Game Of Thrones Joffrey Baratheon Purple Days

When the Red Comet first appeared in any of his lives it was as a dark red dagger, sailing across the night sky like an open wound. And in every life he could remember, he'd stare up that night and blink at its clear-cut silhouette, twinkling between silent stars. It was an amorphous herald, the Comet. Its face changed as the months flew by and the world kept spinning through the void, the intercept looming large. When he'd climbed up twisting trees and spied its form between the lush canopies of Sothorios, its tail had taken a sinuous form, its glow touched by bright scarlet. As realms fell and the world froze, from the beaches of sunny Jhalia its bulk had grown: a scaled beetle hung from the sun's neck. No longer a herald, but a harbinger.

Now it was a bloody ruby perched on clean blue horizons, a little moon haloed in a red mantle that waved to the ground, as if tugged by cosmic winds. Joffrey stared at his enemy in the sky, now close enough to the earth that its light casted a murky shadow on the Wall; a second sun quiet and gazing. He felt an uncertain familiarity, an echo of recognition as he strained to hear softly whirring clicks, the calculus of its crystalline mind. It's ready, Joffrey realized with bone deep certainty. Ready for its mission. Ready to bequeath the Silence. Cold wind tugged his hair. Did the Comet sense him as he sensed it? So many lives spent looking at it, so many lives immersed in the tug of war between Song and Silence. By now it was an old acquaintance; didn't it recognize him? Impossible, according to the Deep Ones.

And yet…

"Yes, serjeant?" he said, eyebrows knit together as he tried to make sense of the echo. The recognition.

"Your Grace," whispered the man, fear and awe in his voice. Joffrey took the message in his hands. "It arrived by raven ten minutes ago. From the Lord Commander's ranging party."

He rolled open the slip of parchment, reluctantly taking his eyes from the Comet. Castle Black had been holding its breath since dawn, the usual bustle subdued as levies and guardsmen alike looked up at the unusually clear skies with suspicion. They gathered around campfires, slips of bacon sizzling between bubbling pots of stew that stank of cabbage; a sea of tents in strained contemplation. Waiting for the word.

Found them. Blizzard hid the real numbers from the Queen. Must be at least half a million wights in the van, more behind them. Advancing on a broad front all along the Wall. Expect them by nightfall. It was signed in a shaky hand by the Lord Commander.

Joffrey felt a crackling cold envelop his bones, spreading from the inside out as he looked up at the Comet again, its mantle of light like fingers caressing the sky. He felt its attention centered on this place. On him. As calm as the breeze over the God's Eye. It was ready, and so was he.

"It's time."

"Your Grace?"

He crumpled the message, "Signal all castles; they're here. Man the Wall."

A second of choked silence passed before the serjeant nodded slowly. "Aye, sire," he said before taking off at a dead run, hollering and shoving men out of the way. Joffrey made his way to elevator four as bells began to toll; small ringing century-bells and deep clanging cohort ones, different pitches of the same cadence. Tents convulsed like raging beehives, spitting out soldiers busy donning furs and armor. Horns began to sound by the scores as knights and lords bellowed for squires, as armsmen congregated below banners filled with fierce beasts rattled by the cold wind. A vortex of will and manpower formed around Joffrey as if by the laws of nature, and he found himself bellowing orders and directing soldiers, the Song swelling with every passing minute. They would stand. They had to.

"We'll hold, Joffrey." Ned must have seen the simmering dread in his face; he placed an armored hand on his shoulder.

"We need a year. Five months at the very least," he said, "We have to get those reserves out of the Crystal Palace." If they resisted enough, they'd force the Comet to commit those reserves or else spend precious power in an escalation.

Elevator four was already winching up, powerful teams of oxen carrying aloft along with scores of knights and soldiers.

"We'll hold," Ned said again, a father reassuring a son in the midst of night; only now the monsters prowling in the dark were real. Ravens were everywhere, cawing as they avoided the ropes of the many elevators making their way up the Wall, whirling in a rain of dark feathers before spreading both east and west, bearing the call; Night comes, rouse the Wall.

The Silver Knights around him breathed slowly, a whisk of both dread and anticipation hanging in the air. Now came the time to fulfill in truth those righteous vows, uttered under the light of the Red Comet and the keen sheen of Brightroar. Their Lord Commander stood as still as a statue chiseled out of bronze and silver, tower shield in one hand and battleaxe in the other. Ser Samwell had placed his warhammer over his shoulder, holding it with one hand. With the other he held hefty tome, reading it intently as they kept rising through the air, the winds growing colder by the minute. Ser Brienne paced in front of the other knights, longsword nestled against her pauldron as she pitched her voice to carry, "If the knight in front of you is killed, then you will step forward and take his place! The man behind you will drag the knight back and sever his spine by the neck!" she said, the guardsmen standing straight but craning their necks so they could see her. "At all times we follow the banner of the Antlered Lion! We will form a silver wall around the King, and slay anything that tries to flank through!" The Silver Knights nodded in unison, proud and filled with a gritty, righteous chivalry so similar and yet so fundamentally different to those Summer Knights he'd seen so long ago, jousting by Renly's pavilion. Beyond Ser Brienne and the knights scores of elevators rose with them; stepped platforms climbing steadily up the Wall.

Joffrey used the time to sink through the eddies of the Purple, centering his mind in the instant. The moment between inhalation an exhalation. He surveyed the depths of the Purple and channeled its fractal power out of his soul, around his body. His armor of distant stars formed beneath his winter furs; a collage of deep space speckled with dots yellowed and white, blue and scarlet. His promise to protect the little flames cast adrift on a lonely dot, sailing through the void. When the elevator shuddered to a stop at the top of the Wall, Joffrey lay encased in plate thrumming with fractal strength, pauldrons of raw copper reflecting a dull green and giving weight to its ethereal form.

The few remaining Brothers of the Night's Watch would've been hard pressed to recognize the top of the Wall. It had been crowned in parapets of timber and stone; peppered with towers and bastions, dotted with murder holes and bonfires. Joffrey strode off the elevator surrounded by a racket of steel and mail as the Silver Knights followed, surveying the defenses with Ned at his side. Guardsmen, levies, armsmen; he'd drilled them well. They carried great racks of fuel and ammunition, manning defensive emplacements filled with all manner of heavy weaponry. Long nosed siege stagrams pointed at the sky in batteries of eight, engineers winding up cranks and aiming at pre-sighted positions. Soldiers spun trebuchet ropes with purposeful heaves, stabbing long rods of wood one after the other before pulling the axles another quarter-turn back. Northeners rammed wickedly serrated bolts into the ballistas peeking over the sheer drop, and crossbows were passed from hand to hand through human chains spanning entire sections.

He reached the bastion that had been built and expanded directly above Castle Black, the so-called Lion's Den, a strange reflection of the Dawn Fort's Stand which had stood upon the Outer Wall. From that raised platform he surveyed the length of the Wall as far as the eye could see, filled with activity as the sun made its way to the west. A secondary parapet had been built behind the main section where the fighting would take place, giving elevation to a second line of crossbowmen so they could loose into the melee without fear of hitting their allies.

"Castle Black manned and ready," said one of his aides. Behind him lay the nerve center from which Joffrey commanded his section of the Wall, from the Night Fort to Sable Hall. Ravens came and went through narrow windows, sending Handmaidens, maesters, and aides scrambling for records and ink.

Sandor had been waiting for him. He gave the big brazier by the middle of the room a healthy distance, circling around it before reaching his side. "The Raiders are ready. They're already armed with dragonglass and taking positions all around the Wall."

"Good," said Joffrey.

"Any sign of Lord Commander Mormont?" asked Ned.

"Not yet," said Sandor, "The ballsy bastard is probably seeing if he can creep in closer and count out the rearguard."

"Queensgate manned and ready!" one of the aides called out. On the walls of the Den were mounted wooden boards marked with the names of the Wall's nineteen castles, all with their troop formations and latest readiness reports tacked on. The most prominently displayed ones were those Joffrey had under his direct command; the seven castles comprising the center of the Wall.

Joffrey leaned on the balcony, "He better make it back soon. We haven't got much time."

"Woodswatch-by-the-Pool manned and ready!"

"Sable Hall manned and ready!"

Joffrey listened to the reports with one ear, watching the sun make its slow rendezvous with the west as the hours flew by. It eventually collided with those distant horizons, turning into a splotch of grey orange of equal intensity to the Red Comet staring from up north. Watching. Waiting.

Tyrion tugged his shoulder, "Message from the Shadowtower; Western Flank manned and ready.

"That's the Wall secured from the Shadowtower to Icemark. Tywin's doing good so far," said Joffrey.

"You were right to put him there," Tyrion said reluctantly.

"Hm." Joffrey blinked at his uncle, "What are you doing here?"

He waved the slip of parchment he'd taken from a raven, "Helping keep this whole thing from falling apart."

"Don't be obtuse, uncle. You know what's coming."

His eyes took a defiant glint, "I've got my armor on, as you can see. Oiled it just for the occasion."

Joffrey sighed, "Yes but-"

"But what?" said Tyrion, "What was that you said an hour ago? 'Every man must do his duty?'"

"I didn't say that-"

"You whispered it. Must have been Stannis' ghost."

"Uncle-"

"Uncle nothing!" he said, eyes blazing, "'If Westeros is to survive every man woman and child must do his part!' You've said it a hundred times! Well, you need me here to oversee this gaggle of failed acolytes, senile maesters, and fretting ladies still dreaming of true love! Else you'll say 'Oakenshield sally out' and instead the Nightfort will go Last Defiance."

This is important to him, Joffrey realized, before mentally slapping his face. He could almost hear Sansa's voice, You don't think?! He ran the gamut of possible retorts before slumping his shoulders with a huff, "Fine. Its just… If something happened…."

Tyrion smiled sadly, looking at the others, "What about Lord Stark?"

A long sigh, wish he was away too. "Half the North is manning the center; they'd rebel without him here. He better stay in the Den though."

Ned's icy facade took an amused glint. Not bloody likely…

"And Robar?"

"I need the Silver Knights organized from here-"

"And leave my King alone during the opening hours of the Second War for Dawn?" Ser Robar didn't look amused, he seemed downright insulted. Stupid Vale honor…

"Sandor?" said Tyrion.

"He's the only one the Raiders fear besides me, but he should still be-"

Tyrion shook his head, cutting him off. He took Joffrey's hand with his own, "Nephew- We're all in this together; need to be. You saw to that. We can't avoid the danger of what's coming anymore than you can snap your fingers and order the Comet begone." He smiled again, looking at Ned and Sandor and Robar, "We need to be here. We want to. Because-"

"You can't do it alone," said Sandor, smile grim under the light of the bonfires soaring higher with every log fed.

"Message from Eastwatch-by-the-Sea!" cried someone, "Eastern Flank manned and ready!"

"And that's Legate Snow supporting my point," said Tyrion.

Joffrey sighed, filled with silent companionship as the hour grew closer, tension filling the air bit by bit as the fires grew taller. He could feel the breathing of a hundred thousand souls with him, a chorus in the Song swelling in life with every soldier manning his post, with every Handmaiden reaching her aid station. He'd brought them here, he'd brought them all here on the promise of life and unity… and now the time came to defend that flame, to become the protectors, the watchers of stars.

We're ready, thought Joffrey, standing tall with pride but filled with dread, the light of the Red Comet patient, somber, constant. We're ready, he whispered, but so was the Cycle.

-: PD :-

When the Red Comet lay undiminished in the night sky, the sun long buried and the moon but a tiny sliver in the distance, the first White Walker emerged from the Haunted Forest. Even at such a distance, his eye was drawn to the glimmer of its crystalline sword and the smoky depths of its icy armor, hiding amorphous shapes. Joffrey felt as if it was looking right at him, unperturbed by the thousand bonfires lining the Wall in infernal splendor.

Whispers of Night King began to spread amongst the ranks as Joffrey locked eyes with the distant being, feeling for the solid Silence around it like a blind man groping for a nightstand. It felt slightly different from the other Walkers now emerging from the forest; a cavalcade of Winter's chivalry armed and armored in ice. The Silence in the Song threaded through it, a nexus among the other platforms.

"Joffrey," whispered Ned, leaning on the battlements, "Is that their leader? Perhaps if we…"

He shook his head, "I fought something similar, way back at the Dawn Fort. A Commander-Walker of some sort, carrying a big hammer. Its death might have slowed the others down a bit, I'm not sure. By then I was too far gone to really notice the difference."

Ned sighed, "A pity. Robert would've loved seeing you end things like that."

Joffrey grimaced, "If only it were that simple."

More Walkers made their way out of the forest, facing the entirety of the Wall as far the eye could see. A quick word was sent to 'Grandmaester Pycelle', but the old man that walked up the top of the tower lacked the Grandmaester's constant shaking for all that he bared his face. "It is indeed as you suspect, Your Grace," said Pycelle's voice and Marwyn's soul, eyes white and murky, "The dead face the Wall entire, their ranks so deep even I can't see beyond."

The banners atop the Wall fluttered under the increasingly heavy winds, red legion numerals and noble heraldry alike shivering under the deepening cold. "The entire Wall…" Joffrey whispered, "They won't try to crack a breach."

"Could they have the numbers to simply overwhelm us?" said Ned.

"We've more than' a hundred thousand men atop this hunk of ice," said Sandor, "Mormont said half a million wights. That's five to one odds, plenty goon enough for a siege."

"This isn't a normal siege. They've got wights and walkers," said Tyrion.

"And we've got the Wall," said Sandor.

Ned frowned, his grip bone-white on sheathed Ice, "That's just the van though. We don't know what strength they've got hidden behind those blizzards."

The discussion picked up in intensity. "Mormont must know, where the hells is he?"

"We should have the Maesters join forces and try to glimpse beyond-"

Joffrey clenched his teeth, tapping fingers at a beat with the Song, growing strained under the gathering silence within the edges of the Haunted Forest. The Red Comet shimmered softly, unperturbed as his inner circle kept arguing. Joffrey imagined its voice, a gravel of crushing and reforming crystal devoid of emotion and tunneled by Silence. 'Two can play the waiting game,' he imagined it saying, massing and reanimating troops with the calm confidence of a veteran cyvasse player. It had been busy, his ancient enemy. Just as busy as Joffrey, preparing for their destined clash.

His voice cut through the noise, "It doesn't matter; whatever numbers they have, the Wall must stand," he said as they turned to look at him, "Lord Tarly and the Second Line can reinforce local breaches and cycle troops out of the front, but if the Wall outright falls even his host won't be enough to hold them back." Determined nods and deep sights gathered around him; they knew the stakes well. The North was garrisoned along three main lines holding the might of the Seven Kingdoms, with the first -and strongest- manning the Wall itself. Provided enough time, each line could send reinforcements north in exchange for the wounded, and absorb localized breaches or raids that pierced the line above it. Such an awesome defense couldn't make up for the brutal realities of geography though; the North was simply too big. If the Wall was outright taken by the enemy, the nearest choke point suitable enough for another stand worth taking would be the Neck.

If the Wall falls, the North falls with it, he thought, and shivered. He thought of the Umbers ale in hand. Of Wintefell's cooks always so frazzled by the King's arrival. Of the quays of White Harbor teeming with fishwives and laborers as they unloaded supplies. All those people, dead or turned refugees.

Joffrey took a deep breath, his starry plate crisscrossed by fractals. Over my dead body. He felt Sansa's hand caressing his cheek, leagues away overseeing politics and logistics from Winterfell, the knot tying the supply lines of the Seven Kingdoms into one. Together, he heard her whisper.

The Battle for the Wall began when the mass of the dead emerged from the Haunted Forest like an ocean swell, a horizon spanning tidal wave churning with bone and steel and bronze. They scuttled on stumps; rags of bone held together only by malignant Silence. They ran as tribes of dead hunters, walrus tusks gleaming on the ends of their spears. They charged like warriors of old, tall and straight, legends clad in bronze and gathered for one final war. All along the stretch of no-man's land they charged, and within that mighty swell of undeath rode giants with loping gaits, churning snow aside like runaway ships. Their frowning skulls still wore caps thick with mammoth fur, and within their rotten frames they carried wights like limpets clinging to a corpse. As that massive Army of Winter devoured the distance between Forest and Wall, they shrieked a horrible battlecry of the damned; a shrill note eerie with pain and despair, a gasping song of ending. The giants echoed with cries long and deep; choking bellows whose bass grasped forth like a physical hand and crushed the wind out of Joffrey's lungs.

All along the Wall men shuddered back under that terrifying blast, that song of despair. Their faces cringed with fear, pale and weak under the light of the bonfires, bleached of all color. The very will to live strained under that charge, a devouring emptiness that was all-encompassing Silence.

Joffrey stood atop the crenelations hefting a ray of shimmering Valyrian steel crossed by the Purple, antlers of stars pointing at the sky as a touch of the Silver Lion's roar tingled in his throat. "For the Living!!!" he bellowed, a fierce cry echoing all along the Wall and beyond, beyond the fabric and through the Song and the souls of men; a roar of life and love and pure unbridled savage defiance. Westeros roared with him, a hundred thousand voices screaming at the dark, and from that mighty challenge rained fire. Hard clinks of wood on iron heralded an orchestra of sizzling ropes, scores at first, then hundreds as enormous trebuchets waved their arms at the dark horizon. A thousand fireballs leapt from the towering heights of the Wall and joined the Comet up in the sky, a red constellation that hung from the void before falling like meteors within the sea of the dead. Their impact thundered against the earth, crushing through wights, tearing chunks off giants and leaving them aflame as they bellowed agony at the heavens now red with the fires of men.

Joffrey lowered Brightroar, "We are the Watchers of Stars," he whispered at the Comet, aglow with malignant scarlet, "We are the Masters of our Fate."

"Fire!!!" bellowed the Hound, his face disfigured by the red. Siege stagrams ignited, fizzling screams dominated the Wall before giving way to deep roars as they tore off their mounts with savage fury. They drew contrails of smoke between the stars, entire flights of them crossing the void in waves as their roars pitched to a fever high. They reached the heaving mass of the undead and through orange flashes transformed themselves into thundering fountains of dirt; huge plumes of fire that tore wights apart and rattled the chests of those watching above. The explosions swept away entire groups as if slapped by the hands of titanic gods, leaving gaping holes in the mass of grey that were quickly refilled.

That churning mass of screaming bone absorbed everything they threw at it, a holocaust of fire and steel devouring them for every step taken. The orgy of destruction intensified the closer they got to the Wall, fire and sweat against death and bone as ballistas added their cries to the battle and warhorns thundered across the castles of the Wall. A heady trance caressed Joffrey's mind as he found himself between his men, Ned at his side bellowing orders and Sandor tossing soldiers at jammed siege engines. This was the war he'd been made to fight. Not of man against man, but life against end. Song against Silence. He walked amidst snarling ballistas spewing flaming pots and serrated bolts, levies of a hundred noble houses working in unison as they cranked winches and pulled levers with strained huffs. He sidestepped sighing counterweights as trebuchets let loose, wood crackling wearily under the strain. Centurions bellowed for crossbows under the light of the bonfires tickling the darkness, eyes crazed and scared and righteous. Westeros had answered the call. The Night would not triumph. They would not give in.

He stared down the battlements as the sea of death reached the foot of the Wall and began its climb, covering its severe height inch by inch, a grey tide of climbing limbs devouring the distance in the span between breaths.

"Scythes!" he roared, Brightroar bright-red under the clash of Comet and fire, "Ready scythes!!!" he said as the damned shrieked again. "Now!!!"

With a deep and crackling rumble, the Wall let drop a score twin-bladed monsters made of wrought iron. Many of them were the huge anvils used by Ibbenese whaling ships, donated by the City so that all may live. They were propelled by gravity's harsh pull, their fall drawing pendulums on the Wall before swiping the climbing dead away. Their passage over the Wall's surface created an avalanche of ice and snow that rained down in their wake, a man made blizzard buffeting the wights caught below and making them loose their grip, burying them at the foot of the great structure. Besides Joffrey a dozen men heaved as one as they readied for another swing, twisting the great wooden crank that controlled but one of the scythes, but he knew with a glance that they wouldn't make it in time.

Snarling wights scuttled over the battlements as one, falling on the living as a raging swarm with no regard for itself. Clawed hands tore at throats and eyes, a tide of bone clashing against a wall of steel. Huge tower shields covered rows upon rows of halberds, the soldiers of the Seven Kingdoms bellowing back their own warcry as they sought to stand in the face of overwhelming ice. Joffrey would not see them fight alone.

Through the nonstop cackle of crossbows and the eye-watering stench of burnt firepowder, he emerged from the smoke of leaping stagrams a twin-wielded killer. Sword and hammer, his mind at ease with his soul, he lent his strength entire to the fight for the living. The ordered volleys of the beginning gave way to a disorganized stream of fire, and under their light Joffrey led one unending charge up and down the center, from Sable Hall to the Nightfort and back, tearing wights apart at the head of the Silver Knights. They were carried by a divine wind, their sight a surge of heart and strength for the fighting men, the many banners of the Antlered Lion snarling at the night sky and following in his wake. Joffrey's mind entered into a state akin to meditation, locked in a timeless dimension of his own as he parried and struck, dodged and maimed. Encased in his armor of distant stars, he was the tip of the spear that tore through wight-hordes frenzied by the blood of men, a juggernaut sailing through grey seas filled with teeth and bone. In his mind's eye he accounted casualties lost and replaced, breaches torn and plugged, orders given by runner and drummer. They lost towers and scythe-bastions, and they retook them, and then they lost them again. The tides of war swept them back and forth like a shadowcat shaking its prey, a tempest of sound and blood that would not relent as night gave to day. The fallen were dragged by their grim companions, stripped and tossed to the bonfires rattling under the wind. The wounded were carried away and tended by the Handmaidens, trains of sleds bearing them away and carrying forth replacements that were never enough. Flights of ravens sent couriers running, finding him amids his Knights, drinking water and munching down what hardtack he could before jumping back into the fray. Increasingly, they found him napping between skirmishes, bleary eyed and heavy-headed. Reports turned grimmer with every passing hour, the toil of a day unending hammering his wits as he tried to make sense of the news. All along the Wall battle raged without end, the wights piling up as fast as they could kill them. Oakenshield was buckling, Sable Hall was burning. From Tywin's command to the west the dead were trying to flank through the river, and from Jon's flank to the east the Wall had been breached at Torches. One of the sled trains carrying reinforcements had disappeared, and it wasn't the first.

They have to stop eventually, he thought as he tore a wight's head from its body, using hammer and sword like pliers. He struck the chest of another one, slipped on something and fell on one knee. The descending axe would've struck his head if Ser Robar hadn't covered him with his tower shield. Growing sloppy, he thought as his Lord Commander struck the offending wight down with tired efficiency. He accepted Ser Brienne's hand as she pulled him up, and blinked at the setting sun. Night again? The storm clouds that had been gathering to the North were now charging for the Wall; an armada of ships made of dense alabaster.

"Your Grace, you have to rest," she told him, her vambrace leaking blood from an earlier wound.

"No time. The Wall's nearing collapse," he told her after taking a gulp of air, the hair at the nape of his neck standing on edge.

She smacked him aside just in time to avoid a grasping thing emerging from the Wall's edge; a huge hand bigger than his chest. It grabbed her instead. The dead giant hefted her aloft, a misshapen head peaking from the Wall and leering at him with a half torn jaw. Robar and Samwell dragged him back as he screamed Brienne's name, another wave of wights surging from between the crenelations and slamming into the Knights protecting their retreat. Steel groaned within the giant's hand, Brienne giving out a shuddering scream as she was slowly crushed. It looked ready to jump from the battlements into the line of Silver Knights before Brienne hefted her longsword; a flick of silver illuminated by the setting sun. "Tarth!!!" she screamed with bloody lips, ramming her sword up the giant's torn jaw. They fell backwards as one, a blur swallowed by the crenelations.

He was carried back to the Den, filled with the crying wounded and the exhausted living. His standard bearers raced up the stairs to place the Antlered Lion atop the roof, Silver Knights securing the doors. "They're killing us," he whispered to Ser Robar, who had an ugly gash down his cheek.

His Lord Commander flinched as a Handmaiden stabbed him with a needle, brutally efficient. "How many more?" he asked between gritted teeth.

The Silence was thick over the Wall. In the Haunted Forest. Behind the blizzards. "Too many," Joffrey whispered, the Song rattling under the blows of winter, its melody growing distant with every death, every victory of silence.

He dozed off into a dark and deep slumber, until an insistent shaking brought him up wielding Brightroar, Tyrion's face desperate as he leaned close. His crimson plate had several dents in it, silvery wounds dotting the pauldrons. Had there been a fight in here without him waking up? A savage wind howled outside the Den, frost coating the shutters; the blizzard had arrived. "What's the good news?" he asked him, trying to smile but failing.

"The Eastern Flank is collapsing," said Tyrion, voice subdued, "Jon retook Torches, but the dead delayed him long enough to break through Rimegate in turn. No word from Oberyn yet."

Joffrey sighed, looking at the ceiling. "That'll put pressure on Sable Hall."

"And let loose more wights into our rear."

"Lord Tarly will have to deal with them. Any ravens from Sable Hall?" That castle was the next in line from Rimegate, and formally under Joffrey's responsibility at the center.

"The blizzard's done a number on our ravens, but we should- hold on." Tyrion nodded at the aide, receiving a slip of paper in return. He let out a long breath as he read it. "Its from them. They say Dornish wights are attacking their right flank, charging across the top of the Wall." A slow, pulsing shot of heat dragged itself through Joffrey's veins. Half of Sable Hall had caught fire yesterday; their defenses were already strained. If they fell apart and the wights struck Woodswatch-by-the-Pool in turn…

"Gods be damned; we could loose the entire Wall if they carry that momentum here," said Joffrey. Snowballing on Oakenshield and descending on Castle Black itself. With the center gone and the King dead or missing the entire defense would collapse before Oberyn's wight could whisper 'rout'. Think Joffrey, think. The thrumming pain covering his head made that hard. "What have we got in reserve down at Castle Black? The Fourth Cohort?"

"You sent them to Deep Lake five hours ago."

"Fuck, you're right." How could he forget such an important thing? "Lord Umber's men?"

Tyrion tilted his head left and right, "They're there alright, but they're shaken as all hell and not liable to move."

"What happened?"

"One of the wounded they were securing to a sled wasn't breathing after all. It tore the Smalljon's face out."

Great. The Smalljon flashed in Joffrey's mind, laughing riotously before he buried it in a box deep within, a keen pain in his chest. "And Lord Umber?"

"We don't know. If he's alive he's still somewhere around the Nightfort." He cracked a gallows-smile, "Probably dueling a giant or something."

Joffrey took a deep breath, "Alright, someone else needs to get them moving. Tell Ned-" he trailed off, where was he anyway?

"He's still at Queensgate. His runner said they were pushing the northmen there hard."

Old Gods give me strength. The Umbers needed a face they knew -and preferably respected- if they were going to race off to the east and through a blizzard no less. His eyes tore through the Den in search of another northern lord, any lord before settling on Tyrion's grim smile, waiting patiently. Oh no.

His uncle had always been faster than him.

"What about all that speech about needing you here?"

"Still true," said Tyrion, "But you need Sable Hall more."

"Uncle-"

He clasped Joffrey's arm, "I can move them. I know those men; I've drunk with well near half of them anyway." His smile turned determined, confident, "I can get them to Sable Hall in time. We'll hold the Wall."

Joffrey let out a pained sigh, clasping his shoulder in turn and embracing him. He'd never be like Tywin, denying Tyrion's will out of fear of loosing control. Joffrey sought to control as much as he humanly could, but this war was beyond even him. He had to let go. Let go and trust. "You get back here alive. You hear me?"

"A broken knight keeps his promises," he whispered back, tearing a sad smile out of Joffrey. It was only after Tyrion had left him that Joffrey realized he hadn't promised anything at all.

Cheeky bastard, he thought with a deep sigh. It wasn't enough to ward off the chill steadily taking over his heart.

-: PD :-

The siege of the Dawn Fort had been a calculated affair; a long duel of swarms, probes, heavy units and attrition expertly juggled by the Red Comet in order to minimize losses and maximize death. It had been a subtle and conniving endeavor, slowly choking the life out of the defenders over the course of months.

The Battle for the Wall made for a jarring contrast. For every hour the living stood there and fought, Joffrey felt the Comet gather its attention further still. Wave after wave of wights broke upon the armies of men, replaced by an endless reserve made up of generations of the dead. It wanted the Wall taken, and it wanted it taken now. Never in living memory or written history had there been a battle such as this, and never in his immortal lives had Joffrey seen the likes of this carnage. Heroes worthy of legend rose within the span of hours, and hours later their very memory was extinguished as armies were slaughtered to a man, leaving no witnesses behind. Time lost all meaning as there was only war, and still the Cycle threw everything it had at him; a brutal pounding relentless in its goal, a single minded butcher beyond mortal ken. Not only wights but Walkers began to join the assaults, each wave carrying more of them and reaping a bloody harvest with crystal swords and lances pale under moonlight. Each time Raiders and strike-cohorts fought them back with fire and dragonglass, and each time they paid a bloodier toll for it. Joffrey led the charge against every incursion, Stars roaring by his side as they slammed into the Comet's pawns, and the Silver Knights too payed the price.

"I see now its face. I begin to understand," said Marwyn, face slack as he gazed at the Comet from the top of the Den. He was sitting on a wooden chair, covered by a thick blanket. "Its scale. Its power. Its will," he said, dread choking the words out of him. "Its single minded will," he whispered. Never before had he seen Marwyn so terrified.

Joffrey took a long gulp from his waterskin, leaning on the balcony as he tried not to fall asleep, "You see now why I did what I did?"

"It won't be enough. You can lie to them but never to me," said Marwyn. He was shivering, worst than Pycelle ever had, "It's a hole in reality. A flimsy cover. Its quiet will spread," he said, voice turning to a whisper, "It will drown us all in silence."

"It will try," said Joffrey, gazing at his distant nemesis, undiminished under sunlight. Its aura had grown as the battle progressed, the cosmic winds now rattling it rather than tugging it. He took another long gulp, then frowned. "Archmaester?"

Pycelle was dead, face locked in a silent horror, his eyes glassy.

As night covered the sky for the third time and the battle kept raging over the Wall, Joffrey was wracked by shivers thick with the Comet's gaze; Ned didn't have to wake him up. His icy demeanor looked close to crumbling, a score Winterfell men checking their weapons obsessively. "Runner from Lord Terrick said there's spiders climbing the Wall to the west," he said, unsheathing Ice.

"Let's go," said Joffrey, a group of Silver Knights forming up around them as Sandor took the lead; Ser Robar was missing. A cold foreboding was filling his bones, a certainty of true death crystallizing in his breath. Outside the Den, the blizzard had hit the Wall at full tilt. The fighting was carried out under a grey, snowy veil, the sounds muffled and distant, the night sky oppressive. Crews reloaded their siege weapons amids the fighting, hammering at mechanisms to beat the frost away, and beating at the wights when they got too close. The bonfires shivered under gales thick with snow, carrying the stench of roasted flesh. The dead of Westeros were burning.

"Lord Hightower!" bellowed a knight as he crashed against Sandor, "Have you seen Lord Hightower?!"

"No!" he said, shouldering him aside, trying to make way as the line of guardsmen to their right surged backwards, almost crushing them against the stone parapet on the other side.

"Push them!" roared a serjeant, "Push them back!"

Joffrey let out long, steamy breaths as he tried to maintain the death grip on Sandor's arm, squeezing through gaps and over fallen men. His standard bearers followed behind, the Antlered Lion flying ragged as arrows zipped above them, warhorns echoing in the distance. "They're surging all along the line!" someone shouted, "They're coming in force!"

Sandor led him further into a secured section of the Wall, navigating around soldiers carrying empty stretchers slick with blood. Here the people plowed through their food with somnolent haste, clustering near covered fires as they tried to thaw out. Many had their eyes closed, and Joffrey wasn't sure some of them weren't dead. Grim-faced centurions oversaw the rotations, and more than one soldier cried out in panic as their turn came to jump back into the fray. The prospect had them shaking in fright; one of them was hyperventilating as he clutched the floor like a cat hanging from a ledge.

Joffrey pushed down the weariness and the despair into a tightly locked box, straightening his stride and pitching his voice to carry, "Stand tall, men! Stand tall for the land we call home!"

"The King!" they cried as they saw him, "The King!"

He waved with Brightroar, "Stand in fury! Stand in wrath!" he roared, "This storm is not the end, but our beginning!"

"Westeros!" shouted a gaunt-faced guardsman, his arm gone below the elbow. "Westeros!" shouted the soldiers in steel plate, the cooks by the fires and the levies with their longbows, "Westeros!!!" they called as they stood up, the sleepers opening their eyes and crying out.

"Summer will come again!" Joffrey roared, tears in his eyes, "I promise you! We will live to see the dawn again!!!"

A scythe rumbled somewhere below, the Wall trembling. "Here they come!"

"Crossbows! Crossbows!!!"

"Fight for your loved ones!" Joffrey bellowed as the cooks picked up mallets and the soldiers formed a shieldwall. "Fight for Summer's Kiss! Fight for all that we love on this green earth!!!"

"They're here!" someone screamed.

"Brace!!!" said Joffrey, slamming behind one of the shieldbearers as others slammed behind him in turn. The ravenous dead broke on the shieldwall like waves crashing against steel reefs; a swell of grey burying the first line and jumping atop each other. Sandor swung his two hander with a snarling heave, bisecting a wight in mid-air. Ned ripped one open with Ice, and another landed straight on Joffrey's blade, burying itself to the hilt. It shrieked and snarled as its bony claws drew a line of pain down his chin, blue eyes aglow with undeath. Joffrey gave out a desperate roar as he slammed his antlers into its skull, cracking it to pieces as he tore them out again. The whole line buckled back, straining under the onslaught of winter as Joffrey drew arcs of light with Brightroar, cutting and smashing left and right with hammer and sword. Each wight he brought down heralded two in return, the faces of the dead multiplying by the second. Hunters and cannibals, soldiers and fishermen, they formed a never ending menagerie of the slain that surged yet again; they were not even waves anymore, just a constant stream of undead that must have charged atop each other to reach the Wall at this rate. The Comet was throwing everything it had at them.

"We're cut off!" shouted a centurion before a blade of crystalline ice emerged from his chestplate and splattered blood on Joffrey's face. The man looked at it quizzically before collapsing forward and Joffrey blinked, the Walker that killed him taking a step forward and bringing down his blade again. He parried the blade as ice screeched, hefting it aside before slashing Brightroar down it's shoulder. The Walker exploded into a rain of glittering ice, revealing more of its brethren behind, marching in silent lockstep with easy strides. Obsidian tipped arrows left holes in their ranks, but more of them climbed the Wall in turn, their blades reaping the lives of his men like wheat.

"Attack them from two sides!" bellowed Joffrey, decapitating one before ducking below a blade and ramming Brightroar through the chest of another. It howled, its breath freezing Joffrey's eyebrows before turning into mist. "Pierce them with dragonglass! Don't let them mass together!"

"We have to push through to the rest of the Second Cohort!" said Sandor, working tirelessly with his longsword and a bevy obsidian daggers strapped to his belt, "Make for that tower!" He was right; they had to link up with the rest of the defense or they'd be defeated in detail.

"On me!" said Joffrey, splitting a wight with Brightroar, tearing the jaw off another with his mace, "On me, Westeros!!!" he bellowed as they tried to make way through the enemy, trying to reach the rest of the defenders. The blades of the Walkers worked up and down between the blizzard, flashing from within gales of snow and rending flesh with brutal precision. Lines of halberdiers were overwhelmed as the wights piled atop them, screeching and tearing with bony hands slick with blood. It was madness. Chaos. The prelude of Silence now approaching.

"Northmen!" bellowed Ned, "Protect the King!" he said, Ice splitting a Walker by the waist. He'd never seen Ned like this; Eddard the Warlord, protecting what was his with cold determination. The man that marched south to avenge his family. "Alyn! Line abreast! Cover our right flank!" he called, bringing down Ice and jamming it against a Walker's skull before it exploded into misty ice.

The Winterfell men with Ned formed a shield to their right, but it was up to Joffrey and the Silver Knights to make way, leading the limping soldiers and the ragged levies behind them. "To the tower!" bellowed Joffrey, "Slay everything in your way!"

"The Kingdom!" called the Silver Knights, clustering around him in a bevy of battleaxes and shields gleaming with the light of the bonfires, "The Song in the Kingdom!" They were like mountains of steel, making way through tempestuous tides crashing from every side, the dead now beyond numbers. That swarm was relentless, axes and spears denting plate and scratching mail, an unending tide of bone powered by End as they fell one by one. Even mountains can be ground down.

Their desperate charge slowed to a grind. More and more wights breached the wall formed my Winterfell's men, through the Silver Knights, ending on the tip of Joffrey's hammer as he batted them aside. Ned was back-to-back with him, Sandor growing distant as the tides of war separated them into two groups. "Sandor! Get back here!" he bellowed, stretching a hand out impotently as more wights got in the way and the Hound's face was buried by the tide of bone. They were split off further still as ordered ranks gave way to a generalized melee, command breaking down as the wights swarmed everywhere. Joffrey and Ned were twin rays of Valyrian steel shattering Walkers and sundering wights. They worked as one, Ice's longer reach creating circles of action where Joffrey struck like a shadowcat, Brightroar darting it to tear chunks out of the monsters trying to close the distance. Stars roared to the dark heavens as he slammed into groups of the dead; a whirlwind of claws and teeth renting them apart. More and more of their companions were replaced by blue-eyed corpses, the banner of the Antlered Lion torn and ragged as the standard bearer cried out, a wight running him through with a dagger from behind. There were too many of them. Too many.

The burly brother of the Night's Watch by their side stumbled, and Ned steadied him with a hand. "Lord Commander Mormont?" he said in stunned surprise.

He looked almost human. Black furs over armor. White beard speckled with frost. Eyes murky blue. Its mouth opened wide in a hideous snarl as it slipped Longclaw through Ned's armpit, right into his chest.

Joffrey gave a savage scream as he tore its head open with Brightroar, the former leader of the Night's Watch collapsing backwards with a sigh. He felt as if he'd just been hit by a stagram as Ned took Longclaw out of his chest, the Valyrian steel dull under the buffeting storm. The Lord of the North gave him a tired smile, blood trickling from his lips. Joffrey grabbed him by his furs with hysterical strength, and Ned grabbed him back, making silent noises with his mouth. They held each other for a timeless instant as war raged around them, the screams of men and the crash of rending ice growing muted, absent. Ned's knees gave out, and Joffrey accompanied him to the cold, cold ground. His vision turned into a pinprick, his chest crushed by an unstoppable weight. He couldn't think anymore. He was in a sort of distanced state, an automaton whose thoughts consisted of a single, droning timbre buzzing inside his skull. Dumb hands went up to Ned's face and then down to the hideous wound on his chest, not knowing what to do, fluttering to and fro, his heartbeat so loud it was like a gong slamming into his skull. He found himself cradling Ned's head, obsessively cleaning the snow out of his face.

"What? What was that?" he said as he leaned close.

Ned's mouth moved again, slowly, inaudible over the sounds of battle now reemerging from the void.

"Ned? What is it? What is it?" Joffrey whispered, leaning closer, placing his ear against his mouth.

"Son," whispered Ned. He blinked once, exhaling a final breath of steam before laying still. His echo in the Song spoke of Weirwood leaves and silent strength, fierce loyalty encased in honor. A stern leader, a reluctant warlord, a loving father.

Joffrey stumbled upright. He gritted his teeth, tears crawling down his cheeks and freezing in place as he hefted Ice. With a single, heart-rending scream he brought the blade down and severed Ned's spine, driving the blade through his neck. He would be no puppet of Winter. Son, he thought, looking at the wreck of his body. Son, he thought, stumbling through the battlefield. He cut a wight's arm with Ice, and sheared the top of another's skull with the back swing. Dazed, he parried a mace from a reanimated armsman, taking a step forward and slamming Ice's pommel through its eye socket. The wights swarmed every man still breathing, driving bone knives through necks or eye-slits, burying the heavily armored in a pile of undeath. There were too many of them. Far too many. Soon the wights were packed tight around him, choking him with their sheer weight. Joffrey's sight began to dim within that swirling mass, a chorus of decomposed skulls shrieking around him as they tried to grab his head with torn hands. An axe struck his helmet and left him dazed, gasping for breath, the banner of the Antlered Lion stomped on the ground, the fabric torn and scratched where the stars had been. The Watchers of Stars, he thought, the dead hissing in his ear.

"The King!" bellowed Samwell. His warhammer peeked over the mass of the battlefield, his voice unmistakable, "Save the King! Break through to King Joffrey!!!"

Wildfire detonated within the souls of his men, it was the only way Joffrey could describe it. Hundreds of voices picked up the cry, frenzied beyond reason, a guttural bellow taking over the top of the Wall, "THE KING! TO THE KING!!!" they roared, a behemoth awakened. The tide of battle swung back with such brutal momentum that it left echoes in the Song, reverberations carried by a tempest of halberds warhammers and fisted gauntlets that churned through the dead with visceral outrage. The skull of the wight trying to bite his cheek off exploded with soundless intensity, a mace tearing through the one to his left. The dead shrieked silently around him before being swept over by a tide of terrifying humanity, sweat and blood and rage cupping him close. Joffrey felt as if carried by a bed of feathers, faces gazing from above as they rushed him across the Wall. So many faces; young and old, men and women, friends and strangers. People. His people. They'd saved him. Above their determined faces shone the Red Comet, its halo of light waving to the ground. It surged without sound, a scarlet mantle which grew to encompass the sky entire.

No, he thought as ice gripped his heart, It's too soon. His soul shivered as the Red Comet reached for the Wall with many arms made of light, insubstantial, a terrible thrumming coursing through the air. The people around him looked up in sudden fright, their faces bright red under skies aglow with fierce scarlet.

No, you cheating fuck. No. Soldiers clasped their ears tight as they screamed, an unbearable pressure building up in his skull. The very Wall trembled under that pressure, a rising crescendo on the edge of something terrible. For the first time, he gazed at the face of the Comet as it escalated: Red lines of geometric precision drew themselves over the northern skies as if seeking to anchor a great force, a searing bundle of strings like a web holding a spider in its center. Joffrey was rendered speechless as the Song gave a painful tug and the Comet opened itself like a budding flower; a heavy lidded eye swiveling open. The Red Comet exposed its crystalline innards for all the North to see; an eternal depth filled with fractals working like clockwork, structured by a forest of transcendental pillars familiar, so familiar. Joffrey stared at the dark mirror of his soul in awe; a twisted thing so divergent in purpose, yet so similar in construction. No wonder it could subsume him with but a touch; they were cousins. Brothers. Joffrey found himself on his feet, taking a deep breath as the light of the Red Comet turned night into day; a scarlet dawn rendering his people in stark relief as they covered their eyes and the hideous light sought to Silence every living soul in a thousand leagues. Was this how Walkers were made?

If they were brothers, could he do the opposite? Through the Song instead of Silence? Together, someone whispered. He felt for his own soul, that sea of fractals and Purple. Instead of imagining a set of stout armor, he channeled the eddies of the Purple throughout the beats of the Song; the souls of his people, twisting fractals emerging into reality, a mirror to the red Silence brought about by the Comet. The Watchers of Stars, he thought as the Comet escalated again, savage red tearing at his soul as the Wall shook under the strain. They might have been brothers, but the Comet held almost-infinite reserves of Power carefully preserved through the eons; no match for the nimble strength of the Purple. He was not strong enough, and by opening himself thus he had served himself at the Comet's feet. He would be absorbed, like countless iterations before him.

But now Sansa stood by his side, lifting her arms wide, holding back the titanic weight behind the escalation as Joffrey breathed again. He stretched for that inner fractal core, that crystalline mechanism so similar to his soul. He was certain he could navigate it like he had the Purple so many times before, breathing deep beneath the Weirwood in Winterfell, Ned's eyes solemn and caring. Can I end it now? Can I touch you, brother? Their clashing wills created an earthquakes above the Wall, making it hiss through screams of steam as whole sections began to shift. Joffrey glimpsed many truths in that timeless clash, complexities without context he couldn't yet begin to understand, the inner workings of something beyond time and space.

Its reaction was immediate. It withdrew in a flash of searing light, away from the living and thus the greater weight behind the Song. It closed its shell, day turning back to night as the Red Comet reassumed its usual form. It would not continue the fight. It didn't need to. "Joffrey," said Sansa; a mirage in queenly regalia staring at the Wall in terrified awe. He followed her gaze and saw soldiers trying and failing to stand on their feet, the shaking too strong for them to keep their balance. The ground shifted beneath his feet; the clash had torn something out of the Wall, boiled off some source of inner strength. He could hear rumblings from both sides, avalanches of ice crumbling down the main structure. An aid station filled with Handmaidens tending to the wounded tore itself free as Joffrey watched in stunned shock, the ground giving way and letting the whole tower fall down the southern side. Enormous cracks snaked through Wall, devouring knights and guardsmen as their screams were lost within the churning ice.

The Wall gave out under him, collapsing unto itself with a titanic sigh and swallowing him whole.

-: PD :-