Disclaimer:  I neither own nor profit, save in pleasure, any of these characters or places, but tread humbly on the path the Professor has laid.

"Isengar Took (1262-1360) (said to have 'gone to sea' in his youth)"
LotR, Appendices, Took family tree.

 Astron, 1295.

He had followed the Brandywine, no longer searching the banks and broken reeds, but unable or unwilling to do anything else.  He couldn’t recall eating or sleeping, not in detail anyhow, though surely he must have.  It could not have taken less than a month to reach this point on foot, but everything since the 5th day of Rethe was a blur, and now he stood upon the shore of a gray expanse that rolled out past all sight:

The Sea.

The sound alone was incredible, like a crowd in awe and the drum of thunder wrapped up in one long unceasing chorus.

“What’re ya doin’, lad?” a gruff voice rumbled nearby, and Isengar turned slowly, awakening to his surroundings as if from a dream.

An old Man sat upon a wooden crate on the dock, its stones cold and damp beneath the young hobbit’s feet.  The oldster’s face, weathered and seamed by sun and spray, was bent over the net that lay about his knees, but he now ceased his work to look up at Isengar.

“Well?  What’re you about, son?” he asked again.

“Walking,” the confused hobbit answered, having no more suitable reply.

“Where to?”

Isengar shook his head wordlessly, and the old Man nodded, looking back down to continue his task.

“Road stops here, ‘less you go east towards Belfalas or west to the Havens,” the fisherman said a moment later.  “’Course, there’s always the Sea road…”

“The what?”

“The Sea road,” he replied, pointing one gnarled finger towards the shifting waves.  “’Tisn’t right for everyone, but She’s big enough to find or lose whatever you will.”

Isengar turned his eyes from the restless water to gaze at the fisherman’s hands, once again busy mending the net.  Settling himself upon the stony dock, the young hobbit reached for one trailing edge where a strand of the rough twine had come undone, and with deft fingers bound it again.  The old Man grunted and bent to his task, Isengar doing the same while he listened to the Sea roar before him.

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The deck swayed gently beneath Isengar’s feet, and though he would have found it passing strange if he had given it any thought, neither the movement nor its cause brought him discomfort or fear.  No fear, for he had nothing to lose beneath the waves, and what awkwardness had first slowed him had quickly given way to the natural balance and grace he had always possessed.

Jeroen, the old fisherman he had first met upon the dock, had gathered his gear at the end of that day and walked home, clearly expecting Isengar to follow.  After a few days, they had gone out together upon the rolling Sea in the little fishing boat, returning near to dawn the next day.  The young hobbit had quickly learned to follow Jeroen’s shouted directions, his gravelly voice easily carrying over the constant murmur of the waves, and Isengar had been glad to offer his strong back in exchange for the quiet hospitality the old Man had given him.  Afterwards, exhausted and aching, he had not been able to imagine how the bent elder had managed the heavy tasks on his own…

Now, a month later, Isengar was climbing the rigging of a three-masted trader bound for shores unknown to him, but the destination ultimately mattered little.  He was still just walking, after all.  Squirming up into the crow’s nest, a small smile touched his lips.  Save for the small nutshell of wood and sail that rocked below, he beheld a world of sky and water without end, demanding nothing, giving little, empty of anything to bring to mind the land, the Shire, and the life he no longer had.

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“Don’t spend it all in one place, lads!” the purser growled, though without much hope his advice would be heard.  Isengar walked away with his taller companions, all of them laughing together with the ease that grew among those who shared danger and close quarters.  A year at sea had changed him, though he had not noticed it.  The relentless sun had darkened his skin and the hungry nature of shipboard life had pared down what little roundness had remained in his face and form.  Copper-streaked curls tied back and striding into the crowded tavern with the rolling gait common to sea-going folk since the beginning of time, he had little in common with the bereaved and silent hobbit that had walked into Cirion’s Point.  And though many was the time when he could be found gazing blankly out to Sea in moments of idleness, nothing and no one had demanded that his past be shared.  He had shut away his self and his life and had begun another, still too numb to find anything but comfort in the empty space that surrounded him, within and without.

“Isengar!”

The young sailor nearly walked right past the two hobbits suddenly leaning into his path, instinctively sidestepping to allow the strangers’ passage, before his brother’s voice shocked him into thunderstruck immobility.

“Hildigrim…” His voiceless murmur was lost beneath the sounds of the tavern, but the older Took and his companion, Gorbadoc Brandybuck, surely had no trouble reading the horrified recognition on his face.

Isengar stumbled back into his fellows, who had all turned and were gazing suspiciously at those who had accosted him.

“Trouble, Corchoer*?” Jan-Thys asked.  The first mate’s steadying hand fell upon Isengar’s shoulder.

“No…  No,” he croaked, throat tight as he shook his head.  All the while, he felt his brother’s eyes burning through him, full of sadness and doubt; and surging up from beneath an ocean’s weight of forgetfulness, the memory of her face.

“Little brother…” Hildigrim’s hand was held out towards him, confusion and hope writ plain across his face, but Isengar could not move, even to fall into his brother’s arms.

The entire tavern now seemed to hold its breath, entranced with the mysterious confrontation between the small strangers and the crew of the Westering Wind.  Finally, Gorbadoc laid a gentle hand on Hildigrim’s arm.

“Come, cousin,” he softly said to the bewildered Took beside him.  “We’ve a room upstairs,” he added, looking sadly at Isengar before leading Hildigrim towards the stairs.

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Isengar found himself seated at a corner table with a tall pint and the grim-faced first mate across from him.  His shipmates were crowded about at the bar, surreptitiously staring back at him.  Jan-Thys scowled at them once more before turning his gray-green gaze upon the tense hobbit.

“Drink up, lad,” he said, nodding towards the earthenware mug.  “A man can only run from his past so long.  You drink up and decide if it’s up the steps or out the door I’ll get you.”

Isengar simply shook his head and did as he was bid, swallowing half of his ale before looking up again.

“I wasn’t running away, I was walking towards…”

The dark-haired sailor frowned but kept silent, and Isengar went on.

“I was following the river… I was trying to follow her.”

The Man nodded.  “You’re not the first or the last to throw your fate to the Sea, for whatever reason.  But She’ll always throw you back to yourself, at least until She takes all in the end.  There are no answers on the blue.”  There was a certainty in his voice that bespoke hard-earned experience, but Isengar could take no comfort from it.

“There are no answers anywhere,” he said quietly, standing up and turning towards the wooden stairs.

“The Westering Wind sails with the evening tide,” Jan-Thys called after him as the hobbit climbed the first step.

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“He’s so changed, Gorbadoc…  He almost walked right past me!”

Isengar waited silently in the hallway, his brother’s voice seeping through the poorly jointed door.

“What did you expect?” he head Gorbadoc reply, a weary sort of anger coloring his tone.  “If he had wanted to be found, he would have come back to the Shire long since.”

It was true.  He had not wanted to be found, to be reminded, pitied and stared at.  He had not wanted the comfort of his kin or his friends, not even that of the boisterous Brandybuck beyond this door who had been as close and dear as any of this own brothers.  But now, well, he at least owed them a sort of explanation, some word to take back home.

Isengar knocked on the door, and it swung wide to reveal Gorbadoc’s unsmiling face.  The state of the room behind him made it clear that they had been here for some time.  The wayward hobbit was certain Master and Thain couldn’t be best pleased at the expense, and it firmed his resolve.  They had to head back as soon as possible.

He stepped into the room, pausing for the space of a breath before reaching out to embrace his brother.  It felt immensely good and strangely awkward to hold his own after his year among tall foreigners, and he held tightly to the older hobbit’s lanky frame.  Finally, Hildigrim pulled back, though he still held Isengar’s shoulders, eyes searching his face.

“What a hunt you’ve run us on, little brother…” he said.

“You wouldn’t believe how far,” Isengar murmured.

“But now you’re found and everyone back home will be as glad of that as I am!” Hildigrim smiled.

The young sailor forced himself to keep his gaze level with his brother’s.

“I…  No, Hildigrim…  My ship sails at dusk, and I plan to be on it.  I’m sorry…”

“What?  No, you can’t…  Why?”

Isengar turned away from his uncomprehending glare, but found himself face to face with Gorbadoc, who leaned unhappily against the door.

“Why are you doing this?” the Bucklander asked, his usually resouding bass an anguished rumble.

“There is nothing there for me, Doc…  Without her…”

“Isengar, be reasonable!  I loved my sister as well as you, and longer besides, but isn’t it enough that we lost her?  Do we have to lose you too?”

“I’m not lost, just… well, away.  For a while.”

Silence settled over the disorder of the small room as each of them absorbed the implications of his words.

“How long is a while?” Gorbadoc asked.

“I don’t know…”

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The sinking sun sat bloody on the horizon as the Westering Wind left behind the dark shore, dotted with the lights that were appearing one by one against the coming night.  From his post in the crow’s nest, Isengar could still see them on the dock, and he felt his throat tighten against a different grief than he’d been denying all this time.  Regret had ousted forgetfulness, and home was heavy in his heart as he turned his eyes away and to the Sea.

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Some years later.

“Well, Corchoer*, it won’t be the same without you.”

Isengar laughed, clasping the hand Jan-Thys offered.

“There’s no lack of lads here with a good head for heights, Captain,” he said, grinning up at his friend.

The two of them had changed but a little in thirty years, and only the gray that had crept in among raven and copper curls gave clue to their age; wind and sun creased the faces of even younger men upon the Sea, though no one made mention of the odd agelessness of the tall Man, anymore than they did of Isengar’s utter silence about his origins.

“Ha!  But have any of them got more than coddled eggs between their ears?  Well, you know where to find the Westering Wind, my friend,” the first mate turned captain said with a fond smile.

“And you know how to reach me.  The post route my brother arranged will stay in place until I tell them otherwise.”

The captain nodded, and with a last clap on the hobbit’s shoulder, he turned to board ship.

Isengar did not stay to watch her sail but hefted the bag that held his few possessions and made his way to the tavern, whose master owned the town stables.  A few more hours found him well out of town and following the Brandywine River’s broad ribbon north.  As mile on mile passed beneath the pony’s steady gait, Isengar let memory wash over him.  Distanced by time and cushioned by maturity hard gained, the old grief surfaced, but without the paralyzing intensity that had driven him to the Sea, not once but twice.  And this time, the sweet joy that had been eclipsed by tragedy came also, and with it the image of laughing eyes and dimpled cheeks, and the sound of merry mirth.

Oh, how well he had loved his Tigerlily!  His life had been so full of her, his every breath and thought dedicated to her, and their love as yet unaltered by the inevitable wear of a life shared in common.  A spooked pony and a bank weakened by spring rains had been all it had taken to steal that precious life away to a watery grave.  She  had never been found, and so she would always be perfect, unmarred by time or death.  Meanwhile, here he was, an old hobbit already, returning to a life unlived that it was too late to take up again.  Questions he had not dared ask himself before now assailed him, useless questions that had neither answer nor comfort to offer, and he nearly turned back.

Might he have loved another, lived a richer life, had he returned from searching the riverbank?  Or even if he had given in to his brother’s pleas a year after that?  Perhaps…  And yet, Isengar thought, there was no denying that the road fate had set before him had not been without reward.  No, there was little point in such regrets.  What might have been was not, and as unreachable as whale song, if twice as sweet.

Days flowed into each other and, riding thought the wildflowers to reach the road that led into Hay’s End, Isengar was struck by how little had changed.  A tiny hope rose in his heart.  Unlike the Sea, that fickle and intemperate mistress that reshaped the shores with every turn of the tide, the Shire, this land that glowed beneath the afternoon sun’s loving rays, was steady and inalterable, as were those that were bound to it by blood and root.  It was a thought both comforting and undeniably terrifying.

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Isengar threw the bright coronet of wildflowers into the river, watching it float downstream with a small smile.

“So it’s true, you’ve come back!”

His old friend’s voice startled Isengar from his solitary reflection and he saw that the broad Bucklander was leaning casually against the gray willow that veiled the bank from the Buck Hill.  Gorbadoc had grown older too, lessening his resemblance to his lost sister, which made it far easier for Isengar to smile and embrace the bear of a hobbit that was now Master of Buckland.

“How did you know?”

“When rumors reached me that a very strange hobbit was riding up the Brandywine, I knew it couldn’t be anyone but you.”

Isengar looked down at the plain broadcloth and linen he wore and laughed.  “And here I thought I would fit right in with you odd Bucklanders!”

“Bah!  Nothing decent clothes and a proper haircut won’t mend!” Gorbadoc said, one hand round his shoulders and the other taking up the pony’s slack reins.  “Come on!  Miri’s outdone herself in the kitchens I hear, and all especially for you.  Something about fifteen different kinds of fish…”

Isengar laughed along with him, falling easily again in step and into the pleasant banter that had always filled the companionable days of their now-distant youth.  Some things didn’t change, but somehow Isengar still doubted that it would be so simple to fit in again, even among the notoriously queer folk on the Brandywine’s eastern shore.

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5 Rethe, 1360.

Isengar carefully turned the key in the lock before placing it in the hidey-hole carved into the doorpost.  He had sent word to Brandy Hall at first light, so he didn’t fear ill would come to his home in the few short days it would take for his kin to make their way here.  He had never gone back to Tuckborough, to the house of his father, but had remained here in Buckland, near the river that had so altered the course of his life.  He had buried the last of his siblings this year, and he had one last thing to see to, which he had put off already too long.  He had left detailed instructions within, willing the small fortune he had made over the years to Hildigrim’s grandson; he knew the lad would make good use of it, burdened as he was with an ailing father and four sisters to marry off.  The rest he had left to Gorbadoc’s heirs, certain that Rory and his sons would enjoy the maps and oddities he had accumulated in his travels as well as any Took.

Without another look at the simple dwelling that he had occupied for the last few years, Isengar walked down to the wooden dock where his little boat was moored and climbed aboard, feeling every year in his old bones.  It was no Westering Wind, he thought to himself as he cast off the last line, but it would serve well enough to take him down the Brandywine, one last time.

Isengar smiled.  ‘One last time, down to the Sea.’

The End

Corchoer*:  red crow (copper-colored crow)