### Chapter 1: The Birth of a Prince
The air in King's Landing was thick with anticipation. Scarcely muffled by the massive walls and stone halls of the Red Keep, the sounds of labor resonated through and through. Their muffled echoes mingled with the speculations of the courtiers who had been pacing into wide corridors, wondering about the future heir to the Iron Throne. Queen Cersei Lannister was in the final throes of childbirth, her cries piercing the silence of the night.
In the birthing chamber, the flickering candles made the stone walls grow longer with the shadow. The golden hair of Cersei was matted at the temples by sweat, fingers clenched around the sheets, making the veins of her hands stand out. The midwives moved with a practiced sort of efficiency, faces drawn in lines of determined calm.
"Push, Your Grace," urged the senior of the midwives. Her voice was neither shaken nor stirred.
Cersei bore down with a final, agonizing effort, and the room was filled with the first cries of her newborn son. Relief washed over her as she collapsed back down into the pillows, her breath coming in ragged gasps. The midwife quickly wrapped the infant in a soft blanket and came in and presented him to his mother.
"A boy, Your Grace," she announced with a smile. "A healthy, strong boy."
Cersei allowed them to place the child in her arms, and all of a sudden she was not feeling tired at all. He had a shock of golden hair and piercing blue eyes—traits of both his Lannister and Baratheon heritage. He felt something utterly different, some vision: not that of a child but the future of her house, the incarnation of her ambitions, and the key to holding her family's power.
"Joffrey," she whispered as though it were loaded with her ambitions. "Joffrey Baratheon."
Holding her son, Joffrey had a peculiar experience. He became aware of himself; there was a clarity to his thoughts that shouldn't have been illuminating his tiny form. It was as if he had existed his whole life up to this point, and bits and pieces of that life clung to him like shadows. He was not just Joffrey Baratheon, the newborn prince of Westeros. He was someone else, someone older, someone who had lived and died in a different world, a world of iron and steel, brotherhood, and war. Flitted memories ran through the infant mind—face, place, and battles fought and lost. A marine, a child of the crucible of modern-day warfare. He didn't know how he'd come to be here, in this body, in this time. only, he knew one thing – that he was granted a second chance.
His senses grew keener with each of the following days. Joffrey observed everything around him with great and lively intelligence that seemed unbigoted for his age. He listened to the conversations and remembered them all. His mother, Queen Cersei, never left him; her love for him was fierce and protective. She mumbled in his ear about his future greatness, about the power he would hold as the king of Westeros.
"You'll be a splendid king, Joffrey," she would say, her eyes shining at him in that voice filled with determination. "Greater than Aegon the Conqueror, greater than all who came before you. You'll rule the Seven Kingdoms and our house will be the most powerful in all Westeros."
"The words were so evocative of something in him, some determinate will to become the man she thought he was. His life before had been so wholly other. He saw the images of his fellow marines and the camaraderie bound by purpose. But this world, this body was so small and fragile. How was it to be brought to make those two worlds in any way congruent with each other?"
King Robert, on the other hand, was a more distant figure. He came down to the nursery very irregularly, his deep laughter and heavy footfalls cutting a sharp-angled difference from Cersei's more demure presence. When he did come to hold Joffrey, it was with an awkward combination of pride and confusion; the warrior king not certain how to relate to this frail newborn boy child.
It was evening in the nursery when Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, entered. He looked like a golden half-forged knight, his the visage of chivalry and forbidden love. He gazed upon his nephew with some sort of curious mix that seemed more profound and protective.
"Great lad," he whispered, offering the baby a finger to grasp.
Cersei allowed herself a small self-satisfied smile, an inflection of pride in her eyes. "He is strong. He will be a great king, Jaime. He will do what needs to be done."
Jaime nodded, his face unreadable. "Hope he does it a lot better than the rest of us."
When Jaime's finger touched Joffrey's, it was an odd sort of bond—nothing really uncomfortable. Jaime, in some ways, had always been somewhat of a security blanket—a source of protection and loyalty that extended beyond mere blood. That was a man with sharp eyes and easy strength, one he could turn to. Maybe even trust.
As days went by slowly, the cobwebs of Joffrey's mind seemed to peel away. He was beginning to know the world into which he was born. It was a world controlled by power and politics, and of course, alliances and betrayals. His mother, ferociously protective with equally indomitable ambition, would garb him in her arms and bring him near the window, now and then.
"One day, Joffrey," she said softly, "all of this will be yours. You will be a great king, greater than any who have come before you. You will sit on the Iron Throne, and all of Westeros will bow to you."
He put up his head to her, the dying light shining through his blue eyes, and then silently swore he would not only be a great king—far from it. He would be a king to respect and fear, a ruler with the ability to make history bow before him. He would mold his destiny in the scalding fires of ambition and power, using what he knew and had learned in two lifetimes.
The world of Westeros teemed with dangers and intrigues, but Joffrey Baratheon was no ordinary child; he was a prince born with the heart of a warrior who would let nothing stand in his way. The future was uncertain, but he was determined to shape it to his will.
He was content for now to watch and learn, bide his time. He would grow and remember, and then, when it came, be ready.