"It is," Legolas allowed. "I spoke to Aragorn, he said things are ... different than how we last knew them. Last I saw you, you had departed for the Shire once again, but I do not think this is how you meant to return. Time has turned backwards on us, though we are somehow immune, and it is two years before the quest began, and the world has not come to what we saw it become."
That was a difficult thing to explain. He didn't much understand it himself, and he hoped that the Hobbit didn't ask him to explain it, explain how it happened. He could do no such thing. Perhaps it was better to divert it.
"But am I correct in guessing we are near your Shire?" he asked, the diversion coming handily, and he smiled. He was glad to see another familiar face, even unexpectedly so. "I know the road and the woods by reputation, and the sea is near enough that it could be nowhere else."