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Another Moment of your Time  by Larner 7 Review(s)
AntaneReviewed Chapter: 100 on 1/31/2024
A sweet story! Hope you are well. I keep thinking I should drop by and see what else you've written and finally remembered to do it. Happy 2024!

Namarie, God bless, Antane :)

UTfrogReviewed Chapter: 100 on 11/20/2023
Simply beautiful

Author Reply: Thank you again!

KittyReviewed Chapter: 100 on 11/19/2023
Larner, this is beautiful, and so touching! When Sam and Rosie wake up, they will be so comforted to find the blanket and the flowers there and to realise that Frodo heard them and still cares for them so much, as they do care for him.

Author Reply: I am so glad you find it so, Kitty. How is life treating you? I hope that you still are able to be surrounded by your beloved books.

KathyGReviewed Chapter: 100 on 11/14/2023
I love it that Frodo was somehow able to comfort Sam and Rosie! I hope they felt it when they woke up in the morning, especially when they discovered the unfamiliar blanket covering them and the roses and elanor in the vase on the table.


Author Reply: I'm certain that the blanket and flowers confirmed their realization that Frodo had sought to reassure them that he was aware of their grief and good wishes for him. There was obviously a strong tie between Frodo and Sam, and it needed to be affirmed.

Thanks so, and give my love to Dreamflower and Linda Hoyland.

UTfrogReviewed Chapter: 100 on 11/12/2023
Made me cry

Author Reply: I reread all my stories aloud, usually several times, before I post them, and I found myself crying, too, as I reread Sam and Rosie's tales to the pillow. That you would have the same reaction and mirror my own response to the story as it unfolded honors me greatly!

Thank you so, UTfrog.

LindeleaReviewed Chapter: 100 on 11/9/2023
Oh! So much to love.

It could merely be a comfort-story, the homely scene with its birthday delights (frosting in the tot's golden curls, ah, yes) and the descriptions that bring Bilbo's smial to life as a home built by a hobbit (Bilbo's father? Who built the smial for Bilbo's mother? I forget and must go back and look that up) who knew what comfort was and was not parsimonious in applying his knowledge. (Pardon the big word(s); I have been editing and am still shaking off the editor's mindset. Some of my clients sound as if they have swallowed a thesaurus, and I have replaced many a grand mot with a plainer, more serviceable substitute this week. But the big words sometimes linger for a time... something like an editing hangover?)

And thoughtfulness abounds. Rose's mother comes (for the birthday, I imagine) to stay overnight and helps out, along with the neighbour. Sam takes Ellie off to the bath. Frodo reassured Rose before he left that he would not be taking Sam with him (or perhaps that he would not allow Sam to accompany him? Even if the poor, torn-in-two gardener should make that choice?). That means Rose knew Frodo was leaving for some time before Sam (on their way to the Havens, wasn't it) even suspected, much less found out. But from Sam's reaction on that ride to the Havens (poor Sam, for he thought that Frodo was only going to Rivendell, undoubtedly only to visit Bilbo and then come home again to Bag End), Rose did not share Frodo's secret with her husband.

(I wonder if they had a conversation about that later? I would love to be a fly on the wall, perhaps in the stables, in Bill's presence, for I can hardly imagine a fly on the wall of well-kept Bag End.)

And poor Sam, missing Frodo so deeply, trying to find comfort in whispering an account of the day's happenings to his Master's pillow in the aching, forever-absence of his heart-companion. And Rose, understanding, and her dream...

And then magic.

Such a lovely ending. A shiver went down my back (a good one!). I went away to ponder and brew a cup of tea, and then I came back and read the whole story a second time.

Beautifully done.

Author Reply: Had I taught much in high schools I'm certain I'd have had the same response to essays that had been assigned. But my few essays into high school English were in special ed, or with my one young lady I followed and brailled for over four years. She was too busy trying to understand higher math and reminding herself of her childhood Spanish to embroider her essays, at least.

Yes, Bungo had Bag End excavated in preparation for his marriage to Belladonna Took. I suspect that they'd hoped and expected to have as large a family as her parents had, but ended up with only one living child. How disappointed they both must have felt to have only Bilbo to live in their grand home. I remember that in The Hobbit Bilbo had used many of the empty rooms to hold his vast collection of extra clothes. In many ways I suspect that Frodo saw that as too great evidence of conspicuous consumption to follow his nominal cousin's example.

In one of my stories Frodo assures Rosie the day before he and Sam left Bag End that he did not want Sam to go with him, and he tells her to kiss Sam in such a way that her husband would find the desire to return to her to be stronger than his desire to stay by Frodo's side. In another I have Sam recalling that kiss for Frodo and telling him that it had been filled with promise, which was why he returned to father so many children and finally fill Bag End with family at last.

That Frodo had handed Sam his will and the deed to Bag End shortly before that fateful birthday indicated to me that he did not plan to return to the Shire, and that Sam undoubtedly had hoped that Frodo had chosen to remain in Rivendell with Bilbo. That would have been okay by Sam, I'm certain. It was a journey he could make with at least his older children and his wife, after all. And I suspect that Sam realized all too well that Frodo needed to be with the Elves due to worsening physical and emotional breakdowns.

I love writing times when Frodo was allowed to know what was happening back home in the Shire, and to have some interaction. And somehow Elanor's name-flower had to make its way into this tale.

So glad you like it. And do look at its predecessor when you have time--nowhere as gladsome, but I'd like your response to it.

shireboundReviewed Chapter: 100 on 11/8/2023
This is so absolutely lovely I don't have words to describe my feelings! :)

Author Reply: I'm so glad that this struck you in this way! Thank you so for this review, Shirebound!

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