Long, long ago, in the days when dreams walked the earth, there lived a princess who was born with no heart in her body.
Naturally, this caused much consternation among the court. It was decided, after a week, that a ruby would be taken to fill the hole in her chest.
The child grew, as children often do, and she grew into a wicked, selfish thing, her stone heart unmoved by any diversion.
The days turned to months and the months turned to years, and it came time for the princess to be wed. Many men would love a heart of stone, but there were none that a stonehearted maiden could love.
And there came a prince with a quicksilver soul, who always heard yes when he should have heard no.
He contrived to be alone in the princess’ bedchamber one night. She watched his coming with curiosity, for her heart was hardened to fear.
“Princess,” he said, “What sits beneath your breast? For I have heard men call you heartless.”
“I have a heart beneath my breast,” she answered him, “and it shines brighter than yours, by far.”
“Princess,” he said, “I must see this heart. Surely you are not afraid to show it to me?”
“I am not afraid,” the princess said, and she lifted her nightshirt up to her neck, to show the heart her parents had made her.
The prince forgot his lust for greed. He snatched the ruby from her chest, and stowed it in a pouch around his neck, and took himself quickly away.
The princess stared down at the hole in her chest for several minutes. Slowly, she dropped the hem of her nightshirt, and slowly, she put herself back to bed. No one had stolen her heart before. She did not know what to do.
In the morning, the princess found herself tired, and full of an unnamed sorrow, and she did not rise from her bed. Her parents worried, for their daughter was often up with the sun. But she would not rise, and she would not speak. She would not eat, and she would drink only a little water, and that only when her father begged, for every hour that passed took her heart farther from her body.
On the third day, the princess roused herself, and she went to her mother’s jewel box, and tipped it over onto the floor.
The gold and silver she rejected immediately. She lingered over the jewels, sapphires and emeralds and diamonds. But all of these were wrong. She found a garnet broach, and thought, perhaps, perhaps. She found a pair of ruby earrings, and hope flared. But all of these were wrong.
Her heart was a stone the size of her fist. The earrings were each the size of a teardrop, and the garnet no bigger than her eyes, dry, for a girl with no heart could never cry.
The queen was not pleased to find her daughter had gone through her things. The queen was, in fact, altogether quite displeased with her daughter, and the king soon followed suit. For the princess would do nothing but lie abed all day, and refused to attend court functions, and refused to see any suitors.
And days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and there came a dragon to lay waste at the north end of the kingdom.
“Perhaps,” said the king to the queen, “we will marry her to the man who kills the dragon.”
“Perhaps,” said the queen to the king, “but what man would have a wife who lies in bed all day?”
“Perhaps,” said the princess to herself, “the dragon has a jewel large enough to replace my heart.”
And so the princess resolved to save herself from this wasting illness that no one else could see. At first she thought she would ride out to meet the dragon, but her body grew weaker and weaker as long as her ruby heart was gone, for no one could live forever without a heart.
She thought on this for many days, and at last she went back to her mother’s room, and tipped over her jewel box again. She took from it as many things as she could carry, and then, giving up on her weak body, she filled the box again, and called a stable boy to carry it down, and tie it to the back of a large, reliable plow horse. She took herself slowly, next, down to the stables after the boy, and told him to tie her to the horse as well.
She pointed the horse’s large, fuzzy nose to the north, and let herself rest, secure in the stable boy’s knots. Her mother owned many, many fine pieces of jewelry, silver and gold and gems. If she was lucky, the princess thought, the dragon would smell the treasure, and come to meet her. She thought she could reason with a dragon; she still understood no fear.
The princess fell asleep on the back of the horse, and woke on the back of the horse, and drank a little from the skin of water the stable boy had filled for her. She slept again, and woke again, and so she passed many days, until the horse, plodding and reliable until now, suddenly reared up, dislodging princess and jewel box both, and galloped away.
She had reached the dragon’s lair.
The princess stood slowly. She was bruised from the fall, and tired, always tired now, ever since the theft of her heart.
“Hello?” she called. “Is there a dragon here?”
There was no answer.
“I have brought many small treasures,” she said, “which I would trade for one larger, if you are willing.”
A long, red snout emerged from the cave before her, and she stumbled hastily back, for the breath from its nostrils was hot and painful.
The dragon sniffed her. The dragon sniffed the treasure. The dragon said, in a low, rumbling voice, “You are dying, little princess. Why have you come to me?”
“I have come that I might not die,” the princess said. “My heart has been taken, and I would replace it from your hoard.”
“I do not hoard the hearts of girls,” the dragon said.
“I do not seek a heart of flesh,” the princess answered. At this, the dragon picked her up, long yellowed teeth clamped gently about her waist, and pulled her into the cave. After a moment, it went back outside for the jewel box.
“This treasure is not yours, I think.”
“It is my mother’s. She will miss it far more than she will miss me, for I am a heartless, unloving child.”
And the princess lifted her skirts up to her neck, and showed the dragon the hole in her chest. “Once I had a heart of stone,” she said, “but it was stolen by a prince with a quicksilver soul, and without it I think I shall die. Nothing in the box is big enough to do.”
She dropped her skirts and lifted her eyes, to see the shining jewels of the dragon’s hoard. Light from the mouth of the cave bounced from each bright surface to the next, but the princess knew no greed, only hope.
“Will you help me?” she asked the dragon.
The dragon knelt to rest her snout above the hole where a heart should lie, and the heat of her warmed the empty chest. “I will help you,” she said, and for the first time in her hard-hearted life, the princess knew joy.
“This evening I will find you a heart,” said the dragon. “For now, little princess, you must rest.” And she lifted the princess again, and laid her upon a sheep skin bed, and for the first time in her hard-hearted life, the princess knew peace.
When the princess woke, gems and jewels encircled her bed. “I have no red in my hoard,” the dragon said, “but perhaps one of these will do.”
They spent many days trying each jewel the dragon had, and when her hoard was finished, and a heart still not found, the dragon left the princess in her cave, and went out to discover new treasures. Days turned to weeks, and weeks turned to months, and each jewel took its turn in the princess’ chest.
Diamond-hearted, she felt sharp, and harsh, and cruel. She said things she did not mean, and the dragon followed her with wide, wounded eyes. With silver in her chest, she felt an unending chill—all the blankets and skins the dragon had gathered could not keep out the cold, which settled deep in her bones.
With a giant pearl in place, she felt distant from all the world, and uncaring, too. She saw no problem until the dragon plucked it from her chest, and she returned to herself again. The opal made her giddy and prone to mood swings, wildly happy until she was suddenly sad. She kept it for several days, clinging to a joy she’d never known before, until the side effects became unbearable.
“Heart transplants are hard,” the dragon said mournfully.
The princess patted her consolingly on the snout; the heart of gold had her feeling especially kind.
One night, as the princess slept with a rose quartz heart, a man crept into the cave. The princess woke as soon as he set foot inside, for rose quartz made her restless.
It was the quicksilver prince who had stolen her heart, and he wore it in a pouch tied about his neck. She could feel it from across the cave, fresh, as if it had just been ripped from her chest.
He carried a sword and a shield, as if he had come here to harm the dragon, her dragon, as he had harmed her. She reached beneath her dress and removed her rose quartz heart, for she wished to be herself at this meeting.
The moon emerged from behind a cloud, casting its light on the princess.
“Princess,” said the prince. “I’ve come to save you.”
“To save me,” she repeated. “And what would you save me from?”
“From the dragon,” he said. “Your parents are worried sick.”
“Sick, are they? Sick as I was when you stole my heart? As I was when I languished for months without it?”
He smiled, eerie in the glittering light of the cave. “When the dragon is defeated,” he told her, “I will give you my heart in return, and we will be wed before you father’s throne.”
The prince stepped forward, the princess stepped back, and the dragon raised her great head. “Who is this?” she asked, and the prince stepped hastily back again.
“This is the quicksilver prince who stole my heart. He has offered me his own in exchange.”
“Oh?” said the dragon. “And how would you like it?”
“Charred,” answered the princess, from the bottom of her lost stone heart. And the dragon opened her great mouth and breathed.
When the quicksilver prince was a pile of ash, and the princess’s heart sat shining on top, she bent to pick it up, brushing off the soot. She lifted her dress and placed it inside her waiting chest.
The princess gathered her mother’s jewels and the prince’s steed, and she returned to her parents’ palace.
“I am sorry I took your jewels,” she said. “My heart has been not softened, but warmed, and I must go home to my friend. You need not send more princes after me.”
Her parents did not understand, but parents often do not,
and what they wanted, in the end, was to see their daughter happy. So she went
back to her dragon, and lived happily there until the end of her days.
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