The Birth Of Brainy

It started on the day that Papa Smurf had brought Empath as a baby Smurf to Psychelia, where he hoped that its leader, the Psyche Master, would help him train his child to better use the mental abilities he was born with. The Psyche Master agreed to do so, but only if Empath was left in Psychelia to be trained until he was 150 years old, at which point he would be released. Papa Smurf didn't like this condition one bit, but was nonetheless forced to do so. Papa Smurf's son watched him sadly as he said his goodbyes to the child he so dearly wanted and loved, and then cried as he watched Papa Smurf leave.

But no sooner after Papa Smurf left, he heard a painful scream inside the Psyche Master's chamber, which sounded like Empath was being killed. He tried to reenter the chamber, but the door was sealed shut. He uselessly pounded on the doors, wanting to stop the Psyche Master from doing what he thought was being done, but it was no use. Soon the screaming stopped, and Papa Smurf left Psychelia feeling heartbroken, knowing that his son is dead.

Lillithina greeted her husband when he returned. "Cully, what's wrong?" she asked. "Where's Empathy?"

"Lilly, I must smurf you in private what has happened to our son," Papa Smurf said, dreading what he was going to tell her.

In their home, after Papa Smurf explained what he did, Lillithina was really upset. "You...you...you monster! What have you done to our son...the smurf of our love together? You smurfed him away from me and you smurfed them to those...those...those beasts! You didn't even ask me what I would have wanted for him. You just smurfed this whole thing behind my smurf, and now I don't even have a son anymore."

"I'm terribly sorry for what I have smurfed with him, Lilly," Papa Smurf said with all honesty. "Please, you have to understand that what I smurfed was an accident."

Lillithina slapped him in the face. "I thought I could trust you. I thought that you would be a good Papa Smurf to our son Empathy. I thought many things. Now I can't even think of smurfing with you anymore. You smurfed something precious away from me, without even asking me, and I don't think I can ever forgive you for that."

Papa Smurf watched as his wife packed up as many things as she could reasonably carry with her and left the house. After she left, all he could do was go to his son's bedroom and look inside the crib that Empath would no longer sleep in. He picked up the blanket that his son would no longer snuggle close to him. And then he sat down and cried.

Aristotle saw Lillthina arrive at his doorstep. "Great Smurfness, my dear Lilly, what has happened to you?" he asked out of concern.

"I lost my son Empathy," Lillithina answered very sadly. "It was all Cully's fault. He smurfed him away from me and smurfed him to his death."

"I...I don't believe it," Aristotle said, sounding surprised. "Maybe with a soothing cup of smurfberry tea, you can explain the whole thing better."

After allowing Lillithina to enter his house and explain everything her husband told her about Empath over a cup of tea, Aristotle pondered. "That is very unlike your husband to smurf anything of the sort. Maybe he thought he was smurfing what was best for the child, who after all is smurfed into the world with very unique abilities that would make him feared among his fellow Smurfs. Maybe he was smurfing what he could to spare him of the future heartbreak that he would smurf when he has to smurf with the fact that..."

"Please don't lecture me, Aris," Lillithina said as she broke down and cried. "It's hard enough dealing with the loss as it is."

"I'm sorry, Lilly...I didn't mean to smurf it into a lecture," Aristotle said. "I don't condone what he may have smurfed to you, but I won't condemn him either for it. If there's anything that you need, I would gladly smurf it to you. I can't be the Papa Smurf that your husband is, but perhaps I can smurf you back what you have lost today."

"I can't ask you to smurf that for me, Aris," Lillthina said. "I don't want to use that just to smurf back at Cully for what he smurfed to me."

"Don't think of this at all as revenge, Lilly," Aristotle said. "You don't even have to love me if you don't feel the same way about me as you did your husband. All I want for you is to be smurfy again with a child of your own."

"I need some time to think about it, Aris," Lilltihina said.

"I understand, Lilly," Aristotle said. "Smurf as much time as you need."

And so during the next two years, Lillithina spent her days living with Aristotle, which raised quite a stir in the village as they wondered why she was doing that, and why Culliford wouldn't come out of his house. Rumors started to circulate, and the three of them couldn't escape the scrutiny of their fellow Smurfs as they were met with suspicion about what's going on.

Then on a night when Aristotle was sitting alone at his desk in his study writing a sermon that he hoped to share with his fellow Smurfs, he felt an arousing touch of a female hand underneath his hat. He turned around and saw that it was Lillithina standing behind him.

"Oh, it's you," Aristotle said as he saw who it was, while she innocently slipped her hand behind her back. "You really shouldn't be smurfing that unless you were...intending to..."

"I'm sorry, Aris," Lillithina said. "I was just going to ask you a question, and I didn't know how to ask it."

"There's nothing for you to be ashamed about, if I already know what you're going to ask me," Aristotle said, reaching out and holding her hands.

"All I really want is a child," Lillithina said. "I don't expect you to ever smurf advantage of me."

"I would never smurf that of you, Lilly," Aristotle said. "I love you too much as a friend to ever smurf you the burden of loving me as anything more than a friend."

Nobody knew what else went on that night, but after a few months, Lillithina's fellow Smurfs noticed that she was carrying a child again. They began to wonder what happened and who among the male Smurfs was the father. Culliford saw that her wife was with child again, and this time not from him. All it did was make him feel like he deserved it for having taken Empath away from her.

And then came the day when Lillthina gave birth to the child. Culliford refused to attend with his fellow Smurfs waiting outside the infirmary as Healer helped deliver what turned out to be another son. But when she received her son into her arms, Lillithina noticed that the child's eyes were rather dim, as if he couldn't see clearly anything around him.

"It's probably one of those things that happen in childsmurf, Lilly, how these young ones can't smurf as clearly as the others when they smurf into the world," Healer said. "Surely that will pass in time."

But over the course of the next few days, Lillthina and Aristotle could see that the child's vision problems did not correct themselves. She felt frustrated as she watched her son blindly crawl along trying to find out where everything was.

Aristotle realized something. "He must have been smurfed with the same vision problem that I was smurfed with, Lilly," he said. "Perhaps this child also needs to be smurfed with a pair of glasses, like Narrator and Orbit."

And so Healer checked the child's eyes, and indeed came to the same conclusion that the child needed glasses. Soon a small pair was crafted for the baby Smurf, and with the glasses, he could see perfectly. Lillithina and Aristotle watched as the first thing the child picked up was a book and started reading it.

"Amazing," Aristotle said, smiling as he watched. "This child is just as brainy as I was when I was born. Oh, if only every child was interested in smurfing open a book that they would hope to read themselves."

"Brainy," Lillithina said to herself. "What a beautiful name for this child."

And soon her child was introduced to the village as Brainy Smurf. In the official register of Smurf names, he was recorded as Schtroumpf a Lunettes -- "the Smurf with glasses".