#rote reread

[mellowthorn]

Fitz's love life during Assassin's Quest is actually hilarious. Practically every woman he meets is immediately into him. He keeps seeing dreams about his ex dating his foster dad. He spends months traveling in a group in which literally everyone besides one grandma has a thing for him, and he doesn't have a clue. The Fool blatantly confesses his love to him and he just kind of ignores it. He has bathed twice in the past year.

[smoky-solitude]

This single page contains multitudes for the Fool’s way of thinking:

1. Casual insult to Starling

2. Tell Fitz he’s pretty but try not to make it awkward

3. Whoops made it awkward with accidental Wit burning hyperbole!!

4. Back away and talk about yourself as a different species even though Fitz doesn’t like it. Keep it vague!

5. What feelings and ideas were blossoming in AQ and after?

6. You acted on them?? And retrospectively you’re scandalized?? Is it worse than Galekeep, fool? It sure seems worse

7. Demonstrate your maturity by declaring it, that’ll convince him!

8. Close off by saying you’re not going to act on the feelings and impulses that you feel. After all, you’re mature™️ now.

9. Oh shoot Fitz is panicking now! You told him too much! Back away back away back away!!

I love it so much

[mistninja]

<3 yeah

[chloristoflora]

I was torn between utter confusion and deepest insult. I had a faint memory of him telling me once that he'd had two fathers—brothers or cousins—in a place where folk accepted that arrangement. I'd assumed that it meant that in that place no one would care whose seed had actually ripened in the wife the husbands shared. I forced myself to calmness and looked at him carefully. His golden gaze seemed to meet mine. His eyes were more unnerving now than when they had been colorless. The metallic gleam in them seemed to shift and flow and swirl as if they were liquid while the black dots of his pupils seemed too small for the dim light. I drew a deep steadying breath. Don't be distracted. Stay on the trail. "Fool. Bee is not your child. You were never with Molly."

He smiled at me. "No, Beloved. Of course I was never with Molly." His fingertip tapped the table, once, twice, thrice. He smiled gently. Then he said, "I was with you."

I opened my mouth and stood in gaping silence. It took a long time for coherent words to find their way out. "No." I said it firmly. "No, you were not! And even if…" And then I ran out of words and logic.

He laughed aloud. Of all the reactions he could have had, that was the last I expected. He laughed as I had rarely heard him laugh, for while the jester makes others laugh, he seldom betrays his own amusement. But now he laughed unabashedly and without restraint, until he was breathless and had to wipe tears from his sightless eyes. I stared at him. "Oh, Fitz," he gasped at last. "Oh, my friend. What a thing for me to miss! Such a terrible time to be deprived of my sight. Still, all I could not see on your face, I heard in your voice. Oh, Fitz. Oh, my Fitz." He had to stop speaking to take in air.

Fool's Quest, by Robin Hobb (Fitz and the Fool Trilogy #2)

[janeways-coffees]

I forget who said this but. Guys the 6 Duchies is LITERALLY upside-down Alaska. Crazy. The mountain kingdom is just the yukon. Hello????

[everywaythatmatters]

Attolia broke an amphora once…

[novacane0808]

Was in another digital art drought… so I went back to my go to 😏

[stellar-jay]

The only one condition, I've got the premonition, that Christmas is a vision!

HAPPY WINTERFEST!

[alexandercolbourne]

FitzChivalry “perhaps I was a trifle stupid not to have seen it” Farseer

[mellowthorn]

[smoky-solitude]

Anyone else think that this the moment the Fool realized he must bravely go to his death instead of fight back against it? Or is it the opposite? 😭

[mistninja]

[chloristoflora]

I found my voice. "I'm going to—"

Riddle crossed his arms on his chest. His nostrils flared and he exclaimed defiantly, "I don't care what you do. Understand that. Do whatever you wish, but it won't change anything."

"—be a grandfather." I choked on the word. Incredulity melted his face and he stared. It gave me the moment I needed to organize my thoughts. Words tumbled from my lips. "I have money saved. You can have it all. You must leave soon, before travel is too difficult for her. And I think you must flee the Six Duchies entirely. She is the Skillmistress; she is too well known for you to..."

"We are not leaving!" Anger tightened his slack face. "We refuse. We were lawfully wed—"

Impossible. "The king forbade it."

"The king can forbid whatever he likes, but if a man and a woman make their vows before the Witness Stones, with at least two witnesses—"

"Only if one is a minstrel!" I interrupted him. "And the witness must know both parties."

"I wager the Queen of the Six Duchies knows us both," he said quietly.

"Kettricken? I thought Kettricken was a party to forbidding the marriage."

"Kettricken is not the Queen of the Six Duchies. Elliania is. And she comes from a place where a woman can marry whomever she wishes."

It all fit together as tightly as the blocks that make up an arch. Almost. "But your other witness had to be a minstrel…" My words trickled away. I knew who their minstrel had been.

"Hap Gladheart." Riddle confirmed it quietly. A smile almost twisted his face. "Perhaps you've heard of him?"

Fool's Quest, by Robin Hobb (Fitz and the Fool Trilogy #2)

[janeways-coffees]

:Who did this to you" scene you will always be famous to me

[everywaythatmatters]

Ok I’m back with the rest of the “how many times did Fitz describe the Fool’s hands in Tawny Man” data. And because this was a serious scientific investigation I have helpfully displayed the data on this bar graph.

It really dropped off in the middle there due to The Divorce™ but even so this is an absolutely bonkers number of times to describe someone’s hands. Thank you for telling me thirty three (33) times that he has long slender elegant fingers, Fitz. That’s a super normal number of times to do that. No need to examine those thoughts at all I’m sure it’s fine

[lairn]

Robin Hobb you were wild for this one.