Gorhendad Oldbuck stepped out into the graying dusk and reached to shut out the tumult of voices behind him.  The night had not gone at all as he’d expected.  No, not at all.  Thank heaven his father and grandfather weren’t alive to witness it.  But then, perhaps that was part of the problem.  No – Gorhendad shook his head.  He alone would bear the blame.  Alone … then for the first time he wondered what Dahlia would say, all their dreams gone, her brother Isumbras to be Thain instead.  Not much hope of a family blessing now.

He stepped thoughtfully away from the hall and down the hill.  So, the Tooks had finally done it, taken the opportunity of Gormac’s unexpected death to denounce his heir as unorthodox, not properly settled to be Thain, and – just like that – he wouldn’t be.  No, not just like that.  Gorhendad kicked a stone that lay in the path.  It had been coming for a long time, perhaps he’d even hastened it along, a bit.

The stone hit the water of the peaceful Brandywine with a satisfying ker-plunk and Gorhendad plopped himself down by the stream.  He did love the Shire, but not always its people, and a good Thain (as he’d been told often enough), safeguarded one by shepherding the other.  Gorhendad sighed, feeling his anger and disappointment sink like the stone to the bottom of his heart. 

The night was quiet now.  The uproar of Shiremoot had died down behind closed doors.  The river murmured quietly, and Gorhendad found himself wishing for the eleventieth time he could understand her words.  Beyond the river, the first eastern star was just peaking out from behind the clearing clouds.  As Gorhendad looked, it seemed to wink at him and, after a moment’s thought, he winked back.

The morning Gorhendad left the Shire was a quiet one.  There had been feasting over in Tuckborough the night before and many folk were still abed.  As he checked one more time that his pack was well stowed, Gorhendad thought somewhat wistfully of his own pillow though he’d spent a quiet evening at home certain he’d not be welcome at Great Smials.

Gorhendad took hold of the gunwales.  He would have liked a private word with Dahlia, or even to send a note, but Isumbras had had the last word on that subject some nights before: “What’s more important than home and family to a Hobbit?  And a Hobbit that dishonors both … well!”  Gorhendad could easily imagine what they’d say down the pubs when it got about he’d left the Shire ...

As the bow caught the current, Gorhendad climbed aboard and set his oars.  There at Stock, the Brandywine wasn’t wide, but it flowed swiftly.  Gorhendad put his back into it and, in but a moment, the western shore was a blur of early morning mist.  Still, the scrape of sand under the  prow caught him by surprise.

It hadn’t taken long to leave his life behind.  He hauled the dory up the bank as far as he could, then shouldered his pack before turning back one last time.

No matter what Isumbras might say in his absence, Gorhendad had always loved the Shire, loved it like his parents’ hole, loved it like the boys he’d grown up with – Isumbras among them – and the secret places they’d called their own, loved it like something he’d one day outgrow.

Turning, he surveyed fresh fields and banks of good earth crowned by the deep green of the Old Forest.

So, where to now?  Some place he could truly call home.

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.