Strength of the Realm Found in Bonds: Joffrey (296 AC)
Joffrey pouted with his arms crossed as he glared at his tormentor while she led him down the dark stairs of the Red Keep toward the cells below.
"Strength, what's the point of this?" Joffrey whined. "It's dark, smelly, and filthy down here, and I already had to wash up one time, and I don't want to have to do it again!"
He was very understandably cross at his present situation, especially when put in the context that today was his nameday – and not just any nameday, but his tenth. The days of being a powerless child were quickly fading, and the time of his ascendance to power in adulthood were fast approaching. He was very eager to be King one day, and every passing nameday only brought that moment of glory ever closer.
"Strength, I have to go to the tourneys soon, and I don't want to miss a second of it!"
But then suddenly Strength had grabbed him and, for reasons he couldn't understand (and who could understand the thoughts of Dolls anyhow), dragged him through the Red Keep for everyone to gawk and laugh at while maintaining a steady course for the Black Cells. He had thought that Strength was going to throw him in one of them, but dismissed the thought – his Father might have allowed Strength far too much boldness and liberty about the castle, but not even he would tolerate her throwing his firstborn son into one of the Black Cells.
"Do you have any idea what Mother will do to you for this?" Joffrey squealed. "I am your prince, your future king! I command you to let me go!"
"As you command," Strength replied.
Joffrey mentally stumbled at the unexpected acquiescence. Wait, wh-?
Then Strength thrust him forward, sending him careening almost into falling on his face if he didn't stop himself by bracing against one of the decorations in the room they had just entered.
"HOW DARE YOU!" Joffrey screeched while reasserting his stability. "Do you have any idea what you've done? You almost killed me!"
"I didn't bring you down here to kill you," Strength's orange eyes shone in the dark with especially otherworldly brightness, like candles placed behind Myrish stained glass.
"Oh really?" Joffrey scoffed. "Then why drag me down here? Are you really so upset because I slapped that bitch for her clumsiness?"
"Yes, in fact, I am."
"What does that matter?" Joffrey genuinely didn't know how this translated to Strength taking him on a tour of the castle's underground.
"It matters because it made me realize I need to teach you a lesson," Strength ominously declared.
Joffrey paled, knowing full well that nothing good ever happened whenever someone told him they were going to teach him a lesson. "And what is the lesson?"
"How not to get yourself killed."
Strength marched toward Joffrey, intimidating him into stepping backwards into the decoration he had stopped himself from falling upon.
When Joffrey put his hand upon the life-saving furnishing for the second time, he noticed that it was very hard and smooth, but it was not cold like metal or even stone, nor grainy like wood. He quickly realized that he was feeling bone. And a look behind revealed that he was resting against a massive skull.
A dragon's skull.
Joffrey turned, and saw that the room was filled with the skulls of the Targaryens dragons. Many of them were quite large, most of them big enough to eat his head in one bite, and some looked as though they could have swallowed him whole in life. He didn't recognize any of them, they all looked so similar to him.
All except the largest one, which easily dwarfed all of its kin so much that it looked like it could have swallowed some of the other skulls with little trouble.
"I take it you know which dragon that one is," Strength said.
"Who doesn't?" Joffrey gazed in awe at the enormous remnant of a legend. "That's Balerion the Black Dread."
"Yes," Strength stood by his side. "And you also know who rode Balerion, correct?"
"Of course," Joffrey was offended that she thought so little of his intelligence. "Aegon the Conqueror. It was with Balerion that he conquered Westeros and forged the Seven Kingdoms."
"But do you know who rode him next?" Strength asked.
Joffrey's mind blanked. "Uh, I, uh, don't tell me, I know this…" And he knew that he knew, so if only he could remember what that boring old maester had said-
"Maegor the Cruel," Strength answered for him.
"I knew that," Joffrey claimed, prompting a raised eyebrow from Strength.
"Maegor is not called the Cruel without reason," Strength lectured. "Before and especially during his reign, anyone and everyone he perceived to be an enemy was slaughtered without a second thought or a moment's mercy, and very often in large numbers. It was largely thanks to claiming Balerion from his father that he was able to spill so much blood in his own cause, before someone or something killed him while he was separated from his dragon."
"Okay, but why the history lesson?" Joffrey asked.
"Can you imagine how different the world would be if the Targaryens still had their dragons?" Strength asked. "If the Mad King had dragons at his beck and call?"
Joffrey stilled and thought about it. "Well, then, Father would have needed dragons of his own, or just used the Dolls once they started waking up-"
"Neither the Arryns nor the Baratheons were dragonriders, Joffrey," Strength circled in front of Joffrey. "If Aerys had dragons, he wouldn't have even given Lord Arryn time to call his banners, nor the Starks or the Baratheons. He would have just flown to their castles and destroyed them with dragonfire. The only person at that point who could have stopped him from burning down half the kingdom was Prince Rhaegar, and there's no telling if he could in such a case, or would."
"I still don't see what this has to do with me!" Joffrey stamped, done with Strength's 'lesson.' "So what if we imagine what could've happened if the Mad King had dragons? He didn't! And when you Dolls awoke, none did for him! He was powerless, and so he died! When I am king, I will have all the Dolls at my command!"
"That's just it, you won't," Strength stated.
Joffrey was confused. "What do you mean, I won't? I would be their king, they would all answer to me!"
Strength sighed, then stepped forward into Joffrey's face and held him in place so that he could not look away from her hardened eyes.
"Men may answer to kings, Joffrey, but Dolls need follow only their Bonded. We are much alike to dragons in that way, who cared only for their riders, and not for who sat upon the Iron Throne. This is not like the Westeros of the Targaryens, when only the Royal Family owned dragons, and thus everyone who didn't have one bowed to them because they held supreme power over the rest. This is more alike to Old Valyria, where they crowned no kings because no one family or faction held enough power to rule the rest forever."
Strength stopped talking, and gave Joffrey time to absorb what she had said, hoping something sank in.
He then said, "Does that mean I won't be a real king, like Father?"
Strength closed her eyes and breathed a deep breath, before locking eyes with Joffrey again. "The only reason you will be crowned king is because everyone is still in the habit of having only one king for seven kingdoms. And no one will tolerate another king who is Cruel or Mad. Not when they have the power to do something about it."
Joffrey went quiet, and stayed quiet, as Strength saw the wheels finally start to turn in his head. "You think I'm like Maegor, or Aerys? Not my father?"
"Joffrey, you beat a servant just because she tripped on a crack and spilled some food, and not even on you," Strength smiled. "Your father was never so violent over something so petty. Anyone else who saw that, they wouldn't see strength – they'd see cruelty, or madness."
Strength let go of Joffrey, and to her relief he didn't immediately run away. "Do you know the lesson I'm trying to teach you now?"
"That I should be kinder to my servants?" Joffrey asked.
"That's only a small part of it," Strength said. "The lesson is this: Actions have consequences. The greater the man, the greater the actions, and the greater the consequences. And in this time, when everyone partnered with a Doll is a great man, the one who is chosen to lead them commits the greatest actions and suffers the greatest consequences.
"It only takes one wrong action to get anyone killed, but this doesn't get truer than it does for the king. So be very careful, Joffrey Baratheon, because your life is in danger, and you will never be truly safe, ever again."
Joffrey was silent, his eyes wide, looking at Strength, at the skull of Balerion, and the skulls of the other dragons.
Strength clapped a hand on his shoulder, startling him. "Thankfully, you're not the king yet. Just the crown prince, who is celebrating his tenth nameday! Let's go back upstairs, reunite with the rest of the family, and go have some fun! And don't you worry about a single thing, because I will be there to make sure you stay safe, and nothing goes wrong."
"Heh, yeah," Joffrey chuckled. "Safe."