The Girl with the Fire Heart
Chapter 2

The shepherd hears the commotion of his daughter crashing through the door, sees her barrel her way through the house and hears her slam her door shut. He looks to his wife, hoping to replace answers in his wife’s eyes but he only sees the same confusion in him mirrored in her.

You see, the shepherd and his wife had hearts made of timber wood. They don't know how their daughter had been born with a heart of fire but they loved her anyway. This sudden change of character, this chaos a contrast to their daughter’s usual collected attitude led them to be more worried than either of them said out loud.

The shepherd’s wife tentatively made her way to her daughter’s door, knocking on it softly, asking through the crack if her daughter was okay.

The shepherd’s daughter could be heard crying but she assures her parents that she doesn't need them to come in. She says she will be out in a moment.

The shepherd’s wife and the shepherd make their way back to the dinner table. Five minutes later, their daughter exits her room and sits with them, tear stained eyes and a frown on her face. Without asking what is wrong, they embrace their daughter. But little do they know their daughter now has a secret from this fall out with the village boy.

In her room lay the plans for a contraption that would contain the fire that burned bright in her necklace. No one has ever tried such a thing before, so the consequences of this plan are unknown. But the shepherd’s daughter had always known that one day, the fire in her heart would push everyone away, and she was tired of being alone.

Some years pass and another of the village boys begin to court her. Unlike the boy with the birch wood heart, this boy’s heart was made of bronze. Villagers born with bronze hearts meant that their families worked in the royal palace. This boy was well respected in the village because of his family’s position.

But this boy is considered a scoundrel amongst all the other village teens. He had kissed many of the village girls without declaring his intentions and was often found lurking in the dead of night, leading animals away from some of the farms and uprooting vegetables that had become ripe for the picking.

This boy with the bronze heart, however, had managed to stay away from the shepherd’s home. He knew of the girl with the fire heart and had never wanted to incur her wrath. The stories surrounding the shepherd’s daughter were horrific. Some called her a heretic, some called her bewitched. Some claimed that the shepherd’s wife had had an affair and this was the consequence of her actions. Truthfully, no one knew the origin of how the shepherd’s daughter had ended up with a heart made of fire.

But when the boy with the bronze heart heard about what had happened between the shepherd’s daughter and the boy with the birch wood heart, he became intrigued. He was curious to see if the stories about the fire trapped in the necklace of the shepherd’s daughter were true. So one day, he decides to court the shepherd’s daughter by way of gifts. He sends runners to her home with wild flowers and exotic fruits. He sends her family machines and tools only used in the palace that were in some state of disrepair but could easily be mended if the royal family wanted to pay for such repairs.

Eventually, he starts to come around and ask the shepherd to allow his daughter to walk the markets with him. The shepherd is wary, having already seen what happened to his daughter when a boy rejected her fire. But his daughter had never seemed so happy. So the shepherd allows the courtship.

Day by day, the boy with the bronze heart comes and asks the shepherd’s daughter to escort him to the markets. And day by day, the shepherd’s daughter agrees, optimistic that this boy is nothing like the boy with the birch wood heart.

But one day, one of the shepherd’s daughter’s friends hears about the courtship between the boy with the bronze heart and the shepherd’s daughter. Alarmed that this boy may try to hurt her friend, she rushes to the shepherd’s home asking for the shepherd’s daughter. The shepherd tells her that she has gone to the markets with the boy with the bronze heart.

The friend thanks the shepherd and rushes to the markets, running as fast as she can to catch up with the shepherd’s daughter. Finally, she arrives at the markets. Unfortunately, she is too late. She stops short and sees the shepherd’s daughter shoving at the chest of the boy. She can see the fire in the shepherd’s daughter’s necklace burning brighter and brighter, the flames getting stronger and stronger.

The friend, who’s heart was made of emerald, runs to catch up to the shepherd’s daughter and stop her from doing something unthinkable. By the time the girl with the emerald heart makes it to the shepherd’s daughter, the boy with the bronze heart has a burn on his arm. He screams so loud that everyone in the area shrinks back and covers their ears. The boy with the bronze heart tears his arms away from the shepherd’s daughter and runs towards the palace.

The shepherd’s daughter stands in the market shocked at what she has done. She hadn’t meant to burn him. She was just trying to get away from him when he made advances towards her. She had begun to feel uncomfortable in his presence, often coming home from her outings with him more tired than when she left. When he finally made the move to kiss her, she had pushed him away. No one had paid attention to the two of them until she had burned him. She didn’t even know how it had happened.

The girl with the emerald heart grabs the shepherd’s daughter by her arms, lifts her hands to her face, and forces the shepherd’s daughter to look into her eyes. She slowly shakes her out of the shock and escorts her away from the prying and fearful eyes of the villagers in the market and back to her home.

When the shepherd’s daughter finally makes it home, she sends her friend with the emerald heart away and locks herself in her room. The shepherd’s daughter works diligently, working on her plans to make the contraption for her necklace real.

She begins to ask around for what kind of materials are best used to contain fire. Ever since the boy with the bronze heart had been burned, no one in the village would come close to the shepherd’s daughter. So the shepherd’s daughter travels on the weekends to distant kingdoms, seeking to make her plans come to life.

Whenever the shepherd’s daughter travels, she tucks her necklace into her clothes, hiding it from anyone who sees her for fear they might know what she had done to the boy with the bronze heart. She happened to replace a pin in the dirt one day, one made of steel, that had given her the inspiration to make her contraption of the same material.

She didn’t know who had lost the pin, probably a child who had been playing a bit too roughly, but it was the one she wore every time she traveled to avoid suspicion of what she was doing.

One day, when she had gathered all the steel and bolts and nails and screws she would need to start building the contraption, she heard whispers in the village of a boy with a rare gem in his heart. This boy has a tanzanite heart. It is a very vibrant blue gem that has to be preserved within a family line so people with this kind of heart never marry foreigners or other types of hearts.

What no one knew about this boy with the tanzanite heart was that while the gem in his heart was precious and beautiful, it is also a very cheap kind of gem. If you travel long enough, you are sure to replace a whole kingdom of people with tanzanite hearts.

Because this boy is the only one of his kind in this village, however, he is considered rare. And he has his eyes set on the one thing everyone fears: the shepherd’s daughter.