The Clockwork Heart

Once Upon A Time, when such things happen, in a magical land that had seen stranger things, a girl was born without a heart. The girl with no heart was not born to a cursed royal couple, but to simple craftspeople in a moderately sized village. Her mother was greensmith who worked copper and fixed pots, and her father made and mended clocks. Once, in his youth, the clockmaker had done a kindness for a fairy, and so she came to them with warning of what would happen when his wife gave birth. Distraught at the idea they might lose their child, they made for her a clockwork heart. The clockmaker drafted the plan, and his wife made all the parts, and together they assembled a gleaming copper heart to save their daughter. She was born screaming, pink and perfect, and they named her Corretta. Thanks to hard work and a little bit of friendly magic, her clockwork heart worked.

Sort of.

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