Thanks! *g* I felt the need for the disclaimer 'cause I thought since my narrator kinda comes off as less than enthusiastic about the whole thing I wanted to be very very clear that I love it.

When we switched stories in Creative Writing class, my reader (itallwillfall) said the ending felt like a kiddie chapter book in terms of the nice pretty conclusion, in a good way. Which is totally not how I thought of it at first but I think now I'm kinda more or less proud of it. :) Though when I started writing the story there was an actual, like, conspiracy and stuff, and then I got a couple pages in and realized I was near the target page number for the assignment already and I hadn't said a peep about the villain -- I had, in fact, four characters, and one of them had to be the villain, and neither Beth nor Scott nor Anonymous Sword Man made sense.

And thus, genius was born. :P Doesn't it kill the whole story to know where I was coming from? :D

And I'm glad to hear the exposition was smooth too, as I think it's one of the hardest things to do. (But I wanna tell you all the irrelevant background details noooooow! It's all so neat and pretty in my head! What do you mean you're bored?) So thanks thanks thanks! :D