A/N: Written for a prompt (that had been shortened, because there are just so many nice bonuses):
So at the beginning of the Third Age, the hobbits begin to migrate. The reasons for this happening are unknown, but suspected that this was due to the rising evil in Mirkwood. We're going to say it was DEFINITELY because of shit going down in Mirkwood. The first place the hobbits thought to turn to was Erebor. They were turned away for being too soft and having no places amongst dwarves. (They were also turned away from other settlements, resulting in them being distrusting of the other races.) Thus their Wandering Days continued until they came across the Shire. A looooooong time later, Smaug attacks Erebor. No help comes from the Elves, and the Dwarves become a wandering race. They hear of a prosperous land full of kind, soft people and decide to head towards that. Thorin, as the leader of a lost people, decides to have a meeting with the Thaine and whoever else important enough in the Shire to talk about settling near Hobbiton or Tookborough since their home was taken by Smaug.
Oh my, how do those tables turn...
Disclaimer: I own nothing but my cup of coffee and my very own Ring of Power. Oh, and also Viola Whitfoot, since she is going to appear here. Yes, I'm that obsessed.
Prologue: The Long Walk
When our people left the land east of Anduin River, we had nothing except the knowledge that for the first time in countless centuries, we were alone and homeless.
It was Bowman's dream that one day we we would have our own homeland, where we could live as we chose. We hoped for help along the way, and asked for help countless of times - but to the neverending surprise of all of the hobbits, it was not the dwarves who would help us in the time of need, oh no. Instead, they shut their gates before us, refusing to help those who they viewed as weak and pathetic, who were unsuitable to enter their mountain kingdom.
Thus Bowman, also called Shapeshifter afterwards, vowed to find hobbits a new home, after they were turned away by many more settlements but the elves of Greenwood, and the elves of city of Rivendell, who taught us how to use bows and slings, and how to hunt for our food, so at least our children wouldn't starve while we pressed on, walking tirelessly towards the West.
But it would be unjust not to mention the only two dwarves who weren't indifferent to our fate; craftsman Ragri and his wife, a jeweller, Bolbari. They spent many a coin to ensure the hobbits had at least some food for the long journey West, wishing them all the luck in the world, refusing any thanks, claiming they only did what their hearts told them to. May their names are forever recorded in the Memories, and remembered till the end of the world.
We called our journey the Long Walk, for that was what it was. We walked with what little we had on our backs. Whole families, women with infants, the old and young alike-all of them made their way across the land on foot for we didn't had any beasts of burden. And if one of our people could no longer walk, we carried him, or sometimes left him behind, our heart heavy with loss of every single one of us.
And the Green Lady, Yavanna, rewarded those of us who did not waver by bringing us to the land of Shire. And since then, the Shire is our home, the one we fought to make fertile with the magic everyone's two hands could make, fighting to keep the dangers away, Bowman being the first of those we named Thains, every single one of us considering themselves adults once reaching 33 years of age, as that had been the age Bowman took the mantle of our leader.
Never again shall we be wandering aimlessly, our bows will be strong and our wills unbreakable. Never again will any of ours be left behind. Never again will we be at anyone's mercy.
Thus we swear.
- From telling of Everard Bunce, recorder of Memories, chapter one of History of the Shire