Author's Note: I will be returning to A Merchant of Braavos shortly, but I seem to be facing something of a writer's block. In an effort to get past, I started writing this. I hope you all enjoy this outing as much as my other Game of Thrones work.

Waking up somewhere strange without any memory of how you got there is never a good sign. Waking up wearing the face of a psychopathic blonde sixteen year old even less so, and doing in the capital city of a country that doesn't actually exist worse still. It's a weird situation to be, and far more unpleasant by far, especially when you figure out you aren't dreaming and yet are wondering when you'll open one's eyes and be back home in bed. And thus was my first few minutes in King's Landing.

I did benefit, I will happily admit, from being in the body of Joffery fucking Baratheon. While the kid has more than a few screws loose, or he did, he certainly happens to live in the lap of luxury and in an actual position to do something in this world. As an added bonus it was around the time that the royal household was packing to head to Winterfell. I'm not entirely sure much I can change or if Martin's universe will course correct to see as much of canon play out as it should, but I'm not exactly going to sit on my ass and do nothing. Especially given that if I go down Joffery's prescribed road, I'll die via poison at the hands of Littlefinger and Olenna Tyrell, which didn't look like a nice way to go on the show. This means I have to see what I can do to dig myself out of the hole that old George has written me into with his bull excrement.

This meant a certain amount of plotting, planning and political thinking, none of which I was particularly good at. Give me a straight forward problem with a straight forward solution any day of the week. But such is not the situation I appear to have found myself in as I spent an hour or so adjusting to the body I now found myself in. Joffrey's body was half my age, almost to a day, and filled with a lot more energy to be sure. Also, packing a lot less of the spare tire I'd found myself with as I got older. Sword fighting and regular activity had mitigated a goodly portion of the damage but genetics and the poor diet of a man who'd never learned how to diet in enough time were taking their great toll. Sometime to correct while I was here to be sure, so not as to take after my… father.

Well, that was a way to bring one's self back to reality. Here I was getting enthusiastic about changing things, when the problems of Joffrey's past come crashing down upon me. Dealing with the fallout of Cersei and Jamie's dallying together was a good part of the reasoning behind the War of the Five Kings – Renly and Stannis both declared themselves King on the basis that Joffrey was in fact the result of the union between my mother and my actual father and technically Uncle Jamie Lannister. Not that they weren't wrong, as it was all true, but they really didn't need to destabilise the realm over it. Especially when there was more to deal with, like the North rebelling over Joffery's, or my, killing of Eddard Stark and the keeping of Sansa as hostage.

There were also the machinations of Littlefinger to keep in mind. The mother fucker had about ten dozen plans going on right now, all with the explicit purpose of causing as much chaos as was possible to cause. There was also Varys and he desire to see the Targaryen's back on the Iron Throne, which helped approximately none of the stability of the realm. And these were only the problems I remembered from the show, which I had been in the process of rewatching before I ended up here. It was about then that I was interrupted by a servant, who'd apparently heard my random outbursts and took that to mean that I was up and awake and needed to be dressed, which I guessed wasn't a bad idea. The million problems of the realm weren't going to be fixed while I sat and sulked in my new, expansive and well-appointed bedroom. And I do have to say that the Lannisters have something of a sense of style that I never possessed, and the money to back it up. But enough side noting, there were schemes to make and what have you. I needed to figure out what to do.

First things first, apparently in the aftermath of the death of Jon Arryn we were to travel to the Northern capital of Winterfell so that my father could discuss matters of state with Eddard Stark, make him Hand of the King, marry Sansa Stark off to myself and bring him back to King's Landing. Why he couldn't do that via raven I'll never know, but there we go. Still, not for a few days yet so that left me a few days to do what I could. Well, here goes nothing, right? Attending the breaking of the fast (or breakfast to us normal people) wasn't too bad. Only my mother was present and I tried to be pleasant, which caused her to give me the curious side-eye. Apparently this divergence from Jeoff's normal demeanour was a noticeable thing, which I hastily chalked up to ore-trip nerves and wanting to put on a good face in front of the Northern-men. This was scoffed at as Cersei brushed my concerns aside. They were a "backwards people" that we didn't need consider any more than was necessary and that we should put on a polite face only for society's sake and nothing else. Only Robert gave a shit about the North apparently. Good times.

Still, I stayed silent for the rest of the meal and got the hell outta dodge while the getting was good. I didn't need to attract trouble any sooner than was humanly necessary. Well, outside of the shit I was going to be pulling. According to the snivelling functionary who insisted on following me around, I was afforded a small staff and a small stipend from the Iron Throne's coffers. It wasn't much in the grand scheme, but it would hopefully be enough for what I wanted to do. I paid a visit to of the Grand Maester's functionaries, who was all too happy to provide me with the designs for a wine press from the castle's archives. It was a sign of the times that I was able to ensure his silence with a few coins. With a rudimentary understanding of printing and printing presses as a member in good standing of Royal College and Confraternity of Scribes and Illuminators of the Kingdom of Lochac, things should get fun. Once I got my steward, Arthur Dryer, should in theory be able to get things moving while I'm gone. It should hopefully come across as nothing but a folly to Littlefinger, who'd probably be happy to fund such bullshit, so long as it adds some coin to the debt column of the Seven Kingdoms.

I spent the rest of the day, and more than a few sheets of parchment, redesigning a wine press into a printing press. I left instructions with Dryer to purchase a used press somewhere in the capital and begin the conversion process in my absence, but to also keep me informed. With any luck it would be ready by my return, and I could start figuring out one way to reduce the Iron Throne's debt by printing books and documents. Or something. It also left me with naught by two days to do anything else before we left…