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While There's Breath... by Lindelea	13 Review(s)
jodancingtree	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/22/2005
Whew, this is a tale you read all the way through at a gallop! Wonderful, very suspenseful, and marvelous characterisations like all your stories. Brava! jo Author Reply: Thanks, Jo, high praise! So I take it that this fits seamlessly after "Runaway"? Now I still have to work out Pippin and Ferdi working things out, for they haven't really talked yet! Whew. Appreciate the good words.

Pearl Took	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/21/2005
Whew! I need to catch my breath! Go Pip lad, proving (sp) yourself at last. sigh Now perhaps Ferdi will understand a bit more why Pippin ended up getting himself knighted ;) VWD :)!!!!! Author Reply: Ah, yes, he will soon, anyhow. But have been too tired to write any more, the last day or two, and even if I did feel like writing it is the weekend and computer time around here is as scarce as hens' teeth. Thanks!

Anso the Hobbit	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/21/2005
What is it with Tooks, rivers and bridges? They certainly get enough of excitement crossing little streams that suddenly becomes roaring rivers. They should have brought a Brandybuck each time they need to cross one. :) Anyway, another test of courage, trust, health and wit for both Ferdi and Pip, this, and I`m enjoying it very much! I like how you made Ferdi see his life in review and that he never really trusted Pip, but now has too. He doesn`t want to, it seems but if he is to live he is to trust for Pippin to blow air and life into him, and they both survive. Can`t wait for more! Author Reply: Could be a lucrative business. "Brandybuck for hire. Need a river crossed? Call a Brandybuck today! (We also do boats)"

Anso the Hobbit	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/21/2005
What is it with Tooks, rivers and bridges? They certainly get enough of excitement crossing little streams that suddenly becomes roaring rivers. They should have brought a Brandybuck each time they need to cross one. :) Anyway, another test of courage, trust, health and wit for both Ferdi and Pip, this, and I`m enjoying it very much! I like how you made Ferdi see his life in review and that he never really trusted Pip, but now has too. He doesn`t want to, it seems but if he is to live he is to trust for Pippin to blow air and life into him, and they both survive. Can`t wait for more!

Grey Wonderer	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/20/2005
I enjoyed all of the introspection in this one. I also found that I was breathing along with them. LOL I think Ferdi still feels a measure of guilt for Pippin's health and also a measure of anger for what he had to go through because of Pippin's leaving like he did. This bond between them may help to heal some of the past in a way that other things might not.thank goodness for the Took stubborness on this one! Author Reply: O lovely insight! Fits very well with the third revision we worked on tonight! (LOL) A measure of guilt for Pippin's health, yes, we hadn't even thought of that, but it fits. Guilt and anger are so often paired. Maybe we will not rush back to the Great Smials after all, but will insert a scene on the riverbank and perhaps one at the woodcutters' smial as well... Chewing on the food for thought that kind reviewers have provided this day. Thanks! Author Reply: p.s. Just got off the phone with my editor-friend and she adds her "thanks".

Ariel	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/20/2005
LOL! Closet of insecurities? YOU? Oh, hon, we all have those, but I guarantee this; you have more readers than I will ever dream of having! Count your blessings. I am often reading, though I do tend to stick to angstier things. If I don't review it's usually because I can't think of anything constructive to say. 'Nice job' is what I say to up and coming newbie authors - but you deserve more indepth commentary. Suffice to say, there are things I like in your fics and things I don't. In this one, I am unclear on the bridge and how the fellow was caught. Perhaps a bit more description of the situation would have helped - though it also could be that I am particularly dense! LOL! You have, so far, not pulled too far back from that angst line - which I like to see, of course, but I know you are uncomfortable with - and I am impressed to see you trying to push it in this fic. If you are doing this as an exercize, very good! Trying new styles, POVs, mechanisms is a very good idea - you never know when you might stumble on something that works very well for you. I can't promise I will have this much to say about all your fics, though I will try to remember to comment and say 'I'm reading!' at the very least. Author Reply: Well, no, not exactly an exercise. It just sort of wrote itself this way. "In the Greening of the Year" was sort of a dress-rehearsal, I think. It was supposed to be the "Ferdi learns to trust Pippin" story but Eglantine and Tolly insisted on taking over. For Ferdi to go from the angst Jo cranked into "Runaway" to the amicable relations in "Rope" I figured it would take an awfully angsty situation. Hmmm. More description of how he was caught... might be able to work it into the revised version of the next chapter. Basically the bridge crumpled when the flood hit it, and he went down through the "floor", through the broken boards, which meant that when they tried to pull him up the boards were facing "down" and "in" and pulling against them pulled them "up" and "in" to his abdomen. Um. That's harder to describe than I thought. Does it make sense now?

Beruthiel	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/20/2005
Marvelously done! Waiting eagerly for Ferdi to be set straight about Pippin's leaving him under the water. Wonder how he'll react when he finds out the hobbit he doesn't trust actually did save his life. Author Reply: Oh, I imagine he'll react honorably. We are still hammering out the next scene. Don't know if the angst and nightmares will make it into the finals or if some understanding will come on the riverbank first. Weighing two different variations on the same draft chapter, and now a third is raising its head! Isn't writing an interesting process?

Dreamflower	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/20/2005
This is incredibly well-done. I think even someone who'd not read your other stories would understand enough for the chapter to make perfect sense. Poor Ferdi! I love the imagery of a smial with a collapsing ceiling, as he loses his supports one by one. Ferdi's been betrayed and bereft so often in his life, it's no wonder he finds trust difficult. And Pippin, operating here basically on physical memory, not even thinking, but simply doing what he's been trained to do, and trying to save a life. That his own life is in jeopardy is not even registering with him at the moment, and it's no wonder he is confused when rescue is finally at hand. It's a shame Ferdi did feel abandoned at the last, but I'm sure Hildi will very quickly set him straight. Please don't let Pip get too sick this time--he's not got much time before he has to go to Merry in Buckland, and if he can't do that, he's really going to be distraught! As for the stubborn contest: I guess this one turned out to be a draw, though I think if rescue had been only a few seconds later, Ferdi might very well have won. Author Reply: Whoa! Gives a whole new meaning to the old saying, "Can't win for losing!" Pippin can't get too sick this time. I'm constrained by the timeline. He's due in Buckland in a week or two, and stays in Buckland a week or two (I forget how long), and it's on his way back from Buckland that "At the End of His Rope" starts. And this story has one more "bug" to fix (something that bugs me, anyhow). In "Rope" it's clear that Ferdi has never seen the Brandywine up close, so how can he be driving Pippin and Diamond back from Buckland at the beginning of that story? --Am hoping to clear that up in this story. Whew. Thanks!

Ariel	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/20/2005
I never know what to say to you in reviews, which is why I rarely write them, but I did want to let you know I am reading and enjoying this story. Yeah, angst. Sigh I'm so predictable. Author Reply: Pity, because I always enjoy hearing from you. You know how it goes, that mixed feeling, looking at the hit counter. Is that number representing one really dedicated reader hitting the same chapter X times? Or is it X people hitting the chapter and thinking it's not worth commenting on...? Pardon me, my Closet of Insecurities is ajar. :::firmly closing door, shoving wedge into place as latch seems to be defective::: You could just say, "Ariel was here. :::waving:::" Nice to know you stopped by. Am honoured, actually. :::bows to Angst Maven:::

FantasyFan	Reviewed Chapter: 5 on 1/20/2005
The Red Cross instructions for CPR say that once you begin, you should continue CPR until either 1) the patient revives, 2) someone else arrives to take over from you, or 3) you are too exhausted to continue. Even the Red Cross knows that there are some rescues that can't be accomplished, and some people who can't be saved. And Pippin is chilled, ill, breathless himself, and certainly exhausted. He never considers giving up. Yes, he swore an oath, but nobody expected it to be like movie-Aragorn's oath that "If by my life or death, I can protect you, I will." Nobody could blame him for failing if he had quit - Ferdi's underwater, for goodness' sake, and one member of the escort, however beloved, isn't worth the Thain dying for. None of that even goes through his mind, because he did truly mean his promise. He would rather die than break it. Ferdi however, has lots of things go through his mind. How tragic that in the darkness he sees all the people that he has lost and the weight of all that sadness. I think though he does realize that he still has a lot to live for, and that's what keeps him from letting that last breath go. He may not know exactly the state Pippin was in at the end, but the other hobbits saw it, and he's already working through the Pippin-paradox in his own mind. If Pip can avoid dying of pneumonia now, this certainly will lead to a strengthening of Ferdi's and the others' faith and trust in him. Not only are there all those good things in it, it was also very tense and dramatic chapter. It really had me on the edge of my seat. Author Reply: Lots of food for thought. No time for more than cursory reply. More later, I hope. Thanks! Author Reply: Actually, the other hobbits didn't pull Pippin out of there because he was exhausted and in danger of collapse and drowning (even if it was true) but because they were ready to pull Ferdi out, having made cuts in the boards all around him and just needing to do a big heave, sort of, and Pippin was in the way of that. Still, it might have felt briefly like abandonment to Ferdi, enough to figure in some nightmares that will lead to discussion and resolution. (Another echo of "Runaway" perhaps.) And as fallout/a side benefit, I'll resolve the little plot hole that has bothered me for a long time in "Rope" (see reply to Dreamflower's review). And I am out of time again! But I wanted to answer your review before I got sideswiped by the weekend. Thanks for another thoughtful review.

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