Spring was just starting to give way to summer at the Great Smials when Rontius found his Aunt Daisy in the garden sobbing over a letter clutched in her plump hand.

       "Aunt?" he inquired cautiously. Someone was dead; it was merely a question of whom. He tried to remember if anyone was especially ill, but no names came to mind. Dread bubbled up inside of him.

       "Bandobras Took passed on Highday," Aunt Daisy croaked between tears. Rontius took the letter from her and read it twice before handing it back. He found himself waling up the path from the garden to the grand entrance to the Great Smials. He stood in the Octagon room, the eight sided hallway that served as the gateway to the Thain's apartments, the dining halls and the main part of the smials. As he stood there, he felt strangely empty, like a glass tipped over to spill out most of its contents. For the first time in his life, Rontius stood without any clear idea of where to go. His feet surprised him by leading him to his father's study. He knocked on the door.

       "Enter," came the Thain's voice.

       Rontius pushed open the door to find his father studying reports of expected crop yields. He cleared his throat, causing his father to start.

       "Thought you were Barley with tea," the Thain said. "Well, what do you want?"

       As always, Rontius felt as though he were speaking to his father from the other side of the Shire. His parents were never deliberately cruel to him, but their lack of affection rubbed him like course cloth.

       "The Bullroarer is dead."

       The Thain sat up in his chair. For a moment, the young hobbit saw grief flicker across his father's worn face before it was submerged under his façade of calm.

       "We'll need to send someone to the funeral," the Thain mused, running the bottom of his pen against his chin. He studied Rontius carefully with his shrewd gaze. "It's about time you started assuming some responsibilities. You can begin by representing the family at the funeral."

       "Yes sir," Rontius said before he departed, wondering as usual if his father gave him permission for his sake or that of his position. He shook himself out of his thoughts as he hurried to his room to pack. What did the reasons matter so long as he was able to pay his final respects to the hobbit he most admired.

       Now the nominal head of his branch of the family, Beryl North-took stood solemnly outside the Bullroarer's smial to greet family and mourners. He was the first in his line to carry the name 'North-took' – his father approved the change for his offspring but felt himself too old to change the name he'd had all his life. As Rontius passed him by, the North-took met his gaze and gave him a sympathetic nod; Beryl knew how close his father and young cousin had been.

       The funeral was simple but dignified, a combination of which the Bullroarer would have approved. He was planted between his wife Poppy and the small grave of their youngest daughter Willow. His surviving daughters, Spirea, Forsythia, and his granddaughter Periwinkle scattered wildflowers across his grave. Within a few months his bare mound would be as green and grassed over as the others in the small burial ground.

       "I'm surprised you made the funeral, our messenger must have rode quickly to reach you. I don't doubt you were on the road within an hour of hearing the news." Beryl remarked with his usual candor at the funeral feast. "With the warm weather we couldn't wait long to bury him."

       "I'm representing the Thain and the Took," Rontius said wearily. The neighbors brought a fine array of dishes for the feast to ease the burden on the family, but Rontius found himself unable to do much more than pick at his food. Across the field, Periwinkle frowned at him and he made a show of eating before she worried his aunts with his lack of appetite.

       Beryl raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He was a hobbit who tended to reserve judgment and as a result was well-liked.

       "I'll be going back to Tookland tomorrow."

       "You can stay longer if you wish," Beryl offered. "We may be a house in morning, but you are family. Besides you'll need a cart for Da's bequests to you and the family in Tookland."

       Rontius raised an eyebrow. "Bequests?"

       His elder cousin smiled, it was his father's expression encompassing warmth and amusement. "You don't think he didn't leave you anything but memories, now did you?"

       "I hadn't thought of it," Rontius answered him honestly. He thought the wonderful memories the Bullroarer left him were the finest inheritance in the Shire.

       "Bide with us another few days before going back to Tuckborough."

       Beryl assigned his niece Periwinkle to help him load the small cart – it and the fine dappled pony to pull it were a bequest to one of the Tooks farming near Tookbank. Assorted oddities were left to various relations; there was a pipe for the Thain, a length of a rare petal-soft cloth for his wife, a vase and table for Aunt Daisy, and small pouches of gold for Cousin Hildi and his daughter Peridot among other tokens of esteem and affection.

       To Rontuis, his uncle left a small copper-lined cedar trunk filled with odd things. A few books from his library, including an annotated copy of The Life of Bandobras Took, Bullroarer with all the exaggerations and inaccuracies pointed out in the old hobbit's crisp hand in the margins. Also included was the black tooth of a sea creature. It was triangular and bigger than his hand. Rontius shivered at the thought of the mouth it had once been in and was glad neither the Shirebourne nor the Water supported such a monster. It could probably swallow a hobbit whole.

       The tooth seemed to reaffirm for Rontius that the sea for all its wonder were not a place for a hobbit; those crazy Bucklanders in the Eastfarthing might play around with boats, but that was on the ale colored Brandywine not the wild and undrinkable sea. Rontius harbored a profound distrust of water deeper than himself. Some Tooks might crave adventures, his small longing for excitement was quenched by journeys in the Shire and tales of far-off wanders; he had no desire to see such things for himself.

       As he tucked the tooth back inside the trunk, he was struck by an odd and far-off sound that was both a crash and a roar, and the smell of salt. It frightened him, as though one he dearly loved were taken by the rolling gray-green waters. The moment faded he was back in the Shire he so loved, but the fear left its stain upon his mind.