The princess and the lock

Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, there lived a beautiful princess. The rules around her marriage were unusual. There, she could only marry the man in possession of a key that could open the lock she wore around her neck. Ever since the law was announced since her coming of age, there had been a rush around the kingdom to find all the keys. Two men had risen to prominence, and both were arrogant and sure that they could present the correct key at the coronation party and thus not only marry the beautiful princess, but become the king of a wealthy and powerful kingdom.

One was an old man who locked himself in his room. He was a key maker and barely eating and sleeping. In his obsession, he made and remade the same piece of metal. Surely he could forge the perfect shape. He believed in his ingenuity alone that could solve any problem. He believed he could outsmart love. He could engineer it. Another was a rich man who was buying all the keys in the kingdom. He used his henchmen to bully people into selling. And he believed he could buy anything, including love. The kingdom became increasingly insecure because all the keys had become too expensive or sparse. There are locks that can no longer be opened and rooms and chests and drawers that had to be abandoned and forgotten. Dreams and hopes and precious memories unaccessible and locked away with time. Most people now can’t afford to use lock and keys, which is why everyone stays at home as much as possible and became increasingly nervous.

There lived a poor young thief who picked locks for a living, but he secretly used it to help people. He said it aligned with his political beliefs. He was an undercover communist, well, not very undercover, because he would talk about it all the time, how he believed in the abolition of private property. But no one took this very seriously. Oh, you only say that because you don’t own anything, or you’re too lazy to work, his friends teased him. His parents had died when he was young and he was orphaned. His mother gave him a key necklace, but he didn’t care about the princess or anyone’s obsession with the kingdom. He would never use something so precious as his mother’s memory, and so he kept the key hidden away. He would only take it out at night before going to sleep and examine it over in his hands, trying not to forget the color of his mother’s eyes.

One day, his friend, who had just been hired as a chef inside the castle, cried asking for his help. I locked some of the equipment in a cabinet I wasn’t supposed to touch. I’m gonna get fired. I don’t wanna lose my job over this. And the thief said, absolutely not. I am not coming into the royal kingdom and risking my life. And his friend said, don’t worry about it. I can bribe someone. Come through the south gate at midnight and I promise no one will be there. So the thief came at night with instructions and he started to work on the cabinet thinking no one was gonna bother him. But the kid, the princess had come to the kitchen. She couldn’t sleep. She was looking for a midnight snack. In the candlelight, he caught a glimpse of her face and fell in love at first sight. Hearing the sounds from the kitchen, she assumed that it was her old nursemaid and she asked for some hot chocolate. Using his best fake old lady voice, he made her the hot chocolate and presented it to her from the shadow saying, here you go, dear.

She starts crying immediately, saying she’s scared of the old man or the rich man finding the right key and being pressured to marry someone good enough because of the law saying that if she doesn’t marry, she has to give up her regency to the governing council, who she doesn’t trust. But after she cries, she says she is confident that her father’s laws, her locked necklace will remain unbroken. It was a promise, she said her father made before he died. He wished for her to find true love because he missed his chance. He had once fallen in love with a gypsy woman and they made a special necklace together using a special ancient technique that captured the promise of true love. But the lovers were separated because he was forced to marry nobility. But he was hoping that his daughter would find love. Increasingly with age, he started to realize that he had made the wrong choice and that love was more important than his whole kingdom. And that was the valuable wisdom that he had given to her and wished for her to carry on the legacy.

At first, she was angry of being forced to marry a random man just because he had this key, or worse, not a man or no one at all. But her father only smiled and said there was a special spell with an ancient magic for true love. She was angry until he passed away, and now with the humility of death, she forgave him completely and only wanted to honor him. All of this she said crying to the old maid, or so she thought. That’s when the thief came out of the shadows and revealed who he was. The princess was startled and grabbed a knife in self-defense and held it up to his neck. But he said, I don’t want to harm you, and stepped closer, putting the edge of the knife right against his skin and said, you can kill me if you want. She was so startled that he took the knife from her slowly and used it to cut open the chain around his neck, holding in his hand a golden key. He presented it to her and showed that it had the same insignia as her lock.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, silenced by shock. As if in a trance, she felt like she was out of her own body and she wasn’t controlling what she was saying or doing.

He calmly said, “It’s my mother’s only possession she left me before she died.”

For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel out of place or confused. He moved with certainty. He knew exactly what to do and what to say.

And so he presented her the key and she put inside the lock around her neck and it clicked open immediately and she carefully took off her necklace. And they both examined it, laughing in surprise and wonder.

She thought, he’s cute and funny.

Their eyes met and she blushed. She did not protest when he came to kiss her and they lived happily ever after.