Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

As she found connections between the rhythm of the Song and the horror of its Absence, between the lore of warging and the strictures of blood magic, between the secrets of the Red Comet and the certainties of the Purple, Sansa began to piece together an understanding. Insights that pointed to a common thread, revelations that shined a new light on old certainties. Reality was a vast tapestry, and though she knew but a tiny sliver of a single thread, she had gazed into titan tools which weaved and unwound it at will. Witnessing the escalation had been the key; the anchoring, the ripples in the Song, the fractal conduits of will left bare for all to see; it had bridged her islands of knowledge into a connected whole which had no name but was a certainty of being. Of self.

It was bitterly ironic then that in the end, for all her growing understanding, she'd still been unable to stop her homeland's death.

Sansa lived the Fall of the North through the souls of her people. As Joffrey fought his way to Winterfell and a semblance of command and control was built out of survivors from the Wall and Tarly's battered Second Army, Sansa soared on fractal winds throughout the lands of the North. From raven's eyes she watched strung-out columns battling against blizzards as they marched under the Comet's light, and from the Song's skein she projected herself out of chiseled fractals to the marching men, for distance was nothing to the Purple. She did her best to guide lost battalions through the mist, to direct reinforcements where they were needed, to warn villages of the coming storm. She failed as much as she succeeded, which often left her the last witness to acts of both grand heroism and terrible ignominy.

Perhaps most bitterly ironic of all was how the soul of the New Westeros—hers and Joffrey's greatest dream—expanded even as its body died. As the chaos of the first weeks after Wallfall subsided, the pace of the war lessened from hectic to blisteringly fast. The mishmash of breaches, skirmishes, battles-on-the-fly and missing patrol reports stabilized into what might have been charitably called a front. A steadily expanding front, filled with desperate rearguard actions, heart-wrenching evacuations, and pitched battles of a fury previously unknown to the continent. Legends were born almost as fast as they were extinguished, and their names were uttered with fervent hope by those who read or heard of the Missives from the Front, penned by Sansa's own hand. They needed them, for if this was an age of legend then it meant the Walkers—this terrible foe better fit to children's tales than real life—could perhaps be defeated.

So was born the Hammer of the Hornwood; the blacksmith's son who climbed through the ranks of the Fifth Regiment one wight at a time. Lord Damon Marbrand, the last man to fall as he covered the retreat of hundreds of men. Bronzewall Yohn, the stalwart shield which for a month held the Weeping Water against the dead; battling every day against revenant reavers emerging from the river itself, moss on their skulls and rust on their arms. She flew with those who came to be known as Tarly's Lances, giving them tactical information before they raised their banners high and smashed their barded horses into cut-off hordes, singing summer songs. She conferred with sea-captains in White Harbor and stopped a riot in the docks before blood was spilled, her glittering sight calming the panicked mobs and leaving them on their knees. She directed the beasts of the forest to rend and tear unto the wights, foxes and wolves and bears and elk storming out of the green and relieving defenders—delivering warnings when she was too tired to manifest herself. And so too did her own legend grow; of the Queen of Mirrors and the Voice of the Woods, the Sapphire Light that battled the Comet's shadow.

The days passed quickly as noble houses were extinguished in battle; as half-evacuated hamlets were overtaken while people fought amids burning buildings. Sansa had a unique, invaluable bird's eye view of the Comet's campaign against life, and so she watched their systematic slaughter unfold with all the efficiency of a Myrish clock, a kind of cruelty beyond man. The White Walkers used their mastery of the cold mercilessly, their advance cooling the earth by the tiniest smidgen with each step taken south. Their strategy felt not random but unintuitive; the product of an alien mind with objectives only it could fully comprehend. Some concentrated into battalions of mobile shock-troops, striking out from nightly blizzards and tearing into camps and towns with crystalline blades, reaping harvests of men and freezing supplies. Others spread throughout the North in lonely missions—clockwork knights of death wandering in the dark, shadows moving through side-roads and deer-tracks and leaving only frozen leaves in their wake. They brought the terror of the War beyond the North, carried ever onward by their even strides. Neither swamps nor mountains stalled them for long, and in time even the Stormlands felt their scourge.

They raised themselves entourages of the dead, standing alone over ancient battlefields which heaved like earthquakes, bony hands bursting through frozen mud. They cracking open forgotten barrows with great blows which spilled the rotten dead, spreading over the countryside to ambush travelers and terrorize villages. Others went straight for the living; lone figures appearing in village squares or local inns five thousand leagues from the frontlines, blades glittering in the night, screams waking the townsfolk. Though such forays south were always eventually destroyed, they served to bring the fear of the dead to the tiniest hamlet, the most remote of farmers. The War was not for the North alone, but for the Kingdom entire.

Wights were far more common. They spread among multiple axis of advance, their scuttling columns blanketing roads and plains. Their many faces were variations of a common theme; from wildlings of old to long-buried dead, from armored guardsmen to freshly slain farmers, hoes and libards still firmly in hand. They all shared the same hunger, the same blue eyes that thirsted for death. Some kept fighting even when bereft of all limbs, only fire extinguishing their thirst.

Joffrey was perhaps the only man who's legend rose to be the equal of the White Walkers. He was her people's guiding light, their wildcard who could transform hope into reality. How to describe Westeros' King? On the map of the North he was a strategic whirlwind with a will of its own, a vortex around which the many sewing needles of her Handmaidens tied themselves into knots—impossible to follow, foe and friend conjoined and rebuffed, battles and withdrawals melding into each other and spraying into new patterns that changed not battlefields but entire campaigns. Through raven's eyes, Sansa followed his path of destruction by the wake of wight-piles still smoldering well into the night, his marching and counter marching confusing the Walkers into inevitable battles where he savaged them without mercy, withdrawing before they could converge.

Her husband campaigned like he fought; tactically aggressive even as he retreated, pinning enemy hosts in vulnerable terrain and smashing them apart with quick and brutal successive hits. He had an artist's creativity when waging war, and it seemed as if every day he came up with a novel way to make the Comet pay for its terrible sins. His skirmishers were everywhere; their far-eyes glinting under the muffled sun, their bows and firespears poking the enemy day after day. He wielded cavalry hosts like his own twin hammers—charging and wheeling one after the other, peeling wight hosts like a fisherman does a trout. He ambushed columns with point-blank stagram-fire, blowing apart even the ground beneath them with preplaced mines. His cohorts of guardsmen fought and fell back on each other like an armored snake twisting its way throughout the North, complex formations changing and morphing as he drew steel over the landscape. Here a wedge divided a charge into two parts of a crevice, there multiple squares stood their ground in open terrain, crossbows volleying massive crossfires that scythed through the charging dead. His skirmishing lines fell back into rows of halberds, his cavalry flanking the Walkers who gave chase, his mobile artillery always plinking at the enemy. They couldn't seem to get a handle on him; and through his genius and the bravery of his men he saved hundreds of thousands, buying precious time.

And he wasn't alone. His leadership spread throughout the ranks, beyond his physical presence as he reached out by raven and runner, and sometimes, it seemed, by thought alone. From the armsmen of a hundred noble houses he handpicked men suited for each task and set them to work. He let loose behind enemy lines veterans from Robert's Rebellion; rebels and loyalists alike who'd slaughtered each other in furious skirmishes in the Riverlands, in the Stormlands. Now they pierced into wight-lands together, striking the dead at their staging grounds as they gathered in one's and two's, freshly raised from fallen hamlets or forgotten barrows. He put dependable house guard captains in charge of evacuations, canny former merchants to revive his supply train, shaky levies to be hardened by gradual combat. He went through knights and lords mercilessly, putting their leadership to brutal tests that saw the competent rise beyond their wildest dreams while the inadequate died in droves. Even the women of Westeros weren't spared; her Handmaidens were a constant sight just behind the frontlines, tending to the wounded with desperate efficiency and fighting the wights themselves when those armies were overwhelmed. The nobility didn't complain; it was a war like he'd promised back at Harrenhal. A war fought to the hilt, to the bitter end. A war fought in every town and every hearth, in the heart of every man, every woman, and every child. It was a war like none other. It was the War for Dawn.

-: PD :-

History rhymed in strange ways. Soldiers and servants, knights and lords all knelt when Joffrey passed the gates of Winterfell atop Stars. He rode at the head of the combined Army of Dawn, veterans and fresh-faced recruits alike marching behind him. He dismounted with a practiced swing, walking for those assembled in the courtyard. "Winterfell is yours, Your Grace," said Robb, head bowed as he took a knee, along with Sansa and the rest of the Starks.

Joffrey pulled him up and embraced him like a brother. "Did…" Robb whispered, "Did you make sure he..?"

"I did. I made sure," said Joffrey.

"Good."

When they separated, Sandor strode forward with Ice, presenting it to Robb. "Lord Eddard Stark died a hero not only to the North but to the Kingdom entire," Joffrey said out loud, his voice carrying across the snowed courtyard. He received the blade from Sandor before giving it to Robb, "And I've no doubt you'll prove a Warden of the North as loyal and capable as he was."

"Thank you, Your Grace," Robb said gravely. He held Ice close, as if he could still feel Father's grip on it.

That important duty done, Joffrey wasted no time embracing Sansa in turn. "I missed you," she said, caressing the back of his head and refusing to let go.

"Me too," he said, an edge of deep weariness crackling in his voice. He might have fooled others, but up close Joffrey couldn't hope to conceal it from her.

"You're here. You made it," she whispered.

"Not for long," he said as they separated. He lowered his voice, "We have to leave Winterfell."

She'd already begun, of course. Sansa looked back to the godswood. To the crypt where generations of her ancestors had been buried; now their bones burned beyond the castle walls, their rusted swords fed to the furnaces in the south. She gazed at the main keep, aglow with candles which drew fleeting shadows through the windows; the servants were still packing all the essentials. She remembered staring out the southern window as she sewed, submerged in that timeless peace that so permeated her childhood, a bored girl dreaming of romance in the South. What would've thought that Sansa of yore? Of this sorcerer-queen in southern dress, crowned in gold and white fur? Would she have cried, watching her abandon her childhood home?

Sansa felt oddly nostalgic as the rest of Joffrey's caravan reached the castle, her mind flying back intermittently to those sunny days of her childhood, of awe and wonder and then later of plotting and lovemaking. Of course, Joffrey's caravan proved far more surreal than any of Robert's iterations. Reacher knights in plumed helmets followed in his wake, Lord Tarly at their head, bits of many-colored cloth flying from their long lances. Guardsmen of a score mingled cohorts marched at a steady gait, and Tyrion made a triumphant return at the back of a giant named Borgan. He boasted of how he'd linked up with Joffrey after Wallfall, only to then make fast friends with a certain giant covered in First Men tablets worn like stone brigandine. They'd shared a passion for ancient lore, he explained. On and on they marched, Dornish and Stormlanders, lords and levies, veterans and fresh recruits. The armies of Dawn, battered but not yet defeated.

The evacuation went as smoothly as they could've hoped. Mother took formal command over the Handmaidens tending to the wounded in the Guest House, overseeing their part in the caravan; she'd already been absorbed by the role since Father's death. Robb made sure the towers, gates and vaults of the castle were sealed with earth and stone, while Arya warged through crows and ravens, scouting the hinterlands for villages that were still populated.

The sleds and wagons formed a long procession out of Winterfell; thousands of soldiers marching south with them, veterans of a thousand battles that were soon joined by long trails of refugees fleeing the ill-named Barrowlands. White Harbor was evacuated by the Royal Fleet, and the Stony Shore by the Ironborn. By night, the exodus painted vast stretches of snowy countryside with cook fires and tents shivering in the wind; restless mules and flint-eyed refugees clustering by the communal cauldrons, where guardsmen gave out meager rations of soup. The Comet lit the horizon a sharp red, turning dark skies into a permanent, uncertain dusk filled with twinkling stars. Under its light spread tales of terror that all gathered to hear, from wide-eyed children to soldiers stiff with grim pride. There was something about mankind that longed to hear about the terrors in the night even as they fled their onslaught. A drive to understand it, perhaps. In hushed whispers they spoke of the balls of crystal scuttling on eight legs, the so called ice spiders that descended from tree branches silent as death, their victims only screaming when they'd been carried halfway up. Veterans spoke of the Walker vanguards of winter, smashing into allied armies right in the middle and cutting them in half, their grim harvest slaughtering men by the dozens as stagrams flew overhead and soldiers swarmed them with pikes and axes. Tales of wights were ubiquitous; everyone either knew someone who'd seen one, or had battled one themselves. They scoured the countryside in packs that ranged from the dozen to the thousands, mindless beings that knew no rest and fought day and night, spreading throughout the North like rot on a wound. But were they truly mindless? 'A low cunning', Sansa heard them whisper. 'Like a starved dog searching for scraps'. Could something of the person that had been remain there still? Screaming for company in the only way it knew how?

Snowstorms turned more frequent as rearguard skirmishes turned into pitched battles, and she and Joffrey tried their best to keep their people's head up high. Names and epithets spread as fast as the horror stories, melding truth and rumor; Samwell Tarly, the Chronicler-Knight who wrote down the name of every wight he'd killed on his silver book. Tyrion and Borgan; the giant-and-a-half debating philosophy as they plowed through undead hordes. Jon Snow, the Iron Legate whose flesh neither Walker nor dragon could wound. They were so many Sansa lost a hold of them entirely as they spread and merged and changed, carried like flies by the smaller caravans connecting them to the South, spreading throughout the Kingdom entire. The One-Eyed Wolf that changed into a howling beast before battle, tactical genius given way to berserker fury. The she-bears Maege and Lyra taking turns with Longclaw, avenging their father one Walker at a time. Theon Greyhand and the Reavers of Dawn, screaming wight heads still nailed to their masts as they sailed through ice-cold seas. Heroes surged from the North and the south, from the Vale and the west, from the Riverlands and the Stormlands and the deserts of Dorne. The smallfolk of the Kingdom were not left behind, and their names too grew into legends. Of fishermen turned warriors, of seamstresses flying banners over falling keeps, of singing craftsmen still working three leagues away from the frontlines, straining to forge one last hammer, one last axe. So many legends birthed to life in a dying world… and always, the Comet's glow turned brighter.

The North fell with last stands hearkening to the Age of Heroes, with tales of horror that left grown men bawling in raw sorrow. It fell with fury and with terror, with fire and steel and blood and mud.

Far from the half-decade of struggle that Joffrey had envisioned before Wallfall, by the time they crossed the Neck one thing had become clear. They would be lucky to survive another year.

-: PD :-