#caul shivers

[xserpx]

“You ever have the feeling you were in the wrong place? That if you could just get over the next hill, cross the next river, look down into the next valley, it’d all... fit. Be right.”

“All my life, more or less.”

“All your life spent getting ready for the next thing. I climbed a lot of hills now. I crossed a lot of rivers. Crossed the sea even, left everything I knew and came to Styria. But there I was, waiting for me at the docks when I got off the boat, same man, same life. Next valley ain’t no different from this one. No better anyway. Reckon I’ve learned … just to stick in the place I’m at. Just to be the man I am.””

— Caul Shivers, Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

‘And what are you?’

He looked down at the axe across his knees. ‘A killer, I reckon.’

[firstlawincorrectquotes]

Shivers: Alcohol is cool, but have you ever had someone genuinely care about you?

Cosca:

Shivers: Me neither, pass the bottle.

[chloristoflora]

"The rest will be different. I'll see to it."

"Nice, clean murders? I doubt it. You set your mind to killing, it's hard to pick the number of the dead." Shivers slowly shook his head. "Morveer and his fucking like might be able to step away from it and smile, but I can't."

"So what?" She walked slowly to him, the way you might walk to a skittish horse, trying to stop it bolting with your eyes. "Back to the North with fifty scales for the journey? Grow your hair and go back to bad shirts and blood on the snow? I thought you had pride. I thought you wanted to be better than that."

"That's right. I wanted to be better."

"You can be. Stick. Who knows? Maybe you can save some lives, that way." She laid her left hand gently on his chest. "Steer me down the righteous path. Then you can be good and rich at once."

"I'm starting to doubt a man can be both."

"Help me. I have to do this... for my brother."

"You sure? The dead are past helping. Vengeance is for you."

"For me then!" She forced her voice to drop soft again. "There's nothing I can do to change your mind?"

His mouth twisted. "Going to toss me another five, are you?"

"I shouldn't have done that." She slid her hand up, traced the line of his jaw, trying to judge the right words, pitch the right bargain. "You didn't deserve it. I lost my brother, and he's all I had. I don't want to lose someone else..." She let it hang in the air.

Best Served Cold, by Joe Abercrombie

[blacksummerfes]

给富婆抠一下怎么了？

[felagund-fiollaigean]

I love how so many of J.A's protags are disabled. glokta, monza, shivers, craw, probably more in later books. I'm not disabled yet so I don't know what it's like but these protagonists are in pain most of the time, if not all of it. it's brought up in every chapter they narrate because that pain stays with them all. of. the. time. because that's what it would be like to survive those injuries, live with those issues. and I don't know I can't think of another book I've read with a disabled protag where the author never lets you forget about their pain or their disability to such an extent.

[lairn]

meant to draw this when i finished best served cold

[devotedlydeepeststrawberry]

I'm currently on chapter 'Science and Magic' on 'Best Served Cold'(yes, I'm a really slow reader), and for someone who hates Logen, Shivers sure does have a similar journey to him. Especially with their lack of luck in travel companions. How come the 'savage' and 'dumb' northmen are the most social ones in the group? And no one believes them about the crazy shit they had to deal with?

Also while I hate Morveer as a human, I like being in his head.

[trorklin]

Yooooo best served cold movie in the works! Finally my muse Caul Shivers gets the screen they better cast him so hot

[kazz-brekker]

me reading best served cold: i like caul shivers, hope nothing bad happens to him and his continued optimism in the face of bad circumstances.

joe abercrombie:

[xserpx]

Her voice seemed to come from a long way off, reedy thin. ‘Why did you—’

‘Why not?’ whispered Shivers, coming close. She saw her own pale, scabbed, pinched-in face reflected, bent and twisted in that dead metal ball of an eye. ‘What we came here for, ain’t it? What we fought for all the day, down in the mud? I thought you was all for never turning back? Mercy and cowardice the same and all that hard talk you gave me. By the dead, Chief.’ He grinned, the mass of scar across his face squirming and puckering, his good cheek all dotted with red. ‘I could almost swear you ain’t half the evil bitch you pretend to be.’

— Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

[firstlawincorrectquotes]

Shivers: What do I get?

Monza: A night of fashion, mischief, mayhem, and possible death.

Shivers: Ooh, check, check, and check; not sure about that last one.

Monza: It won't be you.

Shivers: I'll get my coat.

[chloristoflora]

Monza was right. Mercy and cowardice were the same. There were no rewards for good behaviour. Not in the North, not here, not anywhere. Life was an evil bastard, and gave to those who took what they wanted. Right was on the side of the most ruthless, the most treacherous, the most bloody, and the way all these fools cheered for her now was the proof of it. He watched her riding slowly up at the front, on her black horse, black hair stirring in the breeze. She'd been right about everything, more or less.

And he was going to murder her, pretty much just for fucking someone else.

He thought of stabbing her, cutting her, carving her ten different ways. He thought of the marks on her ribs, of sliding a blade gently between them. He thought of the scars on her neck, and how his hands would fit just right against them to throttle her. He guessed it would be good to be close to her one last time. Strange, that he should've saved her life so often, risked his own to do it, and now be thinking out the best way to put an end on it. It was like the Bloody Nine told him once - love and hate have just a knife's edge between 'em.

Best Served Cold, by Joe Abercrombie

[blacksummerfes]

two years ago i drew this i still love it haha

[felagund-fiollaigean]

he's so funny

[lairn]

People with better memories than me, did Shivers explain how he got his name in the first law trilogy or only in bsc? Also did he ever mention hating his brother in front of Ninefingers?

[writergeekrhw]

CONTROVERSIAL TOE-TO-TOE RANKINGS

(All at their top form WITH their best weapon in an actual fairish fight)

1. Javre*

2. Whirrun*

3. Logen

4. Stranger-Come-Knocking

5. Gorst

6. Caul Shivers

Because today I choose violence.

Whirrun and especially Javre probably rank lower without their magic swords.