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Just Desserts  by Lindelea 5 Review(s)
Pearl TookReviewed Chapter: 11 on 11/3/2005
I beg a pardon from you, dear Lin. I've been reading along for a bit (oviously as this is chapter 11) and not commenting. I've kept waiting for this to become too drear and dire and that I would need to quit reading - instead it has drawn me along. This paragraph needed noting, so I'm finally leaving a response.

"He wondered, as he ate, though he hardly knew what to wonder. The time stretched out, and he ate slowly to enjoy the sensation. He suspended all thought, existing only in the moment, no future, no past, just this moment, now, each bite, the flavour bursting from the food as he slowly chewed, the texture, the sensation, the taste, the colours juxtaposed against the crisp white of the plate, green and deep red, brown and creamy-white, and the plate became his world, and nothing existed beyond, for if he were to look up... But he did not look up, to see the gallows before him, and he did not look to either side, to the guards that still flanked him, and he thought of nothing but the food... Rather hobbity, some part of his mind said, but he put that thought, too, away."

A most awesome paragraph!! Such imagery :) and the "for if he were to look up . . ." with the reader knowing as well as Will what he would see.

MEWD!!!!



Author Reply: O thank you. It was hobbity, and also a very natural thing for Will to do. I contemplated a plate of food, and that paragraph was the result!

Thanks, extremely, for your encouraging comments.

Author Reply: p.s. and I'm glad you kept reading through the most difficult part

LarnerReviewed Chapter: 11 on 10/26/2005
Oh, NO! We can't have the man out here NOW! No, No, NO! Come on, Pippin--find another distraction; and, BERGIL! Find the KING! HURRY!!!!

Author Reply: I'm with you. HURRY!

(Maybe Bergil ought to have taken Ferdi, the Wonder Hunter and Tracker, instead.)

DreamflowerReviewed Chapter: 11 on 10/23/2005
Ooops.

I certainly hope the King gets there soon, for it sounds like Pippin's going to have to do some quick thinking...what *will* he do if the Steward pulls rank on him...

How very hobbity to use food and drink as a delaying tactic, LOL! And I loved your line about Merry outdoing "Scattergold".

Author Reply: Oops. A very apt summation.

I love it when Merry is spreading his gold around... Those generous Brandybucks!

harrowcatReviewed Chapter: 11 on 10/23/2005
What a picnic and what a way to run a hanging! *g* I am not at all sure that we want to meet this steward!

Author Reply: Indeed! Amazing what the influence of hobbits will do...

BodkinReviewed Chapter: 11 on 10/23/2005
I love it - the obstinate healer, taking half the afternoon to examine Jack (- with Pippin's tacit encouragement). And the whole feeding scene is delightful - I can see the guardsmen accepting it, feeling that they've completely lost the plot and fallen into some kind of parallel universe. It would all be so completely bizarre to them that they would probably have lost the power to question it by now! (Just a shame that someone further from the hobbit spell managed to send one of the men off to seek instruction.)

The explanation of Will's heroism is excellent - everyone needs to know of the injustice of the legal response to the Edict here and understand just why Pippin, Merry and Sam are prepared to stand by these men - and between them and the gallows, no matter what.

And the Steward? turning up at the last moment. Oh dear - a fight on their hands now! But surely Bergil has managed to unearth the King - it can't take much longer or he'll be coming back on his own to have supper with his lovely Queen. And if that happens, then Diamond and Estella and Rosie will be filling him in on the details. (Couldn't Arwen do a bit of rank-pulling on the Steward? Or is he a rather snotty male-chauvinist kind of Steward who doesn't believe females are capable of joined-up thinking?)

This is a very hobbity response to the tedium of waiting. And just how Sam, Merry and Pippin would behave after hours of hanging around and discovering that somebody hadn't eaten for over a day.

(Come on, Aragorn! Stop dilly-dallying!)

Author Reply: Actually, Arwen went with Elessar, or the hobbits would have appealed to her to intervene, and she would have. Somehow I don't think the Steward would stand up to Galadriel's granddaughter and Elrond's daughter, no matter how cranky the man is.

Yes, the explanation of Will's heroism was necessary, (and to think that stitch was nearly dropped in the knitting!) and not just for the immediate situation, but we are also looking to the future.

Thanks again for your input! I am glad you are enjoying your prize. Of course, wouldn't you know it but another story is threatening to spin off from this one, involving the Steward and hobbits... yikes.

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