Matilda is a knight in the Middle Ages. Or at least she dreams of being one. She’s bought a metal armor, she has a sword albeit a dull one and in some strange way, people love her strength and resilience. She’s a person that never gives up and fights to the end.

She’s fought dragons and slayed them. She’s rescued princesses caught in locked castle towers. She’s saved villages from being burned down by criminals. She’s helped them rebuild if she was not there to help. She’s just a plain hero.

One day she got a mission that’s extremely special, almost like the story of the Sword in the stone. In this mission and story, there is a sword involved, but it does not have to be taken out of a stone and turn the owner into the rightful king or queen. No, this has to do with love. But that’s an official secret. Everybody except Matilda herself knows about this secret. It’s like a prophecy.

There was a gathering in the town square. Matilda had been told that she had to use her sword to cut a very long cord. The cord itself ran the length of the entire town and the town square was set in the absolute center of the cord. People across the whole town came together on this special day to watch her cut this specific cord.

The queen had given her the order and it was said that the reason behind it was due to a strong magic, binding the whole town into a dark ending and now the moon and the sun and the planets aligned correctly for somebody to finally cut it. Matilda was the chosen one, according to the prophecy to do this work. That’s because it was told that only a female hero with a dull sword would be able to do it.

The time had come. Matilda stood ready with her dull sword in her cheap armor in front of the center of the cord. The crowd started chanting “CUT THE CORD! CUT THE CORD!”. And she started cutting it.

It sounded like a real fight and when she struck the cord, it sounded like two swords met. It went on forever it seemed. Matilda’s energy was diminishing after hours and hours of fighting this cord. Finally, the outer layer started to slowly let go and it exposed a kind of metal. This metal was not of this world. It was of course lazed with magic. Even if you’d have the strongest sword in the world, you would never be able to cut it. Not even a tiny bit.

No, it had to be a dull sword. The dullest and the cheapest sword possible. Nothing else would work. The sword that Matilda used was something she found in a river. It was rusty, almost broken but she felt called to use it, keep it and tend to it, as if it was a lover of sorts.

Hours had passed. Almost the entire day. It was getting dark. The cord and the metal inside the cord was like fiber threads, welded together, but still loose in some way. The trick was to sever each thread, which Matilda did.

When the twilight came and the sun was about to go down for the night, she was at the final thread. All of a sudden she got the feeling that this last piece of thread will never ever be able to be cut. It had to stay there, but how would she tell the queen that? There was only one tiny thread left. How can she give up now?

She stopped temporarily, at least. The crowd gasped and went silent. Matilda took a sip of water from a well a few feet away and stared at the sun that was vanishing in the horizon.

The crowd started to look worried. A person shouted “Is it done? Are you finished?”. Another person yelled “have you given up?!”. Matilda continued to sip the water, to look at the sun and then glimpse over to the people in the crowd that’s been shouting to her.

Then, she noticed something. Something behind the crowd. Something shiny. It became clearer and clearer. Soon she saw that it was a man coming out of the crowd.

The crowd started to notice this man too and made room for him. There was a strange light shining around him, like he was pure magic. There were colors of light pink, purple, red, gold and magenta. This man approached Matilda, bent his knee, took her hand and kissed it.

Then he stood up, looked up to the queen and bowed to her.

The queen rose up and started to speak. This is what she had to say:

“My dear friends, family and towns people. Let us thank Matilda for her resilient spirit, compassion and patience. She has saved us! The cord was never meant to be severed completely. The cord was meant to be standing with one single thread left, and now it does. This had to be done, in order to save the prince Conquer. Now he has been saved and to give our gratitude towards Matilda, the prince now has a choice to marry her. Will you do her the honor, prince Conquer?”

“Yes. I will”, the prince said. Matilda of course being very independent and not feeling the real need for love in her life actually said yes to the marriage proposal. For some strange reason, Matilda felt weirdly drawn to this prince Conquer. Like she’s met him before. She knew she’d dreamed about him. The connection between them was felt strongly and she accepted without thinking about it.

They married the same day and the crowd rejoiced.

And then they lived happily ever after.