Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

Joffrey awoke with a scream.

He lay there on the floor, panting as Sandor carefully helped him up and he took a deep breath of fresh air.

"It was only a nightmare, my prince," the Hound said with a slight huff.

Joffrey ignored him as he shook his head, stopping only to massage his throbbing temples. He sneaked a look at his bed, half expecting to find Sansa blinking blearily at the morning light.

That would have been awkward to explain, he thought ruefully as he saw only messy sheets.

…

Sansa…

By the Gods… he thought in a daze.

"Prince Joffrey?" Sandor asked, puzzled as the prince's hands trembled lightly.

It's done…

"Sandor, prepare two horses," he ordered him as he kneeled beside his bed and half crawled under it, emerging with Brightroar, hidden within its runed, dragonbone sheath.

"We depart for Winterfell in twenty minutes," he said gravelly as he centered himself, doubts and hope warring within his stomach as he hid an uneasy grimace.

-: PD :-

Through the Crownlands and the Riverlands they rode, so fast they had to procure new horses every three days. Sandor looked honestly bewildered, and Joffrey couldn't blame him for that. He dimly recalled being very wary regarding Robert's little trip north, back during his first life… his abrupt change of mind must have left the hound befuddled, especially the intensity of it. He had trouble remembering why he had been so sickened by the prospect of visiting Winterfell… nowadays breathing in some fresh air away from the smell of King's Landing was a favored treat.

He reached Winterfell in less than two weeks, butterflies assaulting his belly as the great, grey form of the ancient fortress suddenly emerged in the distance after he passed a particularly forested hill. He had to keep his breathing in check as he rode past the opened doors of the Outer Wall, Stark guardsmen eyeing him in curiosity and dawning realization…

The Capital must have sent a raven, he thought as the guards let him ride to the stables with only a few cursory looks and a few rusty bows. They had been expecting him, it seemed.

Or maybe it was just the Crannogmen, they always like to skulk around when Robert crosses the Neck… they must have been watching me too.

"Prince Joffrey!" shouted Rodrik Cassel as he quickly walked the last of the stairs that led to the South Tower, "Welcome to Winterfell… We weren't expecting the King's caravan so early," he said with a faint trace of disapproval as he walked towards them and bowed.

I'm sure you weren't… Joffrey thought as Ser Rodrik gave the Hound a respectful nod. Sandor returned it gruffly, as if it were a waste of time.

"Ser Rodrik, I'm sorry for the inconvenience… I got too impatient with the eternal delays, thought I'd just ride ahead of my Father," Joffrey told him with a nod before dismounting. He took a moment to observe Winterfell without the furor of the King's arrival, and found it seemed a much more quiet, still place. Servants cleaned the stables by his side as a couple of others tended to his exhausted horse, carrying out a task that would have taken ten men back in the Red Keep. Guardsmen carried out their duties with almost bored familiarity as the hunting master fed the hounds of Winterfell.

Joffrey had to contain himself from breaking into a sprint towards the Main Keep.

"Impatient enough to leave your horse half dead, my prince?" Rodrik asked with a jaundiced eye which nevertheless never crossed into disrespect. Ser Rodrik Cassel was not a man unaccustomed with the 'sophisticated' ways of the South… it was a shame Ned always left him up North, too far away to help him.

"Ah, well, I seldom have a chance nowadays to ride as fast as I can," he said. The excuse was so lame he could feel Sandor's eyes rolling from his position at his back.

… I shouldn't have known he was Ser Rodrik, did I?

"Princely duties keep you busy enough, my prince?" Ser Rodrik asked with a slight rise of his eyebrow as Joffrey walked towards him and grimaced slightly.

…Perhaps it was a good idea if he got this over quickly.

"Indeed. Would the great hall lie that way?" he half asked as he pointed. The rushed, clumsy question served well enough to remind Ser Rodrik of his courtesies, and the man nodded decisively with a half apologetic smile.

"Right you are, my prince. Forgive me my manners, you must be starving after such a hard ride," he amended as he bid the pair to follow him towards the Main Keep.

Sandor received Joffrey's dismissal with a thankful nod, glad to finally rest after the mad dash north. Another servant guided him towards the room he'd be staying at, not too far from Joffrey's own.

Ser Rodrik's voice became half muted as Joffrey concentrated on his breathing, trying to instill upon himself a sense of calm, like a rock sinking in the depths. The anxiety was still strong enough he had trouble focusing on the man's words as he guided him through the Keep's lobby, and he almost bumped against Lady Catelyn as Ser Rodrik came to a halt.

"Lady Catelyn Stark, my prince," said the Master-at-Arms, and Joffrey bowed lightly to the Stark matriarch, who appeared to have rushed through her ointments and powders to give herself a southern touch.

"We are honored to receive you my prince," she said with a charming smile,

"The honor is mine, Lady Catelyn," he said with mixed feelings. "Lord Eddard is out, I presume?" he ventured.

"He is, had a few matters to attend in one of the outlying villages. Would you like to join us for dinner?" she asked him.

"I'd be glad to, my Lady," he said with a thankful nod.

The impromptu dinner with the Starks was an irritating experience, this time. Robb, Bran and Arya had joined Lady Catelyn in the ankward game of 'trying to get the hold of the precocious young prince', but Joffrey had been far too addled to play his part.

Sansa had not joined them. Lady Catelyn had apologized for her daughter, claiming she had been feeling indisposed these last few days… which only served to fuel Joffrey's impatience and wariness.

Finally, when he thought he was going to burst, the meal was ground a close. Night had befallen Winterfell when he was finally given leave to wander, and his feet quickly carried him to Sansa's bedchambers.

He hesitated for an eternal second before banging on the door, not as gently as he would have liked.

"Yes?" came the voice from the other side.

Did it work? By the Gods did it work?! He asked himself in frenzy, unsure of what answer he would like to hear.

"It's Joffrey," he said, his voice vaguely strangled.

There was the sound of movement, and the door was suddenly opened to reveal a surprised Sansa, looking at him in shock.

"Joffrey?!" she stammered, and if he had any doubts after that they were dispelled by the urgency and the knowing in her eyes.

"Sansa," Joffrey whispered before she suddenly hugged him, shivering wildly.

"By the Seven… Joffrey…" she whispered as she shook, "For a moment I thought it had all been a nightmare, but deep down…"

"Deep down you knew," he said, some of the stiffness leaving his body as he hugged her gently in return, managing to clamp down on his feelings. "We should talk inside," he added as the enormity of what he'd done settled on to him, permanently.

Sansa took a step back, getting a hold on herself as she nodded quickly.

-: PD :-

"I thought it took a month," Sansa said as they walked through the Godswood, "To get here, I mean," she added belatedly.

"It usually does… but I couldn't wait for Robert, much less that damned wheelhouse…" Joffrey said as he shook his head with a snort, his mind heavy.

They were now truly interlocked, their fates bound for good or ill. He now had a companion in the endless struggle against the Cycle, through the machinations of the Purple. He was still somewhat stunned by the implications, too many to really process.

"What happened… after we were separated," he finally voice the question which had been eating inside of him, watching her carefully as they sat on a branch near the Godswood.

Sansa winced as she looked away, and Joffrey felt a pit opening up in his belly. "It hurt a bit," she said, tapping her knees, "It was as if Brightroar kept piercing my body, the storm of flames consuming me even as I…" she stuttered to a halt, looking at him for a second before shaking his her head. "I'll be fine," she tried to forestall him.

His horrified face must have shown.

"Sansa I-"

"Don't even start!" she interrupted him, showing that steel which he had glimpsed before, the steel which had dominated the last hours of her life. "I meant what I said Joffrey, and it's done. The only way now is forward," she said imperiously.

Joffrey took a deep breath, leaning his chin downwards as he thought. "How was it? Seeing your family again?" he asked her.

Sansa swallowed audibly as she blinked. "Hard," she said simply. She elaborated after a few minutes under the Heart tree, the red leaves fluttering around her hair. "I cried… a lot… I couldn't contain myself… I…" she broke off with a huff, closing her eyes.

It was a monumental effort, Joffrey realized. For Sansa to show herself vulnerable after all she'd done to make sure he thought of her as an asset and not a burden, someone not to coddle but to rely on. A show of trust.

And so he said nothing, letting her go through the silent pain and resisting the urge to hold her close.

"I managed after I saw Bran, but Arya… I couldn't stop remembering the way her throat just…" she broke off with a sniffle, taking a deep breath before shaking her head. "I managed," she finished, blinking away the tears.

Joffrey grabbed her hand gently, looking at the fresh summer snow as they lapsed into silent companionship.

He could have remarked on how they were in this together now, on how he'd be there for her, on how the course they'd have to chart would be dark and full of perils… but all those things went by unsaid. She knew, as she knew he knew. There was no need for words as they sat there and braced themselves against what was to come.

"What's the plan, then?" Sansa asked with a slight smile, breaking the silence.

It really is happening… Joffrey mused, feeling slightly dazed.

"Back to the Capital, as usual. I already killed Baelish but not Slynt, so that should keep Renly from jumping us like last time… hopefully…" he said before trailing off, the familiar feeling of weariness tying him down.

"Is it always like that?" Sansa asked him.

"Like what?" he said, nonplussed.

"Like trial and error," she said.

Joffrey tilted his head left and right before shrugging, "Yeah… pretty much. Nothing to it but to keep going forward," he told her as much as he told himself, echoing her words from before.

"But is there just one way forward?" she asked with a strange sort of intensity.

Joffrey just looked at her, puzzled.

"I told you back during… my first life…" she said the last words as if she were invocating a spell, before quickly shaking her head, "I told you back then, that you couldn't keep going on like this…"

"It's the only way," he said forcefully, but she cut him off again.

"Is it? Joffrey, you… we are immortal now… we don't need to clash blindly against King's Landing, against the… the Cycle. We can bide our time, watch from afar…" she trailed of meaningfully.

"And leave everyone to their deaths? Leave your father and your brothers to the machinations of the capital? To give them all up to the Walkers?" Joffrey asked her, his voice slightly raw.

Sansa looked away as she blinked once more, "They'll be here when we die, Joffrey… you need this," she said.

"Need what?" he asked her, trying to understand.

"You need to rest. Take a break from all… everything," she said as she gestured with her arms at the clearing, huffing. "You've told me the sanitized third, perhaps fourth of what you've been through. I've seen but the latest of your lives… and I don't need that to see just how broken you are right now," she begged him.

Joffrey's face contorted in anger, and Sansa knew that had been the wrong thing to say. True, but unhelpful. "I don't need to rest. I'll rest Sansa when the Cycle's gone. I'll rest when I'm dead for good," he said cuttingly.

They were quiet after the outburst, and Sansa decided to take different route. "So you'll just throw me at the Capital then? With not a wisp of preparation?" She told him, feeling dirty with herself at the blatant manipulation.

Joffrey knew exactly what she was doing, given the way he looked at her. He didn't deny her words though.

"Take a break from the madness Joffrey. Take us to… I don't know, one of the Free Cities, take a life not trying to save the world," she told him. As much as it pained her to leave her family behind to the South and the Cold North, they'd be right by her side the moment she died, their memories blessedly clear of the atrocities that would have happened to them… something Joffrey had seemingly forgotten after lifetimes of struggle.

Sansa tapped her knees nervously as she thought, trying to convince him to take a bit of time so he could build himself back into wholeness. "Don't think of it as a waste of time, think of it as a way to instruct me in all I need to know… think of it as a way to make me ready for the trials to come," she said.

Joffrey took a deep breath, not looking at her.

"Besides, you told me your knowledge of the West was still spotty two years after wake up… how can we plan accordingly if we don't know what's to come before the Walkers?" she reasoned, and she could see the gears clicking inside his head as Joffrey looked at her with interest now that the argument had gone from the personal to the strategic.

"That… well…" he struggled, his hand grasping air as blinked repeatedly, "… Take a life to scout the shape of the world if we did nothing… I'd planned on doing it the other way around, with my changes as the control… a more comprehensive, but not as broad gain of knowledge…" he trailed off with a frown, "But all the people-"

"Will be right here when you wake up, Joffrey. You didn't try to help them after Renly's coup in the Red Keep, in fact you said you would take your own life if I wanted all of this to go away, to wake up and remember nothing. This is not all that different from that, if on a much broader scale," she said in a reasonable tone of voice.

Joffrey stayed silent for a moment, staring hard at the ground before nodding decisively, "Okay, let's do it," he said suddenly. He tried not to think about the chief driver of that decision, only half supported by Sansa's arguments. The prospect of just letting it all go, if only for a little while. To live a life devoid of the weight of the world.

Sansa looked as if she were steeling herself before she asked, matching his eyes.

"Where do we go, then?" she asked him.

Joffrey just smiled slightly.

-: PD :-

There was something oddly poetic about the occasion, as if the eddies of fate were unable to completely forget the grooves that had been chiseled and forgotten eons ago. It was fitting, Joffrey thought, that Sansa's request had been voiced by ship and sea, the lull of the waves and the distant squealing of seagulls in his ears.

"I want to learn how to defend myself," she suddenly broke the silence as they stared at the narrow sea from the bow of the Wispcatcher.

Joffrey said nothing as he remembered the distant times when a little, scared man-boy had pleaded to a hound for instruction, for the knowledge of steel and death, raw angst in his voice and nightmares in his dreams. He remembered eras long past gone when the boy had boarded a ship and started his journey towards manhood.

He swiftly snuffed the pang of guilt at the thought of leaving Sandor in King's Landing. The sworn shield and whatever men the Small Council sent to back him up would waste years of their lives chasing the carefully crafted lie Joffrey had prepared. By all reasonable evidence, shipping logs and eyewitness accounts, Joffrey Baratheon and Sansa Stark had escaped from King's Landing to Lys, and then to Myr, Pentos, Tyrosh, back to Myr and then finally to Volantis, where they'd lose themselves up the Rhoyne.

"What happened to the sworn swords and the knights?" he asked idly as he kept looking at the sea.

"A knight tried to rape me, and my sworn swords were dead or dying," Sansa said in a monotone so harsh that Joffrey felt as if he'd been slapped.

"Sansa, I'm sorry. That was uncalled for," he apologized quickly as he turned, only to find her staring at the sea as well. She stayed silent as the ship rocked about, sailors cleaning the lower deck behind them as the watchmen called out his readings from an instrument nailed to the main mast.

"I felt so powerless," she finally whispered, her grip on the wooden railing whitening her knuckles. "No matter what I thought about, no matter how wrong life had suddenly turned, no matter my strength nor my will nor my words… all I could do was be carried about like a sack of wheat," she muttered, her eyes almost lost.

Joffrey felt his stomach clench as wisps of red stalked the edge of his vision, "I should have been there, I should have-"

"No," Sansa cut him off abruptly, "You shouldn't have," she continued as she turned and faced him in full, her red eyes at odds with the stern façade of her face. "I will not be the maiden in distress, waiting for the shining prince," she declared.

Joffrey stayed silent as the ship rocked about, thinking.

"Hey, maybe 'shining' is too strong a word but I can manage a 'steely grey' I think," he offered with an awkward smile, but Sansa didn't even react to the joke. She took a step closer to Joffrey, her eyes boring into his, "I won't be the burden, I won't stand for it Joffrey. I won't be the maiden you have to rescue time and again... I told you before I died, that we'd be in this together," she finished with such clarity that Joffrey could only nod slightly.

"I'll be the partner, not the maiden," she said before taking a deep breath and letting it out, as if she'd been exhausted by the sheer outpouring of intent.

"…I won't go easy on you," Joffrey finally said after a long time, probing the steel behind her eyes.

Sansa huffed as she shook her head, "I used to make fun of Arya all the time, her games with swords and bows… when the time came, at least she managed to slow one of them down… all I could manage was a broken hand," she said bitterly.

"No one could have expected you to fare better," Joffrey tried consoling her as he placed a hand on her shoulder, only for it to be roughly rebuked.

"But that's just it, isn't it?" she shot back, "I want to be better than what they expect, in every way. Their expectations aren't going to cut it, not against what you say is to come, not against what I saw, not if we are to win," she said fervently. "So when you say you won't take it easy on me… I say good riddance!" she spat, "I want better than easy. I want better than good, I want to be-"

"My partner," Joffrey ended the sentence.

Sansa nodded silently, and Joffrey let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding.

Partners, he thought in mixed dread and awe.

When he spoke he found his voice slightly raw. From fear or excitement, he could not tell.

"What you first need to understand, is footwork," he said.

-: PD :-

The City on the Lagoon seemed strangely uncanny, compared to the last time he'd been here. When he'd visited as part of Captain Nakaro's crew he'd been taken in by the ancient if vibrant grandeur of the city, its prosperous markets and wide waterways filled to bursting with gondolas and small boats. Now, after decades of travelling the world, his experienced eyes caught the shadowed contours which surrounded the city, the dark mirror which lay beneath first glance, the wisps of something more hidden in plain sight. Braavos had been a city of secrets long before it was a city of trade, and Joffrey was intrigued to find that smell of dealings in the dark in here of all places, with a sophistication that even at a distance he could already tell was to King's Landing's what a lion was to mice.

"It's so… alive," Sansa said simply, her eyes trawling through the five story buildings surrounding Ragman's Harbor. Braavos' open port to the rest of the world, Ragman's harbor boasted a wild riot of color and sound, thousands of sailmenders, brewers, prostitutes, bakers, ropemakers and more walking about and shouting about their wares at the top of their lungs as stiff necked sailors and porters hauled a seemingly unending supply of goods to and from the armada of eclectic ships which sprawled through the west of the City on the Lagoon. From Swan ships to Pentoshi galleys to Ibbenese whalers and beyond, the cavalcade of ships was as diverse as the people of Ragman's Harbor.

"It is, isn't it?" Joffrey said with a slight smile, their medium sized gondola swaying against gentle waves as they passed under another bridge, making their way deeper into the city. The gondolier didn't seem to be in a hurry, and the two Westerosi fugitives made use of the time to soak in the atmosphere of the vibrant, if slightly damp city.

"Mind telling me now where we're going, Master Jonnel?" Sansa asked him, her face locked in long sufferance.

"Selya dear, I assure you it shall be splendid!" Joffrey told her, his face threatening to split into an almighty guffaw.

"You're enjoying this," Sansa realized with a reprobate smile, and Joffrey had to huff and look away so he could contain his mirth.

Playing the role of Jonnel Stars, modest merchant of dubious chivalric descent and a man with a lot to prove to the world… well, Sansa was right. He was enjoying it already.

Sansa for her own part seemed the canvass perfect picture of a landed knight's daughter bartered off to an iffy 'noble' merchant with more gold than prestige, her cheeks splashed with cheap powder and her beautiful red hair contained by a modest brooch dotted with a few semi-precious stones.

She looked older, more weathered somehow… and Joffrey doubted it was all because of the clever disguise.

The gondolier kept pushing gently with his pole, carrying the gondola deeper into the city, north past Nabbo's Bridge and into a modestly wealthy neighborhood of two and three story houses which boasted small, interior patios of grey stone.

"We're here Master Jonnel," the gondolier told Joffrey in a heavily accented Westerosi. The gondola came to a stop and the man quickly started to tie the boat to the small dock below their new home.

"Thank you kindly," Joffrey told him in the patois of the Free Cities, stressing a slight Tyroshi accent. He walked out of the gondola before offering a hand to his 'young wife', gently helping her set her feet on solid ground… or wood at least. He tried not to say anything as Sansa winced after her arm bumped one of the pier's wooden pillars. He had seen the long stretches of purple color which now ran through her sleeve covered arms, back and chest, and he knew how much they must have hurt her… their month long training regime had been brutal, as Joffrey had promised… and it was quickly becoming apparent Sansa was no natural with a sword.

She hadn't said a word of it of course, and Joffrey knew bringing attention to it would just make her angry, so he said nothing as they walked sedately up the wooden stairs, hand in hand as they reached the top of the channel and the small gate to their new property, flanked by other houses similar in height and width. Lady had disembarked last, strutting about as a true noble lady and sniffing the air delicately before sitting attentively by Sansa side as they looked upwards.

"Behold the Dure House," Joffrey proclaimed proudly as he swept the two storied house, made out of great grey bricks and adorned by modest masonry in the form of small balconies and triton shaped frills.

Sansa gave him a tentative smile, eyeing their new home with a critical eye, "It looks a bit run down," she noted idly.

"You don't like it?" Joffrey asked her with a frown. It did look slightly dilapidated but-

"Joffrey, its perfect," she said with a snort. "As long as there's some peace and quiet you could stash us in Wintertown's flea bitten tavern for all I care," she told him with a fond smile that hid painful memories.

She missed her family dearly, even the thought of Wintertown making her sigh in a weird mixture of pain and longing. She breathed it in, and then out, just as Joffrey had been teaching her. She would see them again, and they would be all the safer after the knowledge she and Joffrey could extract from this… life.

The House's three servants were already waiting for them, the bare minimum of service a modestly successful merchant house could boast of while still being seen as worthy of attention (however slight it may be) inside the City on the Lagoon.

"Master Jonnel, lady Selya," said the one which stood a step in front of the other two, "My name's Adaro, head of the Dure House staff," he said with an elegant bow in the Braavosi style. He was an older man of fifty or so namedays, his graying hair still growing strong and framing a small goatee. "To my right is Footman Inneo," he said as he signaled the huge man in a scruffy footman's garb, who bowed as well, "And to my left, Miss Ferola, our Housemaid," he continued as the plain looking woman by his side curtsied in the Braavosi style as well.

"A pleasure to meet you all," Joffrey said as he nodded at each member of the staff in turn, "I know of the hard times which have befallen Dure House, and I'm certain that by our combined efforts this house will rise again in splendor and in the esteem of all Braavosi," he said delicately, noting the shadow that briefly passed through Adaro's eyes. The last tenants of Dure House had been driven to ruin by their loses in the Shivering Sea trade routes, and the Iron Bank had impounded the house and fired most of the staff, leaving only a small skeleton household to keep it from falling into disrepair.

"You have my assurance and that of the entire household, small as it may currently be, to aid you in your endeavors to the best of our ability," Adaro said formally, with a firm nod.

"Shall we then?" Sansa asked with an inviting smile. Master Adaro turned about swiftly with another nod, giving orders to the small staff before guiding the pair to the property itself, walking past the small iron gates and the modest patio before reaching the house proper.

-: PD :-

"That would be the last of it," said his accountant as the man flipped the last bit of parchment and scribbled a few notes beneath it.

"Excellent, Vargano," Joffrey told the wiry man before the distant horn of the Titan of Braavos sounded in the distance. "And that's my signal. Please give my compliments to Captain Thorraro and make sure to buy him and his crew a keg of fine cider," he said as he took his black and grey cloak from the big oak chair and fastened it around his back.

"I will see to it. Good evening Master Jonnel," Vargano told him with a small bow, one Joffrey returned before making his way downstairs and through the gaggle of scribes and accountants which dotted the building, all either bowing or nodding at his sight, showing their respects to their boss.

Joffrey snorted quietly after he left through the front door, the immense noise of Ragman's harbor hitting him like a physical force as hundreds of dockworkers carried out their tasks, punctuated by the cries of fish and oyster merchants plying their trade. The City on the Lagoon never slept, and neither did its merchants and inn keeps.

Joffrey took the scenic route back to Dure House, taking his time and observing the great manor houses which got bigger and more imposing the more one walked towards the Purple Harbor. Dure House was not quite as distinguished however, and soon the grand sights in the distance were replaced by 'modest' two and three story houses with wide inner patios and dull grey iron gates, gondolas traversing the lengths of the inner canals without end as the economic powerhouse of Western Essos lived and breathed.

He arrived at Dure House to an unexpected sight, that of Footman Inneo rushing out of the house with a bucket full of water.

"What is it Inneo?" Joffrey called out as he tensed, his hand idly touching the long stiletto hidden within the folds of his merchant's robes.

The big man barely gave him a look before dumping the water and rushing back inside, "It's the basement Master Jonnel! It's flooding heavily!" he called out as he entered the house again.

Joffrey muttered a curse as he rushed after him, following the dirty footprints that lead to the basement's staircase. He dashed down to the sight of Adaro and Sansa trying to stack big sacks filled with sand against a long crack in the wall that ran horizontally by a few meters from left to right.

"Gods, what happened? Sa- Selya! Are you alright?!" Joffrey called out as he took the last step and waded into the flooded room.

"North wall gave up on us, and don't you 'alright' me!" Sansa said with a hint of irritation as she left the sack and looked at him.

She was getting steadily pricklier about 'being treated like a glass doll' lately, and Joffrey was at a bit of a loss about that. "North wall… we must be draining water from the channel," he said quickly, avoiding that particular pitfall. Now was not the time.

"What gave it away? The rancid smell or the waist high water?" Sansa bit back as she heaved another sack and tried placing it over the crack in the wall.

"Not the smell, can't scent it over your foul mood," Joffrey said with a small smirk as he rushed the last few meters and grabbed the other end of the sack. They placed it against the wall together, finally stopping the worst of the flow.

"I think I know now why the price was so good," Joffrey muttered as he beheld the sickly looking wall and the sack covered gash along it.

"My deepest apologies Master Jonnel, but the architect from the Iron Bank said the structure was sound…" Adaro said with all the grace and calm of a man delivered breakfast. "It was on me not to warn you they might have been incorrect in that assessment, or outright dishonest. I will be leaving as soon as this emergency is over," he said with all the aplomb of a knight renouncing his title for a failed oath.

"Don't be ridiculous," Sansa told him before he could get a word in edgewise, "We still have use for your service, don't think you'll get off the easy way!" she said sharply, her small smile taking the edge off it.

-.PD.-

"Poor Inneo is going to keep using that bucket through the whole night," Joffrey mused as the sound of the hard at work footman drew his head towards the door. "I should go help him," he added as he made to stand up, but Sansa's hand preempted that motion as she grabbed his arm and yanked him back down.

"Don't be ridiculous," she echoed her thoughts from back when in the basement, "He'll be fine," she added. They were both sitting in a long couch, facing the warm fireplace at the center of the small living room, flanked by the ever growing form of sleeping Lady.

"But he'll be working right next to us all night while we sit here all nice and warm," he protested. Something was deeply wrong with that notion, he just knew.

"Yes, and he's being paid for it. Quite generously I might add, if those books on the Braavosi market conditions have anything to say about it," she shot back as her hand stopped grabbing his arm, hesitantly retreating back to her lap.

Joffrey said nothing, his face betraying his sullenness… but neither did he stand back up.

"Servants are not a personal insult to your being, Joffrey," Sansa said after a moment, going to the heart of the matter as was her wont. Joffrey didn't deign that with an answer, and instead shuffled a bit under the big blanket they were sharing between them, the moonlight outside barely phased by the light rain now pattering against the windows.

The silence turned more and more awkward as they whiled away their time, and Joffrey found himself assaulted by the urge to say something, anything. It was moments like these that made him supremely uncomfortable, as if the whole room was tilted slightly sideways… the combination of silence and Sansa's presence always left him nervous. What was she to him? A partner against the apocalypse surely, but… what else? They were masquerading as husband and wife, but he hadn't even kissed her since that fateful moment in the Crownlands, and he wasn't sure he'd want to do that again… the mere thought of Nalia swiftly put paid to that notion.

They'd been betrothed, just one step behind a real marriage in the eyes of the world, but fortunately, there hadn't been a ceremony nor a bedding… though they had arguably shared a much closer experience during the endless eternity of the Purple, their thoughts briefly one before the world crawled back in time… He'd told her dribs and drabs of his previous lives, and she'd told him stories about Winterfell, but it all felt strange still, like he couldn't find his footing. And thinking about it made him feel like an idiot and even more uneasy.

"It would have been a killing offense," he blurted suddenly.

Sansa had been watching the fire, entranced, before blinking repeatedly and looking at him with a sort of awkward thankfulness. It seemed he hadn't been the only one ill at ease.

Of course, his damned mouth had just exchanged one problem for another.

"What do you mean?" Sansa asked, curious.

"… Back at the Dawn Fort. Wasting this much wood on a personal fire would have gotten the offending soldier killed. Wood was just too precious," he said idly, looking away as if that was the end of the matter.

The silence returned once more, but it was Sansa who broke it this time. "Your time with the… the Dawn Legion… you hardly ever speak about it," she observed, not even asking for details.

"Its… it's not something I enjoy talking about," he said, his voice clipped as he stared at the fire. "I always get cold just by thinking about it," he said after another long silence.

He felt Sansa's hand gently grabbing his under the blanket. He didn't dare look at her, trying to take his mind off the pervasive cold. "We'd erect great big bonfires during the assaults when the Walkers tried to break the siege… It always felt so unnatural, to see such a blazing fire and barely feel the warmth of it from a few paces away," he said, his mouth moving by its own will.

He was starting to breath harshly, blinking slowly, "We used them not only for warmth, but to toss in the bodies of the slain as well. Dead comrades giving their living brothers a bit of warmth before they met the same end… perhaps that's was why the fires felt so cold, no Walker magic needed," he trailed off when he realized he was shaking, the cold burrowing deeply into his bones despite the sturdy couch at his back and the blanket atop.

He was startled when he felt a core of warmth by his side, and turned his head to find Sansa leaning on him, still holding his hand. She seemed to be looking at his face, indecision warring in her eyes before she leaned closer, hugging him with both arms and snuggling against his chest, her red mane spilling all over his chest.

"Sansa-"

"Shush. We can take turns being stronger," she whispered, and Joffrey felt the unease melting away almost against his will. He feared what he'd find underneath it.

In the end, whatever the thing was, it was warm and quite nice he decided, some indescribable stiffness leaving his body as he relaxed slightly, minutely, against the weight of Sansa. She shuffled lightly as he embraced her in turn, pulling their blanket up and covering them both.

-: PD :-

Their life on Braavos quickly turned routine as the months came and went. Joffrey left every other day for work at his small shipping business, using the dragons he had stolen from the Red Keep to exercise some of his rusty trader skills. He was modestly successful in his endeavor, and his success was in no small part due to Sansa herself. She played her part perfectly, organizing small dinners or balls at the Dure House, expanding their paltry influence and establishing a few modest contacts of her own amongst the wives of other merchants similar in prestige as 'Jonnel Stars', grandson of a merchant who had been allegedly knighted by one of the Blackfyres. Perhaps her success at playing the role was due to how similar it was to that of a Westerosi Lady, when you replaced the trappings of nobility for that of wealth and standing, a task which had been expected of her since her birth…

Or perhaps it was due to her frankly zealous appetite for books.

Unlike Joffrey, Sansa took a special joy in reading all manner of things for a long, long time. Where Joffrey got impatient and his mind forcibly took him out of the text, Sansa was able to keep on going for hours and hours without end.

"I have to catch up," she'd simply told him when he'd asked about it, one early morning when he'd left his room to find her in their small library, leafing through a tome on the lives and intrigues of several notorious Braavosi Sealords now long since dead.

"Catch up? Sansa there's nothing to catch up," he'd told her, but she'd just frowned as she looked up to him.

"There's everything to catch up Joffrey. I told you we'd be partners… how can I be… how can I be your Queen-" she'd said with a hint of steel in her voice, steel and trepidation and a glimmer of proud half understood ambition, "-if I don't understand half your plans? New tax laws and trade routes, great works of engineering somehow powered by the Blackwater, armies and roads and granaries and the dangers of court," she'd said in a rush, "You tell me of these things but I don't understand them."

"Each of us has strengths and weaknesses Sansa, we'll make it work," he'd told her, but that had clearly been the wrong thing to say, her stare piercing him like a sharp rapier.

"Yes Joffrey, and my strength is clearly not to be found in arms and armor," she'd told him with a pained wince. By then Joffrey had given up on the sword and had started teaching her the basics of daggers and crossbows, hoping to find better luck there. "Not a doll Joffrey, partners," she'd repeated forcefully, the phrase becoming some sort of mantra that propelled her through both sleepless nights illuminated by candlelight or long bouts of training in the inner patio, away from prying eyes.

What could he have possibly said to that?

And so the months passed, a whole year even and more as the news coming from Westeros became more and more contradictory and the War of the Four Kings took off. Joffrey held her tight when Sansa heard about Ned, about the way he had boldly declared his allegiance for King Stannis in front of Baelor's Sept and half of King's Landing… and gotten his head lopped off for his troubles. She'd cried for a whole day, the words to sooth her dissipating like wind every time Joffrey tried to say them, and so he could only hold her and try to be as strong for her as she'd been for him.

The next day he found her in the inner patio, her training armor strapped on tight and her form moving through the stamina exercises he'd taught her with a will.

"Teach me something new Joffrey, anything," she practically begged him in a tone he knew all too well. He'd heard it within himself when he'd begged the Hound to beat him to a pulp, take his mind elsewhere from a particularly horrible life.

"Okay," he told her simply, knowing that engaging her in further conversation would just make her even sadder. The inner patio was ten meters wide from side to side, surrounded by the walls of Dure House and its many unused servant and guest quarters, providing a safe harbor for their regular exercises which would have surely aroused the interest (and disrespect) of the Braavosi elite, if they had known. Fortunately enough, the walls were thick and the servants tight lipped.

Joffrey walked to the makeshift armory he'd been assembling over the year and picked a pair of heavy Ibbenese spears with blunted tips. He decided he'd give Sansa exactly what she wanted, and outright needed. "Alright 'Selys'!" he called out as he threw the spear at her from one moment to the next. He was surprised though when she grabbed it perfectly, feeling it in her hands for bit and testing its weight and reached.

Joffrey shook his head before he twirled his own spear lightly, showing Sansa a few basic moves. "Reach is a fundamental aspect of spear fighting, both its use for attack and defense. You should always dictate the range of the engagement. Spears shine at long range, but this does not mean that a competent spearman cannot forego said advantage if the situation demands it. In fact, the masters of the craft regularly like to narrow down the range where daggers would be more effective, to surprise their opponents or lock them in a variety of grapples which make use of the spear's shaft and two handed grip," he explained as he demonstrated, slamming into as training dummy with a flurry of precise stabs before spinning and grappling it from behind, using the shaft as a bar to lock the cloth arms of the dummy and leaving it pinned, ready for a trip down or a toss and a follow up finisher. Sansa's eyes followed him avidly, taking in every single movement.

"Now, this here is the Ibbigen: the basic, powerful stab upon which a great many movements of this particular fighting style are built upon," he said, demonstrating repeatedly. "Try in on me first, I'll parry the blo-ought--" he stuttered when Sansa braced the spear in her hands and delivered a perfect, forceful thrust right into his belly without a word of warning.

"Joffrey!" she screeched as she dropped the spear and kneeled by his side, not quite knowing what to do as Joffrey held his belly with both hands, trying to breathe. "Thaht… that was pretty good actually," he managed in between gasps, a small smile forming on his lips as he sat up with her help.

"You… you really think so?" she asked quickly as she made sure he was not hurt, dusting a bit of dirt out of his shirt.

"Yeah, you should try it again," he said with a wide smile. He was never going to bring Sansa anywhere close to a battlefield, but her getting better at some sort of weapon, any weapon, would surely help bridge that gap she felt all too keenly between themselves. For all that Sansa talked about his own lack of self-esteem, she seemed all to blind to the way she kept thinking herself the lesser just because he'd spent lifetimes perfecting a great many deal of different skills.

"Better do it with the dummy this time though," he added quickly as she grabbed the spear from the ground with a determined glint in her eyes and a budding smile in her face.

… He briefly wondered if he was going to regret this.

-: PD :-

The soiree at the Hollwyn's manor made Joffrey feel vaguely inadequate, as if he were play acting instead of… well, he was actually play acting wasn't he?

"What's so funny?" Sansa asked with a lopsided smile as she led him to the upper courtyard, their arms held firmly as they nodded courteously at the other couples in the ballroom, either heading deeper inside for a dance or retreating to discuss business… or pleasure. Master Hollwyn's soirees were famous, or rather infamous, for the deeds one could witness in the many private chambers that filled the manor.

Joffrey's mind drifted to what he'd do if Sansa turned right towards the private chambers instead of left towards the terrace, then swiftly shook his head as feelings better kept buried tried to claw out of his belly.

"I feel like a child play acting," he said when he realized he'd drifted off, still being guided by Sansa's confident but sedate stride. She'd been gaining greater confidence in these types of events throughout the year and a half of their stay in Braavos.

"Well, technically you are a merchant, no acting there," she said as they reached the opened air terrace. They walked through the moonlit cobblestones towards the nearby railing, their elbows locked together as they ascended through periodical groups of steps.

"… You forgot the child part," Joffrey observed as they reached the railing and leaned on it, the sight of Braavos in all its glory bare for the eyes to see. Velyio Hollwyn had constructed his manor in a little island almost in the middle of Braavos' inner lake, between the Long Canal and the Canal of Heroes. You could reach the Palace of Truth by gondola in less than five minutes from here, and the many street lanterns and house lights of the inner districts surrounded the lake, reflecting their light upon it.

Sansa said nothing, an impish smile slowly overtaking her features.

"Selys?" Joffrey asked in mock hurt.

"Well Jonnel, you can be a tad childish at times," she said airily as she broke off from his grasp and turned to look back to the terrace.

"Me? Childish? I'll have you know that I am the most un-childish man to ever walk amongst man or child, be ready or not, tis' me you won't expect!" he delivered with a grave voice and a theatrical flourish.

"Will you ever stop reciting that line?" Sansa scolded him with a smile of fond irritation.

"'For 'tis I, Vellamo! The Man! The Legend! The Myth himself!" Joffrey spoke in a crescendo, ignoring the looks being sent his way and enjoying the red in Sansa's cheeks.

"Of all the plays we've seen that's the one that stuck to you the most?" she asked with a disbelieving tilt of her head.

"You simply lack an appreciation for fine art dear," Joffrey told her as she looked at her lips, Sansa tilting her head a bit more and making his neck tickle as the tips of her hair prickled it… trying to make him do something foolish.

Maybe we've been hitting the wine too hard, Joffrey thought as Sansa giggled slightly. The damned Braavosi drank it like fruit juice. It tasted like fruit juice as well, making accurate measurement of ones consumption… irregular.

Highly irregular, he thought happily as he leaned forward before a deep voice startled him out of the haze.

"Is that 'Vellamo and the Three Swords' I hear?!" boomed the voice as a short man of great weight and girth almost crashed against them. The man had a great beard which seemed to make up for the bald spot at the top of his head, and his magnificently dyed, lustrous brown robes seemed to almost glow against the moonlight. The two obvious courtesans by each arm giggled genuinely enough to Joffrey's ear, but that was hardly unexpected after all… the bastard was too damned likeable by half.

"Ah, I see you are a man of taste and culture," Joffrey said with a deeply exaggerated bow that managed to hide his mixed relief and rage at the interruption.

"It takes one to know one, eh?" the man said as he bowed too. Unfortunately for him, he seemed to be even more inebriated than Joffrey, given the way his balance deserted him and he ended up stuck against the railing, between him and Sansa. His pudgy hands tried for a grip so he could lift himself up, but they proved inadequate for the task at hand.

"Ladies, a little help here yes?" he called out, and the two courtesans pulled him back upright with a fond smile, where he swayed for a moment before planting a surprisingly delicate kiss on each of them. "What would I be without you?" he asked them gratefully.

"Richer," the two of them deadpanned at the same time, causing the man to laugh uproariously.

Joffrey couldn't help but laugh as well, "Lazono you old goat, I thought a whale had finally eaten you and your ship," he told the man. Sansa was smiling fondly as Lazono looked outright affronted, "Me? Done in by a whale?! I'd accept nothing less than a leviathan, and a fat one at that!" he declared for all to hear.

Lazono Parhaan was a glob of spit in the face of every Lorathi stereotype ever. Loud spoken, genial, gregarious, and surprisingly gentle in private. One thing he shared with his fellow countrymen however was the fact that he made a great friend… and a terrible enemy. Few could hold a grudge like a Lorathi, and Lazono had been sharpening his for well over a decade.

"What news from White Harbor, master Lazono?" Sansa asked him, leaning avidly and hoping for news from the homeland. The pudgy Lorathi frequently visited the city, plying the Shivering Sea trade routes. That in fact had been the initial reason Joffrey had approached him: as a regular source of information about the North.

"A lot of waffling and quite a bit of inane panic," he said. "The Ironborn are scouring the North's western shores, and half the dimwits that pass as merchants in Westeros are convinced the Maderlys are going to draft the lot of them and sail around the continent to face reavers around Ironman's Bay," he added as he shook his head slightly, drifting towards the neck of one of the two courtesans which seemed to always follow him whenever he was in Braavos.

"What has Lord Stark done?" Joffrey asked him.

"He sent a force back North to retake the fallen castles of the western shores, but everybody agrees his position is tenuous. They were badly bloodied after the Battle of the Blackwater, and it is said King Stannis is holding court at Riverrun and needing every single warm body to hold off the combined forces of the Lannisters and the Tyrells," he said as he tilted his head left and right. "There's another matter I wanted to discuss with you though," he added after a moment.

Joffrey looked at Sansa, and at her slight nod he turned back to Lazono. Further news from Westeros would have to wait.

"Lead the way, please," Joffrey told him as the two courtesans left without a word and Lazono walked by the edge of the terrace, leaning with one hand on the railing, his equilibrium modestly improved as he turned to business. Sudden important news had a way of draining one's tipsiness.

This is the true heart of the Braavosi 'court'. Soirees and dealings in the dark, for good or ill, he thought as he followed by his side, holding Sansa again by their elbows as they sedately made their way from the bustle… and ears, of the other guests.

"That dog Marelos is on the move again," Lazono told them both with a scowl of barely restrained anger, his features darkening instantly.

"He's active again? I thought he'd burned his bridges after what happened to the Dure's and the Faeoris'?" asked Joffrey, slightly alarmed. That had been before his time, but he knew about the infamous Merchant Prince all the same.

"He's been rebuilding," Lazono said curtly, his gimlet eye looking down the railing for any sign of a hanging spy.

"Oh no…" Sansa whispered as she looked down, "I've been hearing rumors of a 'secret' patron gifting fine Yi-Tish art and porcelain to certain parts of the upper aristocracy for weeks now… Oniras, Mophira, Sorreris… all families that were either neutral during his attempted takeover of the Shivering Sea trade routes, or at least uninterested about it… and the man does have a penchant for fine Yi-Tish art. It must be him," Sansa said with growing certainty.

Lazono turned to Sansa with a respectful expression on his face before nodding curtly in acknowledgment, "Hadn't heard about that. It does confirm my hypothesis though, Marelos Hartios is back in on his old ambition, and he won't rest until he has a stranglehold on the Shivering Sea so hard as to make a Kraken green with envy…" he trailed off darkly.

Marelos Hartios was a pretty hated, if influential, merchant prince of Braavos. He was infamous for trying to lock the Shivering Sea trade routes under his thumb not once, but two times in the last ten years. His first failure had been due primarily to a lack of ships and gold, but even that had been enough to drive many of his competitors to ruin, and sometimes even suicide. One such man had been Lazono Parhaan's cousin.

"This bodes ill, if he's buttering up those three families then he'll have the Sealord checked and unable to move against him, not without hard evidence of wrong doing," said Joffrey. The only reason Marelos failed in his second bid, four years later, was because of his success. He'd overextended himself when he'd basically dismantled the Faeoris family's entire enterprise by bribing the Dyemaker's guild to stop production for a full week, inserting a fatal delay into their desperate efforts to stave off bankruptcy by carrying out a dangerously risky (if lucrative) contract with Ibb. When they could not deliver the order, they'd had no choice but to sell to Marelos. Something similar happened to the Dure's, the previous occupants of the very same house he now inhabited with Sansa…

But that had been a step too far, even for him. Marelos had been forced to sell parts of his ill-gotten gains back to the Braavosi elite or the open market, to stave off the wrath of the Sealord. The elected leader of Braavos frowned on the trivial destruction of Braavosi Merchant Houses, especially ones which had also been Keyholders, like the Faeoris'… and especially if the one doing the destroying kept bloating in power. This was no Pentos, where one supremely powerful Magister could force the entire city to follow his whims, and in trying to emulate that Marelos had summoned the unrestrained attentions of the Sealord himself.

Sansa turned to look at Joffrey with a troubled expression as all three of them kept walking and their tones descended into whispers, "It's only a matter of time until he moves against the smaller houses plying the route. With the Sealord held in check he'll be able to pick off the small fish one by one… starting by the bigger of them, Master Lazono," she murmured as she looked back to the Lorathi.

"And when I'm gone, the dog will surely come after the both of you. The Stars Trading House has achieved surprising success in the year and a half it's been here, he won't ignore you after he's achieved a dominant position," Lazono told them, grim.

Joffrey's mind was already whirling. Marelos could not be allowed to succeed, lest he drive all he and Sansa had sought to achieve in this life to dust. Their contacts and relations were centered on Westerosi trade, not a spy network per se but an informational one nonetheless… one who was already proving its worth by providing accurate details on troop movements, actual mobilization rates, and economical information about all of Westeros' five big cities and their surroundings… information that would be vital when the time came to wield the Seven Kingdoms like a fine rapier against the darkness. Almost all of it though was paid through the Stars Trading House's profitable exploitation of the Shivering Seas trade route, exchanging iron, furs, bones, gemstones, and dyes along the Ibb-Morosh-Lorath-Braavos-White Harbor axis.

"If you didn't know about Marelos' bribing of the important families around the Sealord, how did you know he was active again?" Sansa asked him suddenly.

"Because he's already struck. Tregidos Sanatis has been all but been driven to ruin. The news from Lorath reached me yesterday," said Lazono with a clipped tone.

"The Sanatis?" Joffrey asked, agape.

"The very same. He's bound to return to Braavos in the coming weeks and sell whatever remains of his ventures to Marelos himself… and then his rate of growth will be almost exponential," Lazono said as he scowled.

"Fuck…" Joffrey whispered with feeling, feeling as if news about the loss of a full Patrol to the Beyond had just reached him.

"What will you do?" Sansa asked the man as they stopped by the railing again, this time facing a different part of Braavos and its sea of tiny lights.

"Batten down the hatches, secure my suppliers as ably as I can… I recommend you to do the same," he said ominously.

Joffrey was frowning though. He was sick of sieges and last stands, and he was damned if a self-important merchant was going to ruin all his carefully prepared work.

Besides, I like it here, he thought as his eyes drifted to Sansa's.

-: PD :-

They returned quickly back to Dure House after that, and spend most of the rest of the night discussing what to do.

"You can't just murder him Joffrey," Sansa said for the fifth time, exasperated.

"It does have a way of making things less complicated," Joffrey protested, but his soul was not into it.

"And making a lot of other things infinitely more so," she said with a great shrug. "Killing him would just leave his wealth and influence with his son, who's cut from the same piece of fabric if what Lewylla told me is true, which I believe to be."

"Then we kill him too!" Joffrey said brightly, half joking, half serious.

"And then the Braavosi aristocracy devours itself in a war of hired killers. At least it'll make the Faceless Men happy," she said with a pout.

Joffrey laughed lightly, he did adore those pouts… though the mood soon turned serious again as the silence reigned. They were back in the small living room, which had turned into a war room of sorts as it quickly became filled with records, nautical charts, and names connected by pieces of wool.

"What do you propose then?" he asked her, feeling a bit out of sorts with the whole intrigue this was developing into.

Sansa walked thoughtfully from one end of the room to the other, frowning. "What if we made a united front with the other, smaller merchant houses of the Shivering Sea routes? Acting as a block we'd be a force much better able to resist Marelos, right?" she asked him.

"Wouldn't work, there's too much enmity between them all," Joffrey said as he shook his head, his back relaxed against the big oaken chair.

"There was a lot of enmity between the Oniras', the Mophira's and the Sorreris' too, and Marelos managed to bind them to his cause. Compared to them our little squabbles seem as over breadcrumbs instead of Iron Marks," she reasoned.

"And all the more petty for it," Joffrey sighed as he shook his head. "I suppose we could do it, especially as we're relatively new and therefor a clean break from the old enmities… but we'd be entering his playground. Bribes, flattery, veiled threats. We don't mix well with intrigue," he said with a lopsided smile.

"… You don't mix well with intrigue, I on the other hand…" Sansa trailed off with a raised eyebrow.

"I'll admit, you're already better at this than I am… but Sansa, this is in a whole different league of trouble," said Joffrey, his voice turning more vehement by the word. "This won't be the circles of petty merchant family heads and wifely gossip. We'll- you'll be going against people who have been doing this their whole lives and whose resources dwarf our own. Soirees and masquerades where a single wrong word could spell doom on our efforts," he told her.

Sansa stayed silent for a moment, stopping her constant walking to stare at the fireplace.

"What of King's Landing Joffrey?" she almost whispered. "What of what you called 'The Game of Thrones'?" she asked.

Joffrey said nothing as she turned to look at him, "How can I help you win the Seven Kingdoms if I don't even dare to step into the intrigues of a single city?" her question pierced him, her eyes boring into his. "Do you trust me?" she suddenly asked.

"Yes," Joffrey said immediately.

"Then help me put an end to the bastard," Sansa said as she walked to him and sat on the chair opposite to him, her hands holding his.

She wants to prove herself, he suddenly realized.

"This… It's training for you. You want to spar with Marelos…" he said, not a question but a statement.

Sansa looked at him seriously, her eyes hard. "By all accounts, my Father has had his head c-chopped off quite a few times now," she blurted, her eyes shining unexpectedly under the light of the fireplace as she looked away.

She blinked off the tears before looking back to Joffrey, "I'd like for that to stop," she said.

"I want to stop it," she said defiantly.

They kept staring at each other after that, as if the weight behind the simple words was still settling within.

Partners, thought Joffrey, before nodding slightly.

-: PD :-

Afterwards, when the last of the crazed brainstorming was over and the night turned heavy, Joffrey hesitated at the door to his room.

"Sansa," he said suddenly, turning around. She seemed almost startled, all the way across the corridor and already inside her room, her face visible through her half closed door.

"Yes, Joffrey?" she asked with a tentative voice, her eyes searching and nervous.

Joffrey looked at her, framed by the long braid of red hair that peeked between the door and the wall, her vivid blue eyes holding his.

He breathed deeply before smiling painfully, "Good night, Sansa," he told her.

"Good night, Joffrey," she said, her voice indecipherable as she slowly closed the door to her room.

-: PD :-