Dawn crept gently over the Shire, the sky painted in soft strokes of pink and gold. A thin mist lingered on the green hills, curling around hedgerows and drifting lazily over fields where the dew still clung to every blade of grass. It was the sort of morning that most hobbits slept through, content beneath warm quilts after a late night of food and cheer.

But Peregrin Took was already awake.

Not that he had meant to be. His restlessness had tugged him from sleep long before the sun breached the horizon, and now he found himself padding along a narrow path that wound between farms and fences. His cloak was thrown haphazardly over his shoulders, his curls still tousled, but his eyes were wide with that old spark of curiosity—the same that had once led him out of the Shire and into far greater trouble than any Took before him.

He paused at a stile and leaned against the post, gazing out across the farmland. The Shire looked so unchanged, as though the world had never burned, as though there had never been battlefields or kings or the sound of horns in the dark. Here, there was only peace: the smoke of early chimneys, the faint bray of a donkey, the smell of earth. And yet Pippin knew, in his bones, that nothing was the same. Not him, not Merry, not Frodo, not Sam.

They had seen too much, done too much, to ever truly slip back into the simple days of mushroom-stealing and songs by the fire.

Still, Pippin smiled.

He was Peregrin Took—mischief ran in his blood, and even the heaviest memories couldn’t snuff out his cheer for long. The world might be changed, but that only meant there were new ways to look at it, new things to discover. And he was determined to face them with the same boldness (and occasional foolishness) that had carried him this far.

The Green Hill Country lay quiet before him, touched by the first light of day. Pippin climbed the stile, boots dampened by grass, and hopped down into the field beyond. He hummed a tune as he went, half-song, half-thought, the kind of melody that might just grow into a ballad if he bothered to remember the words later.

His feet carried him toward the small lane leading back into Hobbiton, where the Green Dragon’s shutters were still drawn tight. He thought of the night before—ale, song, the warmth of laughter that made the Shire feel truly alive again. And yet here he was, in the quiet, searching for… what?

Adventure? Conversation? Maybe just someone else awake early enough to share the sunrise.

He stopped suddenly, noticing a figure in the distance along the road. Another hobbit, perhaps, or a traveler moving through at this unlikely hour. Pippin tilted his head, curiosity already bright in his face.

“Well,” he said aloud to no one but himself, grinning. “Looks like I won’t be walking this morning alone after all.”

And with that, he started forward, mischief and warmth mingling in his step, ready to greet the dawn with company.