Chapter 3: 3 The Red Wolf
Joffrey found himself being shaken around by the Hound. "Snap out of it!" Said the Hound as Joffrey kept shaking and breathing like a drowning sailor. Very slowly, Joffrey regained his senses.
The pain… its gone…
He took a deep, shuddering breath as he got back up into his bead, dismissing the Hound. He anxiously rubbed the spot where the bastards blade had impaled him. Defeated like an infant… The humiliation… killed by a freaking bastard… Joffrey felt his hands start to shake, and a red rage started to fill him. With a roar, he grabbed a nearby vase and smashed it across the wall, screaming. A couple of pieces from the vase cut his hands, and they were now bleeding all over the floor. He stared at them, confused. He's sudden rages were strange, coming and going at his anger or at the sight of blood… or sometimes with no reason at all. The pure thought of the bastard driving his sword through his belly, however, drove that sudden insight out of his mind as the rage took him again. He tried to upend his bed chest, but only managed to briefly lift it before it came crashing down, leaving his fingers full of bruises.
"AAh" he mewled as he lost his balance and fell on his rear. Tears started to form on his eyes as the memories from his death, particularly the long eternity of pain that was the purple. I haven't cried in ages, now is not the time, he said to himself. As he successfully contained them, a single thought dominated his head as he stared at his bloody and torn hands.
"I am weak…" He whispered. The feeling of despair gradually made its way to another feeling Joffrey had not had in ages. Determination.
No.
He stood up, went out, and looked at the Hound. "Hound, I want you to teach me how to fight" he said.
The Hound looked dismayed.
-.PD.-
After a quick detour to the Training Armory, dawn saw Joffrey padded up from head to toe in training armor, and wielding a training arming sword. Joffrey had been a terrible swordsman since basically forever, he admitted that. That's why he had preferred the simple elegance and killing power of the crossbow. But now, one thing had made itself clear in Joffrey's mind. In the Game of Thrones, nobody gave a crap about bodyguards and sworn shields. Take those away, and even a fucking bastard woth a sword could bring down a king… but not for long.
Joffrey was sure that after a few lessons with the hound, he would be ready to stand on his own without the need of the incompetents that surrounded him.
Shifting inside the padded suit, and already filled with perspiration from the morning sun, Joffrey gestured Clegane. "Hound, is this really necessary?! It stinks in here!" he told him as he shifted uncomfortably. He snorted. "If I lay a scratch on you the Queen will have my head, so yes. Besides, if not you'd be kneeling over in pain at every blow" he said.
Awkwardly shifting the training arming sword, Joffrey nodded then. "Fine then, just get on with it." He told him. "Right, first you got to work with your footwork. Footwork is one of the most important parts of swordsmanship, you get that right, you're on the right path."
"Footwork?!" Joffrey said, disbelievingly. "Aye, now I'm going to do a series of slow attacks on you, and I want you to bloody parry em the best as you can to see how far back we need to start".
Should have taken two crossbows to that fucking armory in Winterfell, thought Joffrey as he wiped a bit of sweat from his face. "I'm freaking ready Hound, just get on with it!" he commanded.
The Hound rolled his eyes and attacked him.
Okay, this is easy. He thought as he parried the blow. The next one caught him in the arm.
"OOUUU" He screeched as he fell on the floor, frantically rubbing his arm while the Hound looked on in disbelief. "Did that actually hurt you?" He asked, actually raising one of his half burnt eyebrows. Joffrey was on the floor, swaying lightly while he rubbed his arm again and again. "What does it look like you stupid dog!? Of course it hurts!!!" he nearly screamed at him.
The hound shook his head slowly, and let out a long sight as Joffrey stormed off back to the Red Keep.
-.PD.-
Joffrey was running, running as fast as his feet could carry him. But every time he got away from him, he was back at the armory, full of swords everywhere and nowhere to run. The bastard appeared from the shadows, licking his long, bloody wolf fangs. "You shouldn't have done that Joffrey" He said as he took a sword from the stands. "Stop! My Father is the King!" screamed Joffrey as he looked for a way out.
There was none. Only walls upon walls full of swords.
"You shouldn't have done that Joffrey" repeated the abomination as it kept walking towards him. "M-m-m-my Gr-g-grand-fa-father c-can re-re-reward- you!" he mumbled as he was finally cornered.
"Grab a sword, Lannister." The abomination told him. Joffrey took one of the swords on the stands, clutching it with all his might and swinging it threateningly towards it. "Get away!"
"Winter is Coming!!!" Said the abomination as it swung his sword in a horizontal blow right at Joffrey's neck. Joffrey tried to parry but his sword only moved slowly, at a snails pace, slowly gowing up and up and the speed of an ant. Joffrey struggled with all his strength, but it wouldn't go any faster.
"Too slow" Rasped the thing as it made a deep gash on Joffrey's neck, going all the way to his torso. The pain, oddly enough, didn't hurt so much.
It was the purple that seemed to surround him that drove Joffrey mad with despair.
NO! Please NOOO! NOT AGAIN!!! He could already feel his neck twisting—
He awoke with a gasp, half expecting to find vomit all over the floor and the Hounds judgmental looks, but… it was just his traveling tent. Joffrey took some quick breaths, and looked down. He was drenched in sweat. He made himself a ball and stayed there, unable to sleep throughout the rest of the night. When morning came, he stepped outside to find the Hound guarding his tent door. "Ho-Hound" He said, shaken. "Let's c-continue the training".
Clegane nodded.
After the whole morning doing baby slow exercises, learning the basic stuff that apparently every lords son knew by 7, Joffrey was finally out of that fucking suit. Even with all the padding he felt like he had been trampled on by a pack of horses. He had ridden on his mother's wheelhouse, and had thought about tormenting Myrcella before sleep claimed him. He was just too fucking tired to care.
He decided he was going to bide his time in his fourth life. There was no sense in rushing things. After all, Joffrey thought, things had mostly been going his way up to his wedding. So it was kind of stupid to mess up things now. Sure the 'Young Wolf' made a mockery of his reign and had been scarily closed to ending his rule… but he had eventually won, hadn't he?
Sometime past the Neck, when the cold wind blew and Joffrey felt weak beneath all his furs, alone in his tent, he would wonder if that decision hadn't come about because the thought of facing the Stark brothers again made ice curl at his stomach.
-.PD.-
He spent his time in Winterfell mostly on his own, avoiding everyone, especially the Starks. When the imp came to make him give his sympathies to Lady Stark after Bran's fall Joffrey barred the door to his chambers, and no about of eloquent ramblings by the imp would budge him.
Finally the week was over and they returned South, moving again at a snail's pace and with the arch-traitor and its daughters in tow. The sudden impulses flared up every time he looked at Lord Stark, and he had to breathe deeply to avoid cleaving open his stomach every time he saw him. The traitor was already plotting his usurpation, waiting for his Father to die. The very thought of him talking every morning with his Father made his blood boil. It should be HIM, his SON that the King should laugh with in the morning, take hunting, and share tales. ME!
He swallowed his anger. Soon.
When they arrived at the Red Keep Joffrey continued as usual with his routine, with a few changes. He redoubled his training with the hound, and tried to spend as little time with the useless Sansa as he could. He couldn't avoid the occasional flare up around her even so though. Sometimes he would leave her shaking her head in confusion and sometimes with tears. It served to conserve his patience.
The day his Father died the Arch traitor made his move, as expected. Slynt and Baelish led the goldcloakes into the throne room and Joffrey licked his lips in anticipation.
His brave mother ripped the fake Will as always, and Slynt's men butchered the Traitors guards as it was destined. "Don't kill Lord Stark, take him to the black cells!" He said as he stood up, just to make sure. He wouldn't be having the traitor go the easy way… oh no. Not even like last time. He had something special planned for the Arch-Traitor.
As his men took him to the black cells where he belonged, Joffrey swallowed triumph.
At last… I am King. No one can stop me now.
The throne felt as powerful as ever, and he felt his body had been molded for it.
Tonight…
-.PD.-
He had been planning this for over a week, all preparations had been made, from the plaza in front of Baelor's Sept, to the instruments needed for tonight. The bloodlust had been growing within Joffrey, and it took his entire will not to start cutting up someone up as he silently went down the stairs, only accompanied by the torturers assistant. They stopped in front of the traitors cell, and Joffrey smiled.
Stark squinted at the torch in Joffrey's hand. "V-Varys?" He asked.
"No, Lord Stark. Me" Said Joffrey, the light of his torch casting a macabre light on the array of knives and torture implements carried in a tray by the torturers assistant.
"P-Prince Joffrey? If you're going to kill me, just do it" He said as he struggled to look at the tray.
"Oh no Stark, Not this time" He said as he opened the cell doors.
-.PD.-
When morning came in the plaza of Baelor's Sept, the crowds had already assembled. Bellow Baelors statue, in the small platform that elevated them from the smallfolk filth, sat Joffrey and the rest of the Lannisters, Clegane, Ser Illyn Payne, the members of the small council and Sansa, all either sitting or standing, waiting for Stark to arrive from the cells. Joffrey sat in the middle of them all, waiting.
This will teach them. No one will dare rebel after this, there will be peace. My Peace.
Both the crowd and the nobles on the dais looked puzzled as instead of Lord Stark, the guards carried a small wheelbarrow towards the execution spot. Curiosity turned to bewilderment when the stench of the wheelbarrow reached them.
Joffrey stood up. "People of King's Landing!" Joffrey proudly declared. "Lord Eddard Stark plotted to take my rightful throne before my Father's body was even cold, and now he has paid the price ALL traitors will pay in MY reign!" Mother was looking at him then at the wheelbarrow, trying to understand, and his uncle Jaime was making his way towards it while Sansa just looked confused.
"BEHOLD!" He shouted with relish as he gestured the guards.
The wheelbarrow was tilted a bit forward, and the blanked on top of it was revealed. Inside was Lord Stark's body… What remained of it. His body was chopped up in pieces, his face a rictus of horror and pain. Cuts and torn flesh run through the length of body in a gruesome display of the fate of traitors.
A sudden sob, so full of anguish and despair that Joffrey turned to look around, filled the square. It was made all the more harrowing by the heavy silence that had descended all over the plaza. Sansa seemed to convulse, on her knees, grabbing her hair and screamed and screamed and screamed.
So distracted was Joffrey by the screaming he didn't see at first the wild grey thing that scuttled up the steps, passing between his surprised red cloak guards. "FATHEEEER!!!" Screamed… Arya? Joffrey fumbled for his sword as the mad girl with some kind of small rapier dashed between or underfoot his useless, gaping kingsuards.
The hound's lessons was the only thing that saved him.
He parried one, two blows. The third one was not looking so good for Joffrey, but fortunately, all he had needed was to buy time. The Hound ruthlessly swung his massive sword and almost cut the Arch traitors youngest in half. Blood was sprayed all over the dais as the crazy girl gaped at her slit belly before she toppled backwards.
Joffrey looked around as he sheathed his sword but the overall reactions were… not what he had been expecting. Cercei was looking at Starks body and then at Arya with her hand in her mouth, silent. The guards all around were shifting uneasily inside their armors, swiftly eying the corpse before looking back at the crowd. All around Baelors Sept there was silent, broken only by the wailing sobs of Sansa.
His uncle Jaime seemed to snap out of it. "Guards! Form square! Back to the Red Keep now!" he started shoving red cloakes around until them got into some kind of box formation. Jaime approached Joffrey. He was going to grab him by the shoulder, but seemed to think better about it. "My King, we better leave now." He told him, with a look of… disgust?!
After the reveal of Starks body Joffrey had been looking back and forth in mild confusion, nonplussed by everyone's else's reaction. After Aryas attack he had shaken out of it, but as they moved through the road back to the Red Keep, the smallfolk scattering out of the way, Joffrey looked at his hands, shaking his head. Why had been everybody so shocked?! Was it not a fitting punishment for a traitor?
When they were safely back to the Red Keep, a still weeping Sansa was taken to her rooms, now crying for the death of her sister too Joffrey guessed. His uncle Jaime and her Mother were speaking quickly between themselves.
"Lord Stark… tortured to death and his youngest daughter slain in front of the entirety of Kings Landing. The seven hells will freeze before the Northerns make peace with us" Said Jaime as he gave Joffrey an inscrutable look. "Then we will have to win then, wont we Jaime" Said a shaken Cercei as she squeezed his hand.
She turned to Joffrey. "…Sweetie, aren't you feeling a bit tired after today? I think you need some rest." She said, signaling some guards. Joffrey nodded silently as the storm of strange feelings inside him only grew.
-.PD.-
Joffrey had spent the next couple of days mainly on his bedchamber, thinking. When he remembered what he did to Lord Stark he felt a fierce satisfaction. But when he remembered the moment he revealed his deed to King's Landing, the ominous silence and the awful, damned howling sob of Sansa, he felt nauseous. He wasn't sure at what exactly, but he hadn't eaten for about 3 days after that, chucking back out even mashed food. Sometimes, when he had been little, he remembered he had gotten through similar episodes after his first times experimenting with rats…
The worst were the dreams. He would hear Sansa's sobs and screams again and again at the same time he tortured Lord Stark in the black cells. She sat on the corner not begging him to stop, just sobbing and looking at every detail of his Father's torture with her wide eyes. He tried to stop, if only to make her SHUT UP, but his hands continued on with his bloody work despite all that he tried. He would wake up with a deep pit in his belly, his bedsheets drenched in sweat and his pillow wet and salty.
After about a week of this, Joffrey decided to confront Sansa, in a desperate effort to figure out what was going on.
When he inquired about her, one of his guards shook his head in bewilderment. "The Lady Sansa m'prince?" He asked without meeting his eyes. "She managed to slay 2 guards with a kitchen knife before she was taken down trying to 'scape m'prince" he hurriedly said as he moved on with his duties.
Joffrey was left paralised.
So the useless, simpering bitch had a bit of courage after all. He thought, strangely shaken by the tale. He shook his head. What the fuck did it matter anyway? The rest of the Starks would die and the Tyrells would arrive in a couple of weeks with his future Queen. He just had to wait.
His mother had been serving as hand while he had been… indisposed. She seemed to be doing a good job at it, so she let her be. After all, the court was boring. Sometimes simpering smallfolk would come to the castle begging for this or that. Joffrey would have had them shot with arrows or made to dance to his amusement if he had been sitting in the throne… probably.
-.PD.-
It seemed his handling of the Arch-Traitor and the deaths of the two Stark girls had somewhat… backfired.
The traitor Robb Stark, called "the Red Wolf" by friends and foes alike had skipped the Twins and rushed south, not even bothered by the siege of Riverrun. He had clashed against his Grandfather Tywin in a surprise attack over the Green Fork. Details were sketchy, but some kind of trap had been sprung and the enraged Northern army had fallen like a pack of bloodhounds upon the Westerland armies. It was rumored Robb had drowned Tywin himself on the red stained waters of the Green Fork, but that was unconfirmed. The only thing for certain as of a few days ago was that his granduncle Kevan had been leading the shattered Westerland remnants in a fighting retreat south, and that Jaime, who had just taken control of the troops in Riverrun, had lifted the siege and was dashing to rendezvous with them at Castle Darry.
The war was suddenly in the balance… but he would prevail. The traitor Robb was as stupid as he was blinded by his "Honour" that had gotten him killed the first time around, Joffrey was sure it would get him killed this time too.
-.PD.-
The war was turning desperate.
The Red Wolf had surrounded and annihilated Kevan's remnants, and 4 days later he had stolen a march from Jaime and conducted some kind of mid night ambush that had taken heavy casualties from both sides. Joffrey lacked the military understanding to judge whether it had been a stalemate or a defeat to the Lannisters, but his uncle Jaime had been steadily retreating south since then.
His mother had sent Lord Baelish to woo the Tyrell's at about the same time she had done so in his first life, so they should still arrive to smash Stannis in the rear and hopefully push the mad wolf back.
He was not worried.
The pit in his stomach continued to grow larger with each day.
-.PD.-
Uncle Jaime was dead. As the shattered remnants of his army reached King's Landing the details started trickling in. There had been a decisive battle at the outskirts of Brindlewood that had shattered his army, though the Northmen had taken heavy casualties and their advance had been stopped indefinitely. His uncle had not gone down alone, however. Lord Umbers son the Smalljon, Lord Bolton, Lord Karstark, Robb's wolf and Theon Greyjoy had fallen by his blade, and the filthy savages were nursing their wounds well beyond Hayford Castle, but still too close for comfort to King's Landing.
His Mother had been despondent at the news, and had locked herself in her room and would not come out, which left the business of ruling to him. It was an incredibly boring task that had Joffrey wishing for his crossbow, but for some reason he could not summon the will to call for it.
The Red Keep had been steadily turning itself into a lonelier place as time went by. The traitorous Hound had abandoned Kings Landing 2 days after the debacle with Lord Stark and the imp was rumored to have gotten his head chopped off at Harrenhall's Heart Tree. Both his brother and sister had boarded a merchant ship headed for Lannisport, away from the fighting a week ago. And now with Jaime dead and his Mother not responding to anything… it was eerily quiet around here.
Even the Imp's sarcastic banter would have been better than the silence… and maybe drive back the increasingly terrifying nightmares he'd been having in his room, atop a ghostly quiet tower.
-.PD.-
His was probably going to die.
Stannis had been disembarking men after men, even more than last time for some reason, and his ships crossed the Blackwatter Rush with impunity, bombarding the cities defenders. With no one else to do it, Joffrey had gotten to the walls to lead the defense, for all the good it had done.
He had run around the walls commanding his men to fight for their King, but it hadn't done much good. Stannis men kept climbing the ladders, and the battering ram had already taken down the Mud gate and there were scattered reports of the defenders breaking and running.
"Where are you going!? Fight! Fight for your King damnit!" Joffrey screeched. No one even looked at him as the men started to run, each time in larger panicked mobs.
Just when everything was ready to go to the hells, a horn sounded in the distance.
Stannis men outside the walls turned around in confusion, and got a face full of Reacher knights on their rear, proudly carrying the Banners from the houses of the Reach, most prominently the Tyrell Rose.
Joffrey was exhausted, but so relieved he almost peed himself.
Yes! Baelish had done it again!
He got down from the walls, knocked around a bit by Stannis men who were fleeing back to their ladders and had lost all cohesion. He finally got off the wall and walked towards the gates, ready to meet the Tyrells like a warrior this time and not like a cowering child like last time. The Reacher knights were going at a full gallop, not even slowing down as they reached the destroyed gates.
Typical Reachers, always trying to steal the glory for their fucking songs, thought Joffrey.
The knights passed the gates. They were not stopping.
With a bellow, they shouted.
"For King Robb!!!"
"The Reach and King Robb!!!"
"Red Wolf! Red Wolf!"
"For Renly!!!"
"For Eddard!!!"
Mixed with the knights of the reach was the Northern army, and it was coming straight to him through the main road, tossing torches towards nearby houses and slaughtering the shattered City Watch.
He madly searched for a horse as the knights steadily got closer. "You! Escort your king to the Red Keep now!" He commanded two red cloaks who were fleeing the Northmen and Reachmen. The two guards looked at each other in disbelief. "Escort you to the Red Keep?! The Red Wolf will kill us all!!!" shouted one of the guards.
Joffrey was going to offer all the gold in the treasury when the other guard, who looked a bit more rational, took a closer look at him.
"The King you say?!" He all but shouted.
"Yes yes! Now, the treasury--"
"Wyll! If we give the King to the Red Wolf maybe we'll be spared!!!" he said.
The other guard suddenly looked at Joffrey considering. "Get him!" he said as they both rushed him.
"Wha—" Joffrey didn't even have time to speak before the two red cloaks grabbed him with their strong arms and beat him senseless with their sword pommels.
-.PD.-
Joffrey's vision slowly cleared as he came back to his senses. He could hear screams in the distance, and the air tasted of… ash…
Joffrey shook his head, but it only made the pain worse. Trying to open his eyes, he saw it was bright everywhere, but the illumination was not coming from the sky, it was coming from all around him. Joffrey tried to shake his head once more before his eyes finally snapped opened.
King's Landing was burning.
He got up, and found out he was in the dais beside the Sept of Baelor. He was surrounded by, must have been a thousand Northmen.
Near him was Lord Baelish, clad in simple armor with his trademark smirk, accompanied by Lady Stark and Loras Tyrell, both looking quite somber, not saying a word. And all looking behind him.
He turned around and found Robb Stark.
He was not the Young Wolf.
The Red Wolf had a strange, almost vacant stare as he seized him up. He was full of ash and covered in blood… and he had a sword in his hand.
A sword he wordlessly tossed at Joffrey's feet. Joffrey slowly took it, taking the guard position the hound had taught him. The Red Wolf extended a hand to his left, and a fierce looking woman in armor came out of the crowd, giving him a one handed mace. "L-l-l-look… m-m-m-my.." Joffrey blabbered as he tried to come up with someone who could help him. His uncle Jaime couldn't threaten anyone, he was dead. His Father the King was dead. His Grandfather was dead. Not even the Imp's poisoned words could help him now, he was dead too.
The Red Wolf however, didn't even seem to be hearing him. He was walking at a sedate pace towards Joffrey, swinging his mace slowly from side to side. Joffrey was utterly terrified.
Despite the Red Wolf's slow strides, he somehow seemed to close the gap in two seconds. Joffrey attacked first, trying to cleave his head in half. Robb parried the blow and head-butted him in the face, sending Joffrey stumbling back as blood freely flowed from his nose.
Robb stopped for a second, and then without a word, continued walking, same pace as before.
Joffrey got up, and swung again, this time to Robb's side. The mace blocked it, and smashed Joffrey's fingers with the counterblow. He dropped the sword as he mewled with pain, stumbling back, trying to get away from the Red Wolf. But Robb kept moving, never saying a word, not taking his terrifying, empty eyes off him. He quickly catched up with Joffrey and swung towards his thigh with unbelievable force. The blow made a loud CRACKas Joffrey tumbled down, crying in pain. He could see his femur sticking out of his leg, and blood was squirting out of it like a fountain. Before he could even think what to say, Robb swung again, breaking his left arm, and again, exploding his right hand as he sought to shove Robb away. The burning Sept of Baelor cast an otherworldly shadow as the Red Wolf tilted his head down, looking straight at him…
"He—… traitor—" CRACK, "I'm so---" CRACK "---plea--" CRACK. Joffrey's speech got more incoherent each time the machine like arm of Robb Stark descended with its mace, each time striking a different place. A dozen cracks later Joffry was a bloody heap on the floor, his mouth a bloody ruin. He couldn't speak anymore, his teeth had been crushed.
Still the Red Wolf said nothing. He kneeled down over Joffrey, and grabbed his throat with both hands. He squeezed and squeezed with unrelenting force, his lifeless eyes never leaving Joffrey's.
Joffrey struggled in vain, trying to get away from those eyes but every time he tried the Red Wolf would turn Joffrey's neck and face him again. All while he kept squeezing.
He squeezed and squeezed and soon the Red Wolf's eyes and everything else turned purple as his throat continued to be throttled, even as his windpipe shattered again and again and a sour pain filled every nerve in his body.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone