It was a long road that eventually led Gorhendad back to where he had started – almost.

One spring day his wandering feet returned to the Brandywine, but no further, and, as he had that first dim morning, he surveyed the high downs of the eastern shore and this time found there all he at last recognized his restless heart desired – almost. 

A Breelander merchant agreed to deliver a message, and soon the banks were swarming with Oldbucks wheeling barrows, planing logs, and ferrying much needed foodstuffs in from the Marish.

It was just before the first snows that Gorhendad gently took his mother’s arm and escorted her into their new home across a freshly sanded floor to take her usual chair before a crackling fire.  Together they held a quiet Yule, and kept themselves mostly to themselves through Winter, even as the splendor of their new surroundings grew night after night in the pubs and parlors across the river.

When Spring returned there was more digging and more building and more and more Oldbucks crossing over, but it was a quiet afternoon when Gorhendad came home to find Dahlia Took sharing a pot of tea with his mother.

Later, as the sun began to settle over Hobbiton, he walked her down to where a pony cart waited by the gate.

“I hear you’ve changed your name,” she murmured, as he politely handed her up.

“Aye,”  Gorhendad nodded, not trusting himself to say more.

“How’s that, then?”

“I knew I couldn’t ask you to share the old one.”

Dahlia pursed her lips for a moment, nodded, and then clucked to the pony and was gone.

But, as Gorhendad waved her out of sight, he knew he’d found all he could ever want of home in the brightness of her answering smile.