My darling Lilac,

It's so odd to write this to you. You're so used to bedtime stories with my voice. You are used to being happy with us, surrounded by your large family. To cuddle beside your sister, to have your father standing protectively by the door, to your aunt being a ridiculous voice alongside mine.

As I'm writing this, it's been four months since I turned 200. You're only ten years old. It's so hard to believe sometimes. I can remember how I found you in a crater in my backyard, warm from the flames of entry. Though the memory is foggy, dreamlike, as if through the eyes of someone else.

I can remember when you were four and we moved to Ponyville. You ran into my arms, excited at the idea of new friends. Lilac, you filled a hole in my heart that I didn't know was there.

These last few months have been trying on all of us. It was devastating to our family to lose your aunt, Darcy, so long ago. I told you of her deaths (and subsequent resurrections) before. The time she fell into a fan, the stabbing, the most recent one was decapitation. The last one put much strain on my heart. My stomach is turning at the memory.

I had discovered my people. The humans with powers like mine. The Reality Walkers, or 'Travelers'. The people that can walk into realities of fiction. In rare cases, the nonfiction. (Tell no one, but I'm the one who made the 'cherry tree' rumor. All of history was at stake, though. GW had to be elected!)

The Travelers leader, a man named Dominic Chamberlin, was no friend to our family. There are many wrongs I have committed in my long life, Lilac, many things I have regretted. To Dominic, my crime was being born. He threw your aunt and I into the dungeons. He threw you in cells, like you were a pet at the pound. He told me he planned to kill you.

After hearing of our upcoming executions, your aunt put herself in my place. She died. It broke my heart.

The next few hours were not my best. I hurt a lot of people to get to Dominic. To make him feel the pain I had felt when I lost Darcy.

Another regret of mine was when you walked in and saw.

Another regret of mine was the cautiousness you had with me after. That you had been scared of me.

Another regret was that I thought I had lost you forever.

My people saw it as a 'trial by combat'. I won the title of leader. Crowned Princess of the Travelers. They saw me as a savior. I don't feel like one, Lilac, even after all this time.

On our sixteenth Human birthday, nine months after her death, I brought Darcy back again. It was a complicated spell. I had to pull out all the stops to drag her into the land of the living. (Let's just say it involved a voodoo necklace and a doll then leave it at that)

There was a lot of things that needed tending to after her return. She wasn't the only new addition to our family. There was my boyfriend, and your sister. Our people needed time to adjust. Myself more than any. Our family of two became a family of five in a few short weeks. It was a struggle for you too.

You didn't take well to all the new family. I can remember you being so nervous around your sister. It took some convincing, and now that girl thinks of you as her hero. It was no better with your father. When you met him, you wouldn't stop glaring! I know you don't want to hear this, but you were adorable!

I love your aunt. I know the madwoman like I know my own mind. She's my twin, so I should know her best. She's an adventurous sort. She loves to move. She loves to fight. If I don't shut her up soon, I'm going to kill her again.

When everything was peaceful again, (in December in the year old our Lord 2013) I asked Darcy where she wanted to go.

Every since she first heard of it, Darcy has wanted to Travel to realm of Middle Earth. She loved hearing about the stories of Frodo Baggins, the hobbit. She loved hearing about how dwarves walked the land, battle hardened warriors from the stone. She loved the elves, how they were so intuned with Middle Earth. She would deny it, but she loved the romance of Aragon and Arwen.

(Though I think her favorite story was hearing about CS Lewis and the lamppost)

So it was no surprise when she said she want to go to The Hobbit. Especially not after she dragged me to see Desolation of Smaug.

It had taken a bit of work (some called it cheating, I call it creatively finding the answer) for me to get 'Battle of the Five Armies'. (Though for your sake, you best have plausible deniability as to how I got it)

Darcy and I set to leave for Middle Earth. I know you haven't seen this movie so I'll explain everything as best I can.

This just might be the most important story I ever tell you. I have kept many secrets from you. You were too young for such knowledge, back then. Please pay attention. Above all, understand I did what I felt was right.

My story begins with someone else's. For in the realm of Middle Earth, far off to the east, was a civilization. The like of which you will not find in any world today.

There was the city of Dale. Its markets known far and wide, full of precious fruits and cloths. Peaceful, and prosperous. For this city lay before the doors of the greatest kingdom in Middle-earth: Erebor. Stronghold of Thror, King under the Mountain, mightiest of the dwarf lords.

Thror ruled with utter surety, never doubting his house would endure, for his line lay secure in the lives of his son and grandson. (I'll be getting to him later)

Erebor was a sight. The kingdom was built inside the mountain. Dwarves were said to have been born out of stone, so the mountains were where they felt most at home. The beauty of this fortress city was legend.

Its wealth lay in the earth, in precious gems hewed from rock, and in great seams of gold, running like rivers through stone. The skill of the dwarves was unequaled, fashioning objects of great beauty out of diamond, emerald, ruby, and sapphire. Ever they delved deeper, down into the dark.

And that is where they found it. The heart of the mountain. The Arkenstone. Thror named it the King's Jewel. He took it as a sign, a sign that his right to rule was divine. Creatures of all races would pay homage to him, even the great Elvenking, Thranduil.

As per usual, things went wrong.

It never rains, it pours.

Overtime, Thror's love of gold had grown too fierce. A sickness had begun to grow within him; it was a sickness of the mind. And where sickness thrives, bad things will follow.

The first they heard was a noise like a hurricane coming down from the north. The pines on the mountain creaked and cracked in a hot, dry wind.

A dragon. They called him Smaug.

He destroyed the city of Dale in less than a day. They meant nothing to Smaug. People meant nothing to Smaug. He cared only for the gold, unwilling to let anything stand in his way.

He claimed the Lonely Mountain as his own, casting out the dwarves from their ancestral home. A dragon will do anything to protect their hoard.

Our family, Lilac, knows this better than most.

The dwarves begged for the help of the elves. Thranduil would not risk the lives of his kin against the wrath of the dragon. No help came from the elves that day, or any day since.

Robbed of their homeland, the dwarves of Erebor wandered the wilderness, a once mighty people brought low.

The young dwarf prince, Thorin Oakenshield, took work where he could find it. He always he remembered the mountain smoke beneath the moon, the trees like torches blazing bright, for he had seen dragon fire in the sky, and his city turned to ash, and never forgave, and he never forgot.

That, my darling Lilac, is where the hero of our story comes in.

You know the name of Bilbo Baggins. There's that cute song about him. You've heard me singing 'In the middle of the earth, in the land of the Shire, lives a brave little Hobbit who we all admire.'

Sorry, I just love that song.

Some say it was a stroke of luck that brought him into this tale. Some are more mindful to say it was all a certain wizard's idea. Who can say for sure?

It began, well, it began as you might expect. Your aunt and I made a dramatic landing. We're Stardusts, nothing is done simply.

==AET==

AN: Shout out to djmegamouth. Another shout out to everyone in my life who pushed for this story.

For those who care, this story takes place four months after the events of DMLC. I summed up the story in this chapter so I hope there isn't any confusion. If there is, why don't you leave a review?

You know what? Leave a review anyway. It would make me so happy that other people are enjoying this.