Ghosts in the Mist
Title: Ghosts in the Mist
Fandom: Pinky and the Brain
Genre: AU
Couple(s): Brain/Pinky
Warning(s): None
Fic Status: Complete
Summary: Cast out of his home village, he's about to meet the creature known only as "Ghost".
Notes: Challenge #07 (An incurable disease; a mortal injury) from Set C from 10_hiddenrealms. Vitiligo (which I gave Pinky) does have treatments nowadays, so I set it back to somewhere in the range of the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages. I also did more research on albinism.
Pence-“Pinky” to his friends and neighbors due to his light skin and cheery disposition-glanced over his shoulder toward the village he once called home. He sniffled and swiped a hand beneath his prominent nose.
His pinkish skin had started to turn white in patches. The local doctors and the priests had been able to do nothing for him. So now, he was cast out of the village lest whatever demons which had laid their hands on him touch the rest of the population. All he had was the clothes on his back, a canteen of water, and a bit of bread and cheese.
“I’m gonna…” Sniffle. “…miss them. Poit.”
He started to walk, his shadow growing longer as the sun set. He started to shake as his blue eyes darted about. For as the air cooled in this narrow valley beside the mountain, fog had a habit of rolling in, especially at night.
There were legends of creatures that hunted in the darkness: werewolves, vampires, and the fiend that stalked this particular area, a creature referred to only as “Ghost.”
Ghost was supposed to arrive in the twilight of evening. According to eyewitnesses, it looked like a short, stout man, seemingly a lost traveler. However, those who had ventured closer told horrific tales of a demon with pure white skin and hair and fiery, unnatural eyes. It was said that those who went out at night but didn’t return had fallen victim to the evil specter.
Pinky chewed his lower lip. “I-I hope he’s takin’ a nap tonight. Troz.”
Cautiously, he continued on his way, quivering with each step. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had to be as far from the village before sunup or risk the consequences.
Crunch crunch crunch crunch. The sound of the short grass and then the rocks as he wound his way up the mountain pass getting stepped on sounded obscenely loud in his ears. He wrung his hands worriedly.
“Well…” a voice drawled in an amused manner. “It isn’t often that anyone takes the mountain at night.”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Pinky leaped into the air, landing beside the speaker:
A short, stout man of pure white skin and unnaturally pink eyes.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
He backpedaled into the wall of the mountain, shaking. “Oh, please! Oh, please don’t eat me!” He fell to his knees, tears running down his cheeks. “I-I swear I didn’t mean to disturb your rest! Narf!”
Ghost gazed dubiously at him before rolling his eyes and continuing down the path. “I assure you that I’m wide awake. In any case, your screams could wake the dead. Or at least one of the local bears.”
“Y-You’re not going to eat me?” was the hopeful question.
Stopping, Ghost gazed blandly over his shoulder. “No, I have yet to resort to cannibalism.” He turned around and crossed his arms. “I suppose I should thank your villager friends for that.”
“Can-ni-ba-lism?” Pinky repeated, sounding the word out.
“When one eats one’s own species for nourishment. Food,” he clarified when the exiled man looked confused.
“Um…but wouldn’t you eat other ghosts to do that?”
Ghost raised an eyebrow before walking closer. Pinky tensed up, wondering if perhaps the specter had changed his mind.
Instead, the phantasm grabbed hold of his wrist and put his palm to his chest, sliding it beneath the gray shirt he wore.
At first, the taller man froze, ready to shriek and leap away. But then…
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
“Egad! Narf! You have a heartbeat!”
“Yes, because I’m just as alive as you are.” Ghost removed the other’s hand from his chest. “Are you satisfied?”
Pinky tilted his head to one side, feeling as if the entire world had turned upside down. “But…if you’re alive…how come you look like that?”
The white-skinned man shrugged. “I was simply born this way. Now if you’re through, I have work to do.”
“Work?”
“Yes. Gathering food. Winter’s coming early this year, and I’d rather not starve to death.” The man turned and started to walk away.
Pinky hurried forward to fall into step. “But how do you know that?”
The shorter man appeared slightly annoyed but obliged in answering. “You’ll notice that recently there’s been a slight frost. On top of that, the animals have started to build up their body fat and start growing their winter coats. Therefore, snow is on the way, and most likely soon.”
“Egad, brilliant!”
“Yes, thank you.” Ghost gazed at him out of the corner of a pink eye. “I assume that the reason you decided to leave your little village is because of your skin problem.”
Pinky reached up to place a hand on the white blotch on his face, remembering belatedly that there was one such blotch on the back of that hand. “I…uh…yes.” He started to tear up again. “I didn’t want it to happen! I just started getting all spotty, and then everybody said-”
“Ah. The old demon explanation. Yes, I’ve heard it, too.” The white-skinned man said, turning his gaze back towards the rocks. He stopped to start removing fruit from a plant.
Pinky sniffled, swiping at his nose again.
His companion ceased gathering to look at him. The shorter man sighed and reached into his pocket. “At least use this.”
Taking the offered small piece of cloth, Pinky blew his nose.
“Better?”
“Mmhmm.” He held out the snotty rag, intending to return it.
Ghost held up his hands. “Keep it.” The shorter man resumed his picking.
“Can I do anything to help?” Pinky offered nervously.
The white-skinned man looked up in surprise before handing him a small satchel. “Take all but about five or six of the pods from this plant. I’ll be just up the way.”
Pinky nodded, taking the bag and going to work.
Brain-his family-given name abandoned when the town of his birth finally cast him out-noticed the other’s yawning. He was used to sleeping during the day and coming out at night, for the sunlight burned his pale skin quickly. However, his strange companion was used to sleeping the night away and rising at dawn.
Seeing as how the other had offered to help him gather food for the upcoming cold season, the intelligent man grabbed Pinky’s upper arm and steered him towards the cave he called home. With what little resources he’d had on hand, he’d made a front for the opening, including a door, allowing it to be snug and warm during the chilling winter months.
Pinky yawned as he looked around the cave, cluttered as it was with not just the necessities of life but books Brain had managed to lay his hands on when frightened nobles had abandoned their possessions in haste and various models of inventions he dreamed up during the daylight hours. “Narf…”
“Take the bed,” he ordered as he leaned over to add fuel to the smoldering embers in his fireplace to rebuild the crackling fire. (A devil of a time he’d had making it, but it had paid for the frustration a thousand times over.) “I won’t be going to sleep any time soon.”
“But…but it’s nighttime.”
“I’m aware of that.” He lit a bear fat candle with the flames and moved to another part of the cave, picking up a book on his way.
“That’s when you’re supposed to sleep.”
Sighing, Brain set down book and candle and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s when other people sleep. I sleep during the day.”
“But why?”
“Because of this!” he roared, rolling up his sleeves to show off more of the whiteness of his skin. “The sun is the bane of my existence! I can only go out from sunset to sunrise or suffer the painful consequences!”
Pinky shrank back at his outburst. The reclusive intellectual mentally swore, shoving the sleeve back down his arm.
However, after a moment of uncomfortable silence…“W-Will that happen to me? With…this?” The taller man motioned to the splash of white on his face.
“To be honest, I don’t know. I haven’t seen that before. It’s a distinct possibility.”
“Oh.” His unlikely companion visibly drooped.
Giving another sigh and praying to a deity who’d seemed to have turned His back on him since birth for the patience he lacked, Brain walked over and gently pushed Pinky towards the bed. “Go to sleep. Things might look a little better in the morning.”
“You think so?” the other sniffled.
“Anything’s possible.”
So the other man lied down in his bed, sighing gratefully at the comfort. Brain gave a small smile to himself. Geese had a habit of passing over this mountain while on their yearly migration, sometimes shedding feathers as they went. Not to mention the amount of goose down he found while skirting the village for various wild plants and the occasional raid for seedlings in his continued attempts to raise something in the rocky soil. Thanks to his careful collection, he was quite possibly one of the only people outside of nobility with a genuine feather mattress with goose down pillows.
He glanced at the book he’d originally selected for reading before going to put it back in the stacks. Maybe there was something in the medical texts he’d picked up on Pinky’s strange skin pigmentation.
Pinky woke later than he was used to since he couldn’t see the sun coming through his window. When he wiped the sleep out of his eyes and saw the darkened cave dwelling, he remembered where he was.
Someone moved beside him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned to see the white form of Ghost dreaming away. From the looks of things, he’d been asleep for quite some time, which meant that it must’ve been late in the day indeed.
Sliding out of the large (and incredibly comfortable) bed, Pinky walked over to the kitchen area to find a hunk of bread warming in the coals of the fireplace. Another glance around showed that some of the raspberries he’d helped pick last night had been left out.
Gratefully, the taller man took and ate both, studying his strange host as he ate. He had to do something for the other man. After all, Ghost had been kind enough to give him a place to sleep and even share some of his food supply.
He looked around the cave. It really was a mess, as if its sole occupant was constantly thinking of other matters and kept putting off cleaning the place up.
He brightened. Bingo.
So quietly, he went to work, straightening things, rubbing down surfaces with a towel. All the while, he kept an eye on the bed to make sure Ghost didn’t wake. He had a feeling that the brief fit of temper he’d seen was just the beginning.
Then again, did he really expect someone who spent all of his time alone to be good with social graces?
The desk area he left alone since he wasn’t sure what was important and what wasn’t. However, the models fascinated him, and he couldn’t help reaching out to touch them as he marveled.
‘Egad, he’s brilliant!’
The words on the pages of notes spread out across the desktop made little sense. Oh, true, he could read to a certain extent, but they contained higher mathematics than he was used to and large words that he couldn’t understand.
Then his eyes were attracted to sketches of himself.
Or, rather, the splotches on his face and hand. (Ghost must’ve drawn them while he was sleeping.) Arrows pointed to them as little bits of shorthand seemed to puzzle over the white patches.
Pinky picked up the paper and narrowed his eyes as he tried to read. Frustrated with the low light, he gave up and lit a candle from the coals, careful to turn so his body shielded the light from his sleeping companion.
As he read over the notes, mouthing words he didn’t understand, he finally got the gist of it. ‘He’s trying to find out what’s wrong with me. Maybe try to stop it or reverse it.’
He looked at the other man, tearing up at the thoughtfulness of someone for a total stranger.
His soft “poit” somehow didn’t echo in the silence of the cave.
Brain woke at twilight, stretching his body. Sitting up, he looked around and blinked.
“Evenin’! Narf!” the cheery voice of his less intelligent companion sang, making him jerk in shock. Pinky leaned into his line of sight and grinned. “Well, what do you think?”
He stared, stupefied. He’d thought that, come sunrise, Pinky would be gone. Not that he would’ve been surprised…maybe just a little hurt. It was the first time he’d had contact with someone who hadn’t simply run away after coming face to face with him.
Then again, Pinky had been caught between him and a rock wall. That could’ve had something to do with it.
“I also made you some dinner!” the other man proudly said. Then he paused. “Or, wait, would it be breakfast for you?”
“Technically, it’s breakfast as far as I’m concerned.” Brain then shook his head, bringing a hand to his temple. “Wait a second. Why are you still here?”
It sounded sharper than he’d intended it to come out, and he immediately felt a twinge of regret.
Fortunately, Pinky either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it. “Well, I thought about it, and I don’t really have anywhere else to go. So I looked around and saw what a mess everything was.” As Brain floundered for something to say, the taller man continued, “I thought that maybe I could stay and help you!”
Brain stared blankly before giving his head another disbelieving shake. “Let me get this straight: You want to stay?”
“If you’ll let me!” Pinky said with a hopeful grin. He then looked a bit sheepish. “Um…I also saw your drawings and notes on this.” He pointed at the spot on his hand.
Suddenly, the intellectual felt uncomfortable. He’d started the research on a whim, half because Pinky’s problem might be related to his own and half because it was…upsetting…to see someone so full of energy and life sent away to live the life of a hermit. Brain had never really known anything else, for his parents had kept him shut away most of the time after the priests had declared him hell spawn.
“I…well, I…” He fumbled with words before coughing. “Well, it’s just that I thought that someone might’ve written up on it, maybe even the possibility of curing it.”
He found himself in a tight, grateful embrace, gasping for breath. When the other nuzzled him, he tried to wiggle free.
“I’m only doing this because if I can curse you, I might be able to reverse whatever went wrong with me,” he grouched, narrowing his pink eyes at the other.
Pinky kept hugging him, undeterred. “So can I please stay? Zort! Please, Ghost?”
The more intelligent man blinked. “Ghost?”
“Well, it’s what the villagers call you, and you never told me your name.”
“My name is ‘Brain’.”
“Well, can I stay, Brain? Please? I can help! I promise!”
Glancing at his companion, Brain sighed. “We’ll have to gather more supplies-”
The crushing embrace somehow got tighter, cutting off the rest of what he’d wanted to say. “Oh, thank you, Brain!”
The intellectual had no response. He was too busy trying to get more oxygen into his lungs.
In the following years, the villagers changed the story of the local fiend. For when the sun set and the mists rose, instead of one white-skinned man, two could be seen. One of them was Ghost, the creature that had stalked their mountains for so long.
The other was Pinky, the spirit of a villager who-upon being cast out of the village-had become one of Ghost’s victims yet, for some strange reason, chose to stay with a demon as opposed to flying off to Heaven.
Fandom: Pinky and the Brain
Genre: AU
Couple(s): Brain/Pinky
Warning(s): None
Fic Status: Complete
Summary: Cast out of his home village, he's about to meet the creature known only as "Ghost".
Notes: Challenge #07 (An incurable disease; a mortal injury) from Set C from 10_hiddenrealms. Vitiligo (which I gave Pinky) does have treatments nowadays, so I set it back to somewhere in the range of the Dark Ages or the Middle Ages. I also did more research on albinism.
Pence-“Pinky” to his friends and neighbors due to his light skin and cheery disposition-glanced over his shoulder toward the village he once called home. He sniffled and swiped a hand beneath his prominent nose.
His pinkish skin had started to turn white in patches. The local doctors and the priests had been able to do nothing for him. So now, he was cast out of the village lest whatever demons which had laid their hands on him touch the rest of the population. All he had was the clothes on his back, a canteen of water, and a bit of bread and cheese.
“I’m gonna…” Sniffle. “…miss them. Poit.”
He started to walk, his shadow growing longer as the sun set. He started to shake as his blue eyes darted about. For as the air cooled in this narrow valley beside the mountain, fog had a habit of rolling in, especially at night.
There were legends of creatures that hunted in the darkness: werewolves, vampires, and the fiend that stalked this particular area, a creature referred to only as “Ghost.”
Ghost was supposed to arrive in the twilight of evening. According to eyewitnesses, it looked like a short, stout man, seemingly a lost traveler. However, those who had ventured closer told horrific tales of a demon with pure white skin and hair and fiery, unnatural eyes. It was said that those who went out at night but didn’t return had fallen victim to the evil specter.
Pinky chewed his lower lip. “I-I hope he’s takin’ a nap tonight. Troz.”
Cautiously, he continued on his way, quivering with each step. He didn’t know where he was going, but he had to be as far from the village before sunup or risk the consequences.
Crunch crunch crunch crunch. The sound of the short grass and then the rocks as he wound his way up the mountain pass getting stepped on sounded obscenely loud in his ears. He wrung his hands worriedly.
“Well…” a voice drawled in an amused manner. “It isn’t often that anyone takes the mountain at night.”
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Pinky leaped into the air, landing beside the speaker:
A short, stout man of pure white skin and unnaturally pink eyes.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
He backpedaled into the wall of the mountain, shaking. “Oh, please! Oh, please don’t eat me!” He fell to his knees, tears running down his cheeks. “I-I swear I didn’t mean to disturb your rest! Narf!”
Ghost gazed dubiously at him before rolling his eyes and continuing down the path. “I assure you that I’m wide awake. In any case, your screams could wake the dead. Or at least one of the local bears.”
“Y-You’re not going to eat me?” was the hopeful question.
Stopping, Ghost gazed blandly over his shoulder. “No, I have yet to resort to cannibalism.” He turned around and crossed his arms. “I suppose I should thank your villager friends for that.”
“Can-ni-ba-lism?” Pinky repeated, sounding the word out.
“When one eats one’s own species for nourishment. Food,” he clarified when the exiled man looked confused.
“Um…but wouldn’t you eat other ghosts to do that?”
Ghost raised an eyebrow before walking closer. Pinky tensed up, wondering if perhaps the specter had changed his mind.
Instead, the phantasm grabbed hold of his wrist and put his palm to his chest, sliding it beneath the gray shirt he wore.
At first, the taller man froze, ready to shriek and leap away. But then…
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
“Egad! Narf! You have a heartbeat!”
“Yes, because I’m just as alive as you are.” Ghost removed the other’s hand from his chest. “Are you satisfied?”
Pinky tilted his head to one side, feeling as if the entire world had turned upside down. “But…if you’re alive…how come you look like that?”
The white-skinned man shrugged. “I was simply born this way. Now if you’re through, I have work to do.”
“Work?”
“Yes. Gathering food. Winter’s coming early this year, and I’d rather not starve to death.” The man turned and started to walk away.
Pinky hurried forward to fall into step. “But how do you know that?”
The shorter man appeared slightly annoyed but obliged in answering. “You’ll notice that recently there’s been a slight frost. On top of that, the animals have started to build up their body fat and start growing their winter coats. Therefore, snow is on the way, and most likely soon.”
“Egad, brilliant!”
“Yes, thank you.” Ghost gazed at him out of the corner of a pink eye. “I assume that the reason you decided to leave your little village is because of your skin problem.”
Pinky reached up to place a hand on the white blotch on his face, remembering belatedly that there was one such blotch on the back of that hand. “I…uh…yes.” He started to tear up again. “I didn’t want it to happen! I just started getting all spotty, and then everybody said-”
“Ah. The old demon explanation. Yes, I’ve heard it, too.” The white-skinned man said, turning his gaze back towards the rocks. He stopped to start removing fruit from a plant.
Pinky sniffled, swiping at his nose again.
His companion ceased gathering to look at him. The shorter man sighed and reached into his pocket. “At least use this.”
Taking the offered small piece of cloth, Pinky blew his nose.
“Better?”
“Mmhmm.” He held out the snotty rag, intending to return it.
Ghost held up his hands. “Keep it.” The shorter man resumed his picking.
“Can I do anything to help?” Pinky offered nervously.
The white-skinned man looked up in surprise before handing him a small satchel. “Take all but about five or six of the pods from this plant. I’ll be just up the way.”
Pinky nodded, taking the bag and going to work.
Brain-his family-given name abandoned when the town of his birth finally cast him out-noticed the other’s yawning. He was used to sleeping during the day and coming out at night, for the sunlight burned his pale skin quickly. However, his strange companion was used to sleeping the night away and rising at dawn.
Seeing as how the other had offered to help him gather food for the upcoming cold season, the intelligent man grabbed Pinky’s upper arm and steered him towards the cave he called home. With what little resources he’d had on hand, he’d made a front for the opening, including a door, allowing it to be snug and warm during the chilling winter months.
Pinky yawned as he looked around the cave, cluttered as it was with not just the necessities of life but books Brain had managed to lay his hands on when frightened nobles had abandoned their possessions in haste and various models of inventions he dreamed up during the daylight hours. “Narf…”
“Take the bed,” he ordered as he leaned over to add fuel to the smoldering embers in his fireplace to rebuild the crackling fire. (A devil of a time he’d had making it, but it had paid for the frustration a thousand times over.) “I won’t be going to sleep any time soon.”
“But…but it’s nighttime.”
“I’m aware of that.” He lit a bear fat candle with the flames and moved to another part of the cave, picking up a book on his way.
“That’s when you’re supposed to sleep.”
Sighing, Brain set down book and candle and pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s when other people sleep. I sleep during the day.”
“But why?”
“Because of this!” he roared, rolling up his sleeves to show off more of the whiteness of his skin. “The sun is the bane of my existence! I can only go out from sunset to sunrise or suffer the painful consequences!”
Pinky shrank back at his outburst. The reclusive intellectual mentally swore, shoving the sleeve back down his arm.
However, after a moment of uncomfortable silence…“W-Will that happen to me? With…this?” The taller man motioned to the splash of white on his face.
“To be honest, I don’t know. I haven’t seen that before. It’s a distinct possibility.”
“Oh.” His unlikely companion visibly drooped.
Giving another sigh and praying to a deity who’d seemed to have turned His back on him since birth for the patience he lacked, Brain walked over and gently pushed Pinky towards the bed. “Go to sleep. Things might look a little better in the morning.”
“You think so?” the other sniffled.
“Anything’s possible.”
So the other man lied down in his bed, sighing gratefully at the comfort. Brain gave a small smile to himself. Geese had a habit of passing over this mountain while on their yearly migration, sometimes shedding feathers as they went. Not to mention the amount of goose down he found while skirting the village for various wild plants and the occasional raid for seedlings in his continued attempts to raise something in the rocky soil. Thanks to his careful collection, he was quite possibly one of the only people outside of nobility with a genuine feather mattress with goose down pillows.
He glanced at the book he’d originally selected for reading before going to put it back in the stacks. Maybe there was something in the medical texts he’d picked up on Pinky’s strange skin pigmentation.
Pinky woke later than he was used to since he couldn’t see the sun coming through his window. When he wiped the sleep out of his eyes and saw the darkened cave dwelling, he remembered where he was.
Someone moved beside him, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned to see the white form of Ghost dreaming away. From the looks of things, he’d been asleep for quite some time, which meant that it must’ve been late in the day indeed.
Sliding out of the large (and incredibly comfortable) bed, Pinky walked over to the kitchen area to find a hunk of bread warming in the coals of the fireplace. Another glance around showed that some of the raspberries he’d helped pick last night had been left out.
Gratefully, the taller man took and ate both, studying his strange host as he ate. He had to do something for the other man. After all, Ghost had been kind enough to give him a place to sleep and even share some of his food supply.
He looked around the cave. It really was a mess, as if its sole occupant was constantly thinking of other matters and kept putting off cleaning the place up.
He brightened. Bingo.
So quietly, he went to work, straightening things, rubbing down surfaces with a towel. All the while, he kept an eye on the bed to make sure Ghost didn’t wake. He had a feeling that the brief fit of temper he’d seen was just the beginning.
Then again, did he really expect someone who spent all of his time alone to be good with social graces?
The desk area he left alone since he wasn’t sure what was important and what wasn’t. However, the models fascinated him, and he couldn’t help reaching out to touch them as he marveled.
‘Egad, he’s brilliant!’
The words on the pages of notes spread out across the desktop made little sense. Oh, true, he could read to a certain extent, but they contained higher mathematics than he was used to and large words that he couldn’t understand.
Then his eyes were attracted to sketches of himself.
Or, rather, the splotches on his face and hand. (Ghost must’ve drawn them while he was sleeping.) Arrows pointed to them as little bits of shorthand seemed to puzzle over the white patches.
Pinky picked up the paper and narrowed his eyes as he tried to read. Frustrated with the low light, he gave up and lit a candle from the coals, careful to turn so his body shielded the light from his sleeping companion.
As he read over the notes, mouthing words he didn’t understand, he finally got the gist of it. ‘He’s trying to find out what’s wrong with me. Maybe try to stop it or reverse it.’
He looked at the other man, tearing up at the thoughtfulness of someone for a total stranger.
His soft “poit” somehow didn’t echo in the silence of the cave.
Brain woke at twilight, stretching his body. Sitting up, he looked around and blinked.
“Evenin’! Narf!” the cheery voice of his less intelligent companion sang, making him jerk in shock. Pinky leaned into his line of sight and grinned. “Well, what do you think?”
He stared, stupefied. He’d thought that, come sunrise, Pinky would be gone. Not that he would’ve been surprised…maybe just a little hurt. It was the first time he’d had contact with someone who hadn’t simply run away after coming face to face with him.
Then again, Pinky had been caught between him and a rock wall. That could’ve had something to do with it.
“I also made you some dinner!” the other man proudly said. Then he paused. “Or, wait, would it be breakfast for you?”
“Technically, it’s breakfast as far as I’m concerned.” Brain then shook his head, bringing a hand to his temple. “Wait a second. Why are you still here?”
It sounded sharper than he’d intended it to come out, and he immediately felt a twinge of regret.
Fortunately, Pinky either didn’t notice or chose to ignore it. “Well, I thought about it, and I don’t really have anywhere else to go. So I looked around and saw what a mess everything was.” As Brain floundered for something to say, the taller man continued, “I thought that maybe I could stay and help you!”
Brain stared blankly before giving his head another disbelieving shake. “Let me get this straight: You want to stay?”
“If you’ll let me!” Pinky said with a hopeful grin. He then looked a bit sheepish. “Um…I also saw your drawings and notes on this.” He pointed at the spot on his hand.
Suddenly, the intellectual felt uncomfortable. He’d started the research on a whim, half because Pinky’s problem might be related to his own and half because it was…upsetting…to see someone so full of energy and life sent away to live the life of a hermit. Brain had never really known anything else, for his parents had kept him shut away most of the time after the priests had declared him hell spawn.
“I…well, I…” He fumbled with words before coughing. “Well, it’s just that I thought that someone might’ve written up on it, maybe even the possibility of curing it.”
He found himself in a tight, grateful embrace, gasping for breath. When the other nuzzled him, he tried to wiggle free.
“I’m only doing this because if I can curse you, I might be able to reverse whatever went wrong with me,” he grouched, narrowing his pink eyes at the other.
Pinky kept hugging him, undeterred. “So can I please stay? Zort! Please, Ghost?”
The more intelligent man blinked. “Ghost?”
“Well, it’s what the villagers call you, and you never told me your name.”
“My name is ‘Brain’.”
“Well, can I stay, Brain? Please? I can help! I promise!”
Glancing at his companion, Brain sighed. “We’ll have to gather more supplies-”
The crushing embrace somehow got tighter, cutting off the rest of what he’d wanted to say. “Oh, thank you, Brain!”
The intellectual had no response. He was too busy trying to get more oxygen into his lungs.
In the following years, the villagers changed the story of the local fiend. For when the sun set and the mists rose, instead of one white-skinned man, two could be seen. One of them was Ghost, the creature that had stalked their mountains for so long.
The other was Pinky, the spirit of a villager who-upon being cast out of the village-had become one of Ghost’s victims yet, for some strange reason, chose to stay with a demon as opposed to flying off to Heaven.