You were only eleven when they rode into Winterfell, all golden smiles and lion banners. Joffrey was just a boy with too much pride in his posture and not enough blood on his sword. He tried to kiss your hand and nearly missed. You laughed.

That was the beginning of it — stupid, simple, sweet.

He followed you like a shadow through the snow. Spoke in riddles, mocked your brothers behind your back, and offered to kill a direwolf for you if you were ever tired of its teeth. You rolled your eyes. He thought you adored him. You were amused.

And you pitied him, too — the way his mother looked through him, the way Robert never looked at all. He showed you his new sword once. Told you he wanted to name it Hearteater. You told him that sounded like something a child would come up with.

He flushed and grinned anyway.

His grandfather asked your father for your hand during the feast. Said it would bind the North and South together. He was too young to understand what that meant. So were you. But your father agreed, in theory. Your mother frowned across the table. Joffrey reached for your hand under the table. You didn’t stop him.

He left Winterfell smug, still soft, with one golden curl you had braided behind his ear.

Then came King’s Landing. Then came the Sept of Baelor. Then came the sword.

And after that, you never braided anything again.

He wanted you at court.

“It’s what your father would have wanted,” Cersei said.

“It’s what I want,” Joffrey said.

You did not scream. You did not weep. You sat at his side while your father’s head rotted on a spike and the crowd cheered for the “boy king.”

He would smile at you during court — the same smile he had worn at Winterfell, only now his teeth were red. He would hand you tokens of affection: rubies, daggers, a necklace made from wolf fangs.

“From your family,” he whispered once, laughing.

You didn’t speak for days.

He had Sansa kneel and beg. Had her stripped in front of the court. Had Ser Meryn slap her until her cheek split. But he never touched you.

He called you his northern rose. Said you were different. That you understood him. He once told you he liked the way your eyes looked when you were angry. Said it made him feel important. “Like a god being hated,” he murmured, “not just a king being obeyed.”

He said your silence was better than any harp.

You tried to leave. Once.

They found you at the docks. The cloak he had gifted you was still around your shoulders. You hadn’t noticed. It had lions on it.

He didn’t punish you. Not like he punished others.

Instead, he came to your room, knelt at your feet, and rested his head against your knee. He told you stories of how kings used to wed their enemies to make them loyal. He said if he married you, the North would come crawling back.

He said you reminded him of fire beneath snow. That he wanted to be the boy you met in Winterfell again.

Then he looked up at you, and there was something in his eyes — not sorrow, not regret. Something twisted.