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Just Desserts by Lindelea	5 Review(s)
Bodkin	Reviewed Chapter: 27 on 11/10/2005
The Shire is Jack's home. His love for it comes over as being such a strong and motivating factor in his life. You can see how, when everything went wrong for him, that he just yearned to go back. The gold was an excuse more than a real reason. I love the story-telling - Seledrith and her family are beginning to understand the actions of Jack and his boys, and that they put themselves at real risk to save the hobbits, not for any thought of reward, for they knew that in revealing themselves they were risking all they had, but from genuine kindness and love. And they can see that Jack's bond with the Shire-folk stretches back long before the Edict - and is reciprocated. Then Haldoron has been commended to Ferdi's care. That could prove interesting. The hobbit could learn quite a lot about the better type of men from the Steward - simply from observing his battered body, I should think. And the draught may well have left Haldoron looser in the tongue, so that he reveals more than, perhaps, Ferdi would wish to know. I am just loving this. Author Reply: Exactly. The Shire is home to Jack. How cruelly it must have hit him when, after things started to settle down and he happily shrugged his pack onto his shoulders and made his way back "home", only to be stopped at the Bridge with the news that the Shire was closed to Men, after the King's edict went into effect. And Jack's self-isolation, avoiding all contact with hobbits for the past ten years, is doubly tragic considering his past and his kindred feeling with the Shire-folk. Seledrith's family are finding out that Jack and his boys are just as upright as they ever thought them. Pippin is scheming again. He knows that if Ferdi doesn't get a chance to get to know the Steward as "human" before he sees Gwillam, whom the Steward ordered hanged despite the Thain's pardon, he'll be irrevokably prejudiced against the man in particular, and will add to the prejudice Ferdi has against Men in general. He would like to send Ferdi to Gondor, as escort to his son, but he cannot if Ferdi is hampered by such a mindset.

Larner	Reviewed Chapter: 27 on 11/9/2005
Ah, now the tales come out, and we find ourselves, I think, with three more "adopted" Hobbits who come Man-sized, three more who will freely be granted the right to enter the Shire when and how they please--as long as it's openly. And now all know the stories, although not quite how he found Pippin and Lop, perhaps--just that he did so. Author Reply: Good instincts. Jack is "Shire-folk"--how can he be banned from his homeland? That hardly seems like justice to me. "As long as it's openly"--ah, but if he could come and go as he pleased, he'd have no need to sneak.

Pearl Took	Reviewed Chapter: 27 on 11/9/2005
You tell your tale as well as any Took ;) This story draws a person in and doesn't let them go. Wonderful, simply wonderful! "'Of course he did!' Hilly said. 'Why let me tell you...' and he began to spin the tale, in as fine a manner as any Tookish storyteller, such that Gwillam's wife was drawn in, scarcely feeling when tiny Robin's lips stopped their suckling and merely quivered against her, as the baby dropped off to sleep under the shawl." "'How are you faring?' the Thain said, moving to the bed and hauling himself up to sandwich Farry between himself and Diamond. 'Quite well,' Gwill said. 'I need only open my mouth to eat; my guests are doing all the talking." VWD Author Reply: What a compliment! Some Tooks are quite the storytellers. (Thinking of Bilbo at the moment. And Frodo, though both bore the surname "Baggins". I cannot think of the "Took" connexion at the moment, but there must have been some, for Frodo to be Pippin's cousin.)

harrowcat	Reviewed Chapter: 27 on 11/9/2005
Oh no we can't have Robin losing him now. Just how long is that potion going to last? And how hard is it going to be to convince Ferdi that not all men are ruffians. Now my attention is really torn - when the focus is on Will and the lads I want to know how the Steward is doing but while we were hearing about him I wanted to know what was transpiring in the houses of healing! All I can say is please keep updating quickly! Author Reply: I'm not sure it's the potion so much as lack of air keeping him from coming completely awake. Hope to update tonight but might have to wait until tomorrow, the way the schedule looks. (If only the dratted stories would simply type themselves in...)

Dreamflower	Reviewed Chapter: 27 on 11/9/2005
Ooooh! Ooooh! Oooh! bounces up and down excitedly waving hands madly And I remembered how you saved me, on a summer day long ago in the Shire, when fever had taken me and I nearly drowned, lying with my face in the stream that ran through Whittacres Farm...' 'You saved him from drowning?' Diamond said to her husband. 'You never told me that.' 'I was only eight at the time,' Pippin said. 'It was a year or so after we'd first met, when he found me wandering and carried me to Bag End. My mother was happy to nurse him back to health, to return the favour, and though my father never liked Men to speak of, he found Jack a tolerable fellow.' Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! squees like crazygrinhappyhappyhappy Uh, excuse me! ahem I like this chapter. Er, yes, very good. ahem Tries for coherency... This is really lovely, the way the hobbits have rallied around their friend, and the way Seledrith gradually begins to understand, as their words slowly pierce the fog of her confusion. I do like the way she doesn't quite comprehend at first what they are all talking about. And then the spell of words that Robin/Jack/Gwill weaves, as he tells of that long ago day, and how all are enthralled by it--it's so easy to believe he once made his living as a traveling gleeman, for he is clearly a skilled storyteller. Beautiful job. Now, back to squeeing... Oooh! Oooh! Oooh!!!! Author Reply: Grinning. This was the story I mentioned, awhile ago, when asked if there were more stories about Jack. Though he appeared in "Healer's Tale" shortly after that, and might have given the impression that that was the story I meant, I was really thinking about Jack's second meeting with Pippin, where dazed with fever, he faints while crossing a stream. Good thing Pippin was there, little or not! (Don't quite know when that story will be written, or what context it'll appear in.) "Gleeman"--what a wonderfully descriptive term!

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