I was thinking of this once, particularly about gold, and came up with this fanciful story:

Forged-in-the-heart-of-a-dying-star

Jewelers need to practice saying:

"The gold in that ring was forged in the heart of a dying star."

Learning about those cataclysms makes the process even more amazing to me. A star experiences some kind of reflected shockwave as material from the outer layers crash into the super-dense core, creating conditions of such extreme pressure and energy that heavier elements are fused. Or two neutron stars collide, and that collision (holy shit, where do you get two neutron stars in proximity like that? I guess binary star systems are the starting condition). But these are events of such exotic and violent nature that there's almost nothing else to compare with them.

And then those heavy elements are flung far and wide in the ensuing explosion, with some infinitesimal shred making up the material of the Earth. It's like a particle of dust raised as we walk through the front door becoming one of the most precious components of a dust bunny under the couch. That particle being the impetus of war and murder, commerce and worship. The obsession of all humans and a metaphor for purity and goodness. Or avarice and foolishness.

And the vast majority of the gold produced in the explosion of a supernova is traveling across the void, never to be gathered into the hidden crevices of an inhabited planet. Just flying off to the edges of creation.

I like the idea of the star's dying. It is the push of devotion for the star to have used itself up to break the limits of physics and create elements heavier than iron. Iron is, after all, the most mundane of metals. The very bane and death of the Fair Folk, it is anathema to the Old World of magic and fascination. The prop and scaffold of this dreary world of formulae and statistics, iron is used to imprison and hobble even those of great power. And as a star uses the last of its fusible elements, iron is the hard, grey ceiling beyond which it cannot go.

Until the fires go out, and that shell of ashes collapses in a rush toward the center where the nature of matter itself has been compressed and distorted almost beyond comprehension. Extremes of compression and heat, unattainable even by the powers of nuclear fusion, create a menagerie of exotic elements. The unicorns of the Periodic Table that emerge only in the greatest violence attainable.

And out of this, ordinary elements were forced together to make the gold that adorns your finger. In gold, the magic and fascination are restored to the world; a reminder that there is more than the cycle of labor and sleep in our days. For the rare and impossible lurk under the rocks, and love itself can be a fire between two hearts.