Joffrey Lannister
It would have been the most vile of lies to say that the heir to Lannisport was not afraid. His knuckles were white, tightly gripped around the handle of his flanged mace and his kite shield. Why was he scared? Joffrey Lannister had eagerly awaited this moment since the day the wretched Ironborn sallied from their salt-stained boats and stormed upon the docks of Lannisport. Everyday, he had trained on the jousting field, in the melee arenas. Yet this was different. Either death or glory awaited him in that black silhouette sentinel upon the sea foamy horizon that he knew to be Castle Drumm.
As the boats rapidly began to approach the shore, many of the Lannisport murmured nervously to themselves. Some cursed under their breath, prayed to the Seven or sharpened their blades in anticipation for the sweetness of bloody revenge. Many looked upon their commander, Joffrey, for some inspiration. Feeling their gazes upon his back like the heat of the raging dornish sun, he spun on his heels, lifted his visor and gulped.
"Men...I know you are nervous, but you have to remember you fight for your fami-" He began, attempted to inspire confidence in his soldiers.
"Wha's da' bloody fuckin' bloke saying? I can't 'ear 'em!" One men-at-arms yelled from a nearby boat, unable to hear the voice of his commander. "I think he said he wants us to bugger their families." One murmured but another disagreed. "Naw, nit-wit, he said he wants to remember that we're nervous about our families or somethin' like that." Another objected, and another did as well and eventually the boats broke into a buzz of an argument over exactly what Joffrey had said.
The heir to Lannisport sighed, wishing there was some sort of device that would allow his voice to be amplified over vast distances. Such a thing would most certainly be useful.
Eventually the boats came upon shore, and Joffrey led his men around the flank of the castle, trying his best to steel himself and ignore the sight of several of his men being stricken down by arrows. To signal his soldiers, he slammed his mace against the surface of his shield and pointed it to the imposing stone walls of the fortress.
"Ladders!" His sappers rushed forward, slamming hastily constructed wooden ladders to the walls and began climbing. Joffrey's heart threatened to tear itself out of his ribcage with the intensity of it's pounding. He murmured a prayer to the warrior, and climbed the ladder himself. One of his men seemed to reach the top, only to be ran through by the nasty blade of one of the defenders and let out a screech that shook the young knight to his very core as he fell to his death. Another group had boiling oil poured upon them as they nearly reached the battlements, skin flaking and peeling as they to went to the Father screaming. The sickly sweet stench of scorched flesh and roasted bone met the young knight's nostrils in a nauseating miasma, prompting tears and a wave of bile burning his throat that he struggled to hold down.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck FUCK
Eventually he threw himself onto the top of the castle's battlements, staggering up to his feet only to see the edge of his crimson stained dagger fly towards his helmet and rip through his visor's slit, only centimeters away from tearing a hole into his eye and killing him. Joffrey was terrified, adrenaline saturating every drop of blood in his body and sending him into a desperate frenzy of mace blows. The flanged mace met the knee of his almost-killer, snapping his leg back with a sickening crunch, and another primal scream. Eyes wild, Joffrey instinctively reached out with his mace and with an almost super natural force slammed it into the skull of the man which folded in onto his brain with a crunch similar to the wrinkling of wet paper.
Blood stained his mace, and the man now laid prone on the floor, dying synapses firing wildly as he twitched and gurgled on his own scarlet ichor. Joffrey was frenzied however, his mind taken over by the animalistic drive for survival and utter elimination of any threats. Again, and again, the mace smashed the remnants of the man's head until it resembled a paste with chunks of skull and leather jerkin.
Before having a chance to realize his actions, footsteps echoed from the side of him. A young boy with auburn hair and watery blue eyes charged towards him, cudgel lifted above head and the praises of the drowned god sung. Faster then he had ever thought he could, Joffrey drew his longsword from the sheath at his side and hortizonally sliced it along-side the boy's belly in a single primal motion.
The boy arms, previously held high and poised to strike, dropped limply to his sides, his cudgel meeting the ground with a small thud. He stumbled forward, nearly falling into Joffrey as his intestines began to spill out over his thighs. He fell onto his knees, desperately trying to stuff his steaming innards back into himself futilely. His body shivered, and sweat began to bead upon his forehead, ignoring the terrible burns caused by his own stomach acid. Coughing out spittle mixed with blood, he looked up to Joffrey, a terrible realization seeming to have registered within those young blue eyes that reflected the sea.
"Y-.." He hacked up another spray of crimson. "You.. have slain me....." Tears began to well up mixing with the blood. "I am worm's meat.... just like that." Face wet, he looked up to Joffrey, pleading in vain. "I don't want to die." The heir to Lannisport lifted up his arms and swung his longsword down onto crown of the boy's skull, embedding the castle-forged steel deep into bone. With a tug of his wrists and arms, snapped the boy's neck to the side and retrieved the sword from his corpse, cold, dead and stewing in his own fluids upon the cold cobblestone. Joffrey stared vacantly upon his corpse, realizing how easily that could have been him. How similar they were in spite of everything, how easily both could have been young noblemen eager to prove a name for themselves. How the only difference between them was that one drunk damnation and the other disgust.
"Mi'lord?" Asked one of his sergeant-at-arms. He was experienced, and callously stepped over the boy's still body. How a once living person was treated as if a log on a road to be bypassed. "We've secured th-"
Joffrey lifted up his visor, and vomited the contents of his breakfast of salted codd upon the man's boots. With this, he stumbled off.
Eventually he found himself a box to sit upon in the middle of camp, staring vacantly into the distance as he cleaned the blood off his sword.