#greft

He edged closer to her as he spoke. She stepped back. He halted where he was, considering her. He looked into her face, at the set, flat line of her mouth and her narrowed eyes and turned his head slightly, as if he would cajole her. Then he smiled and shook his head slowly. "Not yet, perhaps, Thymara, but eventually. You'll see that you and I are more alike than any of the others. I’ll let you take your time to discover that. We have a lot of time ahead of us."

get a job. stay away from her.

he really lays it on thick with thymara. this elk situation seems ill-advised if he really wants to team up with her someday, though.

It surprised Thymara when Sylve spoke. "He'll make you look selfish if you say anything. Turn everyone against you. Like he did with Tats that night. Saying he wasn't one of us. "The girl was huffing and puffing. Her words came in short bursts. Thymara was rapidly realizing that Sylve was not the little girl she had thought she was. She was younger, but she listened and she thought about what she heard. "Ouch! Stupid branch!" she complained abrupty and then went on, "Greft is like that. He can seem so nice, but there's a mean part of him. He talks like he wants good things for everyone. Changes, he says. But then he has those other times. And you see that he has a mean part of him. He scares me. He talked to me once, for a long time, and, well, sometimes I think that if I stay away from him, that's the safest thing to do. Other times I think that if I don't find a way to be one of his friends, that will be the most dangerous thing."

Silence fell except for their breathing, the sounds of their loads bumping and dragging, and the normal night sounds of the forest. Insects buzzed all around Thymara's head, almost as maddening as the thoughts buzzing inside her head. Thymara wondered just what Greft had said to Sylve in their "talk." She feared she knew, and she felt fresh outrage.

i won’t say his motives are purely sexual. the overall intimidation is a big part of his schtick. HOWEVER, it’s clear that he’s making pointed moves toward the female dragon keepers. not sure about jerd, of course, but i have yet to hear of him having long private chats with the guys. with them, he likes to make public displays of his power.

Fancy face you're all I crave come with me now 

more tabletop art, this time I put a little more effort into it since it’s marking the start of both Act III of our campaign and the start of Venthyr’s relationship with a certain gruff assassin ;3c

ok…….

Tats leaned across her lap to speak to Greft. She hadn't even realized he'd been listening to him. "So," he asked conversationally, "how do you tell the difference between today and tomorrow?"

"Beg pardon?" Greft said, sounding annoyed at the interruption. His affability evaporated.

Tats didn't move. He was practically lying in her lap. "How do you tell when it's today and when it's tomorrow, in terms of sharing what you have? At what point do you say to yourself, well, I didn't share yesterday, so I was strong and hunted and got some meat today, so I can share this meat today. Or do you just keep thinking, I better eat it all myself so that I'll be strong again tomorrow?"

"I think you're missing my point," Greft said

"Am I? Explain it again, then." There was challenge in Tats's voice.

Thymara gave Tats a small nudge to get him to move. He sat up, but somehow he was closer to her. His hip pressed hers now.

i knew a love triangle was coming but i really hope this isn’t the other guy. tats was obviously the first

She suddenly felt uncomfortable and trapped sitting between Greft and Tats, as if she represented territory to be won to one side or the other. She shifted her weight slightly away from Tats and felt cooler air touch her where his body had been against hers.

of all the places for this nonsense to occur, the fantasy equivalent of the amazon rainforest has got to be the worst. plus there are hungry, people-hating dragons added to the mix. tighten up, y’all. lock tf in.

"You're just not like us. So I don't think you can really understand why we're here. Any more than I can understand why you're here." He dropped his voice a notch, but his words still carried. "The Council was looking for Rain Wilders like us. The ones they'd like to be rid of. But I heard they also offered amnesty to certain others. Criminals, for example. I heard some people were offered a chance to leave Trehaug rather than face the consequences of what they had done."

…

Something had just happened, something bigger than the verbal sparring between the two young men. She tried to put a name to it and couldn't. He's shifted the balance, she thought as she glanced over at Greft. He had leaned forward and was pushing the ends of the firewood into the flames. He's made Tats an outsider.

BITCH BITCH I HATE YOU BITCH. HIM AND HIS MOTHER WERE ENSLAVED AND HAD NO SKILLS TO EQUIP THEMSELVES FOR FREEDOM. GREFT FUCK OFF

and trying to make himself superior because he were born in the rain wilds and tats wasn’t is ridiculous. especially since no one in trehaug would ever claim ANY of them

"He isn't your beau, eh? Well, well. What a surprise.” Then, he raised one eyebrow at her and leaned closer to ask with a smirk, "Does he know that?"

"Of course he does! He knows the laws. Girls like me can't be courted or married. We aren't allowed to have children. So there's no sense in having beaus."

Greft looked at her steadily. His eyes, blue on glowing blue, suddenly softened with sympathy. "You've been so well schooled in their rules, haven't you? That's a shame." He pressed his narrow lips together, shook his head, and gave a small sigh. For a time he watched the fire. Then when he looked back at her, his thin mouth stretched in a smile. He leaned closer to her, setting his hand on her thigh to speak right by her ear. His breath was warm on her ear and neck. It sent a shiver down her back. "Where we are going, we can make our own rules. Think about that."

idk, i have a soft spot for friends to lovers, especially when the friend in question is one of the few people to recognize a character’s good qualities before others do. tats also seems chill, if a bit prickly. but lots of people would be jealous if they were him sooo whatever. he’s a teenager.

On the other hand, I don’t really like or care about any of the rest of the cast. I liked Thymara at first but her arc has been very boring so far and mostly consists of keeping tabs on Tats talking to other girls, obsessing over the Rain Wild celibacy rules, or trying to decide how she feels about Grefts over the top advances. The other dragon keeper kids feel like filler to keep the numbers up. I actively hate Sedric. Hest feels like a Kyle Haven retread (and Kyle was such a good villain that imo Hest suffers from the comparison.) I don’t really like the dragons in this series so they aren’t enough to hook me.

The biggest flaw I’ve noticed with it though is that it really lacks Robin Hobbs usual nuance and subtlety. Things that in other books in this series that would go unspoken are explicitly stated in monologues. Anything that she wants you to notice is reiterated over and over again in increasingly blatant ways. It’s weird and it makes me miss how much reading between the lines or taking into account unreliable narrators that there was in the Fitz books and Liveship. Like we don’t need Alise to think about how much the dragons charisma pheromones are like Hests gaslighting and thus she can resist them; we can infer that with her just briefly being reminded of their “courtship” when Sintara is trying to manipulate her or something. The relationship development is much more in your face as well and generally it feels a lot more tell and less show than previous books.