The king has no queen
The king has no heir
The king is seeking a queen
A father betrays his daughter
His daughter has the power of transmutation
Was the fathers life threatened so he offered his daughter instead?
Willing or not she is brought before the king
Transmute or your father shall die
The king knows all too well how to get his way
Why does the king care whether she can perform or not?
He seeks a wife to bring an heir.
He has made a bargain with the father that must be fulfilled.
Perhaps it is true - what a wife she would make if could transmute.
He prepares to arrest her father.
She is taken to her quarters - luxurious but still a prison - and shown the material to transmute.
Once
alone she cries since she knows she can't transmute and her father will
die, and then she will have no family and she will homeless.
From out of nowhere a stranger appears.
The stranger offers to help if she is willing to make a trade.
She agrees. She will do anything.
The stranger proposes to do the transmutation in exchange for a piece of her personal property like a shoe, or a book or pencil.
She agrees and falls asleep before she can see the stranger work.
The king is stunned.
Why doesn't he marry her now? Why make her perform again?
He doesn't trust her.
He doesn't trust she will transmute after marriage.
He wants to see what she did.
He summons her and tells her she must perform again.
That test was too easy - the quantity was too small.
Now the king has no intention of arresting her father.
However he intends to keep his daughter.
He has her moved to larger more luxurious quarters and supplies her with more raw material.
This time he doubles the guard and has spies watching and listening.
The girl does not weep but is worried when she sees that the guard has been doubled.
But she has nothing to fear.
Around
midnight there is a wind in the room and all the candles are blown out
and the stranger is holding her and whispering in her ear.
This time she must trade one of her intimate personal property like her ring, her ear ring or necklace.
She quickly agrees and bites her tongue to avoid falling asleep but it is no use.
The king is relieved that she was successful - he is falling in love.
However when he finds out all his spies saw nothing he is angry he has been tricked and demands she transmute again.
At this point she has an idea about her value to the king and offers to make a trade with him.
She offers to transmute one more time if he agrees to marry her.
He has many emotions but since he wanted to marry her anyway he accepts.
However he wants some small revenge on her for trapping him.
Also he want his spies to find out how she is transmuting.
So he has her taken the largest and most opulent bedroom - his own.
He has it filled with raw material and goes to sleep down the hall.
Triple the guards are posted and double the spies are deployed.
With more confidence than ever before she enters her new quarters.
She sits and waits. She isn't worried.
The stranger will come.
An hour goes by.
And then another.
Now she is nervous.
And then another.
What if the stranger doesn't come.
And then she can see a sliver of the morning sun.
Now she is sobbing - she knows her father is a dead man.
And then she stops.
She will face her destiny - if she has to watch her father die so be it.
She is thrown to the floor.
The whole palace is shaking and she can't see anything.
The stranger is there, next to her on the floor.
Give me your first born and I will transmute.
Without hesitating she agrees.
Within several months they are married.
Within a few more she is pregnant.
A letter on her night table in her private apartment - only two words - first born.
She summons her personal guards and swears them to secrecy.
Her baby born she is in the nursery, her guard waiting outside.
The stranger is there when she turns around and demands the child.
She bargains with the stranger what can I do to keep my child.
The stranger tells her she would need to guess his name.
The queen sends her soldiers everywhere.
One of her soldiers find the stranger singing a victory song.
The stranger returns - did you find my name?
The queen sings rumpstiltkin.
And with that the stranger turns into a cloud of smoke and disappears.
