Chapter 15: Wounds of War - Part 1
For a long while, Hefty and Toughette stared at Brainy and Brainette, the expressions on their face showed utter disbelief and a hint of disgust. Brainy, Brainette as well as the other smurfs simply sat quietly and calmly, looking back at them. The silence is practically deafening.
Hefty finally found his voice. "Are you telling us that we come from a plant?" He said in a strained voice.
"Vines to be precise..." Brainy corrected him with a nod.
"Ew," Toughette made a face. "I think I just lost my appetite." She gripped, tossing her half-eaten cookie back onto the plate.
Nat shrugged. "Well, I guess we had to have come from somewhere."
"Absolutely," Snappy agreed.
Sassette clasped her hands to her chest. "I personally think that it's neat that our 'mother' is actually the earth Goddess, Gaia." She chirped enthusiastically. "Even the blue clay that helped to create both me and Smurfette is also apart of her earth, thus, making me part of her children."
"Fascinating," Hefty huffed, "I am at a loss for words here."
Nat sat up eagerly, "Perhaps someday we can travel back to the Enchanted Garden, Hefty, and then you and Toughette can witness its wonder for yourself."
"I suppose that would be acceptable," Brainette concurred with a nod. "Gaia did say we were more then welcome to come back for a visit at any time."
"Cool." Sorcerette cheered happily. "I miss Adam and Eve."
"Yeah, well, one thing at a time smurfs." Brainy interrupted, wagging his finger in admonishment. He was about to add something but he suddenly stopped and stiffened as a surge of pain ran up his back causing him to wince, his aged face a mask of agony.
"Brainy? Are you alright?" Hefty asked uncertainly, watching in shock and concern as his bespectacled brother hunched over slightly with a soft groan, one hand pressing to lower part of his back.
Brainette leaned closer to her mate.
"Do you want me to go get you some medicine?" She whispered.
"Maybe later," Brainy replied gruffly, catching his breath. Gritting his teeth, he eased slowly back into his chair, closed his eyes than let out a small, tired sigh. Everyone waited expectantly for him to speak some more but he remain quiet.
Unable to resist his curiosity, Hefty decided to speak up. "Alright, I'll bite. What's wrong with your back?" The strong smurf asked, looking straight at his older brother.
Brainy opened one eye and looks back at Hefty rather irritably. "It's a long story," the aged smurf grunted.
Toughette rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in a huff. "Well, you know how much we love long stories, so start talking." She demanded.
"Perhaps another night…" Brainette quickly responded.
"No, no. If they want to know we will tell them." Brainy waved his hand up. He sat up for a second before leaning back into his chair once more, trying to make himself comfortable.
"But your back…" The intelligent smurfette elder clearly was worried.
"…Is fine." He assured her. "The pain has stopped."
Brainette gave him a suspicious look. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm always sure." Brainy answered with a proud smirk.
Brainette frowned and gave Brainy a grumpy look.
"Fine, we will tell you two the story," The bespectacled smurfette elder said resignedly, turning back to Hefty and Toughette.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
1899 – The African Fairy Tribe, Not Far From Kraaipan south of Mafeking
"Your visit here with us these past few weeks has been both a pleasure and blessing, dearest Brainette." Khalid, the king of all African Fairies said smoothly.
Even though his white beard betrayed his advanced age he is extremely handsome, enough to set any female heart, young or old, fluttering. By the smurf standard, he stood at least one apple taller than his guests did.
All the same, he bowed gallantly before the smurfette elder, took her hand and kissed it tenderly. "And what beautiful young smurfettes you have raised. If Mama Smurf were still alive she would surely be proud of you." He added with a smile, looking over at Sassette and young Sorcerette admiringly.
Khalid's soft deep voice caused goose bumps of pleasure down the smurfettes' arms. All three female smurfs started blushing and giggling.
"You were right, Brainette, he is charming." Sassette whispered breathlessly to her grey-haired adopted sister.
"Oh brother," Brainy groaned under his breath.
He and the other adult smurfs were sitting on cushions under a shady tree a short distance away, and none of them looked too happy at the way the Fairy King received inordinate attention from the giddy smurfettes.
Young Sorcerer Smurfling stood besides his elders, amusing himself by tossing a ball into the air and catching it with his hands. He looked up at Brainy and the others, noticing their facial expressions.
Sorcerer also sneered, seeing that even his young playmate, Sorcerette, appeared to be swooning over this elderly fairy.
"How come the smurfettes act funny around this guy?" Sorcerer griped to the elder smurfs.
"Beats me, kiddo," Nat grunted, crossing his arms in a huff.
"Well, it could be his green-leaf clothing, his dashing cape, the dark tan of his skin, or his naturally deep voice, " Slouchy suggested helpfully, "Or perhaps it is his wings that could give him the advantage over us?"
Suddenly a new voice called out. "Smurfs! I have wonderful news!"
One of the young African Fairy females came hurrying eagerly toward them. "Thanks to the combination from our African soil, herbs, and our magic your ruby half of the Beetle Gem is now fixed!" With a smile, she handed Nat a piece of ruby-topped Gem.
"Thank you," Nat bowed politely, accepting the ruby half of the Beetle Gem.
"Excellent!" The Fairy King cheered.
He walked over to the group, surrounded by the still swooning smurfettes. "Perfect timing, now you must go gather the others; we will leave shortly, my daughter." He instructed the young female fairy.
"Yes father." She bowed respectfully to her elder before extending her wings to fly off in one direction. The king turned toward his blue visitors and after gazing at them for a moment, he seemed a bit sad for some reason.
"I only wish you smurfs would reconsider and come with us," Khalid spoke softly. It came out more of a pleading.
"Yeah, well, we kind of need to get back home as soon as possible." Brainy commented rudely, still scowling.
"What Brainy is trying to say, your highness," Brainette quickly tried to smooth it out in a respectful manner while giving Brainy an annoyed glare, "Is that we will camp here the night, then travel first thing in the morning. We should make excellent timing by mid-day."
The king nodded thoughtfully, not at all offended by Brainy's outspokenness.
"Then I shall grant you safe journey, my dear, but I cannot allow my tribe wait another day. We must leave right away. There is something strange in the air," He craned his head, and glanced around uneasily, "The humans in a nearby camp are restless. I personally don't feel safe here." The king said, his strong voice holding a hint of nervousness.
"I understand," Brainette sighed, bending her head in acknowledgement.
Khalid continued, "I will miss you, lovely Brainette. Perhaps by our next visit your sister Toughette and her mate, Hefty will have reunited with you. I hadn't seen them since my wedding to my wife many centuries ago."
"Yes, I believe they would enjoy that visit." The intelligent elderly smurfette agreed.
The old king shook his head sadly. "It was a tragic thing that happened to both of your homes, my dear. Too bad we weren't able to be of assistance back then." Then Khalid smiled and bowed low, "All we can do is look on to our future and live in the present. I shall look forward to our next reunion."
"And perhaps our next visit won't be so rushed," Brainette nodded again, returning the smile. "Thanks again to you and your tribe for repairing our Beetle Gem so quickly."
The smurfs watched as the fairy king extended his wings and flew off towards his tribe.
OoOoOoOoOoOo
EARLY NEXT MORNING - October 13th, 1899
A cold mist covered the ground as the smurfs come crawling out of their tents they pitched just under the bushed. Each of them yawned and stretched to get rid of the kinks in their backs.
They jump when sounds of shooting muskets and loud but indistinct yelling broke out unexpectedly behind them. Their heads turned sharply towards a short hill just across the field where the noises came from wondering what could be going on.
"What is that?" Brainy finally shouted to the other smurfs over the din.
Wide-eyed by all the frightening noises, Brainette glanced at Brainy but did not answer him. Instead, she turned her head back to look towards the mound. It took only a moment before she finally realized what was happening.
"The humans…they are fighting!" She announced loudly.
"Well there's a surprise!" Snappy snorted sarcastically. "The humans are always fighting!"
"That's true, but what could these humans be fighting about?" Sassette asked innocently.
"Who knows who cares?" Slouchy grumbled in a cranky tone.
The explosions grew louder. A fireball rose up from behind the small hill, leaving a trail of black cloud of smoke in its wake. The sight made the smurfs very nervous. Concerned for the safety of her beloved ones, Brainette turned and started to give out orders.
"We should hurry and clean up camp if we want to make it to the boarders of Europe around noon." Brainette declared, hastily taking down the smurfettes' tent.
"Right, we will have to worry about breakfast later, I suppose," Brainy said with a hint of worry in his tone as he hurried off to help the other smurfs. "I just wonder how we can avoid those humans. By the looks of it they are fighting in the area where we need to pass!"
Brainette paused to consider that. "Perhaps I should scope it out then!" She replied snobbishly. She dropped the rope that was holding up the tent and hurried boldly towards the hill.
Brainy stared at her, his jaw fell open in astonishment. "Ah, Brainette," he called out to her, but Brainette walked briskly past him without saying anything or even so much as a glance in his way.
Feeling a bit piqued because she had just given him a semi-cold shoulder, he dropped everything he is doing and takes off running after her across the field toward the hill.
"Don't you mean we?"
"If you must come who's there to stop you?" The intelligent smurfette elder answered coldly, still not looking at him. Aggravated by her attitude, Brainy grumbled something acidly under his breath but continued walking quickly along with her towards the hill.
Young Sorcerer and Sorcerette turned to Sassette. "Can we go too?" They cried out in unison.
"No, smurflings," Sassette answered brusquely, "You two stay here with us and help clean up." Another explosion burst over the hill, and Sassette glanced up. She wrinkled her brow up in worry. "The way things are going, we should be leaving very shortly. We don't want to be caught unprepared."
Having reached and climbed up the mound, Brainy and Brainette carefully poke their heads over the top of the hill toward the place known as the Boer Camps. There they glimpse a battle raging with stunning ferocity. Loud firearms were been fired, and men falling to their death amid cries of agony. Indeed, it was a very terrible, very gruesome scene for anyone to witness - especially for a smurf.
"This is horrible!" Brainette gasped, realizing belatedly the seriousness of the danger they were in. "How are we going to get past all of this?" She looked straight at Brainy as she said this.
Brainy noticed her attention is now on him, but instead of answering her, he turned to her with a grumpy frown on his face. "I told you we should left this area last night, but would you listen to me? Oh no..."
Brainette stared at him incredulously. "This is not the time to be arrogant, Brainy!" Brainette shouted at him.
She swept her arm around her, indicating the battle brewing around them, and shook her head at Brainy's incongruous comment. "We have a situation here, and we must think of a way to get around it. Since when does everything have to revolve you and your ego?"
"What are they doing?" Slouchy asked, looking curiously across the field toward the bickering elders on the hill.
"It looks like they are quarrelling…again." Nat replied with a sigh.
Sassette groaned. "Well, they certainly picked a wonderful time to start doing that."
"Indeed, it's too early for those two to be crowing their heads off at each other," Snappy yawned, and sat down on a nearby rock. He figured the way the elders go on, this could take quite a while.
Sassette rolled her eyes and sighs. "Come on smurfs, let's finish packing."
The young smurflings have been worriedly watching Brainy and Brainette squabble with each other. "I don't like it when our elders fight." Little Sorcerette said with a tiny whimper.
"Neither do I, little one, neither do I..." The older smurfette with red braided pigtails replied sadly.
Meanwhile, back up on the hill...
"Well, if you hadn't gotten the ruby half of the Beetle Gem busted we wouldn't have to be here now, would we?" Brainy squawked, waving his hands wildly in the air.
"Hey, I'm not the only one to blame here!" Brainette yelled back. "You had your share of mistakes that led us to dangerous places!"
"Don't bring my past into this!" Brainy barked through clenched teeth.
"Why not, you still act like that young smurf that thought he knew everything all the time! ...And don't think for one instance that I have not noticed you acting snobbish towards King Khalid and his people! Why is that?" Brainette shot back in frustration.
"Because not only haven't you stopped talking about him the entire trip here, but your friend hasn't stopped flirting with you since we arrived!"
"What? The Fairy King is just being a gracious host!" Brainette argued, jumping to Khalid's defence, "Besides, he might have had a point in taking his entire tribe to the safety of the mountains. He offered that we go with him and all…"
"Perhaps you should have gone with your precious Kaw-lid? I'm sure the two of you would make a fine couple!" Brainy huffed, his arms crossed across his chest.
"For your information it's pronounced KHAH-leed!" Brainette snapped angrily. "...And another thing is that he already has a mate with three daughters and two sons!"
"That didn't seem to matter to him the way I saw him hold your hand during dinner the other night!"
Brainette stared at him. "Why are you acting like this? Are you jealous or something?" She speculated, "I thought we had agreed a long time ago to have our relationship strictly professional!"
Brainy blinked in surprise. "Jealous? I'm not jealous! I don't have a single jealous bone in my body!" Brainy sputtered indignantly, trying to avoid the topic.
"Well, that's yet to be proven," The intelligent smurfette disagreed bitterly, shaking her head tiredly.
All of sudden there was a loud explosion far from the other side of the hill, and the flaming metal object came hurtling over the battle area and towards the two elder smurfs.
"Brainette! Look out!" Brainy hollered. He threw himself at her like a bullet, tackling her out of the way.
The flaming object slammed right in the very spot where Brainette and Brainy had once stood. The impact caused the object to detonate, and the shockwave sent the two elderly smurfs flying into a nearby bush. A number of small shrapnel pieces flew off in all directions. One jagged piece sailed right into the bush…and found a mark.
"Brainy! Brainette...!" The frightened Snappy and Nat shout at once. For a brief moment they stood there gawking, too stunned to move except to watch with horror their elders been nearly crushed by the explosion.
They waited, wondering if Brainy and Brainette were hurt, but hoping they would emerge from the bush unscathed. However, as moments passed Snappy began to realize that Brainy and Brainette were not coming out of the bush after all. Not wasting another second, Nat ran frantically across the field toward the hill. He briefly stopped and turned to the others.
"Slouchy, stay with the smurflings! Snappy! Sassette! We've need to go help the elders!" Nat ordered.
Slouchy nodded his head and gathered the smurflings closer to him. Frightened as they were, the smurflings nevertheless wriggled furiously, protesting that they want to help too. Slouchy merely shook his head at them, and tightened his grip on them to prevent them from slipping away.
Meanwhile, Brainy Smurf groaned and opened his eyes. Realizing that he was lying on top of Brainette sprawling face down on the ground, he blushed a little and tried to get up off her. However, something prevented him from doing so. It almost felt as if something pressed on him, but it was hard to tell because he felt somewhat numb from his chest down.
Indeed, even his legs had no feeling in them at all. Fear suddenly took over. For a minute or two, he panics, struggling mightily to move his legs but to no avail.
Just then, Brainette groaned underneath him, and he stopped thinking of himself to glance down at his mate.
Brainette rolled over so she is face to face with her mate. Both of them smiled awkwardly at each other. They were relieved that the other was safe, but this position started to become uncomfortable.
"Uh, thanks for saving me Brainy, but you can get off me now." The bespectacled smurfette whispered.
"Oh, of course," he chuckled, his face now a shade or two darker pink with embarrassment. He attempted to do as she requested. Again, something stopped him. It was when he noticed that sensations were finally coming back to his lower body...along with a very unpleasant, sharp pain, as if something is stabbing him in the back. At this, he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes tightly.
"Brainy, I said you can get off of me." Brainette grumbled, in an irritated tone. "We have to go check on the others and find away to get past these humans!"
Brainy opened his eyes to look at her, his face contorted with sheer agony. "I'd love to, Brainette…but I think there is something stuck in my back. C-Could you do me a favour and check to see what it is?"
Brainette stared at him, suddenly concerned. He certainly appeared to be in a great pain.
"Hold on, let me see…" Slowly, gently she pulled herself up slightly in order to get a better look over his shoulder.
What she saw could only exist in her worst nightmare. A piece of shrapnel, bigger than a smurf's hand, embedded itself in the middle of Brainy's back. Brainette covered mouth, but the shock overwhelmed her so much that she was able to stifle a loud gasp.
When Brainy heard her gasp he knew right away it was not good. "H-How bad is it, Brainette?" He asked, afraid to hear what her answer might be.
Brainette regained her composure and shook her head slowly. She lowered her hand and attempted a trembling smile. "Ah, it's not that…bad, really." She lied.
Brainy raised his eyebrow. Somehow, he found what she said a bit amusing and let out a little chuckle. "Brainette, you are a terrible liar."
Snappy, Nat, and Sassette came running up the hill, and leapt over a few burning metal pieces that were shattered all over. The battle that took place over the mound seemed to be getting louder each minute, but that was far from the smurfs' concern. Their goal is to see if their older friends are all right. Snappy was the first to arrive, and he quickly looked into the bush where Brainette and Brainy had landed.
"Brainy, Braine – Oh my Smurf!" Snappy cried out in terror. He had immediately spotted the piece of metal sticking out of Brainy's back.
Nat arrived next with Sassette close behind. When they noticed how badly injured Brainy was they let out a scream in distress as well.
"Smurfs, quick…help me carry him out of here!" Brainette called out, still trying to wriggle out from beneath Brainy.
Snappy, Sassette, and Nat quickly composed themselves and carefully they gathered Brainy in their arms before lifting him up. Even so, Brainy could not help but groan in pain with each movement as they carry him away.