He Is We
JOKEY
Now. We should smurf him now!
Too soon. There are others who want to smurf to him.
There will always be others who want to smurf with him, though.
Jokey was not exactly back to normal. Well, he wasn't an animal any more, which was nice, but he-they- were still separate. It was hard to tell whether that was a good thing or not to smurf. They debated it every other conversation, but never could they agree.
You're the one who wanted to talk to him in the first place, don't chicken out now!
I'm not smurfing out. It's just…
What if he gets rid of us? What if he thinks we're a result of black magic?
Then we're nothing!
If he smurfs out some other way, it'll make it look even worse to him. After all, why wouldn't his son tell him about this immediately?
If he was being controlled…
We can't smurf to him, plain and simple! He's too busy.
You're stalling.
F-fine. But what if-
What if!? We won't know until we smurf.
So he-they- did. They tried to, at least, but Papa Smurf chose then to slam his door shut behind him. That meant he was smurfing back to work to finish on whatever new spell he'd discovered this time.
Welp, so much for that. We might as well-
HOLD IT.
We're not chickening out.
Sorry to smurf your bubble, but we're waiting.
Really?
Really.
So they sat outside the door. It didn't, actually, surprise any of them – him – that he wasn't the only one. Certain other Smurfs started to approach only to back off and smruf away when they saw someone was already waiting.
Waiting is boring.
It is.
We could be out pranking.
We could. We all know, though, that if we smurf to prank, it wouldn't be near as good as when we were an individual.
You're wrong.
Smurf on a minute-
Smurifng him is important, but waiting's just too much.
We can come back later.
Or we could smurf here and-
Then again, if we smurf it off-
Would it really smurf to just-
Yes it would, but if-
Why don't we-
Leaving him along smurfs-
Waiting-
Guys?
Let's smurf and-
No, let's-
Guys?!
We should-
What do-
Well I-
You wish-
Smurf on-
GUYS?!
Yes?!
Why don't we just smurf on the door?
…
Why don't you?
Oh no you don't. Why don't you smurf it?
How about you?
Would you like to?
I'm not smurfing.
Neither am I.
Guess we're stuck again.
Thanks to them.
Me?! You're the one who smurfed-
I didn't smurf anything, you're the one who-
The inner arguing was cut short by the door opening and them almost getting hit in the face.
"Jokey?" Papa Smurf was standing there, his eyebrows raised and his foot tapping. Not good.
Isn't it good? Now we can ask!
Should we really smurf now? He seems busy…
Now.
"Can I smurf you?" Papa Smurf asked, brows furrowing. They needed to explain, but the words kept fumbling and smurfing themselves up in knots. After what felt like an eternity they amanged to get something together.
"We-I-We would like to smurf to you." Papa Smurf gave him-them- a look but smurfed back to let them in. Right when they put a foot in the door they heard something rustling behind them.
What do you smurf it was?
I don't know. There's nothing there now.
Just what we need, more mystery.
"What smurfs to be the problem?" Papa Smurf asked, his back turned to them. He was busy smurfing with some kind of cauldron, the liquid inside it smoking.
…
Smurf on.
"I-I… We're not cu-cured." Papa Smurf stiffened and then span around, focused solely on them now.
"Jokey…" Smurf, it was that tone. That tone told him that he'd better spill it and quick. "What's wrong?"
"I'm-We're not w-whole. N-not to-together." Papa Smurf's brow was furrowed again. How were they going to explain this?
"We're sorta smurfed apart." That brow was just furrowing even more.
"There's me and then there's them." Aaaaand now his eyebrows had shot up. Smurftastic.
"How long has it smurfed like this for you?" Well, so far he hadn't called them evil demons of the underworld and/or smurfed to eliminate them. That was nice.
"S-since we s-smurfed." Papa Smurf now had a blank scroll and a quill out. He hummed at the answer and scrawled something down.
"Jokey -all of you- are you smurfing any pain?"
W-well…
It's cramped?
Arguing constantly's annoying.
"It s-smurfs us a bit of a headache." They smurfed really hard not to wince at the scrutinizing look. They failed.
"What do you want me to smurf?" They mentally shrugged, a bit stunned.
Being this way… Does it smurf so bad?
It's hard to smurf used to.
We might get better with time and practice…
"C-can you smurf the pain go away?" That was the kicker. The constant confusion and the pain smurfed the worst to them. They still had… reservations about being smurfed to "normal". Papa Smurf sighed.
"I can make a potion to dull the headache, but I have no idea how even that simple potion will smurf to… All of you." They slumped over. "On the other hand…" They just as quickly perked up.
"What?!" Their father gave a weary smile.
"On the other hand, if you let me, I could study exactly what's happening to you so I can smurf something that will reduce the pain and keep you all… There."
So we'll be an experiment?
Maybe it won't smurf so bad… I mean, we all still be here, right?
It smurfs like we could give it a chance…
"A-are you su-sure it'll sm-smurf?" They winced again when they saw Papa Smurf's grimace. The elder sighed again and walked over to one of his many bookshelves.
I don't th-think he wants us to s-smurf separate…
Of course he doesn't. It won't be his son anymore smurfing, will it?
Y-yes it wi-will! We're st-still him. We're the s-same.
It won't, though, not really.
We're directly different now. As an individual we were muted, but now we're a smurfing and alive jumble.
We're our own beings, though, now. W-we should be able to choose.
It's not like he's smurfing us no or anything. It's not his fault we're guilty.
Guilty.
Guilty.
GUILTY.
GUILTY. GUILTY. GUILTY.
GUILTY!
"W-wait!" Papa Smurf stopped in his searching, head turned towards them.
"Yes?" There it was again, that strained smile that made them smurf GUILTY!
"Wh-What if we wanted to be s-smurfed back to n-normal?" Now there was a small, real smile on his face.
Ouch.
"Again, it might smurf some time, but it should go fairly quickly in comparison to the potion." They put up a fake smile and nodded their head, as if they truly were happier with taking this route.
M-maybe we'll still be here? Faintly?
We've always been here, just not like this.
We'll smurf out when we smurf out.
Papa Smurf worked quickly in the next hour, smurfing diagnostic spells and finally getting enough data to smurf up a counter spell.
Goodbye.