natália ✿

“You thought I was bringing you flowers?” I was incredulous at his fancy.
He looked from me suddenly, and I perceived that my words and tone shamed him. Head bowed, he walked slowly toward his bedchamber. He made no reply to my words and I felt a sudden rush of sympathy for him. As my friend, I loved him. I could not change my feelings about his unnatural desires, but I had no wish to see him shamed or hurt. So of course I made it worse as I blundered in with “Fool, why do you not let your desires go where they would be welcome? Garetha is a fairly attractive woman. Perhaps, if you gladly received her attention—”
He rounded on me suddenly, and the true anger that flared up in his eyes lit them to a deep gold. His face flushed darker with emotion as he demanded caustically, “Then? Then what? Then I could be like you, sate myself with whoever was available merely because it was offered to me? That, I would find ‘distasteful’. I would never use Garetha or any person that way. Unlike some we both know.” He weighted those last two words for me. He took two more steps toward his room, then rounded on me again. A terrible, bitter smile was on his face. “Wait. I see. You imagine that I have never known intimacy of that sort. That I have been ‘saving myself’ for you.” He gave a contemptuous snort. “Don’t flatter yourself, FitzChivalry. I doubt you would have been worth the wait.”
― Robin Hobb, Golden Fool