Violet

Prologue

A/N: This part of the story is mostly from the first movie.

Bilbo Baggins sat alone in the halls of his home in Erebor. For years, they had been living together and Bilbo still looked at Violet Greenhill the same way after five years. And it had been ten years since their adventures with the dwarves. Bilbo and Violet were now in their late fifties, with three beautiful children: two daughters, and a son on the way.  

He began writing down something, hopefully his children would read it one day.

Dear children

You kept asking your mother and me if we told you all of our adventures. While I can honestly say we've told you everything your mother and I may not have told you the whole story. 

He opened up the book and began writing. 

There was the city of Dale. Its markets known far and wide, full of the bounties of vine and vale, 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. The 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.

Built deep within the mountain itself, the beauty of this fortress city was legend. Its wealth lay in the earth, in precious gems hewn 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. All would pay homage to him. Even the great Elven king, Thranduil.

As the great wealth of the Dwarves grew their store of good will ran thin. No one knows exactly what began the rift. The Elves say the Dwarves stole their treasure. The Dwarves tell another tale. They say the Elf King refused to give them their rightful pay. It is sad, Frodo, how old alliances can be broken. How friendships between peoples can be lost. But the years of peace and plenty were not to last. Slowly the days turned sour, and the watchful nights closed in.

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 the hot dry wind. He was a Firedrake from the North. Smaug had come! Such wanton death was dealt that day, for this city of men was nothing to Smaug. His eye was set on another prize. For dragons covet gold with a dark and fierce desire.

Thranduil would not risk the lives of his kin against the wrath of the dragon. No help came from the Elves that day. Nor any day since.

Robbed of their homeland, the dwarves of Erebor wandered the wilderness. The once mighty people brought low. The young dwarf prince took work where he could find it, laboring in the villages of men. But always, he remembered the mountain smoke beneath the moon, the trees like torches blazing bright, where he had seen dragon fire in the sky, and a city turn to ash. And he never forgave, and he never forgot.

Far away, in another corner of the world dragons were only make-believe. A party trick conjured by Wizards on Midsummer's Eve. No more frightening than fairy dust. And that, my dear Frodo is where I come in. It was the beginning of an unlikely friendship that has lasted all my life. That, my dear children, is where I come in. For quite by chance, and the will of a wizard, fate decided I would become part of this tale. It began...well, it began as you might expect. In a hole in the ground, there lived two hobbits