The goldminer's daughter fell in love one night, quite the scandal, with my cousin really. With hair spun like silk the color of fresh daffodils, she snuck out to the old house at the edge of the woods where the birds don't chirp and the crickets held their last note many moons ago. Dress smooth as fresh snow in Alaska and the color of freshly blossomed violets, she delightfully twirled and danced on decrepit floorboards.

The jeweler's apprentice fell in love one night with the goldminer's daughter, but her heart was pledged to another. He promised he would wait. For what? Neither knew. Maybe just until morning, yes, that would be enough for the two.

The salmon were leaping from the saphire river that morning, with not a care in the world. The raccoons scrambled through dogwood tree branches to catch a glimpse of the scene before them. The goldminer's daughter's heart had turned to onyx, and her eyes dripped diamonds. The jeweler's apprentice bathed in the glow of morning light, yet he did not know, for his emerald eyes had glazed over to pearl and his heart bled rubies. All because of a shotgun from the goldminer's daughter's betrothed.

Two hearts, one love. Rubies digging down, down into the soil where the hurt couldn't wash to the surface. But maybe, just maybe, a goldminer panning in the stream one day might find the gemstones, forgotten from that night long ago. He might even give them to the jeweler. Then, he'll order a necklace made for his only daughter of rubies. Nobody will know how the moonlight danced across the lapis sky. Nobody will remember how she felt when his eyelids dropped for the last time. Nobody will feel how she did when her heart broke and spilled rubies on decrepit floorboards next to his body.