Three Shrines

Once there was a girl who lived in a house of stone. One day she discovered an old shrine. It appeared to tell the story of a woman who had tried to help her people, but in the process had angered the Gods. She stole from them. But the Gods claimed back what was theirs, and more. The people she had tired to help had built the shrine in her honour.

The girl worked tirelessly to painstakingly uncover more and more of the shrine. She found stones, metal spikes, what appeared to be ceremonial plinths, and used drinking receptacles that dated to well after the original construction. Finally she uncovered a roll of painted cloth that held the key. It was painted with a mural telling the story of the woman, but had been impaled on one of the metal spikes and was too fragile to remove.

Now the girl knew the power of the objects that were held within the rest of the shrine and was determined to find them. Eventually she found a small glass heart, perfectly clean and unharmed. She picked it from the ruins and a great and lengthy struggle within herself began.
After many years the girl had almost been torn apart by the power of the heart. She had hurt many and destroyed much, but she had also helped build incredible things. Eventually she hid herself away in a series of three caves and wrote down all of the lessons that she had learnt while possessing the power of the heart, tying each one up with a piece of string.

She created small memorials to honour some of the people and things she had destroyed, using shapes she had seen on her journey. When she felt she had written all that she could she felt ready to relinquish the power of heart, she built a container, and within it she placed the heart. She could not leave it unattended, so knelt down in front of it and vowed to keep it undiscovered, she hoped, forever.