Kirina gasped with delight. "It's so pretty!" she exclaimed. "What is this place?"

"The Field of Broken Dreams," Marcoh exclaimed.

"It has a sad-sounding name, but the landscape is very lovely."

The Field of Broken Dreams was filled with all sorts of quartz, obsidian, fluorite, citrine, and other shiny minerals and crystals.

"It's all sparkly," Kirina remarked, touching a quartz scepter that was nearly as long as she was tall. "Maybe that's why it's called Broken Dreams. Dreams are considered magical, just like these crystals. But these crystals are all different shapes, sizes, and colors. And they're all broken."

"Yes. Kirina, come over here."

Kirina walked over to the other side of the field and towards Marcoh. She laughed with delight.

"A heart! It's growing out of the crystals," she exclaimed. She touched the smooth surface and giggled. "It's bigger than my hand!"

"This is natural, but very rare," Marcoh explained. "This is a heart-twinning quartz."

"Twinning? What's that?"

"Twinning occurs when two sides of the quartz are growing in the exact same shape at the exact same pace. When they grow to a certain length, they form a shape, such as this heart."

"Wow!" Kirina said wistfully. "I wish I could keep it."

Marcoh smiled. "Kirina, why don't you go take some notes on the obsidian over there and see what you can transmute from it."

"Okay!"

Carefully, Marcoh pried the heart quartz from the stone and drilled a tiny hole in it. Using alchemy, he transmuted a nearby obsidian rock into a flexible, strong thread and threaded through the rock.

"Kirina, come over here, please."

"What is it?"

Taking her hand, Marcoh put the necklace in her hand. "This is for you."

Kirina gasped.

"It's a necklace made from the heart," she said, slipping it over her head. Kirina grinned and hugged Marcoh. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

Marcoh laughed. "You're welcome. It's for protection."

Kirina looked confused. "Protection? How can a heart made of quartz protect me."

"I'm going to tech you how to use the piezoelectric effect. If you know how to do it, you'll be able to protect yourself from harm using that stone."

"Oh." Kirina grinned. "So I can draw strength from my heart?"

Marcoh smiled at her. "Yes."

The idea for the field came from the time I visited the countryside. It wasn't filled with crystals and minerals, but with different colored shale and rocks. It was pretty and so, so magical.

The reason this memory is short (Just like the last chapter) is because Kirina's memory fades in and out (You read the summary, right?). She'll recover her memory eventually.

And F.Y.I., I do know a little bit about the piezoelectric effect (Yes, it's real. I didn't make it up.) Quartz crystals are used in some machines to generate electricity. For more information, please visit your local library.