The chancellor cleared his throat again. “If I may be so bold as to inquire, Your Majesty…there’s one point I don’t quite understand. Why do you wish to kill your daughter?”
“Good God, man! Isn’t it obvious? In case she turns out to be more beautiful than me, of course! We couldn’t have that!”
“No, of course not, My Queen. But wouldn’t it make sense to wait a few years? I mean, the child may turn out to be disgustingly ugly, and in that case—“
“Ugly? With a mother like me? Are you attempting to insult the royal bloodline, chancellor?”
“No, Your Majesty! Of course not, Your Majesty! I meant no offense, Your Majesty!”
“Good! Because otherwise, your head would end up as a spike-decoration! Now stop wasting my time and go fetch the huntsman!”
The chancellor fled the throne room. Only minutes later, he returned with one vicious, child-murdering bastard willing to do anything for a few pieces of gold in tow. The huntsman bowed in front of his Queen.
“My Queen? Who or what needs to be killed?”
The Queen much appreciated this professional attitude. She explained what the problem was and ordered the huntsman to return to her in a few months.
After nine months of yelling, complaining, and all-around torture for the palace staff, the Queen gave birth to a little girl. The chancellor dared to point out that the newborn was very ugly indeed and asked if they could not perhaps leave it alive, just in case.
“No!” The Queen snapped. “All babies are ugly in the beginning! Then they suck you dry and start to stand and next thing you know they start wearing their hair long and fluttering their eyelashes at boys. She has to die!”
“Certainly, Your Majesty.”
“Call the huntsman!”
“Immediately, Your Majesty.”
The huntsman was called, and the Queen threw the child at him. He caught it, effortlessly, letting it dangle by its feet over his shoulder.
“Kill it,” she ordered. “Be thorough! And I want proof, do you hear? Bring me back some internal organ of hers after you’ve slit her open.”
“As Your Majesty commands. Any preferences as regards the organ? Maybe the heart?”
“No, let it be the liver. I like roasted liver with onions.”
“As you wish, My Queen.”
Whistling a merry tune, with a baby princess slung over his shoulder, the huntsman marched out of the castle and into the forest, ready for a little bit of happy slaughter. However, the god of indigestion must have been with the young Princess that day, for, just as they were walking along a mountain path, the Princess crapped into her diaper, and some of the royal refuse dribbled onto the huntsman’s bright red hunting coat.
“Crap!” he exclaimed in a not very metaphorical manner and dropped the Princess, who promptly rolled down the mountainside, gurgling happily. And why not? Although she wasn’t quite aware of the fact, she had just shit on her would-be murderer. A feat anyone at the age of one day should be proud of.
“What the hell am I going to do now?” demanded the huntsman of the sky.
Since the sky didn’t seem inclined to give an answer, and climbing down the steep mountainside after the Princess wasn’t an option, the huntsman went on into the forest, killed the first wild goose he came across, and turned back towards the castle. That night, the unknowing Queen dined on goose liver with onions.
*********
Meanwhile, the Princess was still rolling happily down the mountainside. It was a very big mountain. Somewhere halfway down, she suddenly fell into a mine shaft and onto a dwarf’s head.
“Ouch!” said the dwarf, who had been hacking away at a coal seam in peace and wasn’t used to having children drop on his head. Boulders, yes, whole mountains even, but no children! You had to draw the line somewhere! “By my grandfather’s beard! What…?”
The other six dwarves around him stopped hacking and gathered around. Mining is a pretty boring business, and you are glad for any distraction. They all watched as Dwarf Number One picked up the struggling white bundle from the ground. For a moment or two, they stared in silence. The little girl gurgled.
“What’s that?” asked Dwarf One.
“Don’t ask me!” said Dwarf Two. “You found it.”
“It fell on my head! I’d hardly call that finding.”
“It looks alive,” said Dwarf Six. “Actually, it looks a little bit like a dwarf.”
“What? A dwarf? Don’t be ridiculous! Where is its beard? Its helmet? Its battle-axe?”
“Maybe it’s some kind of tunnel rat.”
“No, it has two hands and two feet!”
“But not proper dwarf’s feet! They’re all soft and squishy. Not stone-hard, like those of a normal person.”
“Hm.”
“Hm, hm.”
Number Five poked the thing’s side cautiously. It giggled and made a grab for his finger. Hastily, Number Five retreated.
“It’s making threatening noises when you touch it!” he murmured to his brothers. “Don’t touch it! Maybe it’s dangerous!”
“Nonsense!” That was Number Six, who was the most level-headed of the company. (A big rock had once fallen on top of him, quite effectively leveling his head.) “It doesn’t have a single weapon! And I don’t think it has teeth or claws, either.”
“Maybe it is just a little dwarf,” Number One suggested. “Maybe he just lost his axe and helm in the tunnels somewhere.”
“And his beard?”
They threw each other uneasy glances. “It could have been…you know,” whispered Number Two in a hushed undertone, “shaved off.”
There was a collective shudder.
“Poor little fellow,” Number Three said.
“We should take him in,” Number One said. “At least until his beard has grown back and he’s fit to show himself in polite company again.”
“But…we still don’t know what he is. No beard, no helmet, no axe…” Cautiously, one of the dwarves lifted the white linen wrapped around the thing, maybe in the hope of finding a little battle ax tucked away somewhere. He discovered something quite different. “Hey! He hasn’t just got no battle-axe! He’s got no knob, either!”
“What?” Number Four exclaimed.
“Let me see!” Number One demanded.
After they had all assured themselves that their curious find was indeed as knobless as it was beardless, they gathered in a tight circle for an official clan meet.
“Be welcome, my brothers!” Number Four, who acted as head of the clan this month, cleared his throat. “We, the proud warriors of the Black Mountain dwarf clan, have gathered here together to discuss the grave crisis that has befallen us, namely, the appearance of a pink, gurgling creature of unknown origin in our midst. Be it friend or foe? Be it dwarf or monster? This is what we have come hither to determine. We must all remain calm, and confer in a serious and seemly manner about what is to be done.”
“No knob! No freaking knob! Just a little slit and—“
“Be quiet, Burin!”
“…and not the tiniest little bit of hair! Not at all! Ye Gods! Can you imagine how draughty that must be in December? I can’t even—“
“I said be quiet! We are not here to talk about winter temperatures. We are here to discuss the fate of the pink creature!”
“I say we give it an axe and a helmet and send it down the next tunnel,” said Number Five. “If it’s a dwarf, it’ll know what to do. If it isn’t, what the heck do I care?”
“We can’t do that,” said Number Six, and Number One nodded in support. “It’s so small! It wouldn’t be able to hold the axe! How is it supposed to mine coal, let alone kill wolves and fight against other clans?”
“But can we take it in?” asked Number Three. “If we don’t even know what it is, and it hasn’t got a…you-know-what?”
They all went over to the pink creature to check if it had grown a you-know-what by now. But there still was nothing.
“Hm. Mo
st strange,” grumbled Number Two, the oldest one of the lot. “We didn’t have things like that in my day, I tell you! Everything was right where it was supposed to be when I was a youngster!”
“It can’t be a dwarf,” stated Number Five. “Not without a knob.”
“So what is it?”
“A bear?”
“No, those have fur!”
“A frog?”
“They are green, you stupid idiot!”
“Oh.”
“Hey!” Number Seven suddenly snapped his fingers. “I know what that is! I remember now! I’ve seen one of those things when I went to one of the bighead’s towns above ground once! They call those things…whatsitsname…girls! That’s right! That’s a girl!”
“Gurrrll,” Number Six tried out the unfamiliar word cautiously. “And are those ‘gurrls’ dangerous?”
“Well, they can be pretty nasty. I think sometimes they pull on people’s beards.”
The dwarves shuddered.
“But other than that, I think they’re harmless. They don’t eat people or anything like that.”
“Hm.”
“Hm, hm.”
Brows were furrowed. Beards were stroked thoughtfully.
“What do you think, my brothers?” asked Number Four.
“I think we have to,” Number Six said.
“Even if it means risking our beards being tugged,” Number One confirmed.
“All right.” Number Four sighed. “Let’s take the gurrl and bring it back to the main cavern.”
“Right away!”
“And while you’re at it, wash it, all right? It smells dreadfully of crap.”
*********
Thus, Snow White came to live with the seven dwarves. The very first day, after the dwarves had completed their day’s work and returned home with the little gurrl, they went to work, making her a chainmail shirt, chainmail trousers, chainmail underpants, and a stout metal helmet. Soon, Snow White was the best-protected little girl in the whole of Fairyland. Number Four hammered her a stone crib with the clan insignia adorning it, and Number Seven made her little dwarves, elves, and humans out of silver and gold to play with. Soon, Snow White was giggling happily in her crib, smashing the silver elves and humans on the head with the axes of the miniature golden dwarves.
“Awww!” Number Three, Four, and Six were leaning over the edge of the crib, grinning broadly. “Will you look at that? It learns so quickly, the little one!”
“She,” corrected Number Seven. “I looked it up in Gromspuckle’s Runes on the Strange Beings Called Humans, and the correct word for a gurrl is ‘she,’ not ‘it.’”
“Hm. Really? One lives and learns, as my old grandpa used to say.”
Since the clan of the seven dwarves was a real, honest-to-gold, hard-working mountain dwarf clan, the dwarves didn’t live in some hut chopped out of wood like some wimps do. Instead, they resided under the solid stone of their mine’s roof, like all good dwarves. It was a good mine, and although they only mined coal there, not gold, they would bash in the face of anyone who dared to disagree. After two days in the coal mine, Snow White was no longer Snow White—instead, she was covered in a thick, healthy, protective coating of grime and coal dust. Thus, the dwarves named her Coal Black and welcomed her into their clan.
Little Coal Black had as happy a childhood as any child can dream of having. At the age of one, she got her first battle-axe to play with. At sixteen months, she started talking.
“Go-go…” came a gurgle from the cradle. All the clatter in the mine stopped instantly, and the dwarves rushed over to the stone cradle.
“Did you hear that?”
“She said something!”
“What did she say?”
“Shut up! Maybe then we can hear!”
“Go-go…” the little one gurgled again. “Gold! Gimme…gold!”
“Awww!”
Seven pairs of misty eyes stared at the little gurrl from behind enormously bushy beards. “Did you hear that? She said gold!”
“What a clever gurrl! She’s only one, and already she knows what’s most important in life!”
The blissful childhood continued. At seventeen months, she started hitting people over the head with her battle-axe, and, at eighteen months, she began to walk. For her second birthday, they got her a new beard: a particularly fierce, red one that reached all the way to the floor. Every time she tottered through the mine on her two stumpy legs, tripping over her new beard now and again, crying, “Gold! Gimme Gold! Ga-ga Axe! Axe on head! Die, elf! Die, goblin, die!” a few of the dwarves had to wipe proud tears from their eyes.
“Aww! Doesn’t she look ferocious?”
“Terrifying!”
“Awe-inspiring!”
“We should make her a new chain mail shirt, too. I think her old one is getting a bit small.”
“Why don’t we make her plate armor instead? And a helmet with horns?”
“Quite right! Only the best for our little berserker!”
The years passed. At the age of three, Coal Black began to accompany the clan into the tunnels. Riding on the back of the smallest dwarf, she giggled and swiped her axe at passing bats. They showed her which end of a dwarven axe was for hacking at precious minerals and which end was for hacking at people who wanted to take the precious minerals away from you. A year later, she was already hacking away at the tunnel walls and bustling between the dwarves’ feet, carrying little clumps of coal back and forth. Another year later, she killed her first tunnel rat, and the clan shared it for evening dessert.
“That was delicious!” Number Six threw his massive, mail-clad arm around Coal Black’s little shoulders. “You got that one good and proper! Where did you hit it?”
“Right between the eyes, Uncle.”
“Wonderful! That’s my gurrl!”
“Will you teach me how to kill elves and goblins next, Uncle? Please?”
“Hm…I don’t know…you’re a bit young…”
“Oh, please, please please!” Coal Black hopped up and down, like an overexcited, black bunny rabbit. “Please! I want to learn how to slaughter elves and goblins! Please, please, please, please, pleaaaaaase?”
She gazed at him with two big, innocent, charcoal-black eyes that were all that could be seen of her face between her hair and the giant fake beard, except for a perky little nose.
“Hm…” Number Six looked at his brothers. “What do you say? Should we?”
“Five is too young to learn how to kill elves,” Number Five said morosely. “She has at least to be high enough to reach to the elves’ knees. How else is she going to chop their legs in half with her axe?”
The others pondered this childhood protection issue for a moment.
“Six,” Number Four finally decided. “Six is the perfect age to start killing elves.”
“In my day, we didn’t have all this fancy childhood protection nonsense,” wheezed Number Two and shook his grey-bearded head disapprovingly. “Back when I was young, we started killing elves at three years and not a day older! Oh yes, we did! Those were the days….”
More time passed. By the time she’d reached her seventh birthday, Coal Black was already the proud owner of a large collection of pointy ears. And only about half of them belonged to stray cats. When she reached her tenth birthday, the dwarves didn’t know what to give her. She had already gotten a new beard last year, and her horned helmet and plate armor still fit perfectly.
“Why not ask her?” suggested Number Three.
So they went to her and asked her what she wanted for her birthday this year. She didn’t even hesitate.
“A magical ring with dreadful dark powers so that I can rule the world!” she blurted out. “Oh, please, please, please….” She grabbed hold of Number Six’s gauntlet, squeezing so hard the metal bent. “Can I have a magical ring with incredible dark powers so I can conquer the world, please?”
Number Six winced. “Sorry, Blacky. We don’t make those anymore. We had to
o much trouble with the last batch. Some idiot got his hands on them and wrecked most of the world.”
“I’d take better care of it, I promise! Oh, please, Uncle! Please, please, please, please?” She squeezed a little harder. The metal of the gauntlet gave a protesting screech.
“Sorry, Blacky. I can’t. How about a nice, shiny new axe instead?”
Coal Black sulked for a few days. But, three days later, when she took a walk in the tunnels, she came across and beheaded her first goblin. When his head landed in front of her on the floor, a strange sparkly thing fell down from it. Picking it up, she ran back to the rest of the clan.
“Uncle?” she asked, shoving the sparkly thing under Number Six’s nose. “What’s this?”
“Um…that’s a crown. Why?”
“I just found it, and didn’t know what it was.”
“Where did you find it?”
“On the head of a goblin I beheaded.”
Number Six thought for a moment. “Then I think it’s a fair guess that he was the King of the Goblins.” He turned to the others. “Lads? I think we should arm up!”
Thus, Coal Black had caused her first interspecies war. What more could a ten-year-old want for her birthday?
The next year was a merry time for little Coal Black, filled with blood-thirsty war cries, goblin beheadings, and a lot of beer-quaffing. When the war against the goblins was finally won and Coal Black and her uncles sat in the hall of the enemy, surrounded by gold and dead goblins, and drinking out of the skulls of their enemies (or at least a few of them, there were more heads than they needed cups), Number Four asked:
“So…you’re becoming quite the young lady, now, Coal Black. Have you ever thought about what you want to do when you grow up?”
Coal Black took a deep swig of beer from her skull and sloshed it around in her mouth, deeply engrossed in her thoughts.
“You could become a mining engineer, like me,” suggested Number One.
“Or a prospector, like me?” said Number Seven hopefully.
“Hm…” Coal Black fiddled with the axe at her belt. Finally, she lifted the bloody skull in her hand and grinned. “I know! I’ll be a warrior! The fiercest dwarf warrior ever!”