I know you'll not be mine

I finished the Tawny Man books last week and I just... what can I say. Truly gorgeous. And heartbreaking. If you haven't read them, you must. (Well, Farseer and Liveship Traders first, obviously...) And if Robin Hobb never comes back to the Fool and the Fitz I'm going to be sorely disappointed.

'Ware spoilers...

I cannot believe the Fool left. After everything that happened, after they finally won and Fitz is no longer in danger of dying every five minutes and life is good again, and the Fool somehow survived despite all his prophecies, you would think he could take a rest from the whole White Prophet thing. No more visions, after all, and that being the case, maybe he should allow as how, since he never saw a possible future in which he DID survive their success, the one where he was dead is not necessarily the best possible one and removing himself from the picture may not be vital to the preservation of the world.

The ONLY thing making this bearable is "I have never been wise."

And speaking of unbearable: the poor Fool doesn't even know that Fitz called him by his own name. It just isn't fair. He's been calling Fitz Beloved since Fool's Errand; he should really know that Fitz returned the favor. It might not have made a difference to his decision, but he should know how much Fitz loves him before he gives up completely...

All that said, though, his gift and especially his poem were just impossibly sweet. Which is how we get to this drawing: the Fool sitting by the fire in Prilkop's cave, carving his goodbye gift for Fitz. When I drew it, I somehow thought it was supposed to be made of wood... it wasn't until I went back to see if the book mentioned a color that I learned it was memory stone. Which explains why it has MEMORIES in it. ~beats head on wall~ So whatever subtle details he's adding with that awl thingy, he would have probably done better with his Skill fingers. Oh well. Also, despite significantly darkening his skin color halfway through this, I expect it's still too light... I kept wanting to do it gold. Guess I'll have to do some pictures from earlier in the story.

Pencils painted in GIMP with a VisTablet, roughly six hours total.

Beloved/Fool/Amber/Lord Golden/whatever he's going by at the moment © Robin Hobb
Art © me