A few quick notes before we begin:

This will be a series of unrelated oneshots surrounding (mostly female) Smurf characters I have created in the past and don't have time to make full introductory stories for. I really like their concepts and I want to use them, but for now it will only be in short story format.

Most of these were written as character studies for me to understand my characters better. They're flash fiction; quickly written, quickly edited, quickly published.

Due to the nature of this experiment, this fic will always be labelled 'complete'.

Smurf y'all later!

"I hate to say it, but sure an' this sucks."

"Doesn't sound like you hate to say it."

Miner smirked, glancing over his shoulder. "True, though. Any luck on your end?"

Belay gave a frustrated sigh, turning back to him and leaning on the bars of their cell. "Nothing. You?"

He gave the bars another experimental tap with his index knuckle. Solid steel. "Some of the most solid metal I've seen in all my spelunking years. Not a nick, dent, or scratch in 'em."

"So we're stuck here."

"Seems so."

"Until those Grundle things come back."

"That's right."

"To put us into soup."

Miner stood, brushing off his pants for all the good it did him. Rock dust and dirt were so integrated into the fibres that grime was practically woven in. He grinned at his cell mate. "Yer certainly a ray of sunshine."

This earned him a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her mouth (victory!) but Belay occupied herself by looking everywhere but him. "Just trying to get the facts straight. How long do you think we have?"

"Enough time to figure out an escape plan, trust me."

Belay shrugged non-committaly and went back to running her hands up and down the bars, searching for weaknesses. She was wasting her time, he'd come across that metal several times in his life and not even the strongest pickaxe could break through. He turned his attention to the walls.

Working his way down from one end of the cell to the other, he ran the finger pads of both hands down the craggy rock. "I never said thank you, by the way. For coming to rescue me."

Her voice sounded far away when she answered. She probably hadn't even turned around to regard him, and he didn't feel like it would be right to face her first. "Mmm, nope, you didn't."

He scratched at the rock with a nail, skin crawling with the noise it made. "I'm sayin' it now. Thank you."

"Next time don't go exploring dark caves without a proper light source. Never know what kind of crevasses could be hanging around."

He laughed, and felt the air shift as she finally turned to look at him. "Aye, I'll remember for next time. Not plannin' on falling down any more holes in the future." He sent another grin over his shoulder. "Especially not Grundle-infested ones."

A weighted pause behind him stilled Miner's hands, but he didn't look at Belay. Finally he was making some ground with her, he had to tread carefully so as to not scare her away. Again. "I'm... I'm sorry, by the way. For the rock fall. It was a stupid mistake, I should have known that foothold was loose."

Miner forced his hands to start working again. "Tis' only a stepmother would blame ye, happens to the best o' us."

"But it got us captured."

Was she so desperate to take blame? "Ye couldn't have known. And if being captured was the worst thing that could have happened, I'd say we made out pretty smurfy." He hesitated. Should he go on? Might as well risk it, what was life without some leaps of faith? "But I do wonder... why not go the longer route? The one I suggested? Seemed a lot more sturdy, if ye don't mind me sayin' so."

"Dunno."

Miner cursed under his breath at her clipped tone. He'd pushed too hard again and Belay's walls had shot up. Why couldn't he just learn to be patient?! A surge of frustration powered down his arm and he pounded on the wall a little harder than he should have.

Through the ensuing stream of more muttered curses and a vigorous hand massage, something clicked in the back of his mind. He knocked on the wall again. Then once more, heart speeding up. Yes! Which means the fault point should be...

He spun towards Belay, hand outstretched. "Lass, hurry, I need to borrow your carabiner."

She eyed him warily, one hand floating up to the carabiner at her waist. "Why?"

His hand flexed impatiently without consent of his brain, eyes darting to the corridor. "Just trust me, I have a plan."

It didn't fix her stare, but she unclipped the carabiner from her harness and passed it to him. He flinched at her uttered cry as he snapped off the hinged piece.

"You broke it!"

"I'll get Handy to make ye a new one, I swear."He set the piece into a crack in the rock wall, judged calibration, then adjusted it slightly. "They took my pickaxe when they captured us, the devils. Luck o' the Irish they didn't check my hat." He pulled out his smaller hammer, the one he used to chip rock from precious metals, and lined it up with the makeshift stake. "Alright, stand back."

"What are~"

Before she could finish, Miner swung with all his might.

Years of aim and practice rang true, and the hammer hit the stake solidly. In one deafening moment, the wall crumbled, revealing a hole just the right size for a Smurf or two. Miner whooped in sheer delight before remembering how close the Grundles might be and wisely shutting up. The passage loomed, dark and dusty, before them, but to Miner it just seemed like light at the end of a tunnel.

His hands tensed slightly as Belay's presence made itself known just over his right shoulder. Cor but she was tall, made Miner feel like a Smurfling again. "That was soapstone wasn't it?"

"Aye, completely hollow on the other side! An' now look, we got a way free!" He ducked under the passage entrance and started down, only barely containing the urge to whistle.

"You just caused a cave-in, and now you want to walk through it?" Belay hadn't moved from the opening, arms crossed. "It need stabilizing, it might bury you alive."

He turned around, walking backwards. "I know rock, Belay, it'll hold 'til we're out. Trust me." And turned back around.

A beat. Then, footsteps echoed in the passage behind him, and he smiled.

The passage didn't last for too long, opening into one of the excavated tunnels the Grundles had taken them through upon their capture. It stretched, wide and empty, in both directions. Miner paused, searching up and down the corridor for any evidence of approaching Grundles or signs of the way out.

He needn't have bothered. Belay passed by him, offering a rare glance as she started left. "This way. I recognize this part."

Miner let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "On yer lead."

The traveled wordlessly through the tunnels, keeping a wary eye out for Grundle patrols. Miner followed Belay through the maze, finding himself oddly drawn back to the swinging of her long, brown braid. It reached almost all the way to her tail. Why was he looking at her tail? Stay focused, Miner!

She stopped so abruptly he almost ran right into her. Belay stood stock still in a half crouch, staring at the ground.

Miner waited a beat for an explanation. "...lass?"

"Shh." Another beat. "Do you hear that?"

Miner shut his eyes and listened. Beyond the echo of distant dripping water and the buzzing weight of the silence that often accompanied a cave, there lay something else. Something faint, but urgent...

"The prisoners have escaped!"

"Sound the alarm!"

Miner's eyes flew open and met Belay's panicked stare. As one creature, they surged forward, no longer bothering to be quiet.

They flew through the tunnels like Smurfs possessed, twisting and turning with the flow of the rock walls and behind them the sounds of the approaching Grundles grew ever louder. Miner's thoughts reduced to only the beating of his heart and the pounding of his footsteps, vision narrowing until the only thing he consciously registered was the three feet in front of his face.

Which is exactly why he nearly collided with Belay again as she skid to a stop at a tunnel junction.

He took the opportunity to double over, hands on his knees, and try to catch his breath. "What's... what's wrong?"

"I..." her eyes darted frantically between the three yawning tunnels, one fist banging against her leg to try and dispel nervous energy. "I can't remember which one we came through."

Miner straightened, hazarding a comforting hand on her shoulder and feeling the tiniest bit pleased when she didn't flinch away, even through his settling exhaustion. He examined every tunnel, scanning the walls and floors, analyzing. That jutting rock looked familiar, but so did that iron deposit...

Wait. Wait! That nick in the floor of the middle tunnel, he'd tripped on that coming in, he was sure of it. And none too soon, the thundering noise of the approaching Grundle troops blasted around the caverns like stampeding elephants. He grabbed Belay's hand, taking off towards the middle tunnel. "This way, Belay!"

Her hand vanished from his and he stumbled to a halt, spinning around. She stood at the junction, glaring at him. "Come on, lass, we have to leg it!"

"You don't know that's the right tunnel, we have to rule them out logically, not rush into things. That's how you got us into this mess in the first place!"

Miner urged her to follow with a twitching hand. "This is the tunnel, sure an' I know it. Trust me!"

Anger flared in her eyes and she threw her hands up. "Why do you keep saying that? Why should I trust you?"

Now was not the time for this, but Miner couldn't let this opportunity pass him by. Belay was opening up. Asking questions instead of just brushing him off like a bit of soot. "I keep sayin' it because ye don't! We're friends, aren't we? Why wouldn't you trust me?"

Her emotions, be they anger or indignant defence, brought her inches from his face in two long strides. He felt the slight ache in his spine as he struggled to match her height. Usually he was bent forwards, he wasn't used to this back bending business. She stood close enough for him to count her freckles. "Because, Miner, my whole life I've only ever been able to trust myself, so forgive me if that isn't a habit I can drop in twenty seconds!"

Miner searched her face. Of course he hadn't forgotten about her life before she'd come to the village, how hard it must have been all those years on her own. She was right, he needed to be patient with her, but at the same time, she needed to know things weren't like her old days anymore.

Once again, he risked contact, wrapping her hand in his own. Her eyes flicked down to their clasped fingers, but he never looked away from her face. "Lass, we are friends. And friends trust one another, like I trusted ye to get me out of that crevasse."

She finally met his eyes, gaze flicking back and forth between them. "But... but I failed."

The Grundles grew louder in the distance but Miner ignored it best he could. There were more important things to worry about right now. "Sometimes the world doesn't work out, but that doesn't mean it won't set itself right. Ye don't have to rely only on yerself anymore, Belay, ye've got friends to help you along. Ye..." he swallowed around a sudden lump in his throat. "Ye've got me. I still trust ye with me life and now I'm asking ye to do the same. We can do this. Together."

She glanced away, thoughts whirling behind her eyes. The Grundles sounded like a tidal wave coming towards them now, and Miner felt his hands start to twitch again, but he kept still. Belay needed to figure herself out if they were going to get out of this uncooked.

She looked back to him, a hard determination set where uncertainty once swam. "Lead on."

Miner couldn't help his massive grin.

He pulled her into the tunnel, running at full tilt, and only when they reached a giant cavern arcing high above a steep cliff did he realize they were still holding hands. Belay must have realized at the same time, for she dropped the hold almost instantly, approaching the cliff face. She inspected some rocks near the base. "You were right, this is where the rockslide happened. "

"See, doesn't hurt to trust a friend every once in a while."

She flashed him the barest of smiles. "Cheeky."

Miner's good mood vanished as noise from the tunnel began to swell again. The junction should keep the Grundles at bay for a moment, but they needed to move. "How do ye suppose we get out o' here?"

Belay stared at the cliff face, silent and calculating. Then she glanced at Miner.

Realization hit him like a brick. "No. No no no, I'm not climbin' that, ye saw how well that worked last time."

"This time will be easier, we're going up instead of coming down."

"We've no equipment!"

"Free climbing is fun, and unless you want to stay down here with the Grundles, I suggest you get over here."

Miner glanced back towards the tunnel entrance, seriously considering his options, before muttering and slinking over to stand beside Belay. Immediately she started rattling off instructions. "Okay the cliff isn't too bad of an incline, but since we are free climbing I'm going to need you to follow my exact movements. Offhand, you'll see the route from this rock, over to that pointy one on the left, up to that bit of pyrite, and then diagonally to the top of the cliff, yeah? That seems to be the shallowest route with the most steady footholds, and we'll avoid the area where I hit that loose rock last time. The only hazard of note is that jagged boulder there, see it? Don't touch it at all and we'll be fine."

Miner waited for his head to stop spinning. "Yer sure about this?"

Her bandaged hand on his shoulder nearly made him jump out of his skin. She smiled at him, a real smile, the first one he'd seen in weeks. "We'll make it out. Trust me, Miner."

Ah, she had to go and pull that card, did she? No chance he could argue with that. He swept a hand towards the cliff. "After you, madame."

Through all his anxiety and fear at how high they were, smurf it must be at least twenty apples, the first half of the climb went surprisingly quickly. He thanked smurf all for his gloves, if he didn't have them he would have for sure slipped by now with all he was sweating. Had he ever sweat this hard during work? Didn't feel like it.

Belay stayed a few feet ahead of him, earthen clothing practically blending right into the cliff face until all he could see of her was the blue of her bare arms. He followed her handholds, and she called down tips and potential risks. Occasionally even encouragement. Had his speech really reached through her defences so quickly?

With less than a quarter climb left, all things went to smurf.

Finally, the Grundles that picked the right tunnel burst out of the mouth, spotting the two escaping Smurfs immediately. Miner felt himself freeze, almost separate from himself, as he looked down to see not only the floor leering at him from so far away, but the astonishingly clear facial features of the goblin-creatures who'd found them laying on that far off floor. The leader scowled up at them with a face only a mother could love. Or perhaps not, Miner didn't know the intricacies of Grundle family units.

The leader jabbed a crooked pointer finger to them, barking orders at his subordinates. The two by his side nodded and unhooked bows from their backs, notching arrows and taking aim.

Miner's heart skipped a beat. "Lass! They're gonna start firin'!"

Belay's voice sounded far, oh so far away. "Miner, stay calm. Panicking on a cliff means mistakes. We're almost there, just follow me."

He looked up at her just in time to see her staring down the Grundles as she reached for the next handhold. If his heart seized one more time, Miner figured he may up and pass out. "Belay, not that boulder!"

She stopped a hair's breadth from the stone, releasing built tension as nothing happened to send them tumbling to the ground. A quick nod in his direction, and she passed by the boulder safely. As she pulled herself up another rock, an arrow glanced off where her foot had just been.

Miner's tunnel vision returned with a vengeance. They were almost there, so close! He tried to ignore the way his untrained muscles trembled beneath his skin, the shaking of his fingers, the deafening heartbeat in his ears, the twang of bowstrings and the clatter of stone arrowheads striking unforgiving rock.

Above him, Belay vanished over the edge of the cliff, and he was suddenly alone with the archers.

Stay calm, Miner. Which steps had Belay taken? That rock by the dusty patch? No, she'd moved past it, hadn't she? He couldn't remember. Oh, smurf, he was going to die.

And then Belay's face popped back into view, grinning of all things! "You're doing so well, Miner, just a bit farther. No, don't worry about them, they're too far to reach you, just focus on your hands. There's a notch next to your right foot... Good, that's the one! There you go!"

She reached down a hand and he grasped it like a lifeline. Through her muscles hardened from years of climbing and his sheer determination to get off that cliff, they hauled together and he stumbled shakily onto flat ground, breathing like he'd just mined from the village to Bruges without stopping. "I... I..."

Belay grinned sweetly at him. "Yes?"

"...I never want to do that again."

She laughed, a quiet thing but unlike her half-effort laughs around people she didn't trust. It rang genuine, and Miner's heart melted. "If you're smart and listen to me from now on, you won't have to. Trust me."

END