Vini (Empath stories)



Vini is a character who appears in the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf flashback story "The Enchanted Evergreen". She is an elf who is the sister of Arboria, a fellow elf who knows the location of the legendary Golden Pinecone Tree, but refused to divulge its location to an evil witch, who thus turned Arboria into a small evergreen tree. From that day on, Vini stood by her sister in the forest and protected her from whoever would come to destroy her in her new form.

Young Timber Smurfling encountered Vini and Arboria when he went out into the forest to cut down a tree for the Smurf Village's Winter Solstice celebration and found out why Arboria was turned into a tree. Evil Marduk, a human wizard overhearing their conversation about the Golden Pinecone Tree, threatened to destroy Arboria unless Timber and Vini brought back a pile of golden pinecones from the island before the day's end. With no choice but to give what Evil Marduk wanted, Vini and Timber traveled to the island where the legendary tree was located, only to find out that the tree itself produced regular pinecones.

Realizing that their only choice to save Arboria was to fool Evil Marduk into thinking he had the golden pinecones, Timber sent a message to Painter in the Smurf Village to bring a sack and a can of gold paint with him to the island, where they dyed a bunch of pinecones in gold paint to make them look like authentic golden pinecones. Timber and Painter brought the pinecones back to the forest with Vini following them so that Evil Marduk would take the pinecones and release Arboria from his intended threat against her life. While Evil Marduk was taken to the Smurf River to pick up the rest of the golden pinecones, Hefty, Handy, Duncan, and Tapper took Arboria to the Smurf Village, where Papa Smurf created a potion that would transform Arboria back into her old self. Now free of the curse, Arboria left with Vini to return to their parents.