Pleased you liked it, Allyssa. I was a little worried about getting the twins right for you. Actually, in my haste to get the story finished and sent to you, I forgot to write the last paragraph. Yraen was kind of like the link pin holding the story together,
1) Showing to an everyday person what the life of a Ranger would be like,
2) Giving me the opportunity to bring in the conversation between the Bad Guys
3) Didn't highlight it, but Yraen would have alerted the twins about the Numenorian. I didn't want to highlight it because it would have ruined the suspence at the end.

Let me know when it's been passed by the panel and I'll post it.

Okay, Allyssa.
The missing paragraph has just been sent to yourself, Rednell and Mellie.

It had been planned for a while, I just forgot to write it.

I did actually concider sending you a spoof ending, Allyssa, in which their cross dressing would have totally ruined your impression of them. I just couldn't do it to you though

Plastic's gonna nick that.

Actually, my creepy versions were envisioned before I read your idea, I'm gonna turn them into cross dressers later on now...

Val, yes I was waiting for you to post it yourself. I am assuming that you will include the final paragraph?

AT LAST I read it, and I WAS there!!!
You are a genius man!!!
I am sincere - that is NOT meant as a flattery!

Enjoyed... yes, and more - I really WAS there, and I think it is quite an achievement! You are a born writer Val! I reread your story, this time very carefully, just to see how do you achieve that effect of illusion (Tolien called it "enchantment"). And I think that you "got" me hooked at the very beginning. The description of that rainy morning is a bit of a very good prose - detailed and yet not boring. It made me a little more easy about the details in my own writing. I started to be quite anxious, because some people which read it made identical remarks: I am describing all in such a way that they feel "attacked" by very suggestive images, all ready and detailed, and this does not leave them any place for their own imagination... But your story is similar and I enjoyed it, I found that I actually LIKE to be"attacked" by suggestive images! and your ARE suggestive!
I also like very much the bit about Aragorn looking on the face of sleeping Bilbo... and the ending of course, very elegant!
About sleeping in poodles... I smiled, that brought back to me some funny memories of my own sleeping in a poodle... (and it was a fully consciient choice of a sleeping place, taken as a "lesser evil"!)... but it is a long story quite unrelated to this topic!

Oh no, it is not so much interesting, but you know, sometimes I think that if I'd write diown all sorts of uncanny and silly adventures I had in my life, it would make a hilarious reading!