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Pearl of Great Price  by Lindelea 2 Review(s)
Lyta PadfootReviewed Chapter: 8 on 12/15/2003
How sad about Esmeralda's sister. I'm glad I already know that Ferdi makes a recovery of sorts. Poor Rosemary - she is trying so hard to be strong for her brother that she risks a tumble herself.

Author Reply: A recovery "of sorts"? Do you mean that Ferdi's still daft after this incident? (Well, in the minds of the other Tooks, perhaps he is)

Rosemary is a dear, and she will get her reward, in time.

FantasyFanReviewed Chapter: 8 on 12/15/2003
I am glad to see you back after your enforced vacation. I hope your cold is better too - I think we will have the flu for Christmas at our house, if I read the signs aright.

I am intrigued by your story of Esmeralda's older sister. Of course, there are no details in canon, not even the poor girl's name, so all must be from your imagination. Will the story of what happened to cause her trouble come out? Do you have stories for the other two unnamed girls as well - do you think they also died young? And are the Tooks prone to this kind of illness as a result of trauma? - no, Bittersweet says she has heard of only one other case. Merry cannot face greeting poor Ferdi. He is young, and hasn't had much pain in his life to deal with yet. But I know what he feels like - I am no good myself at hospital visits. There are never the right words to say.

Ferdi we know will recover, of course. But from the level of his dissociation here, that recovery looks to be slow. I wonder what it will be that brings him out of it. His sister has not been able to, although perhaps it just needs time. Would a visit from Nell at Yule? Ah, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Author Reply: Thank you for the kind words. I am glad, too. Computers are such a mixed blessing--difficult to live with, nearly impossible to live without.

Flu for Christmas? What a shame! (One of my brothers always got sick at Christmas. Since he shared a bedroom, that meant he always had to sleep on the couch on Christmas eve. How frustrating for the rest of us that he always had opportunity to catch Santa at work, but always slept through it all and couldn't tell us how the presents came to be under the tree or how the stockings got filled.

Paladin and Esmeralda's older sister exists in the sketchiest of outlines at the moment. The other two girls did not die young--some of the mischievous cousins who lead Pippin's son Faramir astray are descended from one of these two, who married a "Smials Took" and moved back to the Smials before Paladin became Thain, though you may not see her in this story. Pearl, despite the fact she's a niece, is only a farm girl in the eyes of her snobbish aunt.

Merry will have a touch of this same trouble in "Jewels", after Ruby dies. (Is it something about drowning?) Perhaps it will help him to understand Ferdi better, and accept his weakness. According to events in "Flames", the two friends are estranged until Merry returns to the Great Smials for a visit after Ruby's death.

As to what brings Ferdi out of it... well, that remains to be seen, but rest assured, it *will* occur in this story.

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