OMG! This is so evil! They keep coming so close and then they stop! I love this story so so much. I hope it's not ending for awhile. Will u continue into when Sam comes to the Grey Havens for Frodo? Will you? Please don't stop. So beautiful!

Oh, but I've had such a good cry over this last chapter. Shirebound is right, this just keeps getting better. Such poignant imagery, such restrained, dignified sorrow. And your beautiful phrasing: "Frodo lay down beside him and felt that moment of frozen time, when the sun hovers on the horizon." Oh my goodness. I'm just wringing my hands and weeping over how good this is. It's so good, I can't give a more productive review. Sorry.

My goodness, just when I thought this story couldn't get any better! Can you imagine how tiny an infant hobbit might be? (And I never thought about the fact that Gondor might celebrate on March 25. I wonder how they celebrate.?)

"I think she'd turn the trees into gold, if that's what you wanted," Frodo whispered." Oh, how poignant. What unrequited love!

hey, It's a really good fic! Keep writing, I love Frodo and Sam slashs!

Oh My Gosh that is so poignant and heart wrenching! Oh Please keep going! Don't just leave it there! And the thought that Sam isn't settling into BagEnd so easily either. In fact that he is having hallucinations going back to Cirith Ungol. When he thought that he had lost Frodo for ever.

More please! And what about Merry and Pippin do BOTH their families accept their marriage? This story makes me feel for Rosie. I usually find her a very unsympathetic character!

Kimara

Wow.

Just ... wow. I can't believe I've been missing out on this for so long. I'm not so good with reviews, but everything about this story - the descriptions, the passages, the trueness to the characters' personalities - everything is just beautiful. Without a doubt this is the best LotR fic I've seen out there, and I commend you for it. I'm sorry I can't fully describe what it is I love about this story, but - it's so heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time. Incredible. This is going on my Favorites, and I hope you update soon.

What a wonderful story! Just read all six chapters at a sitting. So much is praiseworthy here that it's difficult to know where to begin.

Your portrayal of the F/S relationship is both moving and realistic. If I had to sum up why chapters one through six are so brilliant, it's the pychologically astute nature of the "obstacles" placed in the way of the lovers - they fail to understand each other, as lovers often do in romances, but in this story their failures are not just inexplicable moments of denseness but integral parts of their characters. Your Frodo is terrified of "corrupting" Sam with a love that became weirdly intertwined with his obsession with the Ring (You depict that SO beautifully when you quote Frodo's writing!). And your Sam is almost *shredded* by his strong sense of his conflicting duties. In both cases, the obstacles stem at least in part from the characters' *virtues*, not their faults. Brilliant.

And throughout, you show so clearly how all four hobbits have been alienated from the Shire by their experiences in the war. It is so wonderful to see a fic that deals with this in a serious & sustained way! In a way you give the best summing-up of this to Rosie:

"What is it about your Journey that has turned all of you inwards, so's you can't seem to love anyone but each other?"

Amazing line, and the entire story does a brilliant job of supporting the connection that Rose makes here (and of course of showing that the loves forged in the furnace of the quest are beautiful things).

This is absolutely terrific. Please, please post more of it soon!

It...I...hoo.

I want to say the power of this is like a punch to the stomach, but that connotes pain, and this is not - oh, wait. It *is* painful; in a soul tugging, ache inducing way. But that's a good thing. So, it *is* a punch to the stomach.

But its also as if someone has taken your heart out and kissed it. Wonderful and immensely beautiful.

The tender imagery and the intricate writing are as emotive as ever. Oh, and I LOVED the touch of Sam's jumper! And the whole strange nightmare at the beginning was great. Him wanting to bring his sword just continues that idea of him being haunted as well, which though I understood his sense of loss in the book, I'd never really thought about him suffering from his memories like Frodo - but now I am seeing the possibility, and oh wow, so sad!

Pippin and Sam's conversation was lovely, too, I loved "I don't know what I'll do if he doesn't."

And you keep slipping in these things that I read and then do a double take and realise that actually, wow, that's so clever! Like in the last chapter with 'hasty', and now how, when introducing Sam to Esmerelda, Frodo called him "my Sam". Sounds simple, but when you think about what he's actually just said...it made me go "oohhawwwwww"! *So* clever, and wonderful.

Don't even get me started on the end though. I'm a bit incoherent. '...years of hard work had toughened them and naught in the depths of Mordor could make them tremble but now all it took was a simple thought. *I would kiss him...*' - *gibbers*

Though, I CAN say that 'He felt terribly warm' has to be the most perfect Sam-esque thing he that could possibly have been put there. :D

Again, thankyou, and I await more with bated breath. I'm not going to even try and predict it, I'm happy to be carried along.

Love,

Ink

You have no idea

How good this is

Your story is like oxygen.

One reviewer told me that once and i pass it to you.

I love

This story

With my soul.

I love it

And cherish it

and it has become part of me

and if it were a movie

I would lick the box

and call it my own.

kudos isn't a word to describe.

I've sat here for an hour and a half reading straight through.

Before this gets too long i will paste you a line i copied from the first chapter that i liked.

"We're so close it's painful-closer still would be agony."

Gorgeous.

Beyond gorgeous.

IF THIS STORY GOT ANY BETTER IT WOULD BE AGONY!

I love you.

Write more.

Thats all.

I don't know how I've managed to miss this story for so long.

Very beautifully done...such a reserved and delicate portrayal of Frodo and Sam's conflicted relationship, a thankfully kind characterization of Rosie and some wonderful depictions of hobbit society.

I've been especially moved by the reappearance of this poignant image of freedom:

In Chapter 4: "Sam was struck by the same feeling he got when walking home in the day's last moment of fierce light, seeing his fields stretched out forever all around him, completely unbounded." And again, in Chapter 6: "It was freedom he felt on his skin, a glorious, endless promise of running through fields as carelessly as does a child who sees nothing but openness around him."

I think we've all had that feeling at least once, and have wondered what it would be like to live that way...unbound.

A beautiful story so far. Anticipating more.

This is one of the most beautiful Frodo/Sam stories I've ever read. It's very heartwarming how Frodo feels about Sam; but it's also heart breaking. Keep going...I'd love to read more.

Another wondrous chapter. I adored the warm, loving attention that Esmeralda paid to Frodo, and the way Sam answered Paladin's questions. Beautifully written. I just finished writing Chapter 3 of "In the Keeping of the King," where I get into the Light that Sam sees in Frodo. It's so great to see other authors talking about that. It's as if only Sam can truly see him.

Oh, "...that he and Frodo had been lifted up and rescued by the great wings of the eagles. Sam had deeply regretted not remembering something so thrilling, but now he thought he knew exactly what it would feel like." Wow.

OMG, I'm obsessed with your story! Will there be some Frodo/Sam slash soon? I know there kinda is but I mean like some cute little confessions and kisses or something of that sort. Hurry and continue please!

I think Merry/Pippin is growing on me, and I loved Pippin's response about producing an heir. I'd really love to hear your explanation about why both of them end up married, though. This is going into my Favorite Stories.

I like Sam's reasoning for why Frodo is still Mr. Frodo...and I was wondering when Roise was going to catch on.