmm, it was too much to hope months of self-cooking for survival needs would mean better meals…" he said apparently to himself, then shook himself.
"Alright Hound…" he said, sitting on the table and spreading a pile of parchments all over the table. "Pick our fate" he said, gazing at his sworn shield rather ominously.
The Hound stared right back at Joffrey, but the kid's unwavering stare forced him to look back down… with a sight.
"Damnit, fine." He said as he gazed glumly at the pile of spread out parchment on the table. They were about 15 pieces, all of them face down.
He still didn't really know what sort of game the little shit was playing, but it would be best to indulge him and just get it over with. "Fine, fine… I'll take…" He hesitated.
This was harder than it looked. It was just a piece of paper right? His hand moved from one of the papers to the other, moving all over the table before hesitating between just two of them. He kept moving his hand between the two of them… one of them would be it.
His hand kept switching positions until he grunted. "Bah! Take this one" he practically tossed the parchment at Joffrey.
He picked it up dutifully and flipped it, revealing a name.
"Port of Ibben… hmm, interesting enough. Have your things packed up by tomorrow morning Hound." He said almost flippantly as he stood up and strolled out of the small kitchen, only to stop at the door.
"Ah, you might want look at the parchment you almost chose" he said with a mischievous smirk as he went on his way.
The Hound, still off balance with the whole experience, promptly flipped the piece he had been hesitant about.
'Summer Islands', it read.
The Hound's eye twitched.
-.PD.-
His breathing was steady, his eyes locked.
Wait for it…
Joffrey could hear the sway of the rigging as the cog crested another way, rising into the air…
Wait for it…
Only to come back down with a big roar. The Hound tumbled a bit to his left, losing his balance, and Joffrey pounced like a fevered cat, his sword slashing to the Hound's exposed back.
The Hound grunted as he barely blocked the incoming blow, his attention split between trying to keep his balance and the threat Joffrey presented.
"Dirty…" he said as he shoved Joffrey back. "Good" he muttered as he went on the offensive, delivering a storm of blows that Joffrey dodged around, with the occasional parry. CLANG CLANG CLANG. The metal screeched with each incoming blow as the Hound progressively trapped Joffrey against the corner, right below the ships tiller. With an inelegant yet efficient swish which spoke of the Hound's years of training and veterancy, he disarmed Joffrey with flick and a punch to the belly.
The sword clattered on the deck as Joffrey fell on his knees, hands clenched on his stomach. He spent a few seconds there before the Hound offered him a hand up.
"Didn't know you'd trained on a ship before" Said the Hound gruffly as Joffrey took his hand and was propelled up by the Hound's strength. Joffrey took a few more gulps of air, enjoying the feeling as a westerly breeze swept the deck. "Only… a couple… of times…" he assured him as he kept getting all the air he could into his burning lungs.
His rapid breathing was interrupted by an intrusive thought. Suddenly he looked at the Hound with a weary expression. "When have you fought on a ship before?!" he asked.
The Hound, naturally, let out another one of his trademark grunts. "You're not the only one with surprises here, Joff" he told him, his expression a bit wary as well.
"Taht's enough lolligaging'! Ge' back t' work!" bellowed out a burly Valeman as he leaned on the rail in front of the tiller. "I ain't payin ya fer playing with swords, and tha' includes you Joff! I want the jib squared 'way before we reach Braavos!" he bellowed once more as the dozen crewmen who had been sitting in crates spectating the duel groaned. "Aye Captain!" Said Joffrey as he stowed his tourney sword, experimentally touching the new bruises he'd acquired. "1 out of 5… I still can't believe you keep trouncing whatever trick I can come up with…" he told the Hound, exasperated. He turned around when he heard no response, only to find the Hound staring at him deep in thought.
This again… He'd been giving him that stare every time the Captain gave him an order, it was getting annoying.
"Cleg? Cleg?!" With that Clegane snapped out of his reverie, only to huff as Joffrey raised his eyebrows. "Mhrm" he said in Hound speak as he stowed his sword. Joffrey roughly translated that to 'Nevermind'.
The Cog crashed against another wave as Joffrey took a few moments before heading with the rest of the crew to take down the jib, enjoying his tensed muscles. It had become a kind of guilty pleasure every time he became relatively fit a bit after the start of a new life. Every time he woke up again he somehow felt a bit more depressed or anxious than mere moments before his death, but that feeling gradually went away after he got back up in shape in the current life. The difference had become notorious in what Joffrey had started to call 'the mountain run' in his mind, and his daily endurance exercises (at least the toned down version that didn't have everyone on the Red Keep considering whether to toss him to the tender mercies of Grand Maester Pycell) had become a standard routine for his new lives now.
Now, doing them every day plus the two weeks hard at work on the sea, Joffrey finally felt a bit more independent. It didn't matter if his technique kept getting good (and thankfully it was, now he could reliably defeat the Hound in one bout out of 5. Slow progress, but still…) if he didn't have the build for it, any difference he could make on a prolonged skirmish was negligible.
"Wha' ra' ya' wai'ing for! I don' pay you for star'in at ta' sea you scum!" Shouted the Captain. The burly Valeman had a horrendously backwater accent, and an explosive temperament that could give a drunk Robert a run for his money, but he had taken in 'Joff' and 'Cleg' as paid sailors without question, and for that Joffrey was too grateful to care.
He snapped out of his reverie as he dashed to the Jib. eHeeeeee"Aye Captain!" he said as the Valeman slowly shook his head, getting back to the tiller.
-.PD.-
Lorath was not a big city, at least not compared to the rest of the Free Cities. It did have a kind of strange beauty in the form of its laberynthian alleys and streets, winding up and down, left and right in a kind of complicated pattern that seemed to hint of something… more. Hidden.
It was no surprise then when Joffrey learned it had actually been a maze, centuries ago. Unfortunately, time, hardship and a visit by a group of certain blond dragon riders had all ruined whole swaths of the ancient maze from which the city had been originally built up from. On the couple of days Joffrey had spent there, he had explored it relentlessly, trying to figure out the city's ancient secrets to some very moderate success.
He had uncovered ancient passageways that ranged from inconspicuous deserted alleyways to huge gaping caverns that opened up to the sea, and he had sometimes even discovered ancient marks or runes of some sort in some of those passageways, the ones he thought where the oldest ones.
Still, he had not forgotten his original objective. The mysterious Port of Ibben, inhabited by the strange and hairy Ibbenese, many of whom he had already seen wandering about the docks and the taverns. They were mostly fishermen, traders and the occasional whaler, but they were notoriously distrustful of strangers, preferring their own company.
Until now.
"Right, let's get in 'Cleg'." He told the Hound , who had been standing quietly behind him, seemingly thinking about his own things. He followed Joffrey with barely a grunt.
Joffrey guessed that after so many character breaking moments the Hound had finally decided to metaphorically fuck it and go with the flow (and the mad schemes of the 'new' Joffrey), a healthy sentiment that reminded Joffrey of calm breezes and twirling red leaves. He approved.
Turning his back on the grey skies to face the grey city, he made his way through the relatively busy street, following the road from the piers to the nearby tavern he had checked out yesterday. The perpetually grey and cloudy skies above Lorath seemed to always indicate a coming storm, and they didn't often disappoint. The prince and his bodyguard increased their pace as the first drops of rain started to pour down, quickly gaining intensity as they finally made it to a non-descriptive squat building, made out of thick grey bricks.
"The Dead Whale" was a tavern that didn't stand out much from its neighbors, if anything it was slightly more run down than the inn in front of it, where drunk Braavosi Bravos and laughing Pentoshi traders spiraled out to the streets, singing and cursing the rain. "The Dead Whale" in comparison was quiet from the outside, almost eerily so. Still, he was somehow certain that this place would be the key for getting to Ibb.
They entered through the front door, taking care to shake their boots and coats beforehand. Joffrey managed to hear the quiet, bassy murmur of rasping conversation before it immediately stopped, and they soon found themselves stared at by the whole tavern's clientele, 95% of which were the somewhat squat looking, hairy Ibbenese. Their appearance, though Joffrey had seen them before, still sent a strange, uncanny feeling when he saw them, but that quickly gave way as he furiously thought about the situation.
Rapidly deciding that the best course of action was to carry on as if nothing, the Hound and him made their way to a table in the corner, whose nearby neighbors looked mostly harmless. They sat there in uncomfortable silence, Joffrey leaning back on his chair as if nothing were amiss (and vaguely failing, he thought) while the Hound sat stiffly on the other chair, which had a view of the whole place and incidentally left his back secured… he scanned the area constantly his hand tight on his sword.
That's what gave away a warrior. Joffrey reflected, Not their prowess, but the way in which they stayed informed of their surroundings. He briefly wondered if that was something one was taught, or if it was something that arose organically after surviving battles and wars.
A vaguely scowling Lorathi serving girl came to them, and Joffrey handed her a Braavosi Iron Mark as he ordered two mugs of beer. He was startled when the Hound suddenly leaned in and ordered some chicken too. When he looked at him the Hound just shrugged "I'm hungry" he said as if an afterthought.
Only when the serving wench reluctantly nodded at him and went on her way, did the conversation return to the rasping murmur it had been before.
"Fuck… When you said they didn't like foreigners I didn't think you meant it like that…" the Hound murmured. "Neither did I…" Joffrey whispered back. He leaned a bit backwards and spied both of their nearby neighbors. One of the tables had an Ibbenese man busily munching some kind of nuts as he taciturnly stared at his empty cup, while the other table was surrounded by a half dozen ibbenese sailors clad in heavy furs that made them look even more hairy. Joffrey noted they hadn't even looked his way when they entered the tavern.
His initial plan to buy everyone a mug of beer (courtesy of the Red Keep's treasury) seemed… impractical now, he would have to find another way to ingrate himself to some crew of Ibbenese sailors. Lorathi and even Braavosi ships regularly docked at the Port of Ibben, but their access to the city itself was often restricted to foreigners, or so he'd heard on Bravos. Arriving on an Ibbenese crewed ship however, would give him considerably more freedom.
That was the theory anyway.
The Hound grunted his approval as he tore at the chicken leg with the characteristic joy of a man who thought he'd eat fish for the rest of his life. Joffrey chuckled a bit at the sight, stealing one of the chicken legs for himself. "I'm hungry" he cheekily responded to the Hound's glare.
Before he could munch another bit, a rough, hairy hand slapped Joffrey's shoulder, followed by a threatening grunt. The Hound, fast as lightning, stood up and shoved the offending man away.
"Touch him again and your hand won't follow the rest of your body" he growled. Joffrey quickly got up from his chair and turned around, only to be confronted by 4 Ibbenese men, all looking at either him or the hound.
The one the Hound shoved sneered, an ugly smile filled with square teeth. He spoke then with the typical grunting lilt of the men of Ib as the other 3 spread around the table. Joffrey could spy daggers in their hips.
"Assassins?" Joffrey asked the Hound as he lay a hand on his arming sword's pommel.
"Nah… too public." Mouthed the Hound, his eyes constantly cycling between the 4 men. The one that had touched Joffrey said something, quickly followed by a sneer as he shoved Joffrey yet again.
Or at least tried to. As soon as he touched his chest, the Hound roared as he took out the arming sword he had under the table and slashed the man's neck. Despite not using his characteristic longsword, the Hound's strength managed to sink the blade through the neck and past the collarbone, spilling blood all over the chicken legs. To Joffrey's mind it seemed the combatants stared for half a dozen seconds after that, but it may have been just the one. The other 3 charged at them as Joffrey took out his own sword, and the fight was upon them.
Despite having the inferior weapon, the Ibbenese Joffrey faced off against proved to be a formidable knife fighter (to him at least), frequently dodging and stumbling against Joffrey's attacks. He even managed to dart in for a quick swipe at Joffrey's arm which almost made him drop his sword in pain.
If a Shadowcat couldn't make me drop it then neither will you, asshole! Joffrey thought furiously as he gripped it with renewed strength.
Meanwhile, the Hound was fighting off the other two sailors without much trouble, shoving one back with his shoulder as he cut the other one's knife hand.
Joffrey parried a slash that would have severed his windpipe and used one of the Hound's favorite counters, the sucker punch to the nose. The Ibbenese stumbled back, clutching his bloodied nose and trying to wipe the blood and tears that clouded his vision.
It was too late though, with a quick step Joffrey closed the distance and skewered him through the abdomen.
I think I'm actually getting better at this! He thought irreverently as he turned back and saw the Hound finish off the last one.
"CLEGANE BEHIND--" he screamed but it was too late. With a thung that to Joffrey's mind resonated throughout the whole inn, a crossbow bolt tip emerged from the Hound's throat. He watched, hands trembling, as the Hound grabbed his neck and the blood poured down his body… he coughed blood before he stumbled a step or two, collapsing on the floor.
A dozen meters behind him stood an Ibbenese with a crossbow, already reloading. Joffrey's hands had suddenly stopped trembling, and both the distance to the man and the man itself seemed to come into surreal focus, all other distractions falling by the wayside, his vision surrounded by a red hue.
His heart beat a steady rhythm, like a galleys oar drum as Joffrey dashed towards the man, his face a silent snarl. The man from Ibben cursed as he aimed again, but Joffrey could see perfectly the trajectory the bolt would take. With a smooth waterdancing move he'd trained a hundred times (though never for this purpose) he spinned to the side just as the man fired, the bolt harmlessly passing by his side.
The man panicked, tossing the crossbow aside and reaching for his sword, but Joffrey was already upon him. With a snarl he blocked the two pitiful attacks from the man's short sword, cutting off his arm with his riposte and shoving him into the ground with his whole strength.
The torrent of blood that spilled from the man's stump entranced Joffrey for a few moments, and he felt something he had not felt for quite a while… a particular type of pleasure, of ecstasy that only grew as some of the blood splashed on his face.
He snarled again as he started pounding the moaning man on the floor, cutting again and again with his sword, the fountains of blood propelling him to new heights, bringing sweet memories---
"He's dead! He's already dead!!!" suddenly shouted a voice in his ear in mangled Braavosi. Joffrey blinked heavily as the red fog lifted, the pleasure and hyper-reality of the moment passing away, leaving only the horrendously butchered remains of the crossbowman, surrounded by the tavern's clientele, most of which were hanging back in… fear?
As the strong arms that had been holding him finally let him go, Joffrey fell on his knees, wracked by nausea.
You really thought it would be so easy to change the core of your being? Whispered a treacherous corner of his mind.
Something deeply wrong…
He remembered the way his scalpel travelled through Eddard's body... and realized he still felt exhilaration at the memory of his blood dripping from the table.
His belly contracted itself in anguish as he vomited right there, and the room shrunk to a pinprick of vision.
"Let's get out of here" said someone in butchered Braavosi, before he lost consciousness.
-.PD.-
His awareness returned slowly, like a bubble emerging from the depths. He slowly blinked his eyes open, feeling the slight swaying of the floor…
He tried to get up, only to get entangled with a hummock. After extracting himself from it, and getting rid of the filth in his eyes, he found himself in a small room, illuminated by a small opened hatch on the side.
Shit…
He could hear the sound of feet on planks, and grunts of effort and exertion as rigging swayed and waves crashed, but the floor hardly moved. He was definitely on Lorath's pier, and one crewed by Ibbenese at that if he could judge the language.
Why aren't I dead? He thought as he scanned the room for anything useful. He spied his sword and the rest of his belongings by the side. Why would they hold him prisoner without disarming him?
He stopped scanning when he saw the Hound's sword, plopped right next to his. "Clegane…" he whispered, remembering the last few seconds… or had it been minutes? Clegane had dealt with the bastards easily; only to be cowardly shot from the back with a crossbow… cowardly crossbows… he tried not to think about the irony of that thought too much.
What had come next unsettled him much more. He remembered the joy and pleasure he'd felt butchering the man that had killed Clegane… how each spray of blood seemed to propel him to new heights…
He thought he had left that part of himself behind with the purple and the madness… Why? Why had it come back like that?
Am I sliding back into the madness?! I don't feel so, but would I know if I was? What if—
His ruminations were suddenly interrupted as the door opposite to the hatch opened, revealing a short, stocky Ibbenese (though that could be said of them all) wearing a heavy cloak. Joffrey frowned in recollection as he inched towards his arming sword.
"That won't necessary" he said in Braavosi, leaving a heavy cloak on the nearby chair. Joffrey was suddenly aware of how cold this place actually was, but he shoved that thought away... that man…
"I've seen you before…" he said as he stopped moving towards his sword. Neither the man nor the situation looked to turn into immediate danger, so he waited, for now.
"I'm Art Moggat, I one who stopped… the killing" he said. "You're the one that got me out of there…"Joffrey nodded slowly "Yeah, I remember you, you where the one on the next table, eating some sort of… nuts?" He nodded at that.
"After… incident, got you to this ship, need extra crewmembers." He tried to explain, but his Braavosi was frankly atrocious to Joffrey. He would have to learn the Ibbenese language one way or the other if he wanted to have a meaningful conversation.
Wait, ship?
"You needed to replace the crew? What happened to them?" he asked, stalling for time as he finally put on the heavy coat, he was freezing to death in this room.
"Yes, you killed them" Art said with a nod, signaling Joffrey to follow him up.
"Oh" he said.
-.PD.-
It turned out there was a good reason why it was so gods damned cold.
Being in the middle of the Shivering Sea did that to you. The snow on the deck was a good clue too.
It turns out the men that had tried (to kill him or just to beat him up Joffrey did not know) had been crewmembers on this ship… so Art had brought him to the Captain, not to exact revenge, but to help fill the empty spots. Incredibly convenient to Joffrey, and afforded a bit of insight into how the Ibbenese thought.
Apparently, the Captain (who Joffrey hadn't met yet) didn't care a wit about what happened in port, and if part of his crew got killed in a tavern brawl then as long as his ship continued to work smoothly he didn't care a rats ass about their fate. That left the crew, who it turns out hadn't liked the quintet of assholes very much, and seemed to regard Joffrey with a smooth indifference, if they noticed him at all.
Being noted at all was a tall order when the ship the Ibbenese crewed was the most gigantic vessel Joffrey had ever seen.
The huge whaler was at least 4 times as big as the Eastern Winds. The ship did not crash against the waves in so much as the waves crashed against it. Its elongated central section had the remains of a dead whale, in the process of being butchered by swarms of men in search of oil, meat, bone and more.
The floating castle ponderously travelled throughout a deep, dark blue sea that stretched as long as the eye could see, the dark blue only disturbed by the dark and grey clouds that seemed to be as eternal as the sea itself, blanketing his surroundings with cold snow.
The Shivering Sea… and apt name, he thought.
When he asked about the Hound's body he was told it had been dropped into the sea, as was the way of the Ibbenese, followed by a few mumbled words in the common tongue that a charitable person would have called a passage from the book of the Stranger.
Joffrey had shaken his head at that. I'll see you in the next life, Hound. Maybe one day I'll tell you all this and we'll have good laugh about it.
Overall, things didn't look so bad. He had his ship to Ibb, and he'd get there sooner or later, there was just one inconvenient fact.
The men he and the Hound had killed had been working on stripping chunks of frozen meat out of the whale carcass…
Joy.
-.PD.-
Joffrey wiped some off some burnt tar from his eyes, trying to get the substance from hell off the deck… and failing.
This seems oddly familiar… he thought morosely. Only there's no Baleo to pass the time.
He stopped for a moment, rising from his knees to take a breath of fresh air. Fortunately the ever present smell of burnt tar was absent, so he enjoyed the clean, bone chilling breeze of the Shivering Sea.
"Should'a picked the Summer Islands Hound" he grumbled as he kept rubbing the perpetually dark deck.
He was next to the middle section of the ship, where they "stowed" the dead whales, though there was rarely more than one on the deck at the same time. The freezing air ensured the carcass did not rot, and the ample working space helped with the job itself.
Now though there was no carcass, they had finished it up a month ago and the ship was now on course to the Port of Ibben for some well-earned rest and resupply.
The couple of months Joffrey had spent on the fat bellied Ibb-Wogan had been of a rather solitary nature. The Ibbenese had difficulty opening up to a stranger, and that task was compounded by the difficult language they spoke. Getting the right tone and pronunciation when half of the words seemed like nothing more than grunts and huffs was a task worthy of a team of Maesters. As it was he barely had a friend within Art, a consequence of his constant pestering to learn his difficult tongue.
Still, he had spent the last month's solitude well. Meditating (most times literally, up on the mainmast) about what had happened on the tavern, and remembering some of the more… questionable things he had done in his first few lives. He was disappointed and somewhat angry he could still recall the sharp joy of those moments. It seemed that under all his self-denial, there was still a piece of the old Joffrey… deep inside him.
He didn't know what to think about that, much less what to do about it.
Often, that quiet questioning gave way to a more benign curiosity about his condition in general. About his infinite lives and his purpose here. Was there even a purpose anyway? Perhaps he was some kind of freak cosmic accident, or perhaps the reason was far more mundane and he was still choking on his wedding day, his fevered mind conjuring up wild scenarios before his true death.
Luck smiled upon him when found a strange hobby that helped direct his ruminations in a more helpful manner, and from the unlikeliest of sources.
Whalebone carving. It turns out that harvesting a dead whale left a lot of unusable bone fragments, too damaged or not pretty enough to sell on Ibb. He had found the Captain one night next to the wheel, a small oil lamp lighting his hands as he worked on a piece of whalebone, carving all kinds of animals and shapes. When he asked Art the next day he was told it was a somewhat common pastime among some Ibbenese. And yes, he did have an old set of carving tools somewhere.
He had given Art the Hound's helmet for those, he was sure he'd understand…
If he was watching him now from the afterlife, that is.
Under the study (more like relentless watching) of various sailors (and under the threat of further pestering) Joffrey had managed to learn a few things about the peculiar craft, and he had found they made for a wonderful concentration aid, as well as being oddly relaxing.
"Argh!" he grunted, tossing the sponge at the deck and standing up. He needed to clear his mind for a bit or he'd dream of tar for the rest of his lives. He made his way to the central deck in search of amusement, and quickly found it.
Clack clack clack.
He could hear cheering and sharp clacks the closer he got to the central deck. The snowing and the mind numbing chill had lessened somewhat as they travelled further south back to Ibb, and it seemed the crew had deemed the weather fresh enough that they'd stripped to their pants and where… bashing each other with sticks.
Joffrey quickly spotted Art, who was sitting on top of a crate, part of the circle of bored sailors with nothing better to do. "Hey Art! What's going on?" he asked in Ibbenese as he nodded towards the fighters. The man sitting next to Art broke out in laughter as Art shook his head with a slight smile. "What?" asked Joffrey, nonplussed.
As Art scooted to the side so Joffrey had space to sit, he revealed the joke. "You just asked me what's going through my belly… probably a lot of cooked whale" he said, rising one of his bushy eyebrows. "Ahh" Joffrey said eloquently, noting the error as Art quickly explained which part of the sentence had gone wrong (or more like which had gone right). Joffrey had taken to expanding Art's Braavosi in exchange for Ibbenese, though he did seem to be improving much faster than Joffrey. He guessed it was because Art already knew the bare rudiments of the language while Joffrey was starting from scratch.
The two men on the impromptu arena had finished bashing each other, and where replaced by another pair who promptly nodded at each other and proceeded to charge. Their pants and their shaggy chests seemed to be their only protection against the cold, but they didn't mind. They clashed right at the middle, swinging and stabbing with their heavy spears. The fighting style was different to what Joffrey was accustomed to, almost the antithesis to water dancing. Each move was heavy, deliberate and ponderous. That was not to say they were slow, but Joffrey could feel each blow as they both used tip, butt and shaft of their spears in a multitude of ways and moves which clearly made a formal style of its own. Their footwork was grounded and heavy, each blow emphasized and augmented by the whole inertia of the body, landing painful blows in key areas when they weren't parried. Joffrey would have preferred more dodging, but he still found the whole style intriguing.
"I didn't know the Ibbenese favored spear fighting" he told Art.
"Most prefer axes nowadays… But in the old days, when iron was scarce and there wasn't a difference between tools and weapons … those heavy whale spears served as both" he said as one of the Ibbenese managed to catch the other one in the head with the butt. He fell on the floor, unconscious.
"Ouch" said Joffrey as they the man's friends dragged him away and promptly spilled a bucket of ice cold water on him. "I never learned how to use spears, despite their superior range most Westerosi Nobles prefer the long sword." He said, wistfully remembering hot days in the Red Keep.
Art looked thoughtful for a moment before he smiled, his square teeth boding ill for Joffrey. "Then what are you waiting for!" he said as he shoved him to the center of the rough circle of spectators.
"Wai- bu-" he blabbered before his reflexes screamed and he grabbed the spear Art tossed him. He then said something to another of the Ibbenese spectators, who promptly got up with a spear of his own.
Gods this thing is heavy, He thought as the man grunted something at the audience, making the circle laugh out loud as he twirled his spear expertly. "Wait, you're not fighting me?" he asked Art, who was already shaking his head. "I'm pretty bad at it, but I'll talk you through…" he said again with the square smile.
"Uh-huh" said Joffrey, dubiously eying the other combatant. "What did he say before?" he asked Art as he tried to get a handle on the spear, swinging it experimentally. "He said he'd go easy on the foreigner, but that he feared your weak skull would crack and splatter your brain across the Shivering Sea." He said, straight faced.
"Charming" muttered Joffrey as the man charged at him.
They could have at least given me some pointers, he thought.
-.PD.-
He had a natural talent.
For having his skull bashed against the deck, that is.
Over, and over, and over again.
"That was… bad. Really bad." Said Art as he handed Joffrey another lump of ice. "What did you bloody expect?" he said, cursing the freezing ice as he placed it yet again on his bruised head. At least the repeated blows to the head seemed to have helped his Ibbenese. Somehow.
He was trying to be optimistic.
"I thought you Westerosi were masters at every weapons of war?" asked Art, genuinely confused.
Joffrey snorted. "Long swords, Art. I already told you, long swords…" he said as he shook his head, which proved to be a horrible idea. "99% of the time, the most common use for a spear in Westeros is being dropped to the ground as panicked levies get hammered by a heavy charge… Or at least that's what the Hound says."
"Ah… I think you meant 'used so say'" Said Art with a slight wince. "Nono, I think I got the pronunciation ri… ah. Nevermind."
They spent a while in ankward silence as the Ibb-Wogan slowly made its way to the Port of Ibben, reaching for the massive docks that seemed costume made to receive this kind of ship.
"What are they going to do with those?" Asked Joffrey, pointing at a pile of bone fragments and looking for a way to end the awkward silence.
Art turned back and gazed at the pile as it grew bigger with each cart load. "Those? Whalebone fragments too small to be made of something useful. Normally we would sell them anyway, but right now we are in season and they're not worth the hassle" He said.
Joffrey had originally been looking for a convenient distraction, but that pile seemed genuinely interesting all of a sudden. "But what about that one?" he asked, pointing at a smooth rectangular slab the size of his hands.
"Ah, the Sorib. We use that bone to make goodluck charms, but Wegath fucked up with the chistle. What you're seeing there is actually the cracked upper half. Worthless." He said dismissively.
"Hmm, still, with a bit of cutting and a good rubbing you could carve something interesting with it, couldn't you?" he asked Art. The thing was… Joffrey didn't know, he felt he could make something nice with it, eventually. Its white gloss had an intriguing appeal.
Art gave an uncommitted shrug, but seemed to eye the piece once again, considering.
They spent a while then, this time in compensable silence until they passed the breakwater and were into the inner bay.
The Port of Ibb was big. As the last known proper metropolis before the grand expanses of the Shivering Sea to the East and North, and to the Thousand Islands to the South-East, it was a hub of vibrant commerce and trade. Huge whale ships docked and departed at every moment, never stopping as dockhands boarded, unloaded, repaired and even re crewed the ships. Joffrey could spy several other ships in the port proper. Braavosi galleys and Lorathi traders where the most common, followed by a myriad other smaller ships that Joffrey guessed came from various Lorathi and Ibbenese colonies, along with the occasional… raft?
How where those things even floating?
"Welcome to Ibben, Joff" Said Art with a smile.
-.PD.-
When they finally docked, Joffrey spent about 3 days in various jobs, all sharing one outstanding trait: haste. They emptied the huge cargo hold as fast as possible, loaded up new supplies and sounded the ship for possible cracks or tears. When they were done a new crew was rotated in and the Ibb-Wogan set sail again, in search of the ever elusive whales.
It seemed the Port of Ibben was so busy it was cheaper to hire rotating crews than to spend a month in port while the original crew rested.
So, three days after docking, Joffrey was free to do whatever he wanted.
And he was feeding seals. Because honestly, why not?
Joffrey gave another small step, moving the small fish on his hand tantalizingly closer.
"Come on… you know you want it" he whispered as the big seal looked at him quizzically, a meter away now.
"Nice, raw fish… just… for… you…" he whispered as the enormous animal finally opened up its huge maw and Joffrey tossed the fish right in the middle of it. The seal flapped his flippers wildly about, snorting happily before jumping down the beach and splashing into the water. Joffrey actually giggled a bit at the small spectacle, and felt a small weight lift from himself.
He smiled to himself. This little beach in between the smaller docks would be a good spot to see the sundown. When he turned around to get his cloak he was confronted with a paler than usual Art Moggat, opening his mouth and closing it over and over again.
"A—Are you insane!" he finally shouted.
"Ehh, not for a while… I think. Why?" he asked the man, curious.
Art slapped his head before jumping down from the small wooden walkway to the beach, walking towards Joffrey. "Then merely ignorant! That seal could have taken your arm in a heartbeat! And that if you had been lucky!"
"Come on Art! He wasn't going to eat me!" Snorted Joffrey.
"How could you possibly know that? Those seals are regarded as more dangerous than sharks around these waters!"
"I—I just felt that--" Joffrey started but stopped when Art finally got to him and slapped him in the shoulder. The blow stung, but Joffrey didn't mind, he had discovered that physical movement was a common part of the Ibbenese language.
"What? Are you an animal tamer or something?" Asked Art, but by now he was starting to smile with his square teeth again, a sure sign that his anger had given way to amusement.
"Ha, very funny Art" Joffrey said as he shook his head. Animal tamer… funnily enough, animals had always been a bit too slow around him, when he had been a child it had been the only way he had been able to catch rats and the occasional rabbit for… experimentation… Shows what they knew…
There's the godsdamned weight again, thought Joffrey morosely.
He shook his head before speaking again. "Anyway, I thought you were at the Long Bones with the rest of the crew, waiting for ale and those forsaken nuts you like so much" he told him.
Art smiled yet again before taking out a small object from his bag and offering it to Joffrey.
Disentangling the thing from the small blanket it had been wrapped around, Joffrey finally saw it. It was an unnaturally smooth piece of bone, flattened like a small tablet. It was less than a centimeter in height, but it had about twice the width of his hand and was about as long. Essentially, it was a largish rectangle he could grab with one hand.
"Wow… thanks Art, I thought they had tossed this overboard with the rest of the fragments. Did you carve the dimensions?" he asked him.
"With the help of the others, they felt your relentless pursuit of the fine art could not go unrewarded, but this is not just any whalebone, remember? It's a piece from the Sorib, the bone that holds the whale's heart. They say it brings good luck… and that it cures hangovers, so you may want to keep it out of view of drunken sailors"
Joffrey laughed at that. "Will do Art, please tell the rest of the guys I appreciate it, I'll tell them myself later when I see them too"
"I will, and please stop feeding those things or you'll end up a limbless beggar in the Lampway" Art responded as he climbed the nearby wooden stairs back up to the street.
Joffrey snorted as he stowed the beautiful tablet, he was nowhere near the skill level to draw something worthy of such raw material. He'd have to wait until his skill grew.
He took out a blanket from his leather backpack and deposited it and himself on the sand, waiting for dusk.
He had been there for a while when he smelled that peculiar odor again. A hauntingly familiar smell that had first assaulted him when he first arrived at Ibb. It smelt of wind and static, of something great and terrible.
He sat up suddenly, eyes riveted on the horizon as heavy goose bumps travelled all around his body, shaking him for a full second before disappearing without trace.
The horizon was the same as yesterday, grey and gloomy, and Joffrey shook his head for the fifth time.
Yep, must be going crazy again, he thought.
The city fitted a lot with the atmosphere of the Shivering Sea, Joffrey thought. It was built upon several steep hills that went progressively higher the farther you went past the docks. Its bricks and cobblestones had a distinctly gloomy, grey gloss that meshed quite nicely with the grey clouds and freezing seas of the Shivering Sea. It gave it some kind of desolate splendor that Joffrey had never seen before.
And he knew just the place to admire it even better.
He had been on Ibb for about a month now, and Joffrey was far from bored. His spear fighting skills were advancing, at a glacial pace yes, but he would soon know (in theory at least) all the basic moves and styles, which should make it possible for him to train it without the need for a teacher. Getting one of the resting crews to teach him took almost as much time as the lesson itself, but it was worth it.
Far more satisfying was his progress with Ibbenese, which seemed descent enough that he could have small conversations with food merchants. That or else they were very fond of humoring him.
He had also explored the area that surrounded the docks, a set of progressively larger hills that rose above the seas…
And he had found just the place for this occasion.
He quick walked through the cobbled alleys and streets, passing by hurried stragglers and last minute food vendors trying to shelter from the rain. Joffrey didn't mind it, he had his heavy cloak and he'd braved worse weathers than this.
A huge storm was approaching Ibb. That was a far from uncommon occurrence, but this time it seemed the storm was going to be massive, so much so that the docks had been closed and everyone not under shelter was almost rushing to find one.
Not him though. Joffrey had other plans.
Ever since various captains and scholar-priests had begun to warn of a great storm three days ago, Joffrey had just known deep within him that this storm would be like no other, as if the smell of the air or the crashing of the seas had foretold it. Throughout the last week he'd been getting those weird goosebumps more frequently, and he just knew he had to watch the coming spectacle.
He turned again, walking through a stair cased sloped street. The streets were deserted now, and the sun barely shone through the grey clouds. Normally, at this hour the dusky sun would be somewhat visible, but with the clouds and the rain it was almost as if the night had arrived earlier.
He could hear distant thunder as he took another turn and walked towards the edge of the hill he was on. He navigated the winding alleys, sometimes stopping at a corner to let a particularly strong gale die down, or to get the speed necessary to jump the rivers that occasionally formed in some of the less steep alleyways.
Until he was suddenly on a small clearing, overlooking the tempestuous seas in the midst of a great storm. He had found the little park at the hanging edge of the hill a few days ago, nothing fancy, just a small pergola, a few benches surrounded by bushes and hardy flowers… and a heck of a view.
Dusk was gone, the sun illuminating no more as the great storm seemed to redouble in intensity. The Gods were exhaling today, said some of the city's priests, or so Joffrey had heard. Regardless of religion, he was sure of one thing: The windy and chilly front was a beautiful and terrible thing, advancing inexorably towards Ibb.
He could somehow feel it in his bones, the storm was just arriving.
-.PD.-
He was confortable in his heavy coat, sitting below the pergola and watching as the frequent lightning lighted up the night and the stormy seas for miles around him. The small pergola felt ancient, a small, square structure with no walls, only a roof. Its stone pillars were big and sturdy but filled with cracks and moss, its grey gloss even darker than the rest of the city. It somehow felt just right for a bit of weather watching.
Particularly this weather.
Every 10 seconds or so a sudden flash would illuminate his field of view as if the fist of the Old Gods themselves had descended upon Planetos. Then, when the furious glow faded, his eyes would adapt to the lower light, and he would begin to distinguish the small pinpricks of light that dotted the whole city. The iron whale oil lamps adorned every corner of the great, jagged metropolis, providing a perpetual source of illumination throughout the night. Now they were swaying heavily with the wind, their light always moving, swinging and swinging like a pendulum filled with drunken fireflies… Only to be obliterated with a sudden flash that consumed Joffrey's vision, a sear of white that gradually faded away…
TCHSSSSTUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNN....
The roar of the Shivering Sea reached Joffrey, a strange and entrancing sound. The thunder washed over him as the tiny pinpricks of light made themselves visible again, swaying, always swaying…
It was an eerie play of lights and shadows, an entrancing switching between light and dark, blips and lines that completely mesmerized him.
As if with their own volition, Joffrey's legs moved. He stood up and grabbed one of the Pergolas small stone pillars, still safe from the rain.
The grey and dark clouds had advanced even further, enveloping Ibb in a protective, smothering blanket. The rain fell like a hammer, driven, each drop so close to the other it was almost as if Joffrey was underwater.
Another flash blinded him, and the tumbling blips of light gradually appeared again. But this time the thunder was much closer than before, calling…
TCHSSSSSSSSTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNN…
Joffrey stepped out of the pergola, walking towards the nearby rail that bordered the edge of the cliff. He barely felt the rain pushing him down, soaking every part of him.
The lamps were wild now, tumbling and tumbling—
FLASH.
That one was str--
THCSSSSSSSSSSSSSTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNN….
He felt the roar of the thunder as if within him, a vibration inside his chest that momentarily drowned his other senses.
He was breathing hard, as if short on air. Blindly, he caught the rail and steadied himself as the white faded, and the tumbling fireflies returned.
I'm going to catch my death here, I need to get out of the damned rain—
FLASH
TCHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN…
His ears were ringing with the last one, and he could feel his heart hammering away as if it were both blacksmith and anvil, he could hear the storm calling out to him. If he strained to listen…
tuTUM-tuTUM-tuTUM-tuTUM.
But… I... what…
FLASH-TCHSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG…
It's trying to tell me something!
Is it?
But I can't hear it!!!!
TUTUM-TUTUM-TUTUM-TUTUM-TUTUM-TUTUM-TUTUM-TUTUM
FLASH-KKSSSBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
The thunder screamed the message, and Joffrey's head whiplashed from the sound, landing on the floor, but still he couldn't get it.
There's not much time left, what is it, what is it?
TUTUMTUTUMTUTUMTUTUMTUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. His heart had seemingly stopped beating, it was as if his blood were one continuous stream.
Joffrey rose and climbed the rail, standing atop of it.
He could almost hear the whispers, almost. "One more" prayed Joffrey, his voice heavy and hoarse for some reason. "Please one more" he asked, opening his arms wide.
KKKKSSSSSSSSSBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
The thunder physically crashed against Joffrey. It was as if the entire being of it embraced him, a mix of thrill and horror, heavenly bliss and excruciating pain.
And then he felt he was falling.
-.PD.-
…
…..
....
"auhg.."
Suddenly his eyes snapped open, and he started coughing, and coughing and coughing.
Gods… I'm going to stay in bed for a week…
That was when he felt the extreme cold.
Suddenly he was aware of his surroundings… he was lying face up on the small Ibbenese garden, a light drizzle chilling him to the bone.
Slowly, very slowly he sat up, coughing and wiping the water out of his mouth. He had what was possibly the worst headache he had ever felt on his life. Including the time after him and his uncle challenged the godsdamned Umbers to a drinking duel.
What the hell was I thinking last night…
Joffrey blinked blearily, trying to think about what happened last night.
"Fuckin' Art and the others must have spiked my ale…" he rasped out loud. It was the only logical option, besides, the Ibbenese had a strange sense of humour. And their smiles had been toothier than usual on the tavern, a few hours before the storm.
He realized he was holding something when he tried to get up. Both his hands were cradling something close to his chest, crossed and tight. He felt as if they had been in that position for a thousand years.
Must have been holding on to this thing for dear life for some reason.
He lowered his hands, only to find the whalebone tablet.
It had… something carved on it. On the top part of the rectangle.
It was some kind of infinitely complicated squiggle, made in loving care and detail, every trace, dot and line precisely layered as if following some contrived, perfect pattern.
Did I… Did I carve this?
Looking around him he found his carving tools, spread all around him.
Damn… whatever they gave me must have good…
Or they just as likely planted it on him.
Damned Ibbense… And he could bet they were going to deny whatever they did until the end of time… the Ibbenese had a really strange sense of humor.
He shook his head.
Later.
First, he needed to find a place with one rare and outstanding characteristic.
Dryness.
The Ibb-Wogan was due in another week and if some cold made him sit out the next rotation he was going to kill Art with his bare hands!
…
-.PD.-
"She's going up again!" Shouted Joffrey, running across the deck with a heavy spear and a bundle of rope.
"Keep nailing her! Starboard crew! Help Blondie, now!" roared the Captain of the Ibb-Wogan, his muscles bulging as he tried to keep the rudder steady. Below him on the main deck dozens of sailors grabbed spears and many others grabbed thick ropes, tying them to the ship.
Joffrey kept running at full speed, scar crossed chest bare in spite of the cold, until he reached the port side.
It was a mess, the ship had a huge gaping hole as if a giant had taken a bite out of it, and several seamen were around it, moaning and rolling in pain at the crushed or smashed extremities. But Joffrey had no time to care about them, his eyes were riveted to the sea, spear hefted at the ready.
With several thuds, in ones and twos arrived the rest of the starboard crew, eyes wild with fear and clutching their tied spears with all their strength.
"Hold! ON MY COMMAND!" shouted Joffrey as he kept scanning the water relentlessly, trying to ignore the cries of pain behind him.
Fuck… I knew half of those men.
After a year and a half of smooth sailing and a promotion to boot, this damned, enormous whale had appeared out of nowhere and torn out a piece of the upper hull. He had been trying to organize the surviving crew of the central deck for the last 5 minutes, but it had all been so fast that he'd barely had time to speak with anyone.
I told the Captain sailing this close to the North Pole was begging for trouble…
Suddenly there was a distinct ripple to his left, and Joffrey pointed at it with his spear.
"OVER THERE! MAKE READY!!!" He shouted. The sailors nervously hefted their spears and waited…
The ripple grew more intense, now a distinct pattern quite different from the usual splashing the Shivering Sea made against the Ibb-Wogan's hull. It was coming again… but this time he had arrived there first.
"HOLD!" he shouted, taking deep breaths and clearing his mind.
Suddenly the water exploded upwards as a grey-green, deformed whale launched itself upwards, intent on crashing against the ship and sending them all to the bottom.
Or it tried anyway.
Joffrey saw the moment it surfaced in exquisite detail. He had done this scores of times before, the only difference was this particular whale wanted to hunt them instead of the other way around. His biceps clenched, his feet shifted, and with a roared NOW! He tossed the spear with all his might.
A roar that would not be rare in a battlefield followed him as the sailors let loose, intersped with a dozen KLACLATCH's, the telltale sound of a heavy ballista.
A rain of spears met the monster in the air, but Joffrey had eyes just for his own.
His spear pierced the thing right through one of its eyes, deeply embedding itself into its deformed skull.
Fuck yes! He screamed inside his mind as the thing toppled to the side, taking a smaller chunk of the ship with it. It lay there on the water, belly up and gushing blood.
Joffrey was panting heavily, but his smile died on his lips as he turned to his right and saw Art's expression. "What? I know it was a lucky shot, but--" But he was interrupted.
"No, its that… that…" Art mumbled, hands gripping tightly what was left of the port side rail.
The sailors all around him where dropping their spears and swarming the rigging, trying to deploy all the sail they could.
One of them was even crying in despair beside the mainmast.
"What?! The whale's dead! For the Gods sake what's wrong Art!?" he nearly screamed at the man while shaking him out of his stupor.
He looked at Joffrey with lost eyes. "N-n-not whale. Leviathan." He said haltingly.
"Oh boy" said Joffrey, looking once again at the corpse. "Well, at least I'll fetch a good price--" he stopped when he saw another ripple close by, this one bigger. A lot bigger.
Suddenly the whole side of the Ibb-Wogan was bubbling in a frenzy.
"B-B-B-baby Levaiathan" mumbled Art, his hands shaking as if with the palsy.
"Oh Boy" said Joffrey again, this time with more conviction.
If the last one had been an explosion of water, this one was an eruption.
A Leviathan bigger than the ship emerged as if propelled by its own geyser of water, slightly turning in the air as if to fine tune its aim.
Its shadow covered Joffrey and the entire central deck.
Then, oh so slowly, it came down.
"HHOOOOLLLYYY FUUUUU---"
-.PD.-
The Hound was resting on the wall, waiting for the little shit to wake up so he could finally move his legs when he suddenly heard a panicked scream coming from within.
In a second he had his long sword in his hand as he charged through the door, only to find the little shit coughing bile and breathing in as much air as he could.
Poison? Not likely, he thought as he scanned the room for intruders.
Then things turned strange.
Joffrey laughed as he shook his head.
"Holy shit… I cant believe it… bigger than… by the gods…" he was mumbling in between a fit of laughter and shock.
"Snap out of it!" the Hound told him as he shook him about. If the little shit had a panic attack because of his forced entry into the room then Cercei would want his head.
At first he thought that had made the trick, but then Joffrey actually smiled and clapped him in the shoulder.
"By the Gods, Hound, it's been a while!" he said as he took a deep breath.
Must have gotten hit in the head somehow. Maybe there actually was an assassin in here…
Joffrey must have seen his expression because he took another deep breath before trying to stand up.
"Ah… it was just a nightmare Clegane, just a nightmare" he said with a sad smile.
The Hound helped him up, and Joffrey promptly turned to his desk.
"Damned purple… I need a cup of wate--"
The Hound was startled when the mad kid suddenly jumped backwards, hands and feet shaking badly and moving blindly backwards as if he had just seen a poisonous snake.
He would have fallen on the floor, limp if the Hound had not grabbed him.
He was white as a sheet, looking at his desk.
But instead of sudden danger, all the Hound saw beside the goblet was a white, rectangular tablet of some sort, with some kind of squiggle carved in the top.
To Joffrey though, it might as well been the Stranger himself.
"H-H-How…?" He whispered.
-.PD.-
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone