Your comments, reviews, and votes really help me out so much and they make me super motivated to keep working on this story!
Pat*eon : CaveLeather
Game of Thrones: The Dragon Who Remembers
Game of Thrones: What Must Be Done
Joffrey didn't dare disobey Lynn's orders.
He didn't even dare to entertain a single rebellious thought.
He mechanically stripped off his filthy, blood-stained clothes and stepped into the heavy iron tub, letting the freezing water entirely submerge his body.
He stayed submerged for an impossibly long time, scrubbing until his skin was raw, pale, and deeply wrinkled before finally climbing out.
His attending squires and servants were already waiting outside the door.
They kept their heads bowed, absolutely terrified to look at the King's completely mangled, bruised face. They worked quickly and silently, dressing him in the extravagant, heavy gold tunic that symbolized the absolute authority of the crown.
When he was fully dressed.
Joffrey turned back to face the polished bronze mirror.
A hideous, bruised monster wearing a golden crown stared blankly back at him.
No. He was the monster.
The Small Council chamber.
The absolute second Joffrey crossed the threshold, every single lord in the room instinctively dropped their gaze to the floor.
Nobody dared to look directly at the King's face.
His face was beaten so severely that his eyes were practically swollen shut.
Who did this?
Who in the Seven Kingdoms would actually dare to brutally beat the King?
The exact same terrifying question exploded in every single person's mind, but not a single one of them had the balls to ask it out loud.
Joffrey completely ignored their terrified silence.
He marched straight to the head of the table and sat down.
Lynn, the newly appointed Hand of the King, stood casually right next to him.
He was dressed in a sleek, pitch-black leather tunic, a faint, completely unreadable smile playing on his lips as he quietly observed the room.
Cersei was also present.
She was dressed entirely in mourning black. Her usually flawless makeup was gone, leaving her looking perfectly, authentically haggard. She played the role of the devastated, grieving mother who had just lost her sweet boy to absolute perfection.
However, whenever her gaze briefly swept over her dead-eyed, robotic son sitting at the head of the table, a dark, venomous flash of pure satisfaction flickered deep in her emerald eyes.
"My Lords."
Joffrey spoke, his voice completely devoid of emotion.
"My little brother, Tommen, is dead."
A heavy, suffocating silence instantly crashed down over the chamber.
"He was the victim of a cowardly, despicable assassination."
Joffrey's hollow eyes slowly, methodically swept over the terrified council members.
"And the orchestrators of this murder... are my two treasonous uncles."
"Stannis and Renly!"
Varys, standing quietly in the corner, let his fingers twitch slightly inside his oversized sleeves.
The rest of the lords went ghostly pale.
Officially accusing two Great Lords of assassinating a royal Prince?
That was an absolute, undisputed declaration of total war!
"They are consumed by jealousy over my glory, and they covet my rightful throne."
"Knowing they lack the courage to strike at me directly, they cowardly targeted my youngest, most innocent brother."
"This sickening act of treason is absolutely unforgivable!"
Joffrey slowly, rigidly stood up from his chair.
"I, Joffrey Baratheon, King of the Seven Kingdoms, hereby declare:"
"Stannis and Renly are the murderers of Prince Tommen, and absolute traitors to the realm."
"By royal decree, I command them to ride for King's Landing immediately. They will kneel before me and face the King's justice!"
His voice echoed loudly through the cavernous chamber.
Every single person in the room was completely paralyzed by the sheer insanity of the decree.
Command Stannis and Renly to come to King's Landing to stand trial?!
That was literally ordering them to walk straight to the executioner's block!
Those two men commanded massive armies and had been heavily suspected of plotting treason for months. They weren't brain-dead idiots! There was absolutely zero chance they would ever comply!
"Your Grace, this... this simply isn't feasible."
One of the older lords finally mustered the courage to speak up.
"Lord Stannis and Lord Renly command massive military forces. They will absolutely never—"
He didn't even get to finish his sentence.
"Are you suggesting that my direct royal commands are optional?"
Joffrey slowly turned his head, locking his dead, swollen eyes onto the old man.
The lord physically shuddered under the King's dead stare, immediately swallowing the rest of his words.
"If anyone else dares to question my royal decree..."
"They will suffer the exact same fate as the late Lord Baelish."
That single sentence instantly triggered horrific flashbacks of King Robert personally, brutally hacking Petyr Baelish to death in this exact room.
A freezing chill shot straight up the spines of every single lord present. Nobody dared to utter another syllable.
"Excellent."
Joffrey gave a stiff nod and sat back down.
He slightly turned his head, shooting a quick glance at Lynn standing beside him.
Lynn gave him a slow, incredibly faint nod of approval, exactly like a master rewarding a highly obedient dog.
Dragonstone.
A freezing, violent ocean wind whipped salt and thick fog against the ancient, black volcanic stone of the fortress.
Stannis Baratheon stood rigidly in front of the massive, intricately carved Painted Table mapping out the entirety of Westeros.
He wore a highly utilitarian, unadorned grey tunic. The lines of his face were as harsh and unyielding as solid granite, and his lips were pressed into a permanent, bitter frown.
A raven had just arrived from King's Landing.
The heavy parchment bearing the King's royal seal had been tossed casually onto the table.
"A trial?"
Stannis ground the words out through clenched teeth.
He violently slammed his fist down onto the map.
"Who the hell does this boy think he is?!"
Standing quietly by his side was the Onion Knight, Davos Seaworth.
The story of how he earned that title was legendary.
During the final, brutal stages of Robert's Rebellion, Stannis had commanded the Baratheon forces holding their ancestral seat of Storm's End.
The fortress had been subjected to a grueling, year-long siege by the massive Tyrell army. Inside the walls, Stannis and his men were quite literally starving to death.
Davos, who was an incredibly infamous and highly skilled smuggler at the time, managed to completely bypass the massive Redwyne blockade in the dead of night using a small, black-sailed ship, delivering a massive cargo of onions and salted fish straight into the fortress.
That single shipment completely revitalized the starving garrison and allowed Stannis to hold the castle until Ned Stark finally arrived to lift the siege.
For that act of absolute salvation, he was dubbed the "Onion Knight."
After the war was won and Robert took the Iron Throne, he appointed Stannis as the Lord of Dragonstone.
Stannis never forgot what Davos had done for him, but Stannis was also a man defined by a rigid, entirely uncompromising sense of absolute "justice."
He summoned Davos, and as his first act, officially knighted him, granting him lands on Cape Wrath and elevating him to the nobility as the founder of House Seaworth.
But immediately afterward, Stannis declared that a good act does not wash out the bad, and years of illegal smuggling still demanded punishment. He personally took a meat cleaver and chopped off the first joints of all four fingers on Davos's left hand.
Incredibly, Davos, a man who possessed a deeply grounded sense of morality, completely accepted this brutal execution of "impartial justice."
He didn't harbor a single ounce of resentment. Instead, the act forged an unbreakable, absolute loyalty and profound respect for Stannis.
From that exact moment, Davos officially transitioned from a common smuggler into Stannis's most fiercely devoted follower and most trusted advisor.
"This is clearly a trap, Your Grace."
Davos's voice was heavy with deep concern.
"The boy murdered his own brother and is now attempting to pin the assassination on you and Lord Renly."
"He's just fabricating a completely illegitimate excuse to execute you both."
"Of course I know it's a trap!"
Stannis's voice vibrated with heavily suppressed, volcanic fury.
"That throne is mine by absolute right!"
"Robert is dead! By all the laws of gods and men, I am the true and rightful heir!"
"And now, this arrogant, incestuous little bastard dares to issue commands to me?!"
He felt like he was going to physically combust from the sheer indignity of it all.
"What about Renly? How has he responded?"
Stannis snapped his gaze to Davos.
"Lord Renly is currently aggressively courting Highgarden. He intends to rally the entire military might of the Reach and the Stormlands and crown himself King."
Davos let out a heavy, exhausted sigh.
"He also sent an envoy. He stated that if you publicly declare your absolute loyalty to him, he will officially name you the Prince of Dragonstone and grant you a permanent seat on his Small Council."
"Declare my loyalty to him?!"
Stannis looked like he had just heard the most offensive, psychotic joke in the history of the world.
"He is my younger brother! What possible claim does he have to the throne?! Because he knows how to flatter bored noblewomen and eat peaches?!"
He violently kicked a heavy wooden chair across the room.
"Robert won the Iron Throne with a warhammer!"
"You don't win a kingdom with charming smiles and lavish feasts!"
Stannis began aggressively pacing across the stone floor.
In front of him was a rabid, illegitimate dog sitting on his throne in King's Landing.
Behind him was his arrogant, highly ambitious younger brother trying to steal his birthright.
He was completely trapped in a vice.
"Davos."
Stannis stopped pacing and looked dead at his most loyal knight.
"Tell me. What is our next move?"
Davos looked back at Stannis, his weathered, lined face radiating heavy anxiety.
He desperately wanted to advise Stannis to swallow his pride, forge a temporary alliance with Renly, and focus their combined strength on crushing Joffrey first.
But he knew Stannis. He knew the man's rigid, ironclad pride would absolutely never, under any circumstances, allow him to kneel to his younger brother.
Right at that exact moment.
A woman completely draped in flowing, crimson red silk stepped silently into the doorway.
Melisandre.
A faint, highly enigmatic smile played on her lips.
"My King."
Her voice was like a mesmerizing, crackling flame cutting through the freezing dampness of the room.
"Are you troubled by the dark, branching paths that lie before you?"
Stannis turned around. He stared at the woman who had brought an entirely new, deeply unsettling power to Dragonstone.
He stared into those bottomless, unnervingly crimson eyes.
And he finally made his choice.
"You."
Stannis pointed a firm finger directly at Melisandre, his voice absolute.
"Tell me exactly what this 'Lord of Light' of yours can actually do for me."
Melisandre's smile widened.
She glided smoothly to the center of the room, stopping directly in front of the massive hearth where a roaring fire was violently burning.
"The flames do not lie."
She reached her bare hand out, her fingers practically brushing the roaring fire.
"My true King, do you wish to see the future?"
Stannis didn't say a word. He just kept his hard, uncompromising eyes locked dead onto her.
Melisandre slowly turned back to face him.
"The flames have shown me."
"Your enemies will very soon meet their absolute, unavoidable demise."
"And you, Stannis Baratheon, will be crowned the one true King."
She closed the distance, leaning in and pitching her voice down into a mesmerizing, lethal whisper meant only for him.
"All you must do..."
"Is offer a small, fleeting shadow."