[ASOIAF SI] The Gilded Stag: A Ruthless Joffrey Uplift | Chapter 3: JOFFREY III (Public) (Patreon)

The waking was not gentle.

It began with a dull, throbbing ache in his shins and femurs, a sensation like iron bands tightening around the bone. Joffrey did not cry out. He lay in the pre-dawn darkness of the nursery, breathing through the discomfort.

Growing pains.

In his old life, doctors called it skeletal remodeling. Here, the maesters called it "stretching of the humors." To Joffrey, it was progress. It meant the epiphyseal plates were open and active, responding to the relentless nutritional signaling he had forced upon this small body.

He sat up, the heavy velvet of the canopy bed swallowing the sound. He felt heavy, his limbs dense. This was not the lethargy of a lazy child; it was the metabolic tax of rapid construction.

He needed fuel.

The morning meal in the Queen's solar was a study in contrasts.

Renly Baratheon, twelve years old and already possessing the easy, careless grace of a courtier, picked at a plate of sugared plums and white bread. He was joking with a serving girl, his laughter light and meaningless.

Joffrey sat in silence. His plate was a grim tableau of function over form.

"You are quiet this morning, nephew," Renly noted, popping a plum into his mouth. "Dreaming of toy soldiers?"

Joffrey ignored him. He was focused on the trencher before him.

A thick slice of liver, barely seared, swimming in its own juices. A bowl of marrow broth, cooled to a gelatinous wobble. And a mound of butter so yellow it looked like beeswax, sourced specifically from the spring-grazing herds.

Vitamin K2, Joffrey cataloged mentally as he spread the butter thick onto a piece of dense, black rye. Activator X. It directs the calcium to the bone matrix, not the arteries.

He took a bite. The taste was cloying and rich, coating his tongue in fat. He chewed methodically, grinding the hard crust of the rye to stress his mandibular joints.

"Gods, Joff," Renly grimaced, abandoning his plums. "How can you stomach that? It smells of the abattoir."

"It is strong food," Joffrey said. His voice was rough, deeper than a toddler's should be. "For the blood."

He reached for the liver. Heme iron. Retinol. B12.

"It is peasant food," Renly scoffed, gesturing to a tray of lemon cakes. "Here. Have a cake. Sweeten your disposition."

Joffrey looked at the cake. It was a sponge of refined flour and sugar.

Insulin spike, his mind warned. Growth Hormone suppression. Inflammation.

Every time he spiked his insulin, he blunted the release of HGH. Sugar was the enemy of the giant he intended to become.

"No," Joffrey said flatly.

"Suit yourself," Renly shrugged. "More for me. Though if you keep eating like a mountain clansman, you'll grow as thick as one."

"That is the point," Joffrey muttered, washing the liver down with a goblet of raw milk.

It was warm, fresh from the udder, teeming with the bioactive proteins and enzymes that pasteurization would have destroyed. He could almost feel the IGF-1 hitting his bloodstream, signaling the mTOR pathway to build, build, build.

As he finished the marrow, the crash hit him.

It wasn't boredom. It was a physiological wall. The energy required to digest the nutrient-dense meal and fuel the rapid osteogenesis left him suddenly, violently drained. His eyelids felt like lead weights. His bones began to throb again, a rhythmic pulse in his legs.

He needed the dark. He needed the Delta Wave sleep where the pituitary gland did its heavy lifting.

He slid off his chair, his movements stiff.

"Leaving so soon?" Renly asked. "I thought we might play at tiles."

"My legs hurt," Joffrey said. It was the truth, and it was the perfect excuse.

Cersei looked up from her embroidery, concern flashing in her green eyes. "The growing pains again, sweetling?"

"Yes," Joffrey said, leaning against the table for a moment to feign a weakness he did not feel. "The bones ache, Mother."

"He grows too fast," Cersei said, glancing at Renly with a mixture of pride and worry. "He is already taller than Tyrek. The Maester says the humor is strong in him."

"I must rest," Joffrey announced. He did not ask; he stated it.

"Go to your chambers," Cersei soothed. "I will have the drapes drawn."

Joffrey nodded and marched out. He did not drag his feet. He walked with a deliberate, heavy cadence.

When he reached his darkened chamber, he did not curl up on the floor. He lay on his back on the hard mattress, arms at his sides, spine perfectly aligned.

He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. He visualized the growth plates in his femurs widening, the collagen matrix knitting together, the density increasing. This was not a nap. This was the work.

Sleep, he commanded his body. Build.

And as the darkness took him, he felt the familiar, dull ache of his skeleton stretching toward the man he would force himself to be.