Chapter 1 Hello

"NO TROLL LEFT BEHIND" squeaked the tiny poppy as her father held her up to the crowd. After finally coming up with and successfully executing the escape plan, it was such a relief there were no casualties the trolls cheered and whooped as loud as they possibly could! Although, they probably would had done so anyway. Freedom after years enslaved by the burgens was victory in and of itself. And though tiny poppy did not truly understand what happened, even she could feel the excitement and hope that glistened on the faces of every troll in front of her.

As the group made there way onward, poppy imagined what their new home would be like. All she had ever known of the world was the large tree centered in Burgentown's square. She knew she would miss her pod, and the small flowers that grew around the base of the tree, but the hope and happiness that bubbled inside her was more than enough to make it up. Resting inside her fathers's hair, Poppy looked out at the crowd as they skipped and danced and sang forward. Almost everyone looked like they were having a good time. Small poppy did notice, though, one young troll who was not skipping or dancing or singing. It looked as though he was simply walking. His black hair bobbed slowly as he slumped along the moss. How odd! poppy thought. How could anyone NOT join in on the excitement that was filling the air? She watched him a little while longer. He looked to be about a year or so older than poppy was. His dark obsidian hair stuck straight up and contrasted drastically with the neon colors of the trolls around him. Even his skin was odd, a dark grayish green/ blue. Poppy had never seen a troll with colors like that before. She watched him from atop her fathers head for a little while longer, but eventually the excitement around her took over and she, too, began to sing and wiggle to some sort of beat that was filling the air.

10 years later

Branch had finally gotten the hang of living on his own. Planning, Constructing, and up keeping his new pod was hard work, especially since he had no family or close friends to help. But after 10 years of living in his new home, branch was able to carry out all chores and obligations fast and efficiently. It had been especially difficult since he also started work on a secret underground bunker. You can't be too safe. Branch knew that the burgens could return and if that happened he wanted to take all precautions necessary, even if that meant having no social interactions for days due to his work load. He had chosen to place his pod and bunker near the edge of the Troll village. He found that the noise level was bearable, since the trolls had some kind of festivity at least once a week. Being just 14 years old, Branch should have been in school right about now. Learning about ridiculous things like how to sing in different scales or how to dance a samba. Branch knew that his time was better spent away from that nonsense. At this moment, he was collecting moss. He planned to use it as stuffing for a new comforter, since the one he had now was thinning and winter was approaching.

Trolls rarely wandered through his secluded area of the village so as Branch leaned over a particularly dense patch of moss growing at the base of a large mushroom, he was surprised to hear the faint laughter of two trolls heading his way. He grunted. From the sound of it, they were both girls maybe around his age. Branch stood up straight just as the two voices rounded a boulder into view. One troll had bright orange dreadlocks tied up and a huge pair of head phones hanging around her neck. Although her pink color was the the more vibrant of the two, branch's eyes were immediately drawn to the other troll. Princess Poppy. Branch already knew who she was, of course. Everybody did. She was the princess. He doubted, though, that she knew anything about him. The two girls were laughing hysterically about something Princess poppy had said and for a second Branch thought that they were going to trip over each other. Jeez, how can people act like that even in private, branch thought slightly annoyed. Princess poppy was wiping a tear out of her eye as she looked up. She immediately spotted branch and gave him a big old grin. She elbowed her friend who also looked up, but who had to look around a bit before seeing what poppy noticed.

"Hey there!" Princess Poppy yelled as she waved a hand.

Branch paused for a moment. Reflexively he turned his head to see if Princess Poppy was actually speaking to someone behind him. No one. He turned back and saw that the princes had started skipping over to him. Branch wasn't quite sure what to do. Sure he COULD act social in social settings but usually he didn't want to. He usually found the singing and glitter to be just… too much, which usually put him in a mood.

"You're Branch right? Hi! I'm Poppy"

Surprised, Branch was at first wordless "Uh.. yeah I'm Branch. And…I know who you are." Poppy's bright eyes sparkled as she smiled at him.

"I've seen you around sometimes, but I've never had the chance to talk to you! I don't think I've seen you at school or anything though."

"uh, Yeah thats because I don't go to school."

"whoa really? Don't your parents make you go?"

"No. My parents are dead" Branch said with a flat voice.

"Oh… I… I'm sorry" Poppy suddenly got flustered and branch noticed her pink cheeks turning into an even darker shade of pink.

"It's fine. It was a long time ago." Branch's eyes flickered to the floor and then back up to Poppy. "So then why are you here, shouldn't you two be in school?"

Poppy seemed relieved that Branch had changed the awkward path that this conversation was going, "Yeah, hehe, well… me and my friend DJ Suki actually decided to… play hooky" Poppy leaned forward and whispered these last two words as though the leaves would hear and tell on them.

"oh, well, good for you two" Branch said in the same flat voice, this time with a small hint of sarcasm. He noticed that the friend, apparently named DJ Suki, had started dancing on her way over and had gotten so distracted that she was now full on disco-ing to some noise that was blasting from her head phones. "And, how do you know me?"

"Oh, I've seen you around the village!"

"No, I mean my name. How do you know my name?"

"Hehe, I've been learning all the names of all the villagers!" Poppy looked very proud. Branch was admittedly a little impressed as well. Despite how ridiculous the princess acted along with everyone else, learning every single persons name was not easy especially since there were close to 5,000 trolls.

"That's actually pretty impressive." He complimented.

"Thanks!" Poppy was beaming at his words. "Hey, Suki and I were gonna go explore the forest! Do you wanna come with?"

"Um, well I kinda have things here to finish up so…" Branch had gotten so used to automatically refusing an invitation that the words came out of his mouth before he had time to stop them.

"Nonesense!" Poppy grabbed his hand and started pulling him, "It'll be so much fun! We can dance and sing and,"

"I don't sing." a short silence followed.

"Oh, um, why not?" Poppy looked surprised but intrigued as well.

"I just hate singing, thats all" Again, branch looked around, trying not to make eye contact with Poppy.

Feeling that branch was getting uncomfortable poppy dropped it, "Okay! Thats fine! You can Just dance! Come on" and she pulled again on Branches hand. What was up with this girl? Branch thought. she barely knows me at all, yet she's acting like all she wants in the world right now if for me to go exploring with her?

Poppy pulled even harder on his hand until Branch eventually gave in and let her lead him away from the moss patch.

"SUKI! COME ON LETS GO! BRANCH IS COMING!" Poppy screamed at Suki who was listening intently to her headphone. Suki looked up excitedly and without removing her headphone exclaimed, "Poppy! I gotta go girl! I just had an EPIPHANY! Yo this new mix I'm coming up with right now is the shit!" She gave Poppy a wink and quick thumbs up toward Branch before she spun around quickly and started running back towards the village.

Still walking, Poppy said "Suki makes the sickest beats. I can't wait to hear what she's got brewing."

Branch looked over at poppy. She was smiling and looking of to where suki had disappeared between the trees. Why is she smiling? His gaze travelled down to their entwined hands. And why is she still holding my hand? he started to shake his hand loose and poppy let go.

"So what do you like to do?" She asked happily

"Oh, I mainly just work on my house. Preparing, you know." Branch replied. How in the world did he get into this situation. 5 minutes ago he was collecting moss quietly and now he was having a weird awkward conversation with the princess.

"preparing for what?"

"PREPARING FOR WHAT? Seriously, did you just ask that!" Branch said annoyed. Startled, Poppy jumped at his sudden volume, "Ummm… yes?"

"From the BURGENS, obviously! You know there gonna come back right?"

"What! No, we're totally safe! If they haven't found us yet, then I think we'll be fine!"

Branch rolled his eyes. Of course nobody ever believed him. But he knew. They were coming…

"Yeah sure whatever" He said quickly. Sometimes he just felt fed up.

Poppy glanced over at him. She could tell this was a touchy subject for branch "Well, I mean, yeah. I guess it is possible that they could still find us."

Branch stopped walking and looked at poppy. No one had ever actually agreed with him about the Burgens. Poppy realized that branch wasn't beside her anymore and turned. He was just looking at her, stunned. She smiled and giggled, "hey, are you okay?"

Branch was stunned he couldn't say anything back. He was looking at poppy as though he'd never seen her before. All he knew about the princess was that she was as much of a party animal as the rest of the village. He never thought that she would be the first one to at least entertain his apparently radical notion that the burgens could find them. He wasn't sure how long he had been staring.

"HEY BRANCH!" Branch blinked and realized that, yes, he had been staring for quite some time. "You okay? I called your name, like, 5 times."

"Oh, um yeah i'm fine. No ones ever… agreed with me before"

"what really? well, anythings possible, even the Burgens." She smiled at him sweetly. They started walking again deeper into the forest. The rest of their adventure was filled with friendly chit chat. Poppy laughing at some of the crazy and weird things branch said, while branch barely laughed at all. He did however smile during parts of their conversations, which was something he hardly did.

Once it was time to head home poppy walked with branch back to the moss patch she had first spotted him in.

"Well that was really fun Branch! Thanks for exploring with me" She beamed at him. Her gaze was so direct and she seemed so genuine that branch actually had a hard time coming up with words

"Yeah, it wasn't so bad" He gave a very soft, very small grin.

"Too bad you don't go to school, we could hang out way more if you did! anyway, I gotta get back home before my dad realizes that I'm later than usual" Poppy started leaning toward branch making him automatically lean away. Wait, what is she doing? His mind started panicking.

"what are you doing?" He blurted without thinking. Poppy didn't hesitate, she continued moving closer until realization dawned on him.

"I'm giving you a hug silly!" She succeeded in wrapping her arms around his body. Branch stayed as stiff as a board with his eyes shut. Poppy was still clueless and continued to hold on tight to him. In Branches opinion, Hugs were an unfortunate thing to get. Why in the world would he want to squish up to somebody else's body. Usually they made him incredibly uncomfortable. This time, though, for some reason it actually felt… nice? He relaxed a little into the hug and noticed that Poppy smelled a bit like honeysuckle. He began breathing in more deeply than usual. It was not uncommon for troll hugs to last 20, maybe 30 seconds. And whenever Branch would receive a hug he usually counted down the seconds until it was over. This hug he must have forgot to count, though, because when poppy eventually pulled away it surprised Branch how short it seemed and how he wished it had gone on a little longer.

"see you later!" Poppy said brightly. She turned and started to walk away. Branch stayed standing, watching her walk. A couple times she would turn to look back at him and wave until finally she had rounded the boulder out of sight. Branch let out a long sigh and leaned against the nearby mushroom shaft. Awe man he thought, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. He realized his neck was a little moist with sweat. Huh, weird. It wasn't a hot day, why was he sweating…Must have been from the hike… yeah… Branch refused to believe that his increased body temperature was due to the princess's hug.