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"Is we dere yet?”

“’Ow many times do I gotta tell ya? No, we ain’t. ‘Snot gonna be far, though.”

Finka Schtroumpf and the Schtroumpf-fatha were actually having trouble making themselves heard to each other over the incessant high-pitched tuneless chanting of the goblins they led – this, and the unusually oily blue sheen to their skin, was a sure sign that the mushroom brew the shamans had cooked up that day was particularly potent. The Schtroumpf-fatha was secretly relieved when Finka did not immediately follow his question with a repetition of the same, as he usually did and had been for who-knows-how-long. He could have laid off because of the noise, but the shifty look – well, the shiftier-than-usual look – in Finka’s beady yellow eyes was making the Schtroumpf-fatha well nervous, and feeling a shakier hold on his power than he had in recent memory. Not that recent memory extended too far back, what with the mushrooms. A short time later when Finka spoke again, the Schtroumpf-fatha’s suspicions were proven to be well-founded.

“’Ere,” said Finka. “I don’t fink you know where we are, eh? Or where we’s goin’.”

“Oh, you don’t, do ya?” The Schtroumpf-fatha stopped, spat, and hefted his great axe up to his shoulder.

“No, I don’t. We’s trekkin’ because of the Great Schtroumpf’s vision, ain’t we? And he’s all asploded, inn'e?”

Some little time ago the Great Schtroumpf had brewed up an especially potent batch and suffered a catastrophic head injury, taking out a good dozen little Schtroumpflings with him. Since then no lesser shamans had had the magical power, not to mention the intestinal fortitude, to vie for his position. It was this power vacuum that Finka was apparently hoping to take advantage of.

“So? We know what the vision was, don’t we? Dark forests and fields of mushrooms to the South, gotta leave the Schtroumpfwald and go find 'em. So that’s where we’s goin’. We’ll get dere when we get dere, no sooner an' no later.” He stepped up to Finka, so their long blue noses almost touched. “You got a problem wit’ dat plan, we can have a little par-lay about it, eh?”

Finka narrowed his eyes and put his hand on his own wickedly-curved sword. The last par-lay the Schtroumpf-fatha had taken part in had ended with seven dead Schtroumpflings for that night’s stew. Finka knew he wasn’t strong enough to take the Schtroumpf-fatha, and his title, not yet. But soon. Wait and see, eh? Put some plans into motion, take one or two of the shamans under his wing. Wait and see.

“Nah, ‘sgood enough, 'sgood enough. We’s followin’ da will of da Schtroumpf, an’ that’s good enough for me, yeah? Even if you don’t know where we’s goin’ or when we’ll get dere.” He paused to whack his second with the flat of his sword to get his glassy-eyed crowd moving again, and even joined in the chanting briefly before turning back to the Schtroumpf-fatha.

“So is we dere yet?”

Excellent stuff. I wouldn't trust that Finka-Schtroumpf if I were the Schtroumpf-Fatha.

The Other Dave wrote: “You got a problem wit’ dat plan, we can have a little par-lay about it, eh?”
“So is we dere yet?”

These two are going places

Love it Dave!

kojibear wrote: These two are going places

If only they had any idea where.

Rotgut da un-Schtroumpf, seeing the Schtroupf-fatha and Finka begin to bicker (again), sighed and patted the carapace of his great albino spider. Part of him remembered riding with the Broken Claw tribe in the Schtroumpfwald, before the strange black-cloaked goblins came blinking out of the cave in the deeps - yes, they still wore black cloaks then, and still had green skin. Part of him remembered raiding the settlements of humans brave (or stupid) enough to try to settle in their forest, and remembered what it was like to have leaders whose brains weren't swiss-cheesed by mushroom abuse.

Part of him remembered how he and his krew of spider riders had approached the pitiful black-robed goblins, how they had led them to the darkest parts of the forest where their legs felt less wobbly, how they had shown them the local mushrooms, since they seemed interested in eating nothing else. Part of him remembered being slightly surprised at how the new goblins' mushroom cultivation methods had interacted with the strains in the Schtroumpfwald, creating huge sickly-white mushrooms with bright red caps, how the new goblins had chattered and pranced to see them grow so big, how they had begun living in them, for pity's sake.

Part of him remembered how he had been slightly shocked when the new mushroom strain had slowly turned the new goblins' skin from green to blue, how their so-called "Great Schtroumpf" had convinced them to change from black robes to white and to take up something not exactly completely unlike singing. (Part of him remembered the Schtroumphette, but he quickly put that thought out of his mind with a shudder.)

Part of him remembered wishing, when he saw the changes affecting the new goblins, that he had not agreed to partake of their mushroom stew with them in exchange for steel for spearheads.

Part of him remembered being vaguely revolted when his own skin, and that of his krew, began to turn blue.

Most of him, though, just wanted more mushroom stew.

I wonder if/when the Schtroumpfette will make her appearance…

Tenorikuma wrote:I wonder if/when the Schtroumpfette will make her appearance…

They do not talk about the Schtroumpfette any more.

Ever.

Good reading, this

Nice work! Love it!

The Other Dave wrote: (Part of him remembered the Schtroumphette, but he quickly put that thought out of his mind with a shudder.)

He is a testament of the dangers of trading steel for stew