Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

King's Landing had turned into an interesting place throughout the last few days, at least in Tyrion's opinion. First had been the death of Jon Arryn during suspicious circumstances, found dead in his sleep due to 'natural causes'. Then came the death of Petyr Baelish under even more suspicious circumstances, found sporting a bloody smile along his neck just after dawn. It seemed being a member of the Small Council was starting to become an even more dangerous prospect than usual, unleashing double shifts of guards and heightened tensions inside the Red Keep.

The most bizarre and daunting of events had not been a murder however. It had come from the most unexpected of persons… his nephew.

Three days after the death of Jon Arryn, Joffrey had simply stopped talking. His nephew had, from night to day, simply changed. He slept till late in the afternoon and spent what was left of it meditating in a strange half kneeling half seating position, right in front of the Godswood's heart tree. Strangest of all was the way his nephew seemed to be avoiding him, his face turning neutral the moment he saw him and not even looking at him after that. It was a strange sort of behavior which seemed to happen with everyone in the Red Keep, from Cercei to Myrcella, though apart from him only the Hound seemed to have been relegated so far from Joffrey's new life. The sworn shield had told him that Joffrey reacted the same way, his face disfiguring itself into something inscrutable before acquiring careful neutrality and avoiding him, or asking politely to leave him alone.

And alone he'd been.

He'd barely spoken a word or two with him during the trip North, and things hadn't seemed to change over there… if anything he'd isolated himself even more thoroughly, with every Stark except maybe Bran or Rickon unleashing the same reaction, or lack thereof. Lord Eddard and Jon Snow seemed to hit him particularly hard, but strangely enough it was Sansa, the oldest daughter of Eddard, which seemed to make Joffrey smile and then immediately shake his head in self-loathing and shame, usually accompanied by hurried steps fleeing wherever it was he'd seen her.

Hilariously enough, poor Sansa seemed to have been devastated over that, her wailings audible from rooms away as Lady Catelyn tried to make her understand that no, she was not some horrible, ugly hag.

Joffrey would spend most of his afternoons either meditating, staring at the silver lion headed pommel of the fine sword he'd gotten ahold of somewhere that never seemed to leave his side, or gazing at drawings of what seemed to be constellations.

Tyrion's curiosity burnt brightly, but he was concerned for his nephew as well. He may have been a cruel boy far too pampered by Cercei, but Tyrion felt some kind of duty to at least attempting to get to the bottom of the matter, in the name of his dysfunctional House if nothing else.

He had a plan. He always did.

-.PD-.

Joffrey had, as was his wont for weeks now, sequestered himself in Winterfell's Godswood, doing his best melancholic princely impression, making maiden's hearts flutter and poor Sansa to cry even harder. He was sitting still at the moment, facing the Heart Tree in that strange position of his as cold winds blew and the handful of papers over the small table he'd carried here shuffled as if annoyed.

"Go away, Tyrion," he said before turning his head a little backwards, his surprisingly keen ears knowing it was him before he looked at him.

Joffrey didn't wait for a respond as he returned to his tree staring exercise, before turning back once more.

"… Uncle… what are you wearing?" he asked, completely befuddled.

Five words! Success! He thought as he waddled towards him, his vision reduced to a small rectangle and almost costing him his footing as he stumbled over an unseen root.

"I thought that was evident, dear nephew," he said as he came to a stop by his side, "I, am wearing a bucket," he called from under the wooden bucket he wore as a helmet, stolen from one particularly angry looking cook which would have Tyrion checking his meals for the rest of their stay in Winterfell.

"… I can see that. Why are you wearing a bucket?" he asked as the sheer strangeness of the situation seemed to shake him out of his weary demeanor.

"So you don't see my face nephew, then your face doesn't have to revolve itself like a bowl of milk in the hands of an angry hag," he said, staring at a nonplussed Joffrey through the messy rectangle he'd carved into the bucket, before leaning in closer and whispering.

"It's very unsettling," Tyrion assured him, wearing the bucket for all the world as if it were some sort of knightly helm.

Joffrey stared at him for a second before an extremely unwilling chuckle tried to desperately escape from his sealed lips, clawing like a forsaken soul until its jailor finally gave up and a strange, vaguely high pitched chuckle was heard throughout the Godswood.

He had expected an annoyed scoff really, but he could work with this!

"Do you mock me?" Tyrion asked him with his arms crossed, standing on the tips of his toes and trying to make himself slightly bigger, trying to intimidate any who would dare sully his honor.

"Tyrion! Please stop," Joffrey managed as he tried to clamp down his mouth with a hand, seemingly in genuine distress as he kept chuckling.

"Tyrion?! My name is Ser Bucketman of House Bucket, and you will address me with the respect appropriate to my rank!" he said indignantly.

"Tyrion! Stop!" Joffrey repeated as he laughed harder, tears trying to jump out of his eyes as he vaguely hid his face with both hands, his back leaning against the Heart Tree.

"One more time and it will come to water, dear Ser! Where is my squire?!" Tyrion yelled as he turned around, "Maybe you have seen him? Rope of Deepwell, a no name smallfolk I met at a hanging, thin as a reed but potently endowed!" he said as he kept turning, still searching.

"Stop Tyr-…" Joffrey stopped himself as he shook his head in a strange mixture of fondness and grief, "Ser Bucketman, please stop," he said with a slight voice which seemed to contain a sigh, smiling tenderly as slow tears kept streaming down his eyes and he slowly slid downwards, holding sobs with both hands.

It was now Tyrion's turn to stand confused as Joffrey cried silently, his knees curled up and his arms hiding his face in shame, each sob a drawn out affair which stayed completely silent until Joffrey had to breathe air and thus concede a slight sniffle now and then, a few grudging tears sliding down his cheeks and pooling in his sleeves.

He'd expected a disdainful snort at the most, not him crumbling down! The last time he'd seen Joffrey cry had been more than two years ago.

Tyrion took his 'helmet' off slowly as he approached the last few steps, "Come on, it wasn't that bad," he faux complained, making him smile wistfully for some reason.

Tyrion was at a frank loss by now as he carefully sat by his side, holding the bucket awkwardly with one hand as he patted Joffrey's back with the other, "Bucket?" he offered it to the boy for a lack of ideas.

"W-what?" he managed after a muted, almost inaudible sob, staring at the bucket with red eyes before chuckling against his will again, "Oh Tyrion, this is worse than that time with the damned lemons," he said with a wistful smile despite his swollen eyes.

"Which lemons?" Tyrion asked and immediately regretted it as Joffrey closed his eyes as if in physical pain, trying to return to the neutral face before Tyrion clamped the bucket on his head.

"Wh-what was that fhor?" said the voice from the bucket.

"Very unsettling Joffrey! If not me then you're wearing it! Now stop this nonsense unless you want me to knight you as the next Ser Bucketman!" He warned him.

"You aren't even a knight," Came the halfhearted response from the bucket.

"Can't say I am, doesn't mean I won't," said Tyrion.

"…But you are, actually," said Joffrey as he finally took off the helmet, looking at him fondly as he blinked away the last of the tears, "You're a Broken Knight, always will be," he spoke in the manner of a strange farewell as he regaled him with the most heartbreaking smile Tyrion had ever seen, his voice coarse as he finally really looked at him. There was so much triumph and regret and meaning that Tyrion almost lost himself in that gaze, before Joffrey sniffled again and took out a handkerchief, blowing his nose.

"I'm sorry, it's been quite a while since the last time this happened…" Joffrey said, gesturing vaguely, his motions slow.

"Apology accepted. As long as that bucket is in my head, you'll call me Ser Bucketman," said Tyrion, buying time as he conjured and discarded hypothesis as fast as he could.

"Uncle… you truly are unstoppable," said his nephew, looking at him fondly even as the distance between them was reconstructed.

By now Tyrion was completely lost on who the lost soul that had been Prince Joffrey was now, and try as he might to cheer him up, Joffrey knew that as well. There was a great chasm before them, and Tyrion realized he had to do something before Joffrey in turn did something irreversible and stupid.

They stayed there in companionable silence for a while, Tyrion occasionally offering the bucket to Joffrey, who would scoff in good nature and smile distantly, looking west now and then. His nephew seemed to know him somehow, and Tyrion was somehow saddened he was not able to reciprocate the feeling.

"Tyrion… thank you… for everything…" Joffrey suddenly spoke, and he had the impression the boy was talking about something altogether more than this particular evening… and it sounded like a farewell.

"Don't think about it, I-" Tyrion started but was interrupted by Joffrey.

"No, I want to say this… I wanted to end it quietly but that would be unfair, selfish even," he said quickly before taking a deep breath, staring into his eyes, "Thank you for being there for me when the rest of the family did nothing. Thank you for setting an example I could aspire to, to show me I could be proud of my Lannister blood… Most of all Tyrion, thank you for being my friend," he said, his words burning in truth and his smile recalling happier times.

There was silence as Tyrion found himself at a loss for words, a rare occurrence.

"I don't understand," he finally managed.

Joffrey's smile returned, rawer than before as he gazed at him, "I know you don't… it would take lives to explain and would likely not make much sense anyway…" he said as he blinked slowly, "I've been travelling for a long time Uncle, in search of an answer…" he trailed off as he stared beyond him, "It has been a hard road, my search… a harrowing journey which I would not wish upon any man…" he said as his eyes refocused on him, "But now it's nearing its end at last. I found the last clue, a message written in code, using constellations as letters," here his speech quickened, halting randomly in between words, "I spent months upon months… years even, trying to extract some sort of meaning or symbolism…" he snorted as he shook his head, "In all that time, the answer had been staring at me unflinchingly… stars, not constellations…" he said as he kept shaking his head slowly, "Each constellation was actually… a number, determined by the amount of stars in said constellation…" he trailed off.

"I see… and you fitted each number with a letter of some obscure tongue?" Tyrion hazarded, lost as to what sort of game Joffrey was playing but trying to keep up.

He smiled with a strange sort of pride, "Yes, the common tongue actually… it seemed obvious as soon as I arranged the constellations from least numerous to most... A single dot in place of an 'A', two for a 'B', The Broom with its three stars for a 'C' and The Shield for a D, its four point kite construction bare for all to see…" he said with unsettling intensity which seemed to melt the wariness, "Some letters were previous constellations with an extra dot or star, but it was a simple enough puzzle in the end… from the simple lone star to the twenty six point construct the First Men christened as The Weirwood, spanning over half the hemisphere…" he said as he trailed off, the wariness returning with a crushing if strangely serene weight.

"So you cracked the message, in the end?" Tyrion dug for information.

"It was a bit more complicated than that, but yes… it was soon apparent a step was missing, though. The translation came up as garbled nonsense anyway… the key was missing. You see, this message was meant for me alone, and a sufficient number of scholars with sufficient time and motivation could have stumbled upon the idea of lining up the constellations from least to greatest in stars, and then compared them to the Westerosi alphabet specifically… unlikely as it sounds. No, they had to be sure, it had to be me," he said.

Tyrion didn't know why Joffrey was telling him all this, but it was clear the boy needed someone to talk to, and it seemed some sort of conspiracy had been aimed at his nephew using cryptic keys and messages.

"So they made a key only you could understand?" Tyrion guessed, unsettled by the hollow intensity in his nephew's voice.

"'Everyone but the purple prince steps to the right'… the moment I thought about it again after aligning the constellations under the alphabet… the answer was clear. Obvious even," he said as he shook his head and Tyrion restrained the urge to scratch his head in confusion.

"… what was it?" Tyrion asked, his voice sounding hushed in the stillness of the Godswood.

"Me, Uncle. Joffrey," he said with a sad smile, "I am the purple prince. Everyone steps to the right but me… so I took every letter but the ones in my name and moved them once to the right, to see if it made sense then. The 'Z' was now represented by the single dot, 'A' by two, 'B' was now The Broom, 'C' was the Shield, and so on. I aligned the entire alphabet one step to the right, jumping over the letters held within my name… Joffrey, 'the Purple Prince'," he said the last as if it were a curse, "Those I let stand still, trapped in place… fitting, I suppose" he said as he stood up.

"And the message?" Tyrion asked, feeling the hair at the back of his neck straighten.

"Oh it made sense then alright… I had expected inane word games or allegories, more clues to chase in an endless cycle until the end of times… instead I got two phrases, separated by a simple dash," he said as he buckled the sword to his belt and gazed west again. "It was refreshingly direct," he whispered.

Tyrion sat still as Joffrey finally turned around and said the words as if they were prophecy, "'Sail west from point of origin and through the Sunset Sea - speak within the structure and we shall answer'," he whispered.

Tyrion couldn't say anything, Joffrey's paralyzing gaze seemed tormented even as the serene weight in his voice turned accepting, perhaps even relieved, "I can feel it Tyrion, deep in my bones… it will end soon, it will all end soon," he whispered, closing his eyes, "Two times I've already drowned under the storms of the Sunset Sea, great behemoths of frothing rage and destruction of such a scale that the words to describe them fail me even now… but this time… this time I'll reach the Structure and meet them. My cycle shall be sealed, my questions shall be answered, the Purple shall fade to black," he whispered almost in religious fervor as he opened his eyes again and his gaze penetrated Tyrion and beyond.

… He's mad, thought Tyrion, and he could somehow tell Joffrey had read his mind. His nephew's face turned pained again as he scrounged his eyes in weary, all-encompassing frustration, before letting it all go in a long breath.

He smile bitterly as he grabbed Tyrion's shoulder, "Goodbye, uncle," he whispered before walking away.

When Tyrion warned Winterfell's Maester and Robert himself about the strange fugue which had taken hold of his nephew, it was already too late. Joffrey was nowhere to be found, and the search parties returned empty handed even after weeks of furious searching up and down the Kingsroad and Winterfell's surroundings.

-.PD.-