Epilogue

~ S.R. 1464, mid-April, later known as "the calm after the storm". A little more than a year earlier, a rare but powerful earthquake with an epicentre just east of Tuckborough rocked the Shire. Faramir Took and Goldilocks Gamgee were wed in the immediate aftermath. (The wedding was a scheduled event though the earth-shake was not.) After a Summer spent recovering and rebuilding, the Master, Mayor and Thain accepted King Elessar's invitation to them and their families to travel with him from Lake Evendim to the Southlands, which turned into another adventure of sorts. Back home in the Shire, Faramir, acting as Thain while his father was gone, faced a severe winter reminiscent of the Fell Winter when the white wolves crossed the frozen Brandywine. His competence and foresight carried Tookland and the rest of the Shire through the emergency. The Travellers returned from the Southlands when the roads were clear, pausing mid-March in Buckland to see Merry through his anniversary with Shadow, after which the Mayor and Thain returned to the Great Smials only to find themselves grandfathers to Farry and Goldi's newly-born twins. And now another wedding is in the works. ~

Normally, there would have been nothing out of the ordinary in finding the head of the Thain's escort out on the shooting range, enjoying the promise of a glorious Spring morning just as the Sun began to rub the sleep from her eyes. But then, one might argue this was no ordinary day. The Thain, recently returned from a long visit to Gondor, had released him from his duties today. However, the festivities scheduled to begin soon after dawn would preclude his daily practice time if he did not pursue it now. 

'...as if this were just any day,' his fellow escort and soon-to-be father-in-love murmured with a slap for the younger hobbit's shoulder.

'For many folk, it is just any day,' the young head of escort said philosophically. He rotated his shoulder with a wince.

'I'm that sorry, lad! I didn't mean to...'

The brightening dawn-light illuminated the younger hobbit's wry grin. 'No harm done,' he said. 'The wolf left his mark in more ways than one, and e'en though old Mardi said my healing was complete, the arm remains a bit stiff, this early in the morning. He also told me that I would have to work it consistently to keep it from stiffening.' He drew a deep breath of the dew-freshened air. 'So every morning finds me, without fail, at the butts... And I can think of worse things I might be doing.'

'I can think o' better,' his companion countered. But then he was more of a night owl than a Lark like his eldest daughter. He nocked his arrow, drew and released. The two archers watched the arrow speed towards the centre of the target, reaching its objective with a satisfying thunk.

'Nearly there,' the younger hobbit said critically. 'I do believe I'll have no trouble persuading the Tooks to release me from my obligations in your favour on the morrow...' His own bow thrummed, and his arrow found its mark so close to Tolly's that the two shafts were distinguishable only by the different colours of their fletching.

'You won the Tournament fairly, you know, before the Travellers left for the Southlands,' Tolly said.

'By a single shot,' Adelbrim returned.

'I came third,' Tolly argued.

'Behind Hally Bolger,' Adelbrim said, 'who couldn't serve as the head of escort in any event, not being a Took.' He glanced at his soon-to-be father-in-love. 'But now that the Thain has returned, your place is by his side... just as mine is to continue as his son's shadow, at least until Farry should become Thain himself.'

'And e'en then you'll remain his shadow,' Tolly said quietly. 'Whether I'm Head or someone else is.'

Adelbrim shrugged, then rotated his shoulder again. 'Loosening up nicely,' he said. 'By the end o' the day, I ought to be able to carry Lark o'er the threshold without any trouble.' Since he was half a head shorter than his intended, the tradition had posed a real concern to him.

Tolly laughed. 'If you have any trouble, I'm sure my lass will be happy to do the honours!'

'She would, too,' Adelbrim said in chagrin. But then his sunny nature reasserted itself, and he added his laughter to Tolly's. 'So long as somebody carries someone o'er the threshold, we'll have observed the necessities and can shut the door on the world and begin our married life without further ado.'

*** 

When Tolly returned to his apartments, he lowered himself into his comfortable chair a little more stiffly than he had before the earth-shake, about a year earlier, that had nearly taken him off to the Feast.

When he was well-settled, Lark fell laughing into his lap – with as much care as had become second nature to her over the weeks when her da was still recovering from his injuries – and hugged him.

'Did you eat up all your beetle-bugs and caterpillars this morning?' Tolly asked, dropping a kiss on her curls, flying wild and loose as if she were still the little lass who'd come from the North Farthing to enrich his days. 'It'll be a long day,' he warned, 'and you'll need a good foundation for all the effort to come...'

'I ate every scrap of coddled eggs and bacon and toast that Rusty stirred up for me for early-early breakfast,' Lark answered pertly. 'Unfortunately, he said, the larder is fresh out of caterpillars, and he thought the last of the beetle-bugs looked a bit stale, so he's put in orders for a fresh supply.'

'Ah my little songbird,' Tolly said with another hug, but he choked up when he wanted to say more. How quickly the time had flown! Why, it seemed like only yesterday...

*** 

'...but only with your permission, old hobbit,' Tolly said solemnly. 'And even so, they'll remain north-Tooks to the end of their days.'

'Unless Lark should marry,' old Gorbyl said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye. 'And it's not my permission you need, or so it seems to me...'

'Even then, the lass has the choice of keeping her name by the customs of the north-Tooks,' Meadowsweet said. 'The Tooks could benefit from taking a few pages from their book, they could...'

'In your case,' Tolly said gladly, pulling his beloved to him and bestowing a kiss on the tip of her nose, 'you did keep your name! For "Took" I married and "Took" you remain!' In point of fact, Tolly and Meadowsweet were distantly related, for their branches of the family tree had divided long ago between two sons of the seventh Thain of the Took line.

Keeping an arm around his beloved, Tolly turned to the childer. 'Well?' he said. 'It is up to you, my lads and lass. Thain Peregrin can write your names in the Yellow Book at the same time he records your little sister Linnet's name, or we can wait until you're comfortable with the notion... days... weeks... years...'

'Or never?' asked little Lark, unusually stern.

Tolly and Meadowsweet exchanged glances, and then the head of escort released his beloved and bent to address the tiny child. 'Or never,' he affirmed. 'The choice is yours, and if your choice is to stand fast as the children of your north-Took parents and not permit the legalities that would allow us to adopt you as our own, then we must honour your choice. For always, if need be.'

'For always,' Meadowsweet echoed, with a firm nod, though the words seemed to catch in her throat, and her eyes gleamed with sudden tears.

Lark tilted her head to the side as she considered. 'But would that make you love us less?' she said bluntly. Flam gasped aloud at the question, and she turned her eyes to regard him. 'I have to know,' she said. 'We have to know.'

'O' course you do,' young Gorbi said quietly. 'You want to know if they'll love us "as is", and not try to change us into something we're not...' He raised his all-too-serious gaze to challenge the adults staring at them. For even at their tender ages, these orphaned children had already discerned many differences between Tooks and north-Tooks over the few days they'd travelled with Tooks and since their arrival at the Great Smials.

'You are you – yourself,' Tolly told the teen, 'and allowing me to adopt you as my heir, Gorbi, and changing your name according to tradition and legalities will not change that. Nor will Meadowsweet and I try to change who you are, that we might live more comfortably amongst the Tooks, or to try and avoid gossip – which, I regret to say, is unavoidable at any event.'

Meadowsweet snorted.

Tolly glanced at her, nodded, and looked back at the children. 'I have already given you my word that should life amongst the Tooks not agree with you, we'll all of us return to the North-lands, where my beloved and I will become north-Tooks – for my Sweetie and I discussed the matter even before you arrived here,' at this juncture, he took hold of Meadowsweet's hand and kissed it, 'and she agreed – and with The Red's full blessing, which I have already sought just in case such a contingency should come about!' 

He looked at each young face in turn and added, still speaking to young Gorbi, 'And the same holds for your brother and sister with you.'

'And we will love you the same, regardless of legalities or names or anything else,' Meadowsweet interjected fiercely. 'If you wish to change your name to... to Baggins, our feelings would still be the same!'

'Let us not go to that extreme!' old Gorbyl said hastily.

The following Highday was Linnet's Naming Day, marking the passage of a month and a day since her birth. As things turned out, the ceremony was expanded to include young Gorbi – now Gorbibold, and Flam – now Flambold, and Lark, who had been distressed that her name would remain the same.

'It is because "Lark" is a proper Tookish name, just as much as it is a proper north-Took name, and so it can be written in the Yellow Book without any trouble at all,' Tolly had explained when the childer had announced their decision to their grandfa and their new mum and da. 'Unlike "Flamol" and "Gorbol". For your brothers to be my legal heirs – whether I might have anything to leave them or not when I should go to the Feast – by law and tradition, since I am descended from a son of the Old Took, they must have names that end in "bold".'

Lark had not quite been satisfied with this explanation until Meadowsweet had laughed and drawn the little lass to her side with a wink, then bent and whispered in her ear.

'What did you tell her?' Tolly asked curiously, later that night when the childer were sleeping.

Meadowsweet chuckled under her breath. 'I told her she's already bold enough, and everyone can see it plainly enough, so she doesn't need to add anything at all to her name because it's already perfect.'

'O my love,' Tolly said, pulling her close and closing his eyes, overcome by thankfulness. 'I'm so glad...'

When he stopped, at a loss for words to express the depth of his feelings, Meadowsweet snuggled closer and murmured into his chin, 'Welcome home, Beloved. Welcome-welcome home.'

*** 

'My bold little bird,' Tolly said, and then he looked into her eyes and laughed. 'Not so little anymore!'

'I'll always be your little bird, I promise!' Lark said, getting up from her da's lap.

'Faramir will be knocking at the door at any moment to collect you!' Meadowsweet warned, bustling into the room. 'You don't want the bad luck of coming late to the wedding breakfast!'

'I'm all ready!' Lark laughed, straightening the circlet of wildflowers atop her head.

'Not quite,' Tolly said, rising from his chair. He walked to the entryway and took down old Gorbyl's bow case and quiver from its hook. Returning to Lark, he slipped them over her shoulder. 'Your granda would be so proud to see you now.'

Lark closed her hand gently over the decorated strap, lovingly embroidered by her grandmother Opal, and they all bowed their heads for a moment of remembrance.

'Bless the old hobbit,' Tolly whispered, breaking the silence, and then he kissed Lark on the forehead as a knock came at the door. 'That's Farry, no doubt, come to escort you to the wedding breakfast.'

'No doubt!' Lark said saucily, belying the tears sparkling in her eyes.

After watching his daughter walk away on Faramir's arm, Tolly took up his own weapons, which would not have been an unusual act for a hobbit of the Thain's escort under most circumstances. More unusual, perhaps, was Meadowsweet's choice to garnish herself in a similar manner, as did their other sons and daughters from Gorbi on down to young Nightingale. For even the children who were not north-Tooks wished to honour their grandfa's memory as well as their oldest sister's north-Took heritage.

*** 

The Tooks of the Great Smials weren't sure what to make of the visiting north-Tooks and their choice of wedding attire. Granted, their clothing was festive enough, even with the differences in style between North and South. But – coming armed to a wedding? As the gossip continued and spread, astonishment was transforming into something darker and less charitable, sad to say. The only good thing about gossip, really, is that it is spoken in whispers and murmurs, and so the visiting north-Tooks were unlikely to hear the uncomplimentary Talk that was taking place around them.

Even if they had heard the Talk, the north-Tooks would have dismissed their hosts' bad manners, chalking the ill-natured talk up to simple ignorance. Bolham had emphasised to the members of his band that the Southern Tooks had different customs while reminding them to be slow to take offence and try not to show surprise at anything they saw or heard. At the same time, The Red was determined that Lark, as a north-Took, should have a proper wedding.

Many north-Tooks chose to bear arms at festive occasions, not because they anticipated troubles would come, but rather to commemorate the Troubles of the past. They shouldered their quivers with pride and sorrow – with pride because their arrows had deterred their would-be oppressors from invading the Wood that sheltered them, and with sorrow in memory of those who had laid down their lives in the cause. 

The custom had started not long after the New Year that followed the onset of the Troubles, as word began to spread regarding Lotho's Men and their thieving ways. Soon after the Shire-folk celebrated Last Day and First Day, all the inns were closed down, and it was said that Mayor Flourdumpling himself had been marched off to the Lockholes! Since Bandobras's time, North-farthing farmers had set some hired hands to guard the others who ploughed and sowed and harvested as a matter of course. The recurring incursions of Lotho's Men spurred town leaders to appoint archers to watch over market days. Then one fine Spring day, ruffians had come from seemingly nowhere with clubs and waggons to disrupt a wedding celebration and gather all the presents and food and trappings. 

Bolham and his brother, along with Gorbyl and his sons and several others had brought their bows with them in case Lotho's Men should appear as they had been with increasing frequency. When the Men arrived, not expecting trouble from these casual, usually-friendly North-landers, the archers drove them away, mounted ponies, and pursued them quite a distance, which allowed the wedding to take place unmolested. In the aftermath, however, Lotho had declared them outlaws. They'd had to retreat to the Wood to avoid being captured and marched to the Lockholes, and that had been the beginning of Bolham's rebel band. 

The ruffians were long gone now, but the north-Tooks remembered, and they continued to wear quivers and carry their bows to weddings and other festive occasions. Ultimately, their arrows had bought them the freedom they now enjoyed to live and to celebrate life.

Though Diamond had hidden in the Wood with her family during the Troubles and joined other tweens in defending the borders of the North-landers' fastness, she had laid her bow and quiver aside upon marrying Pippin. Thain Paladin had demonstrated such opposition to their union, she hadn't felt strongly enough about the matter to add another cocklebur under the old hobbit's saddle.

At this particular wedding celebration, her husband was enjoying himself immensely, Diamond was glad to see. Pippin was thoroughly delighted to attend this wedding as "a regular hobbit", for Bolham north-Took had come to direct the festivities and perform the ceremony. Moreover, the Thain was happy to mingle with the north-Tooks who'd travelled in a large body from all over the North Farthing to attend Lark's wedding, and he obviously relished their company. 

As she scanned the surrounding tables on this side of the room, comprising the bride's friends and relations, Diamond came to the conclusion that the town of Bolton must be all but empty! Along with The Red, all the surviving members of Bolham's band were here to celebrate Lark's wedding and, in doing so, honour old Gorbyl and Wallas, as well as Gorbas, Lark's uncle. Of course they brought their family members along! ...many of whom, as well as the Northern archers, sported quivers upon their arrival at the wedding breakfast.

Pippin had seated his family in the midst of the crowd of visitors, and now he and Diamond and their younger children were surrounded by laughing hobbits. He was pleasantly occupied in swapping stories about Lark with these distant cousins, along with regaling them with tales of the exploits of her beloved Adelbrim, who happened to be the youngest head of escort in Tookish history, for the hobbit had not yet come of age when he'd won last year's Tournament and claimed the position with Faramir's – and, more surprisingly, Tolibold's – full support.

'And so he asked me in return if I wasn't a little young to have followed my cousin Frodo into the wild...? The cheek of the fellow!'

'And so you told him to return after he came of age?' Harlow, Bolham's "right hand" asked, his eyebrows raised.

'Nae!' Pippin thundered in his best north-Took style. 'I appointed him Head of Escort and wished him well!' Laughter washed around him, along with a sprinkling of cheers.

'And then you went off to Gondor and left him to deal with your wayward son and his new bride,' Diamond said. 'And a merry dance they led him, to be sure!'

She smiled at the wayward son at the head table on the dais, who at that moment was holding one of his tiny twins in the crook of one arm while raising his glass with his free hand in a toast to welcome the north-Tooks to the feast. Agate, sitting beside Bolham who was just beyond Farry, happily cuddled the other twin, allowing Farry's Goldi to eat without encumberment.

'He was nearly devoured by a pack of wolves, I heard?' Alder, another of Bolham's band asked, once the north-Tooks at their table had sat down again after rising to acknowledge Faramir's toast.

'White wolves, no less!' Pippin said. 'They came over the frozen Brandywine...'

'O aye,' Harlow said fervently. 'We could've used Old Bullroarer last winter...'

'That we could've,' Jabo agreed, adding for the benefit of the Thain and Mistress of the Tooks, 'though Bolham's a dab hand when it comes to swingin' a club on his own bent! He knocked the leader of the pack that assailed Bolton into next week!'

'Broke the creature's neck for 'im,' Harlow said in satisfaction. 'Nearly took his head off! We've got his hide hangin' on the side o' the barn to warn off any others that might be lingering still.'

'Still?' Pippin said in dismay. 'You think there might still be White Wolves in the North Farthing?'

Fascinating as the conversation might be, Diamond was distracted by the looks she was noticing at the tables containing mostly Tooks. After nearly thirty years at the Great Smials, she could recognise spreading Talk when she saw it. To her heightened senses this morning, the Tooks had begun spreading their Talk almost from the moment the first toast was spoken to open the festive breakfast. From the fruit of her ongoing observations, she gathered the gist of the topic under discussion and formulated a plan of action which she now vowed to put into motion.

She rose from her seat. 'If you'll excuse me for a moment?' she said to the north-Tooks sitting around their table. 'No, please,' she added when they would have stood politely, gesturing to them to remain seated. She rested her hand on Pippin's shoulder, bent closer, and said, 'I shan't be long. Why don't you tell them about the first time Lark put her name down on the lists to shoot in the Tournament...?'

Pippin threw back his head and laughed heartily. As Diamond walked away, she heard him begin, 'You'd've been so proud of her...'

'We are proud!' Harlow said stoutly.

'You'll be even prouder,' Pippin promised. 'You see, she...'

Diamond's smile was subtly reassuring to the bustling servers who were doing their best to keep up with the immense crowd of celebrating hobbits that filled the great room from wall to wall. The tables were so close together, there was not enough room for two hobbits to pass each other walking between the diners. Thus, the Mistress was careful to move in the same direction she saw the servers going as she made her way to the escorts' table – the only table where the hobbits had enough room to eat without having to tuck their elbows in since only archers who now or earlier had served on the escort, along with their wives, were allowed to sit there. 

Indeed, it was unusual not to see Tolly and Meadowsweet at that table during a grand banquet. But of course, they were sitting at the head table with their younger children, with Lark and Adelbrim, Bolham and Agate, Lark's north-Took brothers, and Faramir and Goldilocks.

Diamond bypassed Hildibold as he was Lark's uncle and she did not want to take him from the celebration, instead choosing Haldegrim. 'I need a Messenger, Haldi,' she said, touching his arm.

Haldi rose at once. 'Yes, Mistress?' he said, folding his serviette and laying it down.

'Come with me,' Diamond said, and she led him from the room, still following the pattern she'd noticed the servers using so that they were able to move smoothly through the mass of tables without coming face-to-face with and impeding one of the hardworking hobbits who were doing their best to ensure that the feast continued snowing food and raining wine and ale and cider.

Standing outside the great room, Diamond gratefully inhaled a deep breath. 'I hadn't realised how close it was in there,' she said to the escort.

Haldi took a large breath of his own and nodded. 'Indeed, Mistress,' he said, adding, 'I am at your service.'

'I put my confidence in you,' Diamond answered, and then she issued careful, specific instructions.

The unflappable escort seemed unfazed at the idea of diving into the heavy chest that sat beside Diamond's wardrobe and shifting some rather intimate articles of clothing in search of the objects she was requesting. Knowing Haldi's competence, Diamond thought perhaps even Sandy, that consummate hobbitservant who was currently coordinating the efforts of the cooks and kitchen assistants and servers, would not notice that her things had been disturbed and then put back again. 'I'll wait here,' she told him.

If there was the smallest chance he might make a mistake, she did not want to call attention to their interactions prematurely by having to send him off a second time.

However, Haldi showed his usual flair for satisfactory service. He surprised Diamond, in fact, by returning much sooner than she had expected with the cloth-wrapped "package" he'd been sent to retrieve. 'There you are, Mistress Diamond, easy as pie,' he said as he presented the fruits of his labours with a bow.

'Very good, Haldi,' Diamond commended him, but stopped him when he started to turn away. 'Just one more thing.'

'At your service,' he responded amiably, sketching a salute.

'I'm going to go back to my seat,' she said. 'When you see me sit down, I want you to count to an hundred, unwrap the contents of this bundle, and then bring them to me as if you are responding to a request I've made of you.'

'Which I am,' Haldi said, a quizzical look in his eye. 'Or, more accurately, which I will be?'

'Which you are and will be,' Diamond confirmed.

He bowed again. 'As you wish, Mistress,' he said.

And so it was that Diamond reached her seat on the wings of a burst of laughter as some anecdote or other ended successfully, and she immediately launched into a story of her own. 'But has anyone told you about how Adelbrim and Faramir first met, when Farry was on the way to the Lonely Mountain as part of his efforts to retrace some of the family's journeys...?'

She was well into the story when Haldi reached the table and bowed to her. 'Mistress Diamond,' he said.

Diamond rose from her seat, glowing with delight. 'Haldi!' she said, loud enough to draw attention from all the tables in their vicinity. True to their nature, the Tooks spread the word that something was happening at the Thain's table, and all eyes turned in that direction as Diamond enthused, 'I thank you! You've saved me from my error...'

'Error?' Pippin questioned, speaking rather louder than he typically might have, for he'd noted his wife's deliberate effort to garner attention.

'...of coming to a north-Took wedding only half-clad!' Diamond asserted in a ringing voice that cut through the low murmurs at the tables filled with "fancy" Tooks – those who lived in the Great Smials and prided themselves in being descended from the Old Took, in other words. Well aware that all eyes in the room were on her, she took the quiver that Haldi had brought her and slung it over her shoulder, adjusted it comfortably, reached back to stir the arrows with her fingertips, and nodded satisfaction. Then she accepted the bow case the escort still held. 

'Those are the same as you bore in the Wood,' Harlow said to Diamond, 'when you tweens were tasked with turning away any of Lotho's ruffians that seemed to be seeking the shade of the trees... I recognise the fletching.'

'Exactly!' Diamond said. She patted the bow case, saying, 'And this is my faithful companion,' before slipping its strap over her shoulder to join the quiver on her back. 

'I know it saved my life a time or two!' Jabo said. 'Not to mention The Red's!'

'Not to mention!' Agate called from the head table, confirming that the entire room was witnessing this portentous conversation. The north-Tooks laughed at her remark, along with a number of Tooks who'd visited back and forth to the North Farthing since Tolibold's seemingly miraculous return in the early years of Peregrin's Thainship.

'Oh! That error!' Pippin said, but then his face fell. 'O' course,' he said lower.

Knowing very well that the Thain had no bow of his own, for though Pippin could cast a stone with the best of them, he was no archer, Haldi removed his own quiver with his unstrung bow stuck in amongst the arrows to accommodate a faster response in an emergency. The escorts attending the feast were on duty, after all, even if white wolves or wild swine or rogue Men were unlikely to intrude on the festivities in the great room of the Great Smials. 'If I may, Sir,' he said, extending his weapons to the Thain.

'Why thank you, Haldi!' Pippin boomed, a broad grin spreading over his face as he stood up from his chair, accepted the quiver and shouldered it. 'I feel quite... in fashion... now.' He nodded his appreciation to the escort and then sat down again.

'Our Northern cousins were too polite to say anything about any lacking on our part,' Diamond, still standing, bent close to murmur, 'but I must say it is a relief to see you fully clad on this grand occasion, as well.' She grinned, kissed the tip of his ear, and added in a louder voice, 'Why, it's almost time for the ceremony!'

A glance at the head table showed her that Goldi and Farry's minders had taken away the twins to their naps, freeing a beaming Farry to rise from his seat, lifting his glass high in the air.

'If I might have your attention!' the son of the Thain shouted.

'Aye!' the crowd roared. 'You may!' Pippin confirmed with a belated shout of his own.

'The Sun is climbing towards her highest point, and so must we! ...although we've settled for the hill that rises from the near meadow rather than the Great Hill itself, which would pose something of a challenge to climb...'

'Get on with it!' someone shouted.

Undaunted, Farry bowed while managing not to spill his well-filled wineglass. 'It is my great honour and pleasure to stand up with this exemplary hobbit at his wedding to one of the boldest north-Tooks I've ever had the good luck to know...'

'I need to take that lad in hand and teach him how to give shorter speeches,' Pippin muttered to Diamond.

'Hush!' she answered. He hushed.

'And now, the wedding toast!' Farry was shouting. As one, the crowd stood to their feet and raised their glasses high.

Instead of speaking the ceremonial toast as by rote, Faramir swept the crowd with a keen glance. The past year had seen too many losses and near-losses for him to take these particular words for granted.

'Throughout the coming years,' he proclaimed, now directly addressing Lark and Adelbrim while somehow applying his remarks to all of the hobbits filling the space as well as others who could not be there, 'may you find many occasions for laughter, and may that laughter last long and roll richly from your tongues, filling the very air with your joy!'

'Aye!' Tolly shouted, raising his glass higher.

'May your years together be prolonged, and may every day be another gold coin for you to store away in your treasure-hoard, ever shining and never tarnished in the passage of time...'

Many of the celebrants, including Pippin, called out in response to this sentiment, 'O aye!'

'And may your love transcend life itself and last forever and a day,' Faramir finished, raised his glass higher, and then drank.

'...and a fortnight into the bargain!' Bolham cried lustily, eliciting a general chuckle. And everyone drank the toast.

'I must say our son has a certain flair,' Diamond murmured to Pippin. 'That's the most poetical rendition of "Laugh long! Live long! Love forever!" I think I've ever heard.'

'On to the wedding!' Farry was shouting now.

'That last was short and to the point,' Pippin said in satisfaction. 'Perhaps the lad knows more about giving speeches than I gave him credit for.'

'Indubitably,' Diamond said. 'But let us stop speechifying and follow the bride out the door and up the hill! We've a wedding to be attending!'

*** 

At the end of a very long day of celebrating, sometime between the middle night and the dawning, the Thain sat down beside The Red with a sigh. The musicians were still playing as energetically as ever, and dancers were still swirling to their merry tunes, though perhaps not quite so many of them as there had been earlier in the evening.

'Have a seat,' Bolham said belatedly, topping up their glasses from the pitcher of ale a server had set down a few moments earlier.

'One is all I need,' Pippin responded. 'Thankee,' he added, taking a sip. 'They're serving the Thain's private stock, I see.'

'Ah,' Bolham said. 'Nothing but the best for our Lark.'

'I rather think Farry ordered it in honour of his head of escort, but I'm happy to drink to young Mistress north-Took into the bargain.' And Pippin suited word to deed and lifted his glass in the air to toast the newly-wed bride before taking a larger swallow of the fine ale.

As he set the glass down again, he said abruptly, 'Was Wallas here, do you think?'

'Did you see or hear him?' Bolham asked curiously.

'I asked you first,' Pippin said.

The Red shook his head. 'I had a feeling, at one point, that he was standing at my shoulder, but when I turned around, no one was there.'

The Thain nodded. 'The same thing happened to me.' He fixed the north-Took with a keen glance. 'O' course, if he lingered in All Time to watch over those he loved, before going to the Feast, I mean, then he might very well have been here today, to share his daughter's joy...'

Bolham smiled. He and Pippin had enjoyed long discussions over mugs of beer or ale over the years, concerning the nature of life and death and perceptions of time. The topic always became clearer to him, the more he imbibed, but he'd not yet drunk enough this night to reach such understanding.

And so he drained his glass and refilled it, took another sip from the fresh glass and rolled it around in his mouth before swallowing. 'Good stuff,' he said. 'Perhaps we can make some kind of arrangement...'

'I must offer my apologies, but the stuff is not allowed to pass the borders of the Tookland, by Tookish law and tradition,' Pippin said. 'But you're welcome to visit as often as you wish.'

Bolham hummed at this, saying neither yea nor nay. Instead, he swallowed a few more gulps of the fine ale, stopped to savour the taste, and nodded when Pippin lifted the pitcher in tacit invitation. A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as a passing server put down a fresh pitcher and took the partly-depleted vessel from the Thain's hand with a murmured, 'If you please, Sir...'

At last, he said, 'He was here, Wallas was. E'en though I know for certain that he has gone on to the Feast, for Tolly told me that as the old hobbit was taking his last breaths, Gorbyl saw Wallas and Gorbas, along with his beloved Opal, who'd come to escort him to the Feast...'

Pippin nodded.

Bolham finished, '...knowing the hobbit as I did, I know he wouldn't have missed this day for all the world.'

He lifted his freshly-filled glass in a toast, Pippin clinked his own glass against it, and the two drank to those who were missing – but who were perhaps still present somehow, in spirit and lingering love if not in physical form.

And the joyful music played on.

~ * ~ *~ * THE END * ~ * ~ * ~              

*** 

Author's notes:

To read more about the earthquake that shook the entire Shire, please see On Solid Ground. The journey of the Thain, Master and Mayor and their families to the Southlands afterwards, as well as how Faramir and Goldilocks coped with various events, can be found in As the Gentle Rain. Lastly, the triple-drabble 'Claiming the Prize' provides a little more detail about Adelbrim winning the Tournament the Autumn after the earthquake, and the short story 'Dressed to the Teeth' tells how he and Faramir and Goldilocks fought off a pack of white wolves that crossed the frozen Brandywine.

Disclaimer: The characters and setting and background belong to J.R.R. Tolkien. I merely take refuge in his world from time to time.