Joffrey 1 295 AC

Harrenhal was truly as massive as the legends said. Or perhaps even they couldn't do it justice. Its towers were, at their smallest, the size of the Red Keep, and within its towering curtain walls, you could fit a small city. If it had ever been properly garrisoned Joffrey had no doubt that you could house an entire army within its structure and not be particularly crowded. Though he wouldn't want to stay there, not with what he could see of the ruin.

Thankfully they didn't need to enter it, camping outside the gates, where his grandfather's party, far larger than Lord Stark's, made camp, their tents arrayed in red and gold in neat and orderly rows. It reminded him of his father's war camp, only much smaller, and far more audacious. The whole place shimmered with gold.

His mother would love it.

He felt his head echo with that bitter aching pain it always did, the remnants of what the tree, the old gods or whatever it was, had done to him.

A gift, they had said it was. Or he thought he had heard them say that it was hard to be sure, to even think about them only worsened the headaches.

If it was a gift, as they had said, then they were of truly strange or cruel humor.

He turned to his grandfather, imposing and powerful, the man shimmered with an aura of golden pride, and all of that which made the camp so gilded was of his doing, a mirror that he used to reflect his own power and prestige, to others, and to himself.

Joffrey cursed his eyes and the "blessing" that they had received in that forest.

"So, Joffrey, how has Lord Stark been keeping you. Well, I hope?"

Joffrey knew what the man wanted of him; he wanted him to be a mirror of himself, one more mirror to reflect what the man viewed as his own golden light. He could see it in his eyes, in the way his aura flared.

"Indeed Grandfather." Joffrey nodded, keeping himself as rigid and courteous as he could. The man before him wanted neither familiarity nor floweriness. "I much admire Lord Stark, and he has seen me raised in accordance with my future duties as king."

It was true.

Joffrey had looked up to the man from his father's tales almost since he had first met him, and he could see the care that the man had for him.

Care that he was terrified he would not find in his own father. Care that he was worried his black-haired brother, or perhaps his princely cousin might have stolen from him.

Before he had been given the gift, before his, well, innocence was not the correct word, but perhaps his delusion, had been stripped from him, he would have lied and told himself that his father loved him greatly, and only expected more of him.

Now how could he lie to himself when he could see his own soul in the mirror.

When he had first awoken from the sleep that the trees had put him under, he had seen it in his reflection, known what it was instinctively even.

His aura, his soul, had been gold yes, like his grandfather's, there had been a shell of gold, shriveled and broken, and corroded in ways that gold ought never to be, and on his chest torn asunder by claws that left a wound still blazing, a mark that he was the prey of the beast. And beneath that sundered shell there was little but emptiness and vanity. Nothing was solid in him, nothing was stone.

Even now that wound still blazed, a mark on his soul that all the scrubbing in the world failed to remove.

"I hear that you have become smitten with the Lady Sansa."

His eyes snapped to his grandfather, torn from his memories by the name of that girl.

"Well… yes." He said, at last, shaking his head slightly. "She is… Yes, I am smitten with her, though I do not know if Lord Stark would allow our marriage."

Tywin looked at him for a long moment. Finally, he nodded. "She is of acceptable rank and marrying her would tie you, as well as House Lannister, firmly into the Northern alliance. You have my support in this."

And there it was. He could see it, as he had seen it in merchants, and even some of the Lord's of the north. That cold and calculated arithmetic, it's color was grey, but not the dark grey of fishmongers. His Grandfather cared not for his love for Sansa, only that the alliance it would secure would provide a strong base of power.

A base of power to oppose his cousin. That cousin who all knew was a threat to his throne.

He did not want his love for Sansa to be tarnished by such things, not after she had saved him, albeit unknowingly. Still, he would accept his Grandfather's support. He might well need it.

His eyes drifted on the Northern camp.

"You have it badly don't you." His grandfather said, breaking the silence once again, and he felt his eyes snap back to the man. There was still that calculus there, but something in his voice made him look deeper. A tiny spot of sympathy was there, some old memories locked away. He doubted anyone could ever find it without seeing as he did. Tywin stared straight back at him, his gaze unflinching.

"Do not forget your House for it, and that is acceptable."

Joffrey nodded slowly, and took his eyes off of his Grandfather, once again leaning back towards the Northern camp. Back to Sansa, to her hair, and her laugh, and her soul of pinkish-white, as pure and unstained as the new-fallen snow that sometimes blanketed the north.

Yes, it didn't matter if his Grandfather wanted him to marry her for dynastic purposes, because of her Tully or her Stark blood. It would not taint his own love for her, his love who had saved him, and who, he knew, sought to love him right back.

Joffrey knew he was a selfish soul, even now, as he had tried to repair himself, to scrub himself clean of his own rot, the pathetic thing he had been beneath the golden facade that the war had stripped away. He had even met success, some of it. Forced to look at the effects his actions had upon his soul every single morn. He doubted even a drunk would be able to see the deterioration so clearly. It was all of it, utterly and completely, known to him. He could not deny it.

He had gone to the Sept. He had prayed with Sansa, and in doing so found that he had become better. His soul was smaller now to be sure, dimmer, but the light that came out was no longer false, only greedy.

He knew that his words were often not as kind as the Seven-Pointed Star said they ought to be. He knew that he picked upon the weaknesses of other people, a habit made far too easy by his own eyes, and the wounds that they revealed in people's hearts.

He knew that Sansa would hate him if he admitted it to her just how selfish he was, how little he truly cared for the suffering of others.

His gift had merely been to see what a wretched creature he had been, what a wretch he still was now, for he was still selfish, he still enjoyed the care lord Eddard gave him, despite his being unworthy of it in every sense, a coward and a liar, and he still wanted the love of lady Sansa, even knowing that he was so impure in comparison. That his very presence would surely taint her innocent heart, eventually at least.

Yes, he was a selfish creature.

And he would accept his Grandfather's cunning as long as it helped him achieve those selfish ends.