Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

Asshai's harbor was a district of its own, ruled by the merchants who regularly traded with the city. It had its own laws, its own private guard, and even a ruling council of representatives from the ten most influential trading concerns. It was a melting pot of Ghiscary expeditions and Qarthi merchants, a dock where Yi-Tish traders and grand carracks from Port Moraq mingled freely, a city within a city where a hundred languages mixed into what was known the world over as the trading tongue.

Sansa had noticed something peculiar when she'd first seen the self-governing district. The sailors and the guards never stepped past the Grey Road, the path that divided the district from the city proper. Merchants sold their wares at the warehouses of the Council that lay just a few steps from the road itself; the only few places where the denizens of Asshai –the Shadowmen- went forth to trade. Even thieves preferred to turn around and surrender to the brutal Council Guard, the prospect of forced labor as galley slaves a better alternative than what would happen if they were caught on the other side of the road…

By ancient tradition, the Matriarchs of the city left the merchants to the harbor, to do as they saw fit. They saw their presence as a helpful luxury, but any who broke ancient tradition and stirred trouble beyond the Grey Road would… Pay.

There's a reason almost no crime happens within the city, Sansa thought as she nodded at Calinnia.

"Bring him forward," said the Matriarch.

The two black garbed guards dragged the barely conscious man by the arms, settling him on his knees in front of Sansa. The black basalt halls of the House of the South were laid bare of tapestries and ornaments; only abstract designs showing in the distance as the stone hall stretched upwards.

"Please… I only wanted it… to sell…" the man babbled slowly in Yi-Tish, in a trance wholly of his own making, fear and panic leaving him dazed in his hour of need. His gaze slowly drifted upwards as the guards stood back, meeting Sansa's cold eyes. "Please… only wanted to sell it, put a little coin in me' pouch…." he said louder, his pupils shifting as he blinked in the midst of the penumbra. Sansa thought there was some primal instinct working within him, a primal fear just now whispering its gut clenching conclusion as the man started to shiver.

"For the crimes committed beneath the Shadow, I condemn you," Sansa intoned as she raised her hand.

He shook his head, really looking at his surroundings for the first time as the final piece of the puzzle settled. He was about to experience the reason why those who committed crimes beneath the Shadow of Asshai were never heard off again.

"No, NO!" he screamed as he struggled to stand up, but Sansa took a step forward and planted a palm firmly on his chest, just over his heart.

"For the gift of blood, I commend you," she said as the man stared at her eyes in horror. Sansa stared back as the man screamed, paralyzed in place as he trembled ever so slightly despite the harrowing pain now crisscrossing his body.

Sansa gritted her teeth, feeling as taught as a string as she willed the blood within the man to come to her. She could already feel it, churning and bubbling beneath her grasp; but a hair's breathe away from her. Calinnia could have accomplished this in a second, but her own inexperience showed, and the man's scream turned shrill as Sansa bit her own lip and pUlLeD with all her will.

The man's scream cut off as he was left breathless, watching his own blood bubbled from his heart and through his ruptured skin, pooling around Sansa's palm. The breathless agony was somehow worse, the man's befuddled gaze turning from the strange sight of his own blood slowly being absorbed by Sansa's hand.

He stared at her half lidded eyes in incomprehension as she drained his life away.

It tasted like a light summer wine, barely a drip of power flowing beneath the flavor, and it was still enough to leave Sansa in near ecstasy, the sweet treat entering her bloodstream and revitalizing her both in mind and body.

The man's silent agony did not cut off abruptly. It was more of a gradual descent into oblivion, his eyes slowly closing as Sansa withdrew her pristine pink hand and he swayed like a leaf in the wind. He collapsed backwards, partly shriveled as blood slowly oozed around him, pooling around the basalt tiles of the ritual hall. The six other masked figures watching at a distance were unperturbed, standing still as statues.

"How do you feel?" asked Calinnia.

Sansa took a step back, standing just a little behind the Matriarch before bending her neck a bit and sighing. "I feel… invigorated," she said.

The Matriarch murmured, and Sansa could detect the faint trace of a smile in her voice as her mask tilted downwards. "You absorbed more than half of it," she said with the slightest tinge of approval, watching the blood left by the corpse's trail as it was carried away by the blackguards.

"I have a competent teacher," said Sansa with a slight tilt of the head. Calinnia preferred her compliments to be simple and direct.

She hummed in appreciation before waving off the rest of the audience, "Leave us," she said.

The six figures -all masked in green - bowed before walking backwards, melding with the long shadows of the hall until Sansa lost sight of them.

"Seven years," she mused out loud as she kept watching at the blood stains, "It's been barely seven years since you arrived at my doorstep, and yet your control over blood now borders on competence," she said. "Tell me Sansa, what is the secret behind your progress?"

"Study and dedication," she said.

"Yes, you barely do anything beyond study… besides going out with that boy every now and then…"

The implicit threat was clear, but Sansa refrained from speaking out.

"The latent power within your blood, perhaps? To be a Caller and a Vessel at once is a boon few possess in a given century… but no, I suspect it is something else."

Sansa was still, her pale hands behind her back.

"Tell me dear, did you encounter something else before you came to me?" she asked as she turned, her green-and-red striped mask growing closer as she walked towards her.

"None, Matriarch," she answered.

Calinnia seemed to regard her with amusement for a moment, before she looked around the hall itself. "It's okay dear, everyone in this accursed city lives by their lies and secrets," she said as she gazed at the blood stains on the floor, "From the tiniest of robber merchants… to even the most astute of Callers," she said as she turned to Sansa once more.

Sansa said nothing, one wrist turning slowly as she opened her hand. She felt the weight of the serpentine dagger in her sleeve, just a slight twist away from falling firmly in her grasp.

Her next words took Sansa by surprise, however. "You're ready. Or near enough it makes no difference. I'll call for Noonshadow within the next month."

Sansa's hands fisted, her heart quickening before she managed to lick her suddenly parched lips. "Isn't that premature, Matriarch? There are many of the higher mysteries I don't yet understand," she said.

"They are all built from the same foundations," she said dismissively, "After you've mastered the basic core of it all the rest is just a matter of time… time and experimentation," she said while walking around her, "And you've taken to the basics quite remarkably. It's something about the taste, isn't it?" she whispered.

There was a slight, unnerving spring to Calinnia's step, a sort of repressed glee as she kept walking in a circle around her, "So few people get it. Even amongst the most gifted of Callers blood is seen as a mere instrument of power, or even worse; an intoxicant," she added in sudden indignation, "As if it were mere ecstasy what lies within its grasp…" she trailed off before leaning in on Sansa's ear, her voice almost inaudible.

"But you and I, we know better, don't we?" she asked.

Sansa shuffled, swallowing mechanically as her hands fidgeted. "Yes," she finally whispered.

"The other Callers may indulge in days of stupor, generously sucking my harem dry in their intoxicated bliss… and yet they don't feel it," said Calinnia, as if she were confessing a great secret. "Tell me Sansa, beyond the bliss of fresh blood invigorating your being, what do you feel?" she asked.

Sansa felt her mouth open almost against her will, not knowing what she was going to say until the words crawled out of her throat, "It has something… beyond… Beyond here…" she said. She was not talking about geography or time, and Calinnia knew it.

"It's not the ecstasy you and I crave," murmured Calinnia, "It's the whispers of apotheosis."

She laughed suddenly, chuckling lowly as she departed Sansa's side. "No, you understand. The rest will come by its own will, in time."

Sansa stood still until Calinnia had left her, and it was only then that she felt she could breathe again. It was only when she started walking towards the hall's exit that Sansa noticed her slippers were caked in dried blood.

She turned her gaze, and realized there was not a single drop of blood left on the floor.

-: PD :-

The House of the South had been chiseled out of the mountain itself. Asshai the city was nestled within the mountains of the Shadowlands of course, but the House of the South was a structure almost at the city limits, chiseled out of the nearest foothills. Raw basalt and granite had been molded into a structure that emerged as if from the mountain itself; intricately carved pillars and abstract designs peppered the outer area, and the light of the sun struggled to reach just past the threshold.

Sansa walked quickly away from its shadow, her back straight as she walked past the two blackguards by the entrance. She did not pay them any mind, for they were little more than physical vessels for the will of the Matriarchs in the minds of the Asshai'. Indoctrinated slave soldiers descended from House harems whose blood had been deemed insufficiently useful.

She went down the ruined alleyways of the abandoned streets surrounding the House, navigating them expertly before she turned in a whirl, serpentine dagger ready to cut her own wrist as she crouched.

The black robed figure leapt from the second story of the ruined house by her right, landing crouched with barely a sound. He stood up like a panther, his movements almost leisurely slow and betraying a sort of coiled strength.

"Joffrey. I thought we were to meet in the Temple," she said, slowly putting down the dagger.

Joffrey took off the cowl as he walked towards her, sporting his usual half smile, "You know me, I got impatient."

"Then you should learn to wait," she told him before storming off.

"What? Sansa?" Joffrey called out, but she was already walking away.

"Sansa!" he called out once more, "Sansa!" he said as he grabbed her hand. She twisted his as her dagger went for his throat, but he stopped her with a lock that bent her arm upwards.

"What the hells are you-"

Sansa swapped hands with her dagger, but Joffrey caught her other hand too and twisted in a semi-circle, ending with her back pinned against the wall by Joffrey.

His confusion slowly gave way to understanding as he stared at her eyes and she struggled to avoid them, "They made you do it again, did they?" he asked her slowly, "You're always like this after you do it…"

Sansa kept trying to avoid his gaze, looking at the floor as she stopped struggling. "But never like this… Sansa. Sansa look at me," he said as he bent his head slightly, forcing her eyes to meet his own. "You don't have to appear strong to me. They're not watching you right now."

Her gaze seemed to pierce through his, and Joffrey took a deep breath. "We can take turns Sansa. We can take turns," he said, and the dagger slipped from her hands and fell on the ground as she closed her eyes.

She laid her head against his chest gently, her hands untangling from the lock and grasping his back tightly. Joffrey said nothing as he hugged her back, her slow falling tears punctuated by lone, strangled sobs that dared to emerge every now and then.

-: PD :-

The small cabin was one of many that littered the second 'terrace' of the grand work that was the Temple of the Aeromancers. Made of three distinct terraces carved out of the mountains themselves, all three sections served different functions. The second one hosted a litany of small wood-and-paper cabins built for the apprentices and acolytes which sought the illumination of true Masters in the Temple proper, up by the third level. The cabins themselves were simple affairs made of wood and treated paper, furnished with a chest and a small cabinet. Each held a miniature kitchen, a fireplace, a small table, and a cot.

… The Masters had insisted that he'd settle in the third terrace, but he'd refused.

For all that Joffrey had lived in great mercantile estates and castles fit for rulers of continents, he'd found that this little cabin –whom he'd called home for over 7 years now- had something almost intimate, a deeper sense of self when inhabited by him. Perhaps it was the complete lack of servants, or the closed, single interior that guaranteed line of sight everywhere within the small cabin… regardless, it made for a heavenly retreat from the intrigues of the city and the constant spars with the Masters.

He sighed as he wiggled, molding himself to Sansa's form as he pressed against her back, passing an arm over her and holding her gently. The cot was at ground level, but its small size could sometimes be a luxury of its own. Sansa grabbed his arm like a pillow, caressing it gently.

"Did you defeat Master Wo-Ti this week?" she asked him.

"Almost."

"Must be tough, finding your match after all these years."

Joffrey hummed, his mind drifting with the white noise of the crickets outside. Despite Asshai not boasting a single animal or plant except for Ghost Grass and the occasional visit by Lady, the Temple of the Aeromancers seemed to teem with life.

"Not really. Back in the Dawn Fort there were plenty of people who could kick my butt at Paigo. Captain Sabu for one…"

"You told me Sabu was a stoic man, akin to a rock in temperament. Master Wo-Ti sounds awfully familiar," said Sansa.

"Perhaps there's something to be said for the rock approach," he conceded.

"Or maybe you just lack patience," she said as she turned his arm slightly.

"That too," he chuckled.

The rattle made by the enormous crickets outside was the only noise besides their gentle breathing until Sansa stirred. Lady's head emerged from the mound of greyish white fur inhabiting the corner of the cabin, blinking slowly at them. She'd grown monstrously during the past few years, to the point she had difficulty entering the cabin.

It's serious then, thought Joffrey, bracing himself.

"Calinnia is calling Noonshadow. The rest of the Houses will meet us in Stygai once the day comes. Within the next month I'll be a member of the House of the South… or dead," she said.

Joffrey's embrace turned even tighter, "I thought it took two decades to reach that level of confidence," he said.

"Well, she's convinced…"

"And you?"

The crickets answered for her, and Joffrey blinked slowly.

"And you, Sansa?" he asked again.

"Yes."

"But… that's good right?" he asked, confused.

"Yes Joffrey… I'm ready," she said, her nails biting into his arm as she squeezed, "That's the thing. I… I love it," she said in dread.

Joffrey kissed her bare shoulder, "I won't judge you," he said quietly.

"Blood… no, the thing that blood holds… Joff…" she whispered as she put his hand over her mouth in silent horror, "It feels like… it feels like the Purple."

Joffrey said nothing as his breath hitched, feeling pinpricks all over his back, still as a marble statue as Sansa breathed through his hand.

"But it's like… like the other way around… like the other side of it. There's no pain, there's just this all-consuming expanse of raw power that glimpses all too fast, too fast to understand anything…"

"We knew blood magic caused feelings of bliss and euphoria on its practitioners, but-"

"No Joff, this is different. Yes blood can feel like a summer wine or the purest Arbor Gold depending on its potency, and many Shadowbinders revel in that feeling… but this goes deeper. I've never would have realized it if I'd not seen the full picture after every time we die. I don't think most maegi even realize the sheer… otherness that they are using. It's, it's-"

"Transcendent."

"Yes. Yes that's it," she said, slowly lowering Joffrey's hand and massaging it compulsively. "And every time I call it I want more. The power to destroy our enemies. The power to live our life the way we want it to. The power to traverse time…"

"… It's all interconnected, dreams within dreams," said Joffrey, holding her close.

"We live and die again and again, we peer into the deepest abyss…"

"Each time closer to understanding it all…" Joffrey finished the sentence.

"What will I become at the end of this? Joff, what are we turning into?" she said, slipping further down beneath the blanket and against Joffrey.

"The captains of our fate," he said without a shadow of a doubt.

"Dear, now's not the time for your sailor's wisdom," she called out halfheartedly.

He responded by withdrawing his arm and massaging her back, slowly getting rid of the knots of tension that traversed its length. "The Purple… it blurs the line between what the real and the imagination. Between the world and the mind," he said as Sansa sighed, his calloused hands working their way down, "But… how real was the line to begin with?"

He took a while to compose his thoughts, giving form to muddled sensations from within.

He stopped the massage slowly, his thumbs tracing circles over Sansa's skin, "I'm starting to think the distinction was arbitrary. It's all interconnected, it's all the same thing," he said, frowning. "I'd thought it was a characteristic of the Purple, but in truth it's a universal constant."

Sansa sighed, staring at the wood-and-paper wall and the shadows thrown by the striking moonlight. "You're talking about that… something that… that permeates everything…"

"Yeah… Or perhaps everything is part of that something," said Joffrey, "The Song…"

"I'm afraid Joffrey," she said suddenly, "I'm afraid what will happen when we peel away the curtain. I'm afraid to see the stage." Joffrey could feel her accelerated heartbeat, fear and awe warring within her soul as she confessed weakness.

"We'll see it together," he whispered in her ear, "Side-by-side, we'll see beyond the curtain. We'll become captains. Rulers of our fate," he said fiercely, possessed by an inner flame that fed off unbreakable certainty.

"We'll cut our strings," she said, "We'll cut our strings, together," she whispered the last word almost breathlessly as she turned within his grip, her face but a hair's breath away from his; deep blue eyes boring into his own.

Joffrey kissed her savagely, and Sansa grasped him tightly as she climbed on top of him, deepening it. Her long hair was like a curtain around Joffrey's head, and his hands felt the long scars crisscrossing her as she arched back in pleasure. They were gifts of her training, marks on the long road towards the truth; pain and knowledge held hand in hand. The crickets muffled their gasps as the moon crossed the night sky and the Red Comet glowed in otherworldly light.

-: PD :-

"I heard you'll be leaving soon," said Master Gaharz as Joffrey reached the blackened tree stump. The Master of the Second Way was sitting in the green grass around the stump, his robes as pristine as ever.

Joffrey sat on the stump itself, folding his knees into a half lotus position. The rest of the garden was deserted, the late hour seeing almost all of the students back on the second terrace. "I am. My wife will pass the test beneath the shadow of Fallen Stygai within this month."

"And so her training comes to an end. Tell me Master Joffrey, what was the prize the House of the South asked in return for such instruction?"

"A relic from the times of Ancient Valyria… and twenty years of service," he said.

"They will not let go of her before her time, I hope you understand that," said Gaharz, sorrow in his voice. "All Houses hold repositories with great amounts of blood extracted from each member. To renege on a deal with a patron House would be a fate worse than death, no matter how far you run."

"I'll keep it in mind," he said, nodding at the Master. "I wanted to thank you. I already spoke to Masters Wo-Ti and Jeng… The ways you meld meditation and martial arts are truly a thing to behold… I wanted… to thank you, for the instruction."

"In teaching, one learns," said Gaharz, before a small smile peeked through his lips. "Quite painfully too, those 'tourney swords' of yours were hard to get a handle of."

Joffrey grunted, smiling at the old Master, "Watching Master Wo-Ti trying to make sense of a two hander was a gift that I will always cherish," he said.

They spent a few seconds in silence while Joffrey tapped fingers against his thigh.

"And yet that is not the only reason you came here today," said the old Ghiscary.

"No, Master."

Gaharz chuckled, his eyes still closed as his frame wobbled lightly, "The power to tame that demon lies wholly between your own hands. You do not need my voice to guide you."

"But it helps, Master. It helps me understand," he said.

"… Very well then, you know what to do," said the Master.

Joffrey closed his eyes, leaving the ambient noise to fade into the background or be made part of his distant awareness. His mind was blank, like one of the fig tree's leaves swaying through the wind.

"Do you remember it?" asked Gaharz.

"Yes," he said, feeling a deep thirst within him, the promise of all consuming joy so close at hand.

"How did it feel?" asked the distant voice.

Joffrey shuffled minutely, remembering the savage glee as he butchered Aegon Targeryen.

"Good," he said. It had felt more than good. Power. Bliss. Joy.

"Try to follow that feeling, trace it to your body."

Joffrey did so, breathing slowly as he remembered the pleasurable blood running through his body. The savage joy of butchering his enemies and imposing his will upon them.

"My chest," he said, breathing a bit more harshly.

"How does it look? What are its dimensions," said the voice.

"It's… it's red… it's coiled in there… a chained beast…"

"What does it want?"

"To be let out," he said quickly, his breath hitching. "To maim. Kill. He loves it. He loves it so much," he rasped, trying to give words to something deep within. A curse he'd known before even the Purple, though he hadn't named it as such back then.

"What is its name?"

"The Red," Joffrey said immediately, remembering Ned Stark's face as he twisted in agony.

There was silence, the tree stump uncomfortable to sit on as he shuffled.

"It's true name," said Gaharz.

"… the Red!" he said again, remembering Nalia's torn face.

"It's true name."

Joffrey struggled to feel the beast, to look at its eyes and admit it.

He clambered up to his feet, shaking the dust off his robes as he jumped from the stump. "Thank you for your patience, Master," he said with a bow, thoroughly ashamed with himself even if he needed to go right now.

"You cannot escape from it, Master Joffrey. You cannot escape what is part of you," Gaharz called out as Joffrey walked away from the stump and the sitting master.

"Goodbye and good fortune, Master Gaharz," he called out, bowing low before walking past the twin dojos and down the rocky arc that delineated the start of the path downwards.

-: PD :-

The road to Stygai was long and treacherous. They followed the dark Ash River through the Shadow Mountains, keeping to the black fused rock road that traversed its side. Ghost Grass grew in abundance there, pale purple stalks that never seemed to sway with the wind.

The caravan from the House of the South was small but shrouded in power. Dagger armed blackguards carried small packs with supplies while Matriarch Calinnia herself was carried by palanquin. The black bandaged servants had hollow stares as they carried the scarcely adorned vehicle, itself guarded on both sides by two Shadowbinders,

Sansa walked in front of the palanquin, her back straight and her unmasked face bare for all to see. This was supposed to be the last time anyone who was not from the House of the South would see her true face. Joffrey walked behind her with Lady, keeping an eye out for ambushes and other… things.

It was said that the Shadowlands grew wild and dangerous the nearer one got to Stygai. Otherworldly beings were said to inhabit the fallen city, fell dragons and shadow demons roaming its cursed depths. It was said even Shadowbinders feared it, but Joffrey had never heard them mutter a word about it.

He could see it in the way they walked though. They were scared.

To be part of a House meant being a part of the ancient compact that bound the Four Houses together. It meant protection against blood hunt from rivals, and the embracing of all the duties and responsibilities of your chosen House. It was much like being a scion of a Westerosi noble house, assuming its sins, duties, and privileges as your own. Unlike Westerosi houses though, there were no dynasties in Asshai. The mantle of the Matriarch passed to her chosen successor, and adoption was the only way the Houses grew. Children were born away from the city itself in secret, fortified locations; the product of carefully cultivated bloodlines that carried the power of ancient sorcerers. Those deemed of insufficient power were raised as blackguards or servants, while those who had the ancient echo of power within their veins…

They were called Vessels, locked away inside the redoubts of the Four Houses. Blood Harems; their single purpose in life to feed blood to the Matriarch and her entourage. They were one of the deciding factors when measuring a House's streanght against a rival one… and their destruction or theft marked setbacks that could take centuries for a House to truly recover.

To have entered that world, every Shadowbinder had survived Noonshadow. The ceremony killed the weak, and acknowledged the strong. It welcomed the new member into the compact or took their life in the attempt.

"We're here," whispered Sansa.

Their timing had been exact. It was noon; sunrays descending from on high and illuminating a little valley in front of them. Joffrey blinked in confusion, taking a step next to her. "Are you… sure?" he said, watching the small valley formed within the Shadow Mountains. The road sloped downwards at a light angle, reaching for the center of the barren valley.

"I am," she whispered, watching the palanquin as the servants left it on the ground. Calinnia promptly walked out of it, surveying their deserted destination through the tiny holes in her mask.

"I thought Stygai would be more…" Joffrey struggled to speak his mind, making a vague movement with his hands. "There?" he said, watching the way the other Shadowbinders kept a respectful distance from the slope.

"Let us go. The sun won't wait," she said as she strode towards the valley, her long robes hiding her legs as she seemed to glide downwards through the sloping hill. Sansa gave Lady a big hug before following Calinnia down.

"Any of these crazies so much as twitch and you end them, alright Lady?" Joffrey whispered as he scratched the giant direwolfe's fur. Lady gazed at him quizzically before ramming her large head against his chest and sending him on his way.

Joffrey barely felt the sun as they descended, as if the rays themselves had lost all heat. The three of them walked alone, but he thought he could see other figures in the distance, closing in from the three other cardinal points.

They were the first to arrive at an unspecified stopping point. Calinnia turned to them, "Do not interfere or you'll both die," she told him with a negligent wave of her hand. Her eyes were for Sansa only though; she grabbed her by the shoulders painfully, and Joffrey had to resist the impulse to draw his blade as Sansa cringed ever so slightly.

"Remember everything I taught you. You will pass this trial," she commanded, her voice descending to a whisper, "We cannot afford failure, not now. One more whiff of weakness and the House of the West will end us. Do you understand, Sansa?"

"I do."

She got even closer to Sansa, almost touching her forehead with the mask, "You will become a Caller of the South. In time, your power shall be the instrument through which our House will exact retribution on the West," she said with a barely contained snarl.

Sansa nodded, and Calinnia returned it as she stepped back as composed as ever. "Do not die," she said.

The three other groups kept getting closer, and Joffrey squeezed Sansa's hand as they waited. She was shivering, her lips pale as she turned to look at him. "Remember, I'll see you back in Winterfell all goes wrong," he said.

She looked at him for a long while, before slowly shaking her head. "No one will stop us, remember?"

"No one," he said.

Calinnia raised her hands, addressing the first group to arrive. "Who dares tread in the Shadow?"

The lead woman was a stooped figure, her mask the shape of the sun with rays erupting from its depths. "The House of the East comes. We'll bear witness to this Calling," she said.

"Kijima," said Calinnia, nodding at the stooped figure, "I see you are still infatuated with the fire peddlers," said continued, gazing at her two companions with disdain.

"But it's so easy to show them the truth," said Kijima as a bandaged hand emerged from the folds of her dark red robe. "The priestesses of the Red God are already halfway there," she said, giddy as if she were a child as she caressed the shoulders of her two masked companions, "For what is their Red God and fire itself without its shadow," she said as her two companions shivered, whether in ecstasy or terror Joffrey could not tell.

The second group arrived from the north, garbed in bundles of dark silk which covered them completely except for their eyes. "Who dares tread in the Shadow?" said Calinnia.

"The House of the North comes. We'll bear witness to this Calling," whispered the lead figure of the three, all but indistinguishable from its companions except for the fact that she stopped walking a step ahead of them.

"Jiia," said Calinnia.

Jiia said nothing as she bowed, returning to her position and standing still with her hands behind her back.

The last to arrive came from the west at a sedate pace. Joffrey's breath hitched as he recognized the blue mask, hand squeezing the pommel of his sword as he flicked his gaze to Sansa. She shook her head though, staring at the masked figure. She walked alone, every step gracefully choreographed as she reached the group and gazed at Calinnia and Sansa.

"Who dares tread in the Shadow?" said Calinnia.

Blue Mask stared at them, tilting her head lightly as her gaze turned to Joffrey. "You have broken tradition Calinnia, bringing a Vessel to a Calling. Have you brought your entire retinue as well? Do they lie waiting in ambush?" she asked in a grave voice.

"A Vessel here?!" said Kijima, nostrils flaring as she gazed at Joffrey in shock. "It's true!" she said as Jiia's hands returned from her back and she took a step forward.

Show me your secrets, Joffrey remembered, and he was a second away from summoning Brightroar when Calinnia laughed. "Oh Wylla, you have grown senile in time… Can't you see how he looks at her? How eager he is to violence? How he seeks her gaze?" she said mockingly.

Wylla was silent, gazing at Joffrey and back to Sansa slowly.

"Ohhh… a mate," said Kijima, as if it all made sense now. "Please excuse us, my friend," she said as she bowed repeatedly, addressing Joffrey directly for the first time, "I hadn't realized… Oh Calinnia, I should have known better than to doubt you…"

"He's still a Vessel under your thumb Calinnia, and a powerful one," said Wylla, blue mask glinting under the strange sun, "A Vessel which you could use as fuel for an attack while we are distracted with the Calling."

Calinnia straightened, seemingly surprised, "I thought you weren't scared of me. This is a nice surprise… The great House of the West fearful of the South once more?" she mused out loud.

Kijima spoke over Wylla immediately, before she could get a single word in edgewise, "It's been too long since a mate was present for a Calling. And I thought we'd get another boring, quick show," she said, almost jumping from the excitement, "What was the last one we saw? Must have been close to forty years now… what was her name--?"

"Rominya," said Jiia, a mere statement of fact.

"Ah yes, she was one of yours…" said Kijima, looking at Jiia, "Her mate kept desperately stabbing himself, trying to give her a bit more of an oomph… of course, he only ended up prolonging her agony," she said with a distant voice. "Before he bled out himself," she added as an afterthought as she forgot about Joffrey and returned her gaze to Wylla.

"It's still too dangerous," said the Matriarch of the West.

"He's got a right to be here. I thought you'd know that Wylla, being as how the House of the West has always leaned so heavily on Tradition," said Calinnia, the last few words coming out a touch acerbically.

"Ow. She got you there dear," said Kijima.

"It is known," said Jiia.

Wylla's mask tilted from Matriarch to Matriarch, and to Joffrey's ears he could detect the slightest of sighs before she nodded slowly.

"Who dares tread in the Shadow?" said Calinnia.

There was a slight pause before Wylla spoke, "The House of the West comes. We'll bear witness to this Calling," she said, clearly enunciating every word.

"Good," said Calinnia, "Though talking about traditions, is it not expected to come with two companions to Noonshadow?" she said.

"It is only customary, not Tradition," said Wylla.

Calinnia hummed, pleased. "Then we are settled," she said quickly.

"Let's get to it, I can hardly wait," said Kijima. With that all the other groups turned and walked towards their original directions, the three -soon to be four- points forming a circle around a small section of the empty place, centered on where they had just talked. Joffrey looked at the sun in confusion, then back to the small shadow at the center of the gathering.

I would have sworn that was not there before… he thought.

"Well spoken, my Matriarch," said Sansa, "The House of the West will walk away from this diminished in the eyes of the others."

"Bah, they can afford to lose a bit of prestige. No, they got what they wanted," she said, gazing at the sun.

"… Time," said Sansa.

"Yes. It's close to half past noon now. Do not dally," said Calinnia before striding south.

Sansa nodded quickly, but Joffrey grabbed her before she could stand right in the middle of the great circle. "Sansa, what the red Matriarch said… is it true? Could I shed my blood to power your magic?"

Sansa frowned as he looked at him, "Yes, in theory. The traditions surrounding all this are very old and often nonsensical; they're supposed to come from the time when Stygai was still… well, still existed. One such tradition speaks about willing blood sacrifice during the Calling, though only… mates or family were allowed to do so…"

"So I could-"

"It's bound to hurt more than it will help Joffrey. Too much concentration split in multiple tasks… it is said merely surviving the… thing takes one's entire mind."

Joffrey sighed, tapping the hilt of his sword, "Alright. Take care," he said, hesitant to move.

Sansa grabbed his head with both hands and kissed him before pushing him off, "Go! We have to be out of here in less than half an hour!"

Joffrey jogged back towards Calinnia, reaching her side just as the Matriarch raised both hands horizontally, seemingly staring at nothing.

"She better make it out of this unharmed. For your sake," said Joffrey as he stood behind her.

Calinnia snorted as the other Matriarchs swept their arms up, synchronized with each other.

"You don't believe me?" asked Joffrey.

"Oh I believe you just fine, brave knight… But I'll have far bigger problems if Sansa fails… One whiff of weakness and the other Houses will do nothing while the West destroys us…" she muttered as she sighed in mild unpleasantness, tiny rivulets of blood emerging from her nails and falling to the ground.

"Callers, Shadowbinders… whatever you want to call them. How many have you tried to induct during the last twenty years?" Joffrey asked her as he watched sprays of blood emerge from the other Matriarchs, the blood itself turning into smoke as it traced a circumference.

"Too many. All failures… your wife though… Oh a reckoning will come…" she said, and Joffrey could hear the smile. She gasped, craning her neck as her blood connected with that shed by Kijima and Wylla. "Strange. There's barely any pull behind Wylla…" she muttered.

"Is that bad?" Joffrey asked quickly.

"Perhaps. No reserves. She'd be left weak after the ritual…" she said before gasping again, her eyes turning white as she kept raising her hands and the connected blood line boiled, throwing up black smoke which started to construct a dome of shadow and black mist with Sansa right in the middle.

"Wylla. That blood. I felt she had it. When we spoke," Calinnia stuttered quickly, "Now it's gone. Somewhere. Beware treachery," she rasped before wheezing as if near death, shaking lightly as she raised her arms even higher and the bubbling smoke coalesced into an opaque dome.

"Matriarch?" Joffrey asked, but she was in a trance, mumbling something in an ancient Yi-Tish dialect Joffrey couldn't make heads or tails off. The other Matriarchs were doing the same, their voices rising in unison as the shadows deepened and they repeated the word again and again.

-: PD :-

Sansa was breathing deeply, forcing her lungs into a steady rhythm as a dome of raw power closed her off from the outside world. Not a single sound could be heard from outside it, and she knew the effect went both ways. She could barely glimpse Joffrey's form as he ducked and struggled to look inside, his eyes unerringly looking for hers. He was worried… after all, most Noonshadow ceremonies lasted less than three minutes, the candidates dead or worse.

In tune with your own power. Feel the weight of it slithering through your veins, she thought as she felt it, her awareness growing to encompass the shimmering river of power coursing through her own being.

She was ready as she opened her eyes, gazing at the whirlwind of smoke and blood forming in front of her. The blood demon was a construct that echoed the hate and fury that somehow permeated this place, given form by the power of the four Matriarchs combined and given a single will through words muttered in a language long dead, a single objective simple enough to hold such outpouring of power for a small bit of time. Sickly pulsating blood interwove with smoke, forming two grotesque legs before continuing upwards into a red torso of squirming darkness that sprouted bulky arms and a deformed, screaming head.

Kill, the blood itself seemed to whisper.

The blood demon screamed with a thousand voices, the screams of agony of all the people whose blood had been harvested to build the abomination. It sprung at her, a misshaped mockery of the human form now sprinting on all four limbs as Sansa stomped one feet on the ground and slammed her arms together.

She gritted her teeth in pain as she felt her own blood emerge through her fingers, swiftly turning into a black smoke that scurried through the ground. Her will directed her essence, and she watched through half lidded eyes as chains of smoke tied the demon to the ground, though its screams never ceased.

Khai or the Third Way was the martial art of sorcerers, devised in part to facilitate the flow of blood. Sansa followed its most basic forms, slowly arching her elbows and joining her fists by her belly. She let out a harsh breath as she pulled both hands downwards, the demon screeching as it slammed into the earth, her smoking blood covering it almost completely.

Her heart hammered her ears as she stumbled towards the chained demon, the quivering mound of darkness radiating hate and fury and death. She bit her own tongue as she reached it and placed a hand on it, seeking to disrupt what tied it together.

"Sleep," she intoned, her mind worming through the frontier where their blood mixed, seeking to grasp the demon itself and reduce it to nothing.

She gasped when her mind slipped, bouncing against a wall of order and will. Everything the beast was not.

The demon's hollow skull gazed at her before its bulging flesh rippled, standing up in two legs as the chains of her will broke apart and it towered above her like a mountain. It roared with a thousand quivering voices as one brutish column of darkness and pulsing red blood raked her chest, sending her tumbling through the ground.

Sansa gurgled, turning on her back and gazing at the great slash on her belly. She tried to build a bandage out of her shredded robes before the demon shrilled as it charged, four limbs striking the ground hard enough to leave marks as it rammed her with horns made of darkness.

She gasped in agony as the rolling stopped, looking at the two holes puncturing her chest. Her trembling hands grasped her torn robes sluggishly, not quite sure what to do with them. She gazed at the blood pouring out of her chest in dumb amazement, breathing slowly as she died.

No, she thought.

She blinked slowly as she stumbled upright, discarding the piece of bloodied cloth. She took a deep breath that rattled her to her very being, her own blood answering like her direwolf as it scurried from all over the small circle, entering back into her bloodstream.

You are mine. I command you, she thought as she willed the wounds closed, her own blood clotting rapidly. The Demon slammed its fists against the ground in an almost childish tantrum, screaming in frustration before suddenly leaping at her with arms outstretched.

Sansa ducked and rolled sideways, letting the Demon fly past her as pools of her own blood tried to chain him to the ground again. They couldn't, she couldn't grasp the thinking illusion of death and madness. There was something else behind it, something protecting it from afar and slapping away Sansa's efforts.

The Demon turned like a cat, whirling to face her and lifting one great arm in the air.

The blood of the Magnars of Winter runs through me, she thought as she cut her own wrist with her nails and she rolled away from the blow that shook the earth. She snarled as the blood from the wound turned smoky black and a blade of pure darkness as long as her forearm emerged into being.

The legacy of the First Men Kings is mine to command, she remembered as she ducked beneath claws of blood and darkness, her own pale blade striking true and sinking into the Demon. She felt righteous, as if something deep inside her had always been meant for this. The thing screamed like a choir in disharmony as she twisted her hand, slashing outwards and gutting it. Smoke and boiling blood erupted from the wound, specks of it burning her face as the Demon convulsed.

She felt the wave before she saw it; the blood of sorcerers emerging from the ground and fueling the gutted nightmare, lending it strength and agonizing existence.

"Joffrey! They're feeding it!" she screamed at her husband, who was silently shuffling around the borders of the dome, constantly moving as he tried to see what was happening on the other side. He stopped immediately, but though his mouth moved Sansa couldn't hear anything about what he was saying.

The dome, we can't communicate, she thought before a shrill roar announced the pain that soon burned across her right shoulder.

She screamed as she fell to the ground, rolling away just in time before the column like fists of the beast tore her apart. She centered herself as she stood up, one foot sliding back as her knees bent slightly and she jerked aside, avoiding another strike. She was pure instinct as she parried one tremendous claw after another, following the motions and movements Joffrey had taught her after years of training with her daggers almost every day. She mixed the attacks with the stances of Khai, seeking to empower herself with long, harsh movements that pumped her blood and made her scream in agony.

No matter how brutal the cut however, the Demon managed to reform its limbs, each time driven to ever greater peaks of fury. It's heavy strikes left craters on the earth, and its claws tilled the ground like the great iron ploughs sold to the prosperous yeoman farmers who lived near Winterfell.

She traced the flow of power that seemed to be feeding it, her mind completely in tune with the present like never before. She followed the direction of the emerging blood, following the echo until it emerged nearby and she became one with Lady.

One of her eyes turned white as she cut the Demon's arm, but the sudden vertigo of living two realities at once left her ill prepared for the blow that left a long slash on her leg. She used the wound to fuel a short lived limb, a pillar of darkness that parried the next blow and allowed her to spin away with an Ibbenese feint.

-: PD :-

The desperate Ib-Makak left much to be desired, but it was good enough to see Sansa disentangle herself from the Demon in a whirlwind of movement, leaving her facing Joffrey. When he saw her looking at him, one of her eyes blue and the other white, he knew exactly what to do. Lady howled by his side as she reached the dome in seconds, looking at him before reversing course and running.

Something was wrong, and his wife needed him.

Joffrey abandoned the notion of gutting Wylla from behind and instead ran after Lady. The noon sun had already crossed that invisible boundary in the sky, descending ever so slowly towards the distant sea.

We can't have much time, he thought quickly, Maybe fifteen minutes or so.

The shadows were growing deeper and darker, a fact deeply distressing to Joffrey as he gazed back and failed to find any structures around him whatsoever. As the sun moved, shadows seemed to sprung as if from nowhere. Soon the empty plain was filled with lengthening gashes of black that seemed darker than the void between the stars, the silhouette of a whole city emerging whole cloth as Stygai woke up…

Joffrey dreaded to think what would happen if they stayed here much longer.

Lady skidded to a stop in front of a wall that had not been there a second before, growling at the curious figures staring from the other side. They all wore masks of studded bronze, part of an enormous crowd of people swaying to the words of a distant speaker, raising his hands to the air in unison with the crowd. A few of them by the back of the crowd turned when they saw Joffrey, pale hands emerging from robes as they sought to grab him.

"Stand back!" he roared as he hefted Brightroar, the figures recoiling back as he cut the air with it. Lady ran left, leaving the wall behind as Joffrey followed. She whimpered as the alleyway they were following ended in a dead end, scratching the wall as she looked up.

"That… was not there before…" Joffrey muttered as he gazed up at the dark tower. "Where to Sansa? Up?!" he said.

Lady nodded franticly, so he took a few steps back as he sheathed Brightroar in dragonbone and pressed it against the belt by his back, next to his small backpack. He took off at a run, crawling up the wall with the momentum as his hands moved by a will of their own and he rapidly gained altitude. He grunted as he climbed at a steady pace, using protruding bricks and ornamental jades as handholds.

Joffrey took a moment to gaze back and wished he didn't. The silhouette of Stygai was now not even pretending to follow the shadows as laid by the sun. Instead, the shadows themselves seemed to be accelerating, as if it were afternoon already inside the accursed city. Ruined buildings emerged from the blotches of darkness in his sight, impossibly tall towers made of dark bricks and peppered with enough jades to buy a kingdom, long gardens filled with sub species of Ghost Grass that were liked sentinel pines reaching up into the sky.

Gods… what happened here must have made the Doom look like a fire at the local tavern, he thought in awed terror, before shaking himself and continuing the climb. He reached the top of it soon enough, vaulting through the opened window and finding not an army of specters, but two figures… one of which was very familiar indeed.

"Kill him," said Meheesa of the House of the West as she peered into a great bowl filled with swirling blood.

Joffrey moved unconsciously, battle-hardened instincts honed through the centuries making him jump right and avoid a blur that would have gone straight to his neck. A woman garbed in the same black bandages as Meheesa, but sporting a cyan mask instead of a white one, was already by his side, iron hard fists blurring as they struck his chest.

Joffrey grunted as he let himself fall backwards, rolling on his back and springing back up as he clutched his stomach in agony. Cyan mask strode fast and low, chopping the air with her hands and striking like a mace whenever Joffrey parried.

He snarled as he ducked low and unsheathed Brightroar, the Valyrain Steel leaving a long gash by the side of the woman as she shrieked and stumbled back.

"You fool! Do not spill blood here-" Meheesa cut herself off as she watched the way the blood arching through the air, flowing sluggishly from the wound by Cyan Mask's side until it just stopped in midair.

The room trembled, and Joffrey shivered as the blood turned flat and expanded into a sort of frazzled window with bubbling contours. Bronze masked people were looking at something outside through the same window Joffrey had used to enter the tower, but they turned quickly enough when they saw the shimmering oval at their backs.

"Just sightseeing, don't mind me!" Joffrey told the things as he dropped Brightroar and assumed a swaying stance, fingers bunched together and arms bent and up front, "YII!" he shouted as he finalized the stance, the shout itself serving as a sort of ritual focus for the mind and the movements that were to come.

The woman attacked him from both front and back, a second Cyan Mask trying to hold him while the other jabbed a horizontal palm for his throat. Joffrey twirled his legs together and spun out of her grasp, his fingers striking like needles at the Cyan Mask in front of him. He was savage, delivering a flurry of stinging strikes backed up by the full force of his legs and torso, coiled muscles giving enough strength for his blows to tear flesh and purple her skin past the bandages that made her garb.

Her technique was superb though, and she'd probably been honing her style of Khai for decades, whereas Joffrey had spent barely seven getting to know five different styles. Her blocks quickly adjusted, and Joffrey snarled when she locked both his arms with one hand and struck with her palm directly into his chest. He could feel the rib cracking, but he bulled through the pain and grabbed both her hands with his.

He pivoted quickly and used her as a shield from the other Cyan Mask, her attack landing squarely on her own kidney. Both Cyan Masks recoiled in pain, the one that just attacked now holding her back in agony as the one Joffrey had in his grip bucked and twisted, moaning through clenched teeth. "Met this bastard once, Liosh, he really loved that trick," he said as he turned towards the window into the other place, "But I reckoned all those fragments of self must share a mind right?" he said before placing a leg behind her own and body slamming her just like the Hound had taught him once in a cool morning somewhere near the Ruby Fork… straight against the shimmering window.

Cyan Mask screamed as she touched the otherworldly window, the whole act somehow anathema to her existence as she disintegrated to nothing in a spectacular flash of eldritch light and the window shimmered strangely.

"No," said Meheesa as she made to stand up, tearing her eyes from the great bowl of blood.

"Sorry Meheesa," said Joffrey as he reached her before she could do more than stand, grabbing her neck from behind in a vise grip. "No one will stop us. Certainly not you," he whispered in her ear before he broke her neck in one brutal snap.

Her body jerked wildly for a second, her legs buckling and kicking the great bowl filled with the blood she'd been using to fuel her efforts against Sansa.

"Oh fuck," he muttered as the bowl tipped over, the blood scurrying slowly over the floor until it stood still.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuck-" he shouted as he ran, getting a length of rope from his small backpack as a lot of light seemed to erupt from behind him. He didn't look back as he jumped out the window, throwing the tied rope at one of the jade stones and roaring in pain as his thin gloves heated under the friction of the rope. He fell from the tower as more and more towers emerged into the skyline of Stygai, sharp needle like constructs of blackened bricks and opened wings. He managed to slow his descent enough that he merely tumbled the last few meters, landing on the street with a heavy oomph, only scarcely ahead of the scurrying blood from above that seemed to be distorting reality itself.

He stood up to a world that didn't make any sense. There were crowds of bronze masked people running everywhere, a few of them carrying the speaker he'd seen before in their arms as the man held his head in despair, wailing in an indecipherable tongue that had more in common with chirping that anything Joffrey had ever heard. He ran for the south, back to the road as the shadows kept growing. He felt his feet go out from under him when he fell through the shadow of one of the tall towers, his legs swinging wildly in the midst of an eternal void as his hands barely grabbed the ground.

He roared as he tried to climb the ledge back into reality, but his tired and battered arms couldn't lift his whole weight. He took his obsidian boot dagger and cut both of his backpack's straps, and watched it fall downwards… down and down and down into an eternal abyss.

Joffrey realized the tiny pinpricks of light below him were stars, and his breath hitched when he felt the thought drowning thrum of pure might making its way towards him. He saw it a second later, the Red Comet sailing towards Stygai in all its glory, its tail a maelstrom of pure red large enough to fit the Crownlands themselves and more as it roared at the cosmos behind it, keep sized tendrils of power emerging from its depth and snaking for the world. Its surface was a work of crystal art only a madman could truly comprehend; swirls of crystal that refracted amongst themselves and curved inwards, its whole surface infinitely faceted as it propelled itself to him.

"Ah… ah… ah…" Joffrey grunted in near panic, swaying his legs left and right like a pendulum, building enough force until he screamed, pure strength and force of will managing to raise him back to ground level. He stumbled upright to the sight of one of the figures on its knees, looking up at the night sky and the true direction of the Red Comet, the bronze mask lying by its side.

It was not human.

Its eyes were beady, almost hidden within the flurry of feathers that adorned its head. It's beak like mouth was whispering something unintelligible as groups of other figures ritually sacrificed themselves by the hundreds, by the thousands as whatever ritual they'd concocted backfired, the sheer backlash from the repository of power known as the Red Comet distorting reality itself.

It was then Joffrey realized the cold, the all encroaching shiver that seemed to settle in his bones. He ran as he watched what was perhaps the final battle of the previous Cycle, thrumming mortal power lashing out against the Long Night and finding itself thoroughly overwhelmed; the clash so mighty it still echoed in time.

Joffrey screamed as he ran and ran and ran until he glimpsed just a tiny bit of sunlight beyond the road, groups of people running with him in fear and despair as clusters of ice seemed to shimmer into being everywhere, cold automatons surveying the area as they emerged into reality wielding long blades of ice, cutting down everyone in their path.

Joffrey emerged through the mist and into the sunlight past the small valley's limits, finding the four entourages already preparing for the journey south. Curiously enough, the House of the West was standing apart from the other three, almost shunned.

Joffrey's sprint gradually gave way to a jog, and then to a walk as he finally collapsed on his knees, breathing harshly. "By the Gods, you people weren't joking around!" he said in between breaths, looking behind him and seeing only thick mist.

"You… you walked through living Stygai and lived to tell the tale?" said Jiia, as if the act itself were impossible. He could spy Lady behind her, wagging her tail animatedly as she looked at him.

"You people are… good to fear it…" he said in between breaths, "Yeah, definitively, the most… no, second most fucked up thing I've ever seen," he rasped, collapsing on his back.

"… No one has ever set foot within Stygai an hour past noon and lived to tell what's inside it…" she said.

"Joff! I was getting worried," said Sansa as she emerged into his field of vision, hugging him fiercely. She was bandaged almost from head to toe, but she was alive.

"I take it… you showed that thing… a thing or two…" he rasped in between breaths.

"I manage to unravel it once you took care of its backers. We left the clearing soon after…" she said before tilting her head, "Just what did you see in there?"

"Gods I'd kill for a drink. Remember me never to bother Robert about that again. He's wiser than I knew…" he managed.

"… Just who are you two?" said Matriarch Kijima.

Lady barked an answer, then promptly trotted towards Joffrey and licked him silly.

-: PD :-