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While There's Breath...  by Lindelea 6 Review(s)
Hai TookReviewed Chapter: 2 on 1/18/2005
Wonderful to see another story! I always like the stories that involve Ferdi. I find the relationship you have created between him and Pippin very intriguing! I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of trouble they get into that Ferdi has to trust to Pippin!

Old Hildi talking and being such a source of knowledge must be wonderful for them! I bet he has some real good stories too. So many possibilities there! Looking forward to more!

Author Reply: I just love storytelling. We have some CDs with great storytelling on them, and we play them over and over again.

Thanks!

Pearl TookReviewed Chapter: 2 on 1/18/2005
So far, so Wonderful!!! I'm thoroughly enjoying this. I like Pippin perking up when away from all his responsibilities as Thain. He is just a "down home" hobbit at heart. VWD :)

Author Reply: Thank you, Pearl, and *hugs*. Appreciate your taking the time to read and comment! And certainly the VWD brings a smile... You're right about Pippin. That's just how I see him. A farm boy pulled up out of the fields and into another situation entirely. Ummm. Or something to that effect. Hobbit-turned-"ruler" of a sort?

BodkinReviewed Chapter: 2 on 1/18/2005
Dum spiro, spero = While I breathe, I hope. Old enough to have done Latin at school. Though not old enough for that to have been under the Roman Empire.

Author Reply: Aha! Sort of "While there's life there's hope" from which I coined the hobbity "While there's breath there's life". Take the Latin "While there's breath there's hope" (paraphrase of what you said) and I think you could build a triangle with breath/hope/life at the corners and "While there's" in the middle. Maybe. Am feeling whimsical at the moment.

LOL about "old enough". Ever heard that joke of the six ages of man?

Not old enough to know better.
Old enough to know better.
Not old enough.
Old enough.
Not old.
Old.

Just read aloud a fun book called "Detectives in Togas". Ever heard of it?

Grey WondererReviewed Chapter: 2 on 1/18/2005
I like Hildibald and his family. They seem charming and they are not so formal with Pippin as to make him uncomfortable. Seems like a nice little break from things at the Smials. But I am sure something more is coming with all that rain.....

Author Reply: Thanks, I like them too! Was hoping "Hildibald" would not be too close to "Hildibold" and confuse people. Of course "Hilly" can be distinguished from "Hildy" or "Hildi". Sort of like "Jon" and "John" in today's world.

You might be right about all that rain.

Thanks again!

BodkinReviewed Chapter: 2 on 1/18/2005
Dum spiro, spero. One of those Latin tags that sticks in my memory. (I'd do better if I were Ferdi.) Referring to optimism? The rapprochement of Pippin and Ferdi? The moth-eaten lungs of the Thain?

The truth-reading would be terribly useful in dealing with a slippery Thain. He wouldn't be able to get away with untruth - but does evasiveness show up, I wonder? Or 90% truth with a little bit of jesuitical wriggling?

I love the elderly hobbit - glowing with pleasure as the Thain sits and listens to all those old tales that make his family cast up his eyes. A bit more of this and he will decide to live for ever, just to get the attention.

However . . . I sense there could be troubles ahead. Too much water is as bad as too little! (And, if there weren't troubles ahead, there wouldn't be a story!) Good thing they're riding solid, unnamed ponies. . . . Hang on a minute, that suggests that they could be expendable!! Oh no! Cruelty to animals! Or Haldigrim - I hope I've just forgotten the poor hobbit.

Being out in this damp weather is not good for Pippin, though. Oh dear.

Author Reply: Ummm. Translation please? I'm about as conversant with Latin as with Elvish. Whcih means, not. For all I know you're talking about a sparrow with laryngitis. It stretches my brain to try to imagine what optimism, rapprochement and moth-eaten lungs could have in common in a Latin phrase.

Expendable crewmen wear red shirts, or don't have names. Wait a minute, sometimes they do have names.

There's a lot of stuff that's not good for Pippin. The next chapter, for instance.

Thanks!

Connie B.Reviewed Chapter: 2 on 1/18/2005
What a neat chapter. I could just see Pippin and Ferdi sitting for hours listening to the old hobbit spin his tales. I'd say Pippin got more than one surprise. It also appears to have been good for him to get away from his responsibilities for a few days.

Now the hard part comes; getting back home. Now I'm all in suspense about what's going to happen on the return to the Great Smials.

BTW, Pippin never did get back to talk more with old Hildi, did he?

Thanks.

Connie B.

Author Reply: Y'know, I thought about Hildi... this story ends a week or so before "Rope" begins, where Pippin is injured and confined to the Smials for quite awhile after.

Wouldn't it be ironic (and sort of sweet) if Hildi did get up out of his bed and came to visit the Thain, to regale him with more stories as he was stuck in *his* bed?

Yes, suspense is probably the proper condition to be in. This was the calm before the storm, if that's not too much of a spoiler.

Thanks!

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