Storytime!

"Once Upon A Time there lived a beautiful princess. She had pitch black hair, ruby red lips, and skin white as snow. Everyone called her Snow White because of this skin. One day her evil stepmother, the Queen, poisoned her with a poisoned apple. Snow White was sent into a deep sleep that could only be broken by True Love's Kiss. We, the 7 dwarfs, placed her in a glass tomb, so one day when Prince Charming came he would see her beauty and kiss her. He never came. His horse twisted an ankle, so he never went out troll hunting that week, so he never heard our crying, so he never went towards it, so he never chanced upon us and kissed Snow White. We put an enchantment on her tomb so that she wouldn't grow any older, but by now I doubt that a prince will ever come for her! It's been 500 years since that fateful day, and princes these days are wusses. All they do is sit around writing new laws. "Bla bla this, bla bla that. Bla bla all dwarfs must be at the maximum 3 feet 3 inches tall, or they merely classify as vertically challenged humans, bla bla bla." Government these days!"

"Wow, Grandpa, were you really one of the original 7 dwarfs?"

"Yes, I was, but fat lot of good it did me. And don't tell me to be happy that at least I had the experience; my name is Grumpy! Happiness isn't in the job description. I'm the last surviving of the original 7 dwarfs, and I'm on my deathbed! There's no hope for Snow White now. Except that stupid old quest they speak of..."

"What quest, Grandpa, what quest, what quest?"

"Calm down, Burpy! There's some supposed quest for these weird ingredients like powdered hens teeth and snake toenails, and if you find them all and combine them and force feed the princess, she'll come back to consciousness."

***

Soon after this conversation, Grumpy died. Burpy was now the only dwarf who knew of this mythical quest to to synthesize true love's kiss. Or at least the only one willing to do anything about it. He set out right away, because if he could be the one to somehow awaken Snow White, he would get fame and fortune! Well, maybe (probably) not fortune, and only fame in the dwarfing world, but hey, he would take what he could get. And maybe, just maybe, they would restart the tradition of having kings, and he would be King! That would show all those people who said he would never have any friends. Just because mining wasn't his favorite, and OK, maybe he had once or twice mistaken common cave crystals for diamonds, but still! That was no excuse to say he was descended from Dopey! Young dwarfs could be so cruel sometimes! OK, old dwarfs could be cruel, too. Burpy just couldn't understand why they were all cruel to him in particular, though.

After gathering his provisions and setting out on the journey, Burpy realized he had forgotten any food. Sure, he had remembered his pick-axe, sure he had remembered a shovel, and sure he had remembered his Guidebook to Indigenous Rocks, Minerals, and Jewels, by H.C.C. Roberts, PhD, but he had forgotten food. It would be far too humiliating to go back to the dwarf colony and get some, because he had sworn he wouldn't go back till he had all the ingredients he needed. And they seemed so happy that he was going to find the important ingredients, they had even thrown a celebration in his honor! He couldn't understand what that conversation he had heard some of other dwarfs having was about, though. They had said something along the lines of, "...really stupid enough to think he'll find them? Who's he kidding? He'll probably fall down a hole and die of claustrophobia. Good riddance...Don't even think he's a real dwarf. There have been rumors that he's 3 feet 4 inches tall. That classifies as a vertically challenged human..." They must have been talking about some other dwarf going on a quest, Burpy decided. Because he totally wasn't 3'4''. Maybe 3 feet and 3 and a half inches, but that was a family secret! No one knew about that! Anyways, he certainly couldn't go back to the dwarf village to get food, so he had to go to a human village! Oh the horror!

As Burpy walked into the human village, called Wode-on-the-Wall, he got his first glimpse of a real live human. They were HUGE! And none of them were carrying pick-axes or shovels or anything of the sort! And their clothes didn't have any dirt on them or anything! These humans certainly were strange. He was walking along distractedly when he waled into two trees growing right next to each other. Holy smokes, those weren't trees, they were legs! Surely this must be a giant instead of a human! And giants eat dwarfs! Burpy started running as fast as he could in the opposite direction, but alas, to no avail. The giant caught up with him. But wait a second, weren't giants supposed to yell "Fee Fi Fo Fum" or something like that? And this creature certainly wasn't doing that. Was it, could it possibly be...a human? It was! Thank goodness. Burpy wasn't ready to die. After all, he hadn't even become king yet!

Burpy found out that the human, named Neil, was just as curious about dwarfs as he was about humans. They started talking, and Burpy found out that Neil was a carpenter. He had a big leather apron covered in sawdust, a big sandy colored beard covered in sawdust, and big leather boots covered in sawdust. It made Burpy sneeze. Despite this, he soon found himself pouring out all his insecurities and problems and everything about his quest to Neil, who seemed to exude calmness and understanding. Neil seemed interested in the quest, and decided he would help, because carpentry was a dying job, what with iron-work being all the rage nowadays, so he had nothing much better to do. His only qualification was that he had to go see this princess who he would be spending years of his life trying to save.

Burpy reluctantly took Neil to the dwarf village, and they snuck in during the dead of night, their only light coming from some of the special glowing cave slime that was to be found all around the mines. As soon as Neil saw Snow White in this eerie green glow, he fell madly in love with her, and rushed to the tomb. Burpy tried to stop him, but how was he to stop 250 pounds of pure muscle (not to mention those other pounds of fat). Neil easily lifted the glass dome off the tomb and kissed Snow White on impulse. At first nothing seemed to happen. Burpy, who had been holding his breath in anticipation, let it out and said irritably, "Well that was stupid. Nothing happened!" His speech seemed to break the spell. Snow White's eyelids fluttered. Then, miracle of miracles, she woke up!

***

Though at first disappointed that her true love was a measly carpenter, Snow White grew to love Neil. They got married and moved to a bigger village than Wode-on-the-Wall. Together they started a company manufacturing glass shoes, little knowing that one day one of their shoes would belong to a princess! But that's a different story.

As for Burpy, he never did become king. Because Snow Whiter had awakened during the middle of the night, and nobody was there to see it except for Burpy, nobody believed his story. They all wondered what had happened to Snow White, though, because she certainly wasn't in her glass tomb anymore. But it couldn't have had anything to do with Burpy. After all, he had to use a guidebook written by a human just to identify common rocks, minerals, and jewels! Obviously he couldn't have helped rescue Snow White from her deep sleep. However, he absolutely was not suited to mining, so finally, just to get rid of him, they appointed him ambassador to the humans. It was a job Burpy loved till his dying day.