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Gamba's Epilogue

Gamba and his four boys lived with Cami and Rose in Greenwood peacefully for twenty years. Three years after he came of age, Gamba began exploring up north, especially the Langwell river, saying that he wanted to go settle there.

Ten years after Gamba came of age, Asta and Roka came of age. At that time Gamba left, taking Asta and Roka with him, and went up the Anduin til he found a fair-sized wood along the Langwell River. There he built three flets, fished, and gathered mushrooms, and learned to hunt in the north, where deer ran differently and the rabbits had a whole other way of life, and even the fishing was different. Roka became a fair gardener, and learned which roots and leaves grew well in the far north and which did not. Both Asta and Roka returned half a year later, to visit Cami and Rose and their sweethearts, and before three years had passed, they each brought a bride to the Langwell.

Gamba stayed at the Langwell for seven years, and mastered the local fishing and hunting, and homesteading, and learned to avoid dragons and trolls. But when the seven years had passed, leaving Roka and Asta to take care of their tree-homes and their families, he jouneyed home hoping to convince Ban and Maura to join them.

On the way, Gamba walked southward along the riverbank, and some thirty leagues into his journey he came to the first tributary below the Langwell, called the Rhimdoth, or the Rushdown. He crossed it on a clear summer night, and he saw a darkhaired young lass come out of the river after swimming fully dressed; without seeing him, she climbed up onto the bank, and lay gazing at the stars.

He wept when he saw her, and softly cried out to her, calling her Esta; she answered gently, and said that was not her name. He told her the story of his lost love whose grave lay buried beneath the sea, and trembling, asked if she was Esta's ghost; she told him plainly that she was not. He sang for her that night, old lullabyes and laments and histories, and she listened with delight, for his voice was husky and strong. He sang on until her parents missed her, and following the singing, found the two of them on the Rhimdoth riverbank.

Her name was Opal; the name suited her well, because her skin was always pale and translucent and shone stark white in the starlight. But Gamba called her Esta for the rest of his life, and said of Opal that she was just as wild at heart as Esta had been. Her new name became dear to her, and her heart turned quickly towards him. She was eighteen years old.

Gamba stayed for several days, and sang for her often. Then Gamba reluctantly continued his journey southward towards Cami's home, still desiring that Maura and Ban should join him at Langwell. Neither Cami nor Rose relished the idea, and they fought him long and hard; but Ban and Maura were both of age, and Gamba persuaded Maura to go. In the end, Ban stayed with Rose and Cami, and Maura married his sweetheart and went north with Gamba.

Parting with Maura was hard on Cami, and she made him promise to visit, a promise which he kept faithfully, even visiting her yearly when she retired to Rivendell. When they were old enough, his two elder sons accompanied him on his yearly trips to Rivendell; there she taught them herblore and healing, and found them her most apt students.

From then on, Gamba travelled south to the Rhimdoth to see Opal every season. Opal's father was skeptical of Gamba's Langwell settlement at first. But wherever Gamba went, he told his tales of the abundant fishing and hunting, and seeing that neither he nor his sons nor their wives or children were by any means famished, other hobbits went north to join his community. Learning this, Opal's father softened, and Gamba was more welcome after that.

Gamba's heart did not rest from the time he met Opal until she came of age, fifteen years later, when she married him and joined him at Langwell, in 1050. By the time Gamba wedded Opal, Langwell had become a large community, and to her surprise, Opal found herself the young matron of it; Gamba shared the decisions with her, asking her opinion; and when she would have rather not have given it, he would remind her that Nitir would want him to ask her. When he was away, she acted as his steward.

He made friends with the elves that came his way, rarely travelling into the Greenwood to search for them, at first. Only after he had made several good friends did he travel one summer with a guide all the way back to Thranduil's groves, and joined them for a woodland feast during the berry season; they were glad to see him again, but they did not invite him to their underground palace, nor show him the pathways through the woods that led to it. Of that he was glad, having no desire to see Thranduil's cave.

Together Gamba and Opal had three sons and three daughters, Phura, Mitha, Leva, Azraph, Nitir, and Waterbird. The sons when married all reverted to normal hobbit custom and lived in burrows in the riverbank. But to the end of his days, Gamba could never abide being underground for very long; and when he was too old to climb up into a flet, his Opal built him a sturdy hut on the ground, in the forest, between three young, close trees. Of course it had no glass, but two of the walls had wide doors, and the third wall had a shutter over a large opening; so even in his dotage, Gamba could ask for the shutter and doors to be thrown open wide, and see the wind in the branches and feel it in his hair.

One windy summer night, with torn clouds racing across the sky, he earnestly begged Opal to take him to the riverbank. She wept, knowing all too well the story of her namesake and knowing what was in his heart; but she called for his grandsons, and they carried him out. He lay with his head in her lap, and watched the stars winking in and out behind the clouds; and he pointed down the river, and told her again the story she knew so well, of the hobbits swimming out to the white ships that came and took them from the caves. Finally he told her that together they would see the stars again. By the time the moon rose, he had passed beyond the circles of the world. He was buried by his sons and grandsons in the forest below the flet that he and Opal had raised their family in; and she planted a beech tree beside his grave.

Phura's first son was an exceptionally tall hobbit-lad named Doldo. Doldo travelled south in his tweens to trade for southern orchard produce, and met a girl from the far south near Lorien. Her name was Mallorn, and he courted her for five years and wedded her when he came of age, and brought her north to the Langwell. Like his grandfather, he loved the woods best, and was a hunter. He built his burrow high up on the hillside under the eaves of the forest; from his front door-step, a great wide sweep of the Langwell valley could be seen. Doldo and Mallie had two fine sons, tall like their father, and named Noldo and Sindo; it's said that Mallie chose their names in tribute to her father's elvish friends, south away in Lorien, where the mallorns grow.

After Noldo and Sindo migrated over the Misty Mountains fleeing from the Shadow, and after their parents' mysterious death, Noldo and Sindo wandered far west; but they returned, and settled on the western bank of the Hoarwell, on a southfacing slope just below a wood, building many tunnels as their clan expanded. That wood was said to be teeming with game and mushrooms; if the clan expansion was any indication, that clan never lacked for provender. They were a hunting clan in the midst of a fishing community, and they went out to the woods most often, and it's said that they had dealings with elves, though few discuss what kind, and those that do, speak what they shouldn't as often as not. That south-facing slope had the odd name of Little Valinor, and many folk wonder why; to their dying day, Noldo's sons called it that. Noldo was as tall as his father; most of Noldo's children were tall and slender and golden-haired, and some even had eyes that were a deep and clear October-blue, and it's said by some that that's where the Fallohide fair blood comes from. But it's said that they took after their mother, Lorien, Noldo's wife, whom few ever saw, fewer knew, and fewer still, understood. Some rumored that she was a fairy wife; but if you ask Noldo's descendants, they will tell no tales concerning her. But folk observe that whenever her name is mentioned, her descendants fall silent, and more often than not, they look to the west.