#fool's quest

[mellowthorn]

kelsingra

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

Why the fuck did I almost just burst into tears lol

[heyitsrink]

Queer icon and local legend, Amber, in Kelsingra 🦋

[bobomcfoe-art]

This, I knew, was the song she had waited a lifetime to sing. Always, always, she had wanted to leave a song that would linger in Six Duchies memory and be sung over and over... How long had she honed those words, how many times had she practiced the music that flowed effortlessly and faultlessly from her fingers?

-Chapter 8 of Robin Hobb's Fool's Quest

Starling Birdsong <3 I support women's wrongs, especially when they come from someone as funny as her

[regulargoose]

Huh???? Hello?? WHAT IS GOING ON?!! They are never beating the allegations omg

[iwillberunningfromdemons]

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)

[creatureofsunandsky]

I trusted none of them with the Fool but carried him myself to the sled, loaded him, and clambered up afterward to sit beside him.

--

I saw her swallow. “As an apprentice, the first cleaning of an injured man is one of my tasks.”

“As his friend, it’s my task. Please.”

--

I rose and before he could touch the Fool, I took the rags and medicine from him. “I’ll do it,” I told him.

--

Another, saner part of me was saying softly, “Fool. Fool, it’s all right. You are here with me now, and they cannot hurt you anymore. You are safe here. Oh, Fool. You are safe. Beloved.”

--

Feared that it would alarm him to be touched and feared even more that it would draw me tighter into his misery and wake my own. But at last I took the three steps that carried me around the table. “Fool. You are safe here. I know you can’t believe it just yet, but it’s over. And you are safe.” I stroked the broken hair on his head, rough as the coat of a sick dog, and then pulled him closer to cradle his head against my sternum. His clawlike hands came up and clutched my wrist, and he held himself tighter against me. I let him have his tears. They were the only things I could give him then.

--

He rose and groped his way around the end of the table to where I sat. His hands felt for me, found a shoulder, the side of my face, and then fluttered up to my head and the crown there. He lifted it slightly, and then, with no self-consciousness at all, measured the length of my hair. He walked his fingers down my face, touching the break in my nose, the old scar, the scruff of beard on my chin. If anyone else had done it, it would have felt invasive. Insulting. But I knew he was comparing what I looked like now with what he recalled.

He cleared his throat once more and after a pause he added, “You’re a handsome man still, Fitz. Not as pretty as before Regal broke your face. But you’ve aged well, I judge.”

--

"But what matters, as I started to say, is that I want you to feel safe. So tell me. What can I do to make you feel safe?”

His grip on the knife loosened. “You aren’t irritated with me? Annoyed at my weakness?”

I was startled. “Of course not!”

“You went away so abruptly. When you didn’t come to tell me yourself, I thought … I thought you had wearied of having me depend on you for everything.”

“What would make you feel safer?”

“You do. Being here.”

--

Fool's Assassin/Fool's Quest Robin Hobb

[khutsydoh]

Assassin's quest in the end is just the Fool healing Fitz, touching foreheads and making romantic speeches, Fitz going to fool oh, you're so cold, caring for him, snuggling him to keep him warm, carrying him over falling stones like the Fool's the swooning maiden and he's the overly-muscled love interest (he is), playing water-fights with him and laughing at his dick jokes while starling is glaring knowingly at them in the background. There's something about road trips that make them act like they are in a whole other romantic subplot.

[jewishdainix]

Remember how when Molly died Fitz said that he had nothing he could turn to to distract him from the reality of that loss.

When the Fool was gone Fitz immiderly went back to Molly to escape that loss.

Fitz spent the entirey of Fool's Fate unlearning his want for a happy heterosexual ending, and chose the Fool over it. But the dominos from the quarrel had already fallen and the Fool thought that Fitz would truely be happier than him.

And yes, Fitz did want to go back to Molly because of the memories he got back from the girl-on-a-dragon but the feellings he felt from it were very obviously contridictory to his current ones, and whenever he actually thought about it he knew that a) Molly would not want him back, its both too early and too late and b) he chooses the Fool. I think if he got to actually sit with those emotions they would have faded out, and he would not have sought out Molly. We know that because he chose the Fool.

But then the Fool was gone. And so Fitz went to Molly. Doing a huge dissrevice to both of them; not letting either of them grieve burich properly or agknoledge him, ignoring Molly's wishes and using her sons to get to her, etc; and in general acting how he was when he tried to get her to be with him when they were teens *cough cough harrassing*. Repeating the same old mistakes.

He tried to hide that tragedy in the guise of a perfect heteronornative happy ending, but that doesn't work, because he just spent an entire book unlearning it.

He just spent an entire book loving and losing and savagely mourning and choosing the Beloved over that happy ending. So theres this huge dissonance between everything in the Fool's Fate and its ending; So we don't believe him; So deep down, he doesn't believe himself. The comment about not having anything to distract him from Molly's death shows that.

And that "happy ending" he got isn't all that happy. The chapter in Fool's Fate is called "ever after", very clearly missing the "happy". Fitz says he is content. In Fool's Assassin he tells Molly that whenever she is happy he is content. But by the end of Fool's Fate he says he always waits to see the Fool again.

He shuts the wit out, he constantly misses the Fool. He leaves his and Molly's bed at night to write letters to the Fool, which he has no one to send them to.

He refuses any reminders of his life as the bastard prince and as an assassin and a catalyst. Reminders of his life outside his "happy ending" in Withywoods. He refuses to have gaurds. Because if he did have gaurds he would have to egknoledge that he is not Holder Badgerlock. That his life is dangerous. Ironically the very thing he did to keep the illussion of saftey made the place less safe.

There was so much talk of Fitz being (in)complete. Chade told Fitz that people say that children complete a man. And it almost seemed that way when Bee was born. Fitz saw Molly care for her and thought "so this is what a mother is". He tried to build himself what he lacked as a child, the life he could have had had he not been the bastrad prince, had he not been an assassin, had he not been witted, had he not been tortured and used and killed.

But because of that expectation of a perfect life and a perfect child, he did not love bee all her first years as he should have. And because of all those things he lacked, he could not be a good father to her.

He did by her as best as he could, but he simply did not have the tools to care for her. That all became very clear when Molly died. He really did try to do better. He contantly tried but he couldn't just will homself into being a good father, despite how much he loved Bee. And all that doesn't negate how much he loved her, but that doesn't mean she deserved better than what he could do. Despite how smart or mature she was, she still needed what Fitz couldn't do. Couldn't be.

And when his life in Withywoods was gone, Fitz still looked at it with pink-tinted glasses. He still clung to it, to what it represented. But it was not as he saw it. What he clung to it as. So after Bee was taken he felt like past after his death. Because he clung so long so hard to that happy ending. He wanted to die in his and Molly's bed in that "safe", "perfect" life at Withywoods. A life which was never as real as he wanted it to be. Never as happy. Never as whole.

[katrinsupernova]

The tent

Illustration series for the Fool’s Quest by Robin Hobb

[mtnikolle]

@flashfictionfridayofficial "Fool's Quest"

wc: 865

Summary: Naruto wants to use his newest homework assignment to finally learn about his family. He gets something else instead.

“Our last thing for the day, a bit of homework for the weekend,” Iruka-sensei called out near the end of class. The groans were epic, and Iruka managed to keep his smirk on the inside rather than let it show on his face.

He turned to write on the board “Family Techniques,” then turned to face the class again.

“This weekend, you will start some research on shinobi techniques. For those of you with other shinobi in your family, you will find out about their techniques. For those of you who will be the first shinobi in your family, you will need to research the techniques of a Konoha shinobi of your choice. You will have time next week to work on your reports. I’m handing out a sheet with the expectations and some suggested questions to start off your conversation.”

Iruka-sensei moved down the rows of the classroom handing out a page to each student. After he was finished, he dismissed the class for the weekend.

Naruto was… well, he wasn’t sure exactly what he felt. He didn’t have any family, which made him sad, but he also didn’t know if he had any family techniques. It also made him a little excited, because maybe he could find out about an awesome ninja that he was related to! He was also a little disheartened because he <i>hated</i> research. Reading was so hard and boring and slow. Maybe learning cool ninja stuff would make up for it… He wasn’t exactly sure where to start, either.

Naruto started trudging home, thinking about it. Ugh, maybe he’d have to start with the, he heaved a sigh, library. Or! He could ask the old man! That would be way better! And easier! And the Hokage had to know everything about everyone’s family, right?!

Naruto made an abrupt about face and sprinted back to the academy. He’d head straight to the old man’s office to ask! This was gonna be his best report ever!

Thanks to his previous dawdle, Naruto made it back to the building in no time at all. Now, though, he had to be careful. The adults who were here could be mean, it was better just to keep quiet until he made it to the old man’s office. He moved really close to the walls and walked slowly and quietly through rooms and down hallways. Some of the rooms, he waited until the people had passed through, so no one would see him. Others, like the mission room, he waited until they were busy, so no one would pay attention to him. He worried that Iruka-sensei had spotted him moving through the room, but he didn’t say anything or glare or anything else, so Naruto figured he was fine.

Just before he got to the old man’s office, he stopped and peaked around the corner. He wrinkled his nose and squinted–that guy was still at the desk in front of the door. Shouldn’t he have gone home by now…? Naruto peaked again. The office door was open just a little… just enough… Naruto bolted for the door! He made it through before that other guy made it around his desk!

“Hey, Old Man!” Naruto shouted as soon as he burst through the door. The old man jumped and sent papers all over. Naruto could see that they were writing, but not the small, neat writing, and full pages that meant it was just those stupid puzzles he did rather than anything important. Then waved away the desk guy while Naruto continued, “Iruka-sensei gave us homework and you gotta help me!”

The Hokage’s face changed from relaxed to impassive in an instant, but Naruto plowed right on though, “We gotta find out about our families, so you gotta tell me all about the Uzumaki!” He ended on a grin that was brighter than the sun.

“Unfortunately, Naruto, I don't know anything about your family,” the Hokage responded. Naruto’s heart plummeted. “You could try looking in the Academy library, though. There is usually information on shinobi families there.”

“Sure, sure, whatever, old man.” And Naruto turned and slumped out the door.

He hadn't travelled more than two steps away when he heard a deep, gravelly voice—probably another old guy.

“Why send him on a fool's quest? You know we removed every mention of the Uzumaki from unclassified sources.”

Naruto froze.

“Better that he believes there is nothing to learn as soon as possible and stops seeking. No good can come from that,” was the Hokage's response.

A small part of Naruto was relieved that the desk guy wasn't there, while the largest part of Naruto was consumed with disbelief, anger, sadness, confusion, and inevitability that the only adult in his young life that he had considered ‘family’ was just like every other adult around. He could never trust any of them. He would never have family, whatever that really meant.

It took long minutes and every bit of will he had for Naruto to pull himself together enough to paste on his brightest, happiest, most carefree grin so that he could make it home to his lonely apartment to grieve the end of a dream.

[mellowthorn]

(original meme by twitter user @tarraerae)

[silverbastardgoldenfool]

Protective and vengeful is not even my thing but goddddddd he loves him so much !!!

[heyitsrink]

FitzChivalry "Always In Denial" Farseer

[blackandwhitemotley]

[iwillberunningfromdemons]

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)