Alas, during the period of her pregnancy, the queen consumed inhumanly huge quantities of DARK chocolate, which affected her pregnancy and the baby, when it finally came, turned out to look like this instead:

When the queen requested to see her darling baby girl, she was so shocked that, sadly, her heart stopped beating right on the spot. The child was supposed to be named Snow White. However, her looks were so contrasting that it was obvious the name could no longer be used. The king was too distraught by his wife's death to think of a name for his precious baby girl. Hence, when one of his henchmen commented that the baby princess was as black as a piece of charcoal, the king, too preoccupied with his grief, simply gave a non-commital "Whatever..." as a response. From that day forth, the princess was known throughout the land as Charcoal Black.

Things did not bode well with young Charcoal Black, for it was customary for princesses to be fair and beautiful. Indeed, no one cared for the dark princess in the palace and ignored her whenever possible. The king unable to forgive her daughter for scaring his wife to death, refused to look at her as well. Charcoal Black felt so lonely and ashamed of her looks that she decided to don a mask, so as to hide her face from the world:

Years passed and one day, the king met a woman of unknown origin at an all-you-can-eat chocolate buffet. The king was infatuated by her at first sight, as she was able to stuff a giant Toblerone bar into her mouth at one go, and it was not long before they got married.

The new queen

The queen was actually an evil witch in disguise, but of course, being a man, the king was naturally too dumb to notice this tiny insignificant fact. The new queen set down many new rules in the palace, some of which were quite unreasonable. E.g. The servants were to be shaved bald at all times and had to undergo a nose job to increase the length of their noses. This bizzare rule was set because the queen's original face was like this:

During the initial phases of her reign, the queen barely noticed the existence of Charcoal Black, since she kept herself out of sight most of time, preferring to stay in the company of the magical tadpole that lived in the palace pond (note: it was called a "magical tadpole" in the past as it remained a tadpole forever and never changed into a frog. in modern times, this is called "arrested development" or "global developmental delay"). The magical tadpole was the only friend that Charcoal Black had and she told him all her thoughts and secrets, which can be summarised by singing "Someday My Prince Will Come".

However, there came one day, when the fashion trend changed, and it was now trendy and attractive to have a dark tan! The queen, being as fair as she was, tried to suntan herself into a delicious chocolate colour. However, all she achieved was getting a most awful sunburn, which made her look totally like a boiled lobster. Now, the queen had a magic mirror, whom she would ask everyday: "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" The mirror would then inevitably reply: "You, oh fair queen, you are the fairest of them all." This day, the queen changed her question in response to the rising new fashion: "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the DARKEST of them all?" To her shock and anger, the mirror replied: "Charcoal Black, Charcoal Black is the DARKEST of them all." The queen, thus enraged, got her servants to bring Charcoal Black to her. All this happened in the middle of the night, thus, Charcoal Black was in her nightgown and not wearing her mask.

The queen was totally shocked at how beautiful Charcoal Black had grown up to be and immediately felt a twinge of evil jealousy in her heart. The next morning, she sent for her personal trainer, and while doing her daily krunches and butt toning exercises, entrusted her personal trainer with the task of turning Charcoal Black fair again. The personal trainer was to return with a WHITE Charcoal Black, or his own perfectly tanned skin was in danger of being bleached white as well.

Will the evil queen's plot succeed? Can Charcoal Black escape this terrible fate that awaited her? Will Charcoal Black's prince finally come someday? Stay tuned for the next instalment of Once Upon A MooMoo: Charcoal Black.

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**jojo is still waiting @ |6:37 PM|