Author's Note(s): This story is my Nanowrimo project for 2015. I've decided to post it here because I need to light a fire under myself to keep writing and churning out words to get to my 50,000. Because this is a Nanowrimo project, it is a work in progress, and it is unbeta'd and unedited. It's the rough, quick fast words that come out on the first pass. Once the story is completed (or completed enough), it has a high probability of being pulled from the site to be edited and re-uploaded at that time. (Side note: I'd love to get a beta reader/editor onboard).

I also know that there is a story out there called 'Dear Elena' and I want to say that this is not meant to be a rip-off of that story. My story, too, has points where I insert letters to Elena, but that's a writing style choice, and is not limited to just one person, and one story. Truthfully, my interludes have more to do with word count and pushing the story along without having to focus on the 'action' of the story to get the background recap in.

Please enjoy!

August 2013

Dear Elena,

It's been three months. I know that when you read this, that might seem like a lifetime or only the blinking of an eye. For us, it's been a long three months. I've been holding off writing because I want to tell you good things. I wanted to be able to tell you that we're all getting what you what you want for us, that we're happy. I wanted to tell you that Caroline and Stefan finally got their crap together, that Alaric is working through his grief, that Cheyenne Jackson whisked me off my feet and we're going to live happily ever after. Sadly, that is not this entry.

We miss you, and it hurts me to say it, but the cliche is true. Life goes on. But this is Mystic Falls and these are our lives and because of that, you know as well as anyone that the path is never smooth. We will always be in the middle of whatever catastrophe or supernatural maelstrom is headed our way.

There's a new Founder's Council. I sometimes forget how long the family lines are for these old southern families sometimes. A distant Lockwood cousin, a family of Fells, a few of those that they've chosen to be 'in the know,' and of course, Damon Salvatore. For all that it's worth. Not a lot to say about the Council, except that it's typical of them. They believe that they know all that there is to know, and have no desire to share any information, or take our input. They humor Caroline because she's Liz Forbes' daughter and Matt because he's training to be a deputy, but they don't take them seriously. Which wasn't a problem. Until it was.

Lily Salvatore and her heretics are still here. After what Kai did and what she helped him to do? I wanted her dead. I know that's not at all what you expect from me, or what anyone expects from me, but I wanted blood. I thought they were dangerous and couldn't be trusted, and I tried to warn the Council. Only Damon and Alaric stood beside me, and Alaric is seen as the vengeful grieving widower at best and the outsider at worse. Damon . . . is only as good as how sober and surly he's being on any given day. (I know that you want to read about Damon and how he's holding up, but that is a very long story for another day.)

Stefan and Caroline went to the Council and brokered peace with Lily's "family." That's what she calls them, how she thinks of them. She's written Stefan and Damon off as her sons, her blood, and still Stefan wanted to see the good in her. (It's been, or had been a point of contention between Damon and Stefan. That's changed now.)

You know that old saying about if something is too good to be true?

Peace was only good as long as nothing bad happened. It was an accident, a stupid accident with stupid college kids. A hit and run that would have left a human dead, but they hit one of Lily's heretics. It didn't matter that Valerie was "alive" and well, her "sisters" had to go all Mean Girls-The Craft and get revenge. Sadly, I think the Council would have looked the other way had their revenge stopped at the perpetrators of the crime. It didn't.

The Council decided to fight back and it's been war ever since. The Council is ill-equipped for fighting magic casting vampires, and every strike they make is met by a counter strike. Lily's "family" is creating rippers: turning people and magicking them up to go into a blood lust. They set them loose in town, or in strategic locations. Two nights ago was at the swimming hole where the locals like to party.

Mystic Falls has become a war zone.

The good news is that I've figured out a way to take them down. All of the neophyte vampires. Not only that, but I can stop her from making more. Crossing fingers that this plan works. Or the next one may be of the 'scorch the earth' variety.

- Bonnie