Great story, an enjoyable read. Liked the ending. :)

Oh, that's really lovely. I enjoyed these four appendices, and you really did a great job of addressing concerns both at the group level - what happened to the Orcs? what happened to the Fell Beasts? - and at the individual level. You even took care of some things I'd misplaced altogether, like the fate of Grima or Pippin's poppy addiction. I also like how the solution to Pippin's speech problems turned out, by circuitous route, to be learning Sindarin. And I am glad he and the other hobbits didn't have to quit mindspeak altogether, because it made possible that very lovely coda at the end.

I see my earlier assessment of Chapter 72 is not quite accurate. Someone *has* been devising punishments for the dead Orcs. The question then becomes whether it was a power or principality, or it was the Orcs themselves, needing something to do and lacking the wherewithal to come up with anything that wasn't sadistic, masochistic or pure drudgery.

Ah-hah. So now I must read "The Great Hobbiton Race of 1435." ;)

...Wowww. That was very smartly done. So of course that's where the change occurred, when fog obscured the surviving Uruk-hai and Eomer did not fight and slay Uglúk as he did in the original reality. I should have picked up on that as a moment where change would have had to occur earlier: Uglúk had to survive in the first place if he was to recapture Merry and Pippin.

Seeing Pippin experience the alternative (original) reality, both the events that happened to him directly and events that would have happened off-stage to people he would never otherwise have known, makes it clear. Even though the original reality was "better" for Merry and Pippin personally, since they endured so much more suffering in the reality that is "Recaptured," people they have come to care about in this reality would have come to much sadder ends. It becomes inevitable that this reality is the one that that Pippin finally "chooses" to belong to.

Smagnu's comment ("Now I know why everyone kept saying I got et by a spider") is a great bit. It becomes the kind of parallel echo or déjà vu moment that comes from life in the Multiverse.

Merry's final words are a wonderful nod to Samwise's, "Well, I'm back."

Galadriel talking to Sniggin. 8)

And there's a startling reveal at the end. Eomer? Really?

I like how sifting the alternate (original!) reality has affected Pippin physically. Or if "like" is not the right word: it is an interesting touch.

LOL. I remember this poem. You certainly put it to brilliant use here, as Smagnu tries to bring Merry out of his depression.

Orkish love poetry. For when you really need a good shock to the system.

Oh I swear these ridiculous Valar are going to KILL me. Who the heck put them in charge anyway? Argh!

I love Merry's scene with Smagnu, finally getting each other's names right, and Smagnu's admonishment of Merry.

Men aren't all that. Don't discount the Dwarf.

In the middle of all these Matters of Consequence, it was entertaining to see a few people remaining stubbornly in character: Merry, who is "not leaving Pippin's body alone with any orc inside it, no matter how brave and heroic – and that's final!" and Grutfley, who in the face of Gandalf's wizardly command for silence still finishes out his haggling before redirecting his attention.

I enjoyed how Bloggin, lacking an explanation for how to do "well behaved," draws on the ten commandments taught to Pippin and other young Tooks, and how Gandalf boils that down to having "respect for each other and yourselves."

Speaking of ten commandments, the Messianic or Mosaic mantle that has been placed on Bloggin is weird but enjoyable. "Ernil i Glamhoth" feels a mite over-grand in the mouth, but maybe my sensibility is closer to a Bloggin or a Sniggin in that regard.

Oh, Orcs. 8)

["Clearly in my tapestries it is shown that the twain perian who stand here were not fated to be recaptured by the Uruk-hai and that is where their paths diverge from what should have occurred."
"From that point, their fates became entangled many times with Orc-kind and it cannot be denied that their actions had a profound effect on those that they encountered. It would appear that Ilúvatar Himself has decreed this change and used the innocence of these Halflings to test the loathsome nature of orcs to discover if any of the filth of Melkor has washed away from them."]

These chapters grant a meta-awareness to the story - the characters, some of them anyway, now essentially know that they are in an AU and that fate was changed when Merry and Pippin were recaptured at Fangorn. And the story itself is now recast in a different light. When pitching this story to others, I used to describe "Recaptured" as not an Orc fic per se, but a story with everyone in it...and some excellent Orkish OCs who turn up along the way. In a weird way, though, we find now that it *is* an Orc fic of a sort, because its raison d'etre has become an investigation into and redemption of the Orcs:

["Wh-what about the orcs? And... and what about Bloggin? That is more important!"
"More so than your own continued existence?"
"Well... yes..."]

This chapter is crushing. It poses the awful picture of an Orkish afterlife of prolonged dismemberment and eternal pain, not as punishment, but out of pure negligence, for the grisly reason that they have been summarily flung in an abyss and left eternally as they were at the moment of death, because no one could be bothered about reembodying them. It's appalling that something more hasn't been prepared for the Orkish afterlife than this; it is, even, unforgivable, from a non-Orkish perspective. But Orcs themselves don't expect any better. Bloggin does not know the meaning of disgust and he's ready to take on a task that would set large armies to vomiting.

GIVE 'EM HELL, PIPPIN!
[outraged on behalf of all Orcs everywhere, including the crappy ones]

Two things. Somehow, in all of the confusion, I actually did realize what Sauron had done: that is, disguised himself as Gandalf and ridden Shadowfax. But, I didn't realize that Pippin was (supposedly) dead. I thought that Sauron had brought him along - not necessarily controlling him, as Gandalf said, but using him to create the illusion of Pippin lively and well - but that he was just comatose from poppy overdose, when Frodo tripped over him. I didn't realize until this chapter that he was (or rather that everyone excepting Merry thinks that he is) dead.

I'd feel bad, but by this time it's more a matter of seeing how you get these lads out of such pickles, and by the end of the chapter I could see what was planned. Lovely and appropriate use, though, of the grey mist "turning to silver, as if it was made of glass, and the sun ... no longer setting, but rising and beneath it ... white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise."

Although I feel bad for Gandalf, who was of course doing the unpleasantly needful thing the best he can, Smagnu's righteous anger deserves a nod. "What's a powerful Wizard like him doing using Little Pips and weak snaga orcs to fight his battles?" It's the same outraged cry one might raise against Tolkien's own Gandalf, or Rowling's Dumbledore, or any of those sage graybeards who present as kindly old mentors but whose job it is to propel the protagonist toward danger and death.

Legolas' answer is as timeless as it is simple: "Sometimes the greatest among us have to turn to the seemingly small and weak for help."

Glad that Grutfley has found a buddy of sorts in Gimli. ... Poor little Sniggin. He deserves to be hugged and cuddled.

“You’ve not seen the last of Bloggin quite yet!”

! Thank you, that’s all I needed to hear. It was very poignantly done. Tiny little guy, throwing his little body in there as if he would destroy all evil forever. If only that would work. Yes, you can destroy Sauon’s Ring and Sauron with it, but unfairness and cruelty will remain sad realities that we all have to live with… what a brave fellow, though.

When I first started reading this story sixteen years ago, back in 2002 or thereabouts, I never imagined that the fate of Middle-earth would depend on kicking a fell beast in the balls.

This was great. Now Sam has his shot at "converting" a creature of darkness (Frodo had Gollum, Pippin had Smagnu, Merry had Majdi), and I love the fact that it is by way of identifying commonalities between guarding and gardening. I'm rather pleased to see Grubbus turn up again anyway - I don't remember if we actually knew his name before, but I did remember him.