Too many of their women never make it out of the mountain. Too many of their children die on the long journey afterwards. Too many of their men do not return from Azanulbizar.

Frerin is one of them, though he was still more child than man, but Thorin still stands, and Dis still stands, and the elder line of Durin is not yet extinguished.

But Thorin has sworn that he will not wed until they retake the mountain, which means he will likely never wed at all, and Dis -

Dis would have wed Vili, had he lived.

But he didn't, and she shall have no other.

That does not mean she is content to let their line end.

She trades the necklace her father gave her for the perfect block of stone.

It is the last gift he gave her before the mountain fell, the last gift he will ever give her, but she will trade every last piece of her past in a heartbeat if it means buying her family a future.

The stone is warm beneath her hands, alive in a way only a few can feel, and she knows, she knows, that if she is ever to have a chance, this is the one.

Although the block is large.

Large enough, perhaps, for two.

The Blue Mountains are riddled with played-out mineshafts, barren of life and the gifts their Maker gave them. She hauls her stone to one that is quiet and far from the town. She does not want to be found.

(She tells her brother that she is going to do the funeral rites for their father upon the mountain. He does not stop her, but he refuses to believe their father is dead, and so he does not join her. She counts on this when she chooses her lie.)

(It is foolishness, what she is doing, and she knows it, but she is going to do it anyway.)

She brings her tools with her, and with them, she works the stone, as carefully and gently as she has ever done anything.

She talks while she works. She tells the stories of their fathers, again and again, but there is one she comes back to more than most.

In the beginning, there were seven fathers, for Mahal had carved them out of stone. And when our fathers woke from their slumbers, they rejoiced at first at the wonders of the world around them and at the work that they set themselves to do.

But as the fathers saw the way of the world, they grew sorrowful, for they saw that someday they must pass from this life, and that when they did, there would be no one to carry on their work and their names, for of course they had no children.

But Durin was wise, and he remembered how they themselves had been made, and so he counseled his brothers, and together they began to carve children from the stone.

And when they were done, they cried out to their Maker and begged him to bring life to their children as he had brought life to them.

But Mahal told him he could not bring life to their children because the fire that brought true life, and not just the seeming of it, came from a forge that was not his own.

But the seven fathers begged still, and Mahal loved his children and hated to see their pain, so he went to the One whose fire it was, and he in his turn begged this favor of the One.

And when Mahal returned, he returned with the fire, and so children were born to the dwarves of their fathers and the stone, and the stone loves us still, for we are its children.

The stone feels so alive under her hands.

She carves them together: two infants curled around each other, chubby hands gripped tight.

They will need to be united if they are to survive, and that is why she has carved them together.

They will need to be strong if they are to survive, and that is why she has carved them from the very best of stone.

They will need to be blessed if they are to live at all, and that is why Dis spends seven days fasting on her knees, her blood-gift trickling from her arms down into the stone.

That is why she spends seven nights praying, please, please, please.

On the final night, her eyes close against her will, and she dreams.

There is fire in her dream, but for the first time since Erebor, she feels its warmth and is not afraid.

Oh, my daughter. Yours is a hard path. I would spare you from it, if I could.

She does not want to be spared. She is not something fragile, to be preserved from the blows of the world. She is a child of the stone, and she will weather what she must and march forward for the sake of her people, for the sake of her brother, for the sake of herself.

She doesn't want to be spared.

She just wants to know that she will not stand at the end of her life and know that the line of Durin ends with her. She wants to bring hope back to her brother's eyes. She wants -

She wants to hold her children.

Oh, my daughter. And the fire is warm and comforting, but it weeps with infinite grief.

My daughter, my daughter, my daughter.

I cannot grant you all that you ask. But I will do what I can.

She wakes upon the blood soaked stone and feels dizzy with weakness.

She wakes upon the blood soaked stone and hears the cries of two infant voices, raised in their very first wail.

She reaches out and takes them, every so gently, into her arms, and their skin is soft against her as they nestle deeper into her warmth.

"My sons," she whispers.

It is all that she asked for. All that she wanted, despite her Maker's warning.

She tells herself this firmly and dares not wonder what it is, exactly, that her Maker thinks she will find lacking in her wish.