I make no claim to ownership, in any way, shape, or form, to A Song of Ice and Fire or Game of Thrones
A/N: This is my first "Synthesis" SI I've written, where Joff and the SI are tossed into the same head. In contrast to future chapters, this one makes distinctions: those will have diminished by Winterfell. Whilst heavily skewed toward the SI, you'll see that the ingrained mannerisms and skills are meshing flawlessly. With, oddly, a little extra...
My eyes crack open, and I let a bit of air escape my lips. A moan? The ringing in my ears make it hard to tell. I'm wet. Not like that, you pervert. Just, in water. My hair is dripping and my face is burning like hell. I reach up to touch it, and it comes away bloody. Is that a voice?
"Prince Joffrey!"
"The Prince is fallen!"
A hand seizes me under the armpit and drags me away, a fellow with a chain around his neck rushing quickly to my side. He mutters pleasantries, whilst I simply try and conjure the two words properly: Prince. Joffrey. Joffrey Baratheon? I know that name. From... Game of Thrones? The prick prince? My left hand covers that area. Well, at least I'm a guy. That's for certain. Some murmuring voices continue, before I fall to sleep.
Baratheon. I Am Baratheon.
Joffrey, first of his name, Prince of the Andals, First Men, whatever all those titles are. That's who I am. But, not. I remember a life, of cars, of airplanes, of windmills and steel structures. And then I remember a childhood of bloody knees and a fat father, too big to sit all but a Destrider. I frown at that internally.
But I'm still not awake. Why aren't I awake? Am I dead? Some strange nexus of fantasy and truth, my thoughts blurring together? I just... I can't feel... Who am I?
I feel like I'm neither. Or both. Like Helios, almost. JC and AI combined, without a distinction. A unified structure, with the memories of both. But how do I... No. I was never that way. I am neither of these people. This is no time for an existential crisis. I am a hybrid. A character and a person.
I will not waste time breaking down over this.
Now, all that's left, is to... Yes, I see light.
My eyes crack open again. The ground is moving... wood is creaking... I see sunshafts crackling through the wheelhouse. How do I know it's... yes. Joffrey was here before. The modern child knew of it. I am on the way to Winterfell. I know this now. The rattling of metal tells me there's something at my side. I reach over, a bandaged and bruised hand somehow lacking pain, before I withdraw a lion-pommeled blade from a leather sheathe. It lets out a metallic twange, and I smile involuntarily.
Why am I smiling? I run a hand across the blade. Is that the mad Joff in me? I set it down across my lap, stretching. My muscles feel a bit tight, but that's alright. It's then when I notice my right eye is the only one looking. There's a bandage over my left, thicker above the eye than over the eye itself. A quick bend of the fabric tells me that I'm alright. Both are intact. But peeling further gives off a pain I don't enjoy. I let it be.
The door opens, and a blonde woman walks in. She's pretty - wait, shit. That's my mom. No. Bad. Moving on.. She walks in, and looks me over, gasping at the sword. My hand is on the hilt, and I'm looking the blade over.
"Joffrey?" She asks, incredulous. I set it in my lap and look at her.
"Yes, mother?" I ask politely. She gasps and runs to hug me, as I gently put the sword back where it belongs.
"I was so worried!" She said, kissing my forehead. "You left me so scared, little lion. You know that, don't you." I sat there a moment, staring forward. Then I looked up at her, and nodded calmly.
"It was so dark, mother. So cold." I said. The fact that the ideas flowed so readily from both remnants was... astonishing, really. Not that I was ever this introspective in either life. A truly hybridized mental state... simply too much for me to grasp, really.
"It's okay, my lion." She said, hugging me. "Are you able enough to walk? Your father has practically halted movement, off hunting to clear his head."
Hunting. Death. I managed to hold that emotion off of my face, but pushed at her gently. She let go of me, and I swung out of the small hammock-like bed, finding a simple set of clothes nearby. "Might I be dressed in peace, mother?" I asked her, and she nodded. After the door latched, I stripped out of the long and oversized garments I'd been sleeping in, and into a comfortable (though one half of me thought not) jerkin and trousers, attaching the sword to my belt.
My eyes glanced over to a silvery surface, and I wiped at it. The dust collected upon it sprayed away, and I coughed a bit. A nervous titter came from the door. I shook my head and peered closer. A pretty face, with long golden hair and piercing eyes staring deeply into mine. It felt... normal. Simultaneously, it felt totally foreign. As if two realities tried to splice themselves in my skull.
It was, in no uncertain terms, cringeworthy. I looked away, but quickly glanced back. The bandage was soaked through, and needed another. No doubt the Maester would be nearby. It'd be a nice scar, I guess. Never had one in either life... I flashed through some unfamiliar memories on both ends. What am I?
I opened the door, and a little boy cringed away, looking at me like I was some demon. "Tommen." I said involuntarily. He looked at me in fear. I reached a hand to his hair and ruffled it. "It is good to see you, little brother. I trust you've been well in my indisposition?"
I looked around, at my mother and a few ladies who'd accompanied her, alongside Myrcella and her Septa, and all confused heavily with my vocabularly. "Something wrong?" I asked them. Cersei looked at me with pressed lips, and let out a small laugh.
"Nothing at all, my son." She said. "If a hit gave you mastery of language like that... it bodes well."
"We might as well toss him off a hundred cliffs. He'd be smarter than the Grand Maester!" Said Tommen. Her eyes turned to needlepoints, and her voice prepared an admonishment. I walked in front of him and held up a hand. Turning about, my green eyes bore into Tommen's.
"Brother. I nearly died out there. Jokes like that are in bad taste, you understand?" Tommen looked at me fearfully, but nodded in understanding. It'd be a long time coming to fix my previous self's relations with that twe- what? Why was I going to... damn. This symbiosis thing is getting to me. Suppressing the Joffrey outside of mannerism and skills is... difficult, to say the least.
"Now then." I said, looking to mother. "I'll be away to go find father. Perhaps I'll shoot myself a boar..." She looked alarmed, and I chuckled. "I kid, mother." I said, stepping out the door. That phrase turned her head, and the girls burst into whispers.
I was already gone. The camp was awash with colors, of various officials and workers, with the silvered tent of the Kingsguard shining bright. A pair of knights - Selmy and Arys, I recalled - stood beneath the tent. If there was anywhere to find Father... "Done gawking?" A gruff voice said from my side. I turned to see... Harvey Dent? No. Sandor, you fool.
"I could gawk at your face a bit longer, if you'd like." I retorted. "The world's a pretty place. Let's not rush to muddy the waters." I brushed past, motioning for him to follow. "I trust you had an amicable time without me to lord over?"
"If by amicable you mean being admonished by the royal family, sure." Said the title-free Clegane. I nodded sagely and trotted off to the silvered tent. A few heads were already turning my way.
"Mothers are overzealous by nature. Probably a fact of the beast within us. Lions and cubs, or so the allusion goes." I said.
"When did you become some poet?" Sandor asked. I shrugged.
"The ideas lay within, a good scrambling was needed to rouse them." We approached the tent, and the two knights broke conversation. I waved at them. "Hail, Ser Barristan. Ser Arys." I said.
Both moved to bow, and I waved them off. "No time for that. Where is my father? I've held us up long enough." Barristan looked at my quizzically, as did Arys. "Don't worry, I'll rediscover my mad haughtiness soon. Now, where?"
"He was headed west on horseback, bow in hand. A few knights of the guard, including your uncle, are with him. He may be out-"
"Until I find him." I said, whistling at the dog and snapping a finger. "Two horses, if you please." I said, pointing. "Might I borrow a spear?" I asked Arys. He looked to Selmy, who shrugged. His hand grabbed a simple silvered half-pike, and I nodded to him.
"No disrespect, Prince Joffrey, but..." Barristan began, rather confused. I looked at him with cold eyes, and looked to Arys, then back to Sandor's retreating frame.
I shouted out: "Three, Sandor!" He turned back to me, gruff, and nodded once. My eyes returned to Arys. I tossed him the spear. "I'll find something better."
That queasy feeling of ease and unease wrestling had since become my most familiar feeling, as I rode with Ser Arys and Sandor out into the wood, looking for my father. He wasn't, really. Both the voices in my head agreed on that. One considered him fat and lazy, but the other looked up to him. I wasn't about to judge, I suppose. This synthesis had never met him.
As I raised my bow, the three horses stopped, the two looked to me in confusion. I gently pulled back the arrow in a smooth motion. Smoother than either of them recalled. Almost as if I was drawing a straight line to this target ahead of me. Its two black eyes locked with mine, and my head flashed images of a brownish man, with a single strip of hair on his head, climbing to the roof of a manor house. Connor, it said.
Neither side felt any familiarity, but my subconscious let out a single twang of decision where both conscious parts lacked decisiveness. A single tailed shaft slid across the sky, whistling, and striking the creature between the eyes. It let out a quick and dying bleat, before dropping aside. The shouts of people in the distance made me smile and fear in alternating measure. Ser Arys looked to me. "I don't suppose you expected that?" He asked me. I shrugged.
"It's a tiny forest. Find some game, and you'll find hunters looking for it." A white-armoured knight with golden hair rode around the side and trotted to a stop, his eyes looking me over. I had my bow on my back already, and was about to order the dog to grab the beast. Uncle, my soul said. Kingslayer, another bit answered back. Goldenhand.
"Nephew?" He asked with a questioning gaze. "Already up and shooting a bow, no less? A true shot, my prince." His voice was uncertain, as if a miracle had been made. Two consciousness' agreed we were no particularly stellar shot. I smiled at him, and brushed up my bandage to see with both eyes.
"I find the eyepatch is a quick fix to an ongoing problem." I said to him. He looked at me like I'd grown several extra heads, as did the other members of the party that rode up. All but the fat fellow with a red face, an antlered circlet wreathing his head. Two blue eyes locked with mine.
"How dare you take my kill!" He shouted, before recognizing the rider with the bow. I flashed a toothy grin.
"I figured cheating death by brain scrambling was only treated best by scrambling something else's brains. The Father's scales must be balanced, after all." Everyone looked at me like I was an alien, save Sandor.
"Seems the Prince has had himself scrambled, alright." His grizzled voice stated. I looked to him quizzically. "Scrambled into shooting straight and out-talking Maesters." Everyone let out a small chuckle at that, as Robert rode closer to me. His eyes sized me up, and he reached to his belt: a silvered hammer was at his side - meant for a shield, rather than both hands. He handed it over with a calm expression.
I took it, and he hugged me with his pudgy bear arms, saddle-to-saddle. "I'll make a Stag out of you yet!" He shouted.
I hoped I wouldn't disappoint.