A Sweet Surprise
The first ingredient is love. The second ingredient is molasses. The third is strawberries, and the fourth is more molasses. It took only a few spoonfuls to impalagate her palette while she looked over at Lulu who was already on her second bowl of strawberries and cream soup, smacking her little purple lips with sweet ooze. Poppy nodded in familiarity, pursed her lips and put the soup down, Tristana's bowl soon followed. They met gazes. Tristana smiled, but Poppy could see it, she was one bite away from crying syrup. In terms of yordles, Lulu had to be the most yordlest of all.
"Thanks for the breakfast, Lulu. It was really… sweet of you." Poppy said.
"Wait," The blueberry faced girl waved her spoon at Poppy, "Aren't you going to wait for dessert?"
"I'm full, thanks. Today's the day I find that hero, after all." Poppy excused herself and was ready to begin her journey once more.
Tristana shook off her sugary coma and sat up to speak, "We haven't seen you in months and you're gonna leave, just like that?"
"Look, that hero isn't gonna find himself. It was nice seeing you both, but I made a promise."
"Aren't you gonna at least wait for lunch?" Poppy looked at Lulu who had asked, she was wearing a candy coated apron and holding a caramelized wooden stick.
"Hold on hot-shot, you got some explaining to do." Tristana snapped her fingers towards Poppy, "Like, firstly, we gotta talk about how you almost blew Lulu's head off with that shield of yours."
"What?" Poppy turned to look at them both, surely enough Lulu tugged at her heart with big kitten eyes. She wanted to play it off, but she did remember her buckler flying a foot or two, and she was probably more conscious than she wanted to remember.
"Look," Poppy rubbed the back of her head and thought for a moment, "I just remember seeing a uh… lion. Yeah."
"A lion." Tristana raised an eyebrow. It was no doubt a lie, but Poppy was not one to often lie, if ever. Why she said lion was a mystery, a bear would've made more sense. But a lion is what she said, perhaps it was because she was lying. "Here? In the middle of coolsville? Poppy. Afraid of a lion with her big so-called legendary hammer, given to her by some big ham?"
"Yes." Poppy clicked her eye and shot a quick finger gun at Tristana, however, what Tristana said also clicked, "No. Wait, what was that?"
"You heard me, the big ham. That uppity palooka with his belt, Orion, or Portland, or something."
"You got something against Orlon?" Poppy quickly clasped her fist into her hand, the next few words out of Tristana's words decided her fate.
"Oh, nothing, it's just that ever since you started hanging around those hairless monkeys it's been nothing but ears and elbows from you." Trist stood up and slammed her hand onto the table, calling Poppy's bluff, "You're gonna grow old and alone, doesn't that remind you of someone?"
"Don't you dare."
"I won't, but what's the point in helping a dead old monkey if it isn't gonna help you… plant more flowers?"
"Dead monkey, huh? Maybe if you weren't so catty you wouldn't be chasing after ghosts too."
Tristana's ears perked up and her pupils sharpened like daggers, The sky blue hair on her cheeks sprang up like needles.
"Relax Poppers, I was just joking." Tristana said as she dug her nails into the stump table. She smiled a toothy grin at Lulu who was quickly scooping more soup into her mouth. Then, right as Poppy turned around to make a quick dash Tristana muttered something indistinctly to Lulu.
Poppy stopped for a moment, she heard the name Buttercup thrown in Tristana's mumbling. She ignored it and continued walking away.
Just then Lulu blurted out, "She met a lion alright."
Tristana squinted her eyes and switched between looking at Poppy and Lulu with sharpened cat-like pupils.
"Well," Tristana's face glew up beautifully with her toothy smile and she pulled up her fingers to explain with furious eloquence, "First of all, that sounds like a tiger. Not a lion. Maybe you both should've paid more attention to Heimer's classes. You would know that tigers have the big fanged teeth and fluffy fur, Lion's are almost naked except for the big royal puff around their those are the studs, what's a gal to do in the middle of all this snow except freeze to death."
Tristana shot a glare at Poppy who simply rolled her eyes and began slipping into her breastplate. Once tristana got going, it was hard to get her to stop without a smack to the head. Tristana sighed and slumped into her chair holding her head as she solemnly looked down at her bowl. She and Lulu looked at each other.
"When do you think we'll see her again?" Lulu said loudly.
"I don't know Lulu," Tristana responded solemnly, "When was that last time we saw Teemo?"
"A few months ago."
"Double that."
Lulu groaned loudly, "I don't wanna see Poppy in double months!"
Poppy shook her head. As much as she loved hanging out with the gang, she wanted out. I can't dilly dally, Orlon's watching.
"Hey," Lulu sat up in her seat, "You wanna kill time by sharing secrets?"
"Would I?!" Exclaimed Tristana.
"You know-" Poppy sighed and took the bait, "Fine. Maybe I'm just a little cranky, okay?" Tristana and Lulu gave each other impish smiles, "I'll stick around for a little longer. Just like old times. "
Both yordlettes cheered gleefully and cheered as Poppy turned around and sat back in her seat.
"Wait," Poppy looked at the two yordlettes, "Where's the pipsqueak, I could've sworn I heard him last night."
"Oh yeah," Tristana stood up, "I told Rumble and Pix to look for Boomer in the woods." Tristana walked over to a bush and pulled out her cannon with a devilish giggle.
"I'll go get them," Tristana slapped Boomer over her shoulder, "Don't run away Poppers, I'll be back before you can say Orion."
Poppy rolled her eyes and began collecting her bearings. She double-checked the laces on her Jerkin, slid ash from the campfire across her teeth to clean her sugar doused palette.
A cutesy voice interrupted her, "Poppy."
Poppy turned around, "Yeah?" she thought Lulu would go off after Tristana and was a tad disappointed.
"Could you braid my hair please?"
Poppy sighed, "Alright, turn around." Lulu did as ordered and kicked the air from her little seat.
As Poppy began to braid her hair, Lulu began chanting songs and nursery rhymes. As much as she spited herself for wasting time, hearing Lulu, or any yordle for that matter, sing yordle nursery rhymes brought her an old warmth. Lulu hummed and chortled, and she began to sing the Piggy Song. She sang it once, then twice, and begged Poppy to join in. Despite her protests, Poppy joined in with her as she creased Lulu's violet hair.
Piggy piggy on the ground
Swirling snow around round round
Piggy piggy on the ground
Sitting with a flower crown
Don't forget to give me spring
Forget me in an icy ring
Piggy piggy on the ground
Turn that frown upside down
It didn't take long for Poppy to be caught in the merry. She slowed the braiding and joined in Lulu's delight. Before long, they were both singing and tossing their worries into the air. With a wave of her wand Lulu painted happiness into the air.
"Wow," Rumble interrupted the party and both yordlettes turned to look at him, Poppy especially disgruntled, "And here I thought you couldn't smile."
Poppy rolled her eyes and blew hair from her face. In all the merriment, she took off her armor and undid her hair. She looked around for her golden hair bands.
"I take it you finally took a bath?" Rumble shiftily looked around, somehow he outpaced Tristana and found his way home. He scurried towards the table and recoiled, "Lulu, what the hell? It's all candy. Who let you near the pot again?"
Lulu quickly turned away and pouted. Rumble didn't let up, "This'll kill us before that big nasty does. I should've never let Tristy lead me away from the pot again. This is gonna take ages to cle-"
"Big nasty?" Poppy quickly squared her shoulders, it wasn't the first or last time she'd sent Rumble flying, and this time he wasn't on his metal throne.
Rumble turned around and his expression fell into a quizzical frown, "You don't know?"
"Know what?"
"About Bandle City."
"Bandle City? What about it?"
"A monster levelled half the city alone."