This is a culturally based story that is relevant in areas of the world today. I will not say where I got my research, as I currently have no marshmallows to toast over flaming reviews, but those who are interested in knowing more can private message me with questions.

Dis is eighteen summers old when she is given in marriage: barely more a child by Dwarven standards. The Dragon has desecrated their homeland, and she is nothing more than a burden. She sees the regret in Thorin's eyes, and she hears Frerin's screams of denial as the Dwarf who is to be her husband takes her away

Erebor is no more, and Dis is no longer a princess. There are no vast wells of treasure to ensure her a fine, upstanding prince in marriage. She is no longer worth even the pittance that Thrain carefully counts out, his eyes void of all compassion as he thrusts over the copper coins required to be rid of his daughter.

From that day on Dis knows she is worth nothing.

Vhal is not cruel by nature. He is a goldsmith, toiling for long hours into the night and making fortune enough to make Dis' dowry appear a beggar's sum. He says that she is beautiful, and so for a time she believes she is worthwhile in his eyes.

But the days come when he returns home late, and the drink is heavy on his breath and a wild look prevalent in his eyes. On those days he strikes her and calls her a useless bitch, and she knows he is angry with her for the months that have passed without her giving him a child. On these nights she cowers and waits until he falls asleep, and she looks towards the mountains and remembers Frerin's gentleness and Thorin's kindness, and she weeps for a life that was taken from her.

When she is nearly twenty she gives birth to her firstborn. It is a girl, and she can feel Vhal's displeasure. It should have been a boy – a boy with waves of golden locks and glowing green eyes, who would carry on the wealth and prestige of his father's line. This child is not strong, nor is she fair with her troubled dark eyes so like Frerin's own and the shock of black hair that falls like a raven's wing across her shoulders as she grows. But she is Dis's own, and she cherishes her Kyla even as Vhal complains that they cannot support a daughter nor afford a future dowry.

Dis bears this silently, and she holds Kyla safe when her father returns drunk from the taverns. She hides her away when the wise woman comes near, and she keeps her daughter concealed so that no one can touch her. But the day comes when Vhal is tired of waiting, and he demands a son from Dis. The mark of his fists bruise a child's face as well as her mother's, and Dis looks once more to the mountain and weeps as she remembers.

Her stomach grows and so does her hope. Perhaps the gods will look kindly on her now and grant her a son. But it is not a boy that is given to her, but a sickly girl with hair like flax and eyes glimmering like the waves of tall grass. Vhal is furious and he screams long into the night. There is not enough money to pay for his drink and still feed another daughter. There is no fortune to marry her off when she is older. Dis covers Kyla's ears and she holds Seela close, and she closes her eyes and remembers Frerin's quiet voice and Thorin's strong arms protecting her when she was afraid.

Seela is two when the discovery is made. A child has been born blind: a blight cast upon their family and a curse against Vhal's name. Chairs are broken and a table is cast in pieces into the fire. Dis holds her daughters close and sheds silent tears, praying for the safety of her little girls during her husband's fit of rage.

She is pregnant a third time, and this time she will take no chances. She leaves Seela and Kyla with the healer, a trustworthy elder Dwarf who reminds her painfully of Oin. She consults the wise woman and begs for a son.

"A sacrifice is required," she is told. "Your eldest daughter."

The crippling news brings her to her knees and she begs for another way. The years of hiding Kyla from the prophetess's sight have come to naught and she cannot accept that there is no other hope. The wise woman is impassionate, however, and she orders Dis to leave before her disobedience brings the gods' anger upon her own sanctuary.

Dis returns in despair, and she holds her two daughters close. She remembers Frerin with his keen eyes and his quick draw as he flipped out a dagger, and the power in Thorin's arms as he swung his sword in an arc high above his head. Dis wishes in that moment that she had never borne daughters. She wishes they were sons, fair haired and dark, learning the trade of their father or training as warriors of honor and courage. She does not want daughters, but she holds them close for she has no one else. She is worthless, and she is alone.

When the baby is born Vhal is silent and Dis weeps for shame. Brown locks and blue eyes are set in a petite, feminine face. Vhal storms from the house and Dis leaves the child in the midwife's arms. She is cursed, and she will never be loved. The infant is nothing but a burden to her and she hates to look upon her.

By morning Seela and Kyla are huddled in her arms, and Dis feels the sharp pangs of regret. She stumbles to her feet and runs to find the delicate flower petal with eyes like chips of blue marble and hair like soft threads of copper silk. Vhal meets her in the hall and he stiffens, his face oddly composed and resolute. Dis begs for her child and her husband's jaw sets.

"I buried her this morning. She will not trouble us now."

With a screaming wail Dis throws herself past him. He catches her with his arm and prevents her from running to find the burial plot. She beats her fists against him, all the while screaming and cursing him for taking her child from her. A fist against her ear sends her crashing to the ground, the room spinning until blackness overtakes her vision.

When she awakes, Kyla and Seela are sitting beside her and she gathers them into her arms. She thinks of Frerin with his locks of copper hair and Thorin with his sapphire blue eyes, and she weeps for the child that never had a name.

Her eyes harden and Dis speaks to no one. She keeps her daughters at her side and she guides Seela everywhere, protecting her from the sharp blows as Vhal's drinking grows worse. She prays for a son and she sacrifices her little treasures: a silver bracelet given to her by Thorin on her fifteenth birthday, and a skillfully carved horse that Frerin had crafted. The prophetess accepts the trinkets and gives Dis the mercy of withholding the sneer on her face.

"I can offer you no hope," she answers after consulting her runes. "You can never have a son."

That night Dis holds her daughters close and she watches the flames lick the sides of the fireplace, and she wonders if it would be better to leap into the fire and end the pain for them all.

She gathers her strength and she goes on, and she does not bear hope when she is once more with child. Her stomach swells and she hates the parasite within her, knowing that she will be forever accursed.

Vhal has seen enough, and he takes matters into his own hands. The next morning Dis wakes and Kayla is gone. With a high keen of terror she runs out, leaving Seela alone in the room. Vhal is ready when she confronts him and he grabs her fists, preventing her from striking him.

"The prophetess has given us one chance," he says in a hard, impassionate voice. "I have given her to the priests of Mahal. We will have a son."

Dis's heart shatters and the light leaves her eyes. She has heart the stories: of bloodied sacrifices and the children given to serve in the holy temples until their short lives are mercifully ended. She cries long into the night, until Vhal hits her with enough force to nearly break her jaw. In silence she clutches Seela to herself and remembers Frerin's sympathetic dark eyes and Thorin's locks of shining raven hair, and her heart breaks as she remembers.

The child is born, and for the first time she is worthy in Vhal's eyes. It is a son, with hair like golden wheat and eyes of blazing sapphire. She names him Fili, and when she holds Seela close that night she sings the long forgotten songs of Erebor. She is thirty-six years old. She has borne three daughters and had two miscarriages, and now at last she has given birth to a son. The curse is lifted and she can be happy once more.

Soon she is pregnant again, and this time she is afraid. She cannot lose any more daughters. She squeezes four-year-old Fili tight and she kisses Seela's hair, and she envisions Frerin's dancing smile and Thorin's determined gaze as she prays for a son.

Her labor begins three weeks early, and the midwife marvels that she survives. Frerin's delightful eyes look up at her, the tiny face shining with Thorin's inner strength even though Dis knows he will never be strong She has given birth to a son, however, and she is certain that Vhal will be pleased.

When her husband sees the tiny hands and thin, spindly legs, he is enraged. Dis has not given him a warrior. She has given him a misfit, with a skelatal body and the features of a girl. He curses her and calls her a useless whore: accuses her of consorting with the Men of the tavern behind his back. He refuses to believe that such a weak, breathless child could be his own. Dis holds her newborn close and she remembers Frerin's bony, frail limbs and the way Thorin looked away in shame whenever his brother tried to lift a sword, and she refuses to believe that her son will account to nothing. She holds her children close and she sings them songs of crowns and gold, and she swears that they will never grow up in the shadow of their father.

She cannot run, but she yearns to try. She looks out the window late at night and she watches the snow fall, and she thinks of Frerin's excited shouting as he tries to outdrink Thorin, and Thorin's bemused smile as his brother topples backwards in his chair after his second pint. Silent tears trickle down her face as she remembers. She kisses her little Kili's brow and she strokes Fili's hair back, and she knows that she is no longer disgraced. She is only worthless.

Kili is a week old when Vhal has had enough. Little blind Seela runs in front of him, unable to avoid him for the darkness of her world, and he throws her into the wall and screams at Dis when she tries to intervene. He will not keep a useless, blind child. He will not pay the dowry. He does not need a daughter.

Kili is sickened by the dark atmosphere in the home and Dis is forced to leave Fili in Seela's care as she begs money to take her child to the healer. Vhal has spent all they had at the tavern, and Dis sacrifices her pride for a few coins. When she returns penniless with a tiny jar of medicine in her hand, the house is silent. Fili rocks back and forth and cries, his blue eyes lost and traumatized as he looks past Dis and recognizes nothing.

Seela is gone. Dis does not need to ask Vhal. A caravan of Men had come through town, and Seela is a pretty child. If she lives past her ninth year, Dis knows her daughter's fate.

She does not speak to Vhal. She does not ask what has become of her daughter. She serves him his meal, slipping in a potent drug, and she waits that night until he falls asleep. When his breathing has evened she takes Fili into her arms and bundles Kili across her back. She takes the small block of gold her husband had set aside to smelt the next day and the striking, handsome pony he had ridden into town so proudly the afternoon before. She leaves in silence, and she does not weep. She carries the burden of her children in her heart forever.

Snow covers the Blue Mountains when she stumbles into a tavern, her purse empty and her husband's pony nothing more than a limping rack of sharp bones and soiled mane. She offers her services to those who will have her, and she fills her purse with revulsion and shame. Fili must never know what it takes to survive. She cannot have him understand the darkness that allowed him and his sickly little brother to live. She looks towards the distant hills and her heart aches, and she weeps for the innocence that she will never know.

Kili is fading by the time she finds a healer who will tend to a widow and her child of misfortune. When she hears the healer's name she weeps anew, for hope is born in her heart when she thought there was none left. Oin ushers her inside and he sends his assistant scurrying for Thorin, and Dis sobs convulsively when she hears her brother's name.

Strong blue eyes, wretched and joyous all at once, capture her own as Thorin runs to her side and kneels beside her, clasping her hands as though he will never let go again. She clings to him and sobs, and she believes for a moment that she can be happy again.

Then she asks for Frerin, and his eyes go dark. She knows what it means. Frail, sweet hearted Frerin with his girlish features and peels of joyous laughter is lost to her. Dead or cast aside or sold like his sister, she will never know. Thorin will not tell her what their father did with him.

Bittersweet reunion: she knows the meaning now. She holds Fili close and she whispers in his ear that they are home, and her heart pangs as she realizes she does not know what home is. The next morning Kili's coughing has subsided and he opens his persistent dark eyes, and Frerin's contagious smile lights up his face. Thorin promises Dis safety, and for the first time in many years she feels like she is wanted. Dwalin sees her and he holds her tight, and for a moment she feels like she is loved. Balin sets Fili on his lap and praises Kili's feisty spirit, and Dis believes she can be proud now that she has borne sons.

But she is not worthy. The names of her daughters are whispered into the night, and she knows she was only a burden because of them. Tears flood her eyes and she gathers Fili and Kili into her arms as she turns to look out at the falling snow. She envisions each of her little ones in her mind, and she remembers.

Then she closes the door in her heart, and she tells herself to forget.

They were only daughters, after all, and she can hear Vhal scolding her that they are not worthy of her remembrance.