Fool's Fate (Tawny Man, #3)

by Robin Hobb

Every small, unselfish action nudges the world into a better path. An accumulation of small acts can change the world.

we are the sum of all we have done added to the sum of all that has been done to us.

“Ask me anything else. Only leave my child in peace.”

☹️☹️☹️☹️

“Sometimes all a father can do is stand by and witness the disaster, and then pick up the pieces.”

Ah, Beloved. Of all the things I must bid farewell to, you are the one most difficult to lose.

“Perhaps one day Lord FitzChivalry will again walk the halls of Buckkeep Castle. If he did, those colors and cuts would suit him remarkably well.”

😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢😢

I numbered my treasures to myself, thinking I owned nothing of significance to anyone but myself; then I realized abruptly it wasn’t true.

The Fool ran through my veins, hot as liquor, cold as ice. For a flashing instant, we shared physical awareness. The intensity of it went beyond any joining I’d ever experienced. It was more intimate than a kiss and deeper than a knife thrust, beyond a Skill-link and beyond sexual coupling, even beyond my Wit-bond with Nighteyes. It was not a sharing, it was a becoming. Neither pain nor pleasure could encompass it. Worse, I felt myself turning and opening to it, as if it were my lover’s mouth upon mine, yet I did not know if I would devour or be devoured. In another heartbeat, we would be one another, know one another more perfectly than two separate beings ever should.

“Humanity fears no rivals. You have forgotten what it was to share the world with creatures as arrogantly superior as yourselves.

Name it as you will, claim it as you will, the world does not belong to men. Men belong to the world. You will not own the earth that eventually your body will become, nor will it recall the name it once answered to.”

As I pushed open the door, I instantly knew that the Fool had been there before me. He’d left his gift on the table beside my chair. I walked over to it and ran a finger down Nighteyes’ spine. My wolf was in his prime in the carving. A dead rabbit sprawled between his forepaws. His head was lifted, his dark eyes regarding me intelligently, patiently. I picked it up. I had seen the Fool begin the carving when he sat at the table in my cabin. I had never guessed what it might be, had almost forgotten that he had promised to show it to me when it was finished. I touched the points of Nighteyes’ pricked ears. Then I sat down in the chair and stared into the fire, my wolf cradled in my hands.

me, his eyes blazing with delight and anticipation. “Take it, FitzChivalry Farseer. Your father’s sword.” A shiver ran over me, standing up every hair on my body. I set the teacup aside and came slowly to my feet. “Chivalry’s sword?” “Yes.” I had not thought his grin could grow wider, but it did.

Even without his words, I would have known it. This blade was the elder brother to the one Verity had carried. It resembled the other sword, but this one was slightly more ornate and longer, designed for a man taller than Verity. There was a stylized buck on the cross-guard. It was, I suddenly knew, a sword made for a prince who would be king.

The last she spoke as single words, uttered with all the command of a queen.

Nettle😭😭😭😭

’As once you did, so I do now. I shelter and guide your son. I will put my life between him and any harm, and when my task is done, I will bring him safely home to you.’ ”

“You’re alive and safe, and I will not let any evil befall you. And you know that you can trust me. Because I love you.” At her words, my throat closed up and choked me. I wondered how she knew them to say. All my life, without knowing it, I had wanted someone to say those words to me, and have them be true and believable. It was like watching someone give to another the gift you had always longed for. And yet, I did not feel bitterness or envy. All I felt was wonder that, at sixteen, she would have that in her to give to another. Even if I could have found Thick in his dream, even if someone had told me those were the words I must say, the words he most desperately needed to hear, I could not have said them and made them true as she did. She was my daughter, blood of my blood, and yet the wonder and amazement she made me feel at that moment made her a creation entirely apart from me.

Better to regret unsaid words than repent of words I could never call back.

“Then you are friends, you two?” “For many years,” I said, at almost the same instant that the Fool said, “Far more than friends, I would say.”

I wondered if Burrich’s face had shone like that the first time Chivalry had proclaimed that he belonged to him. I suddenly felt he was too cheaply bought, this son of Burrich. If he had half the loyalty and courage of his father, then Dutiful had acquired a jewel indeed.

All of life, I wanted to tell him, is in our minds. Where else does it take place, where else do we add up what it means to us and subtract what we have lost? An event is just an event until some person attaches meaning to it.

I pushed his golden hair back from his tawny forehead. “Oh, Beloved,” I said. I bent and kissed his brow in farewell. And then, grasping the rightness of that foreign tradition, I named him as myself. For when I burned him, I knew I would be ending myself, as well. The man I had been would not survive this loss. “Good-bye, FitzChivalry Farseer.” I took the crown in both hands to ease it onto his brow.

Oh robin when i catch u

I stretched out beside him. I edged closer to him and, despite his resistance, carefully turned him to face me and took him into my awkward embrace. He was weeping silently and I thumbed the tears from his cheeks. Mindful of his raw back, I drew him close, tucked his head under my chin, and wrapped my arms around him. I kissed the top of his head gently. “Go to sleep, Fool,” I told him gruffly. “I’m here. I’ll take care of you.” His hands came up between us and I feared he would push me away. Instead, he clutched the front of my shirt and clung tightly to me.

This genuinely breaks my heart

All that night, I cradled him in my arms, as closely as if he were my child or my lover. As closely as if he were my self, wounded and alone. I held him while he wept, and I held him after his weeping was done. I let him take whatever comfort he could in the warmth and strength of my body. I have never felt less of a man that I did so.

He set his hand to my head as if he were a father blessing a child and said, “If I think of all that befell me as a linked chain that brings me finally to this place, with you kneeling by the water, alive and whole, then…then the price was not too high. To see you whole again heals me.” He was right. I was whole again.

home is people. Not a place. If you go back there after the people are gone, then all you can see is what is not there anymore.”

did not want him to grow apart from me again. Not only my love for Molly but my boyish fondness and closeness to the Fool had been rejuvenated, as well. To be the best of friends again, making nothing of one another’s differences, to enjoy the days and face hardships optimistically; he represented all that to me, and I vowed I would not let that carelessly slip from my grip again. He and Molly would round out my life to what it should have been. And Patience, I thought with wonder. I would reclaim her too, and never heed the cost.

Your father served Prince Chivalry, and that estate was one of his favorites. It is almost as if you are Chivalry’s heir, that you receive it.” And I was sure that was what Patience had intended. She could count the months and years on her fingers, and know that Molly’s child was mine. The old woman had done her best to see something of her grandfather’s lands passed on to Nettle. It warmed my heart that she had done so.

I don’t think I can handle the fact that patience is old and may past out soon, I love her sm.

was because she had respected his claim to Nettle’s paternity and would do nothing to make anyone else question it. Now the lands would appear a thing that Burrich had earned for his family rather than an inheritance passed on to a grandchild. The subtleties of my eccentric stepmother would always delight me.

“Do you think that if you stand very still, I can’t see you, Shadow Wolf?”

The moment that I have been waiting for😭😭😭😭😭

The touch strengthened our Skill-bond and it was as if she squeezed my heart rather than my fingers.

“I have to be strong,” she repeated, as if that would turn her bones to iron. It seemed to work. No tears. Hers was a desperate courage. I caught her in my arms and held her tight. For the first time in her life or mine, I held my daughter. Her cropped hair was bristly against my chin and all I could think was how much I loved her.

“Please believe me. It was never by my choice, Mother.

Maybe you have to keep your pain and loss to know that you can survive whatever life deals you. Perhaps without putting your pain in its place in your life, you become something of a coward.”

diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest.

When next he touched minds with me, I could feel his smile, and strangely, the welling of his pride. Well. After fifteen years, do we finally have a true Farseer on the throne again?

As you will, King Fitz.