Summary:
In which poor Branch has to deal with things he wishes he didn't have to deal with.
When Branch could finally experience the manifestation of his intense panic not only by the feel of the powerful vibrations emanating from his vocal chords, but now auditorily as well—presupposing high velocity movement had finally ceased, allowing the sound to travel to his ears instead of getting swept away by the fast-moving air—he could tell they'd made it to their destination.
That and it finally felt like death had stopped approaching.
He was surprised (and endlessly grateful) when he realized he was no longer surrounded by annoying white puffs on all sides. Or any side. He turned his head to note the reason for that being because the ones that picked him up seemed to be enthusiastically greeting a bunch of other cloud people nearby (and had pulled the living catalyst for his abduction into the writhing mass along with them, thank goodness). He takes advantage of their momentary distraction to inspect his surroundings while he had the chance (ever the opportunist).
He stood and nearly fell flat on his face as he lurched forward, which he thought was due to his knees being weak from the sudden adrenaline rush the rapid ascension caused, but when he looked down he noticed the ground was… not ground.
His heart skipped a beat and he immediately dropped onto all fours to distribute his weight over a larger area. He then took a scan around to note that everyone was milling about atop what appeared to be cloud. Just not anthropomorphic this time.
He hoped.
Well, time to test out the stability, he supposed. He gave a push with one hand. It definitely had some give, but even when he exerted all the force he could his hand didn't go through.
Solaced, he stood (only wobbling a little this time) and began to walk along the grou-… firmament (yeah, that was more accurate), to the edge. Once there he carefully peered over the brink of the fluffy platform (island, city?) hoping to see how high above ground they were, only to grimace when all that came into view were cirrus clouds below them, meaning they were pretty high up, but impossible to say just how high. Great. This would complicate his calculations, but no matter. He got into thinking mode.
Hmm, he figured he could try hairagliding, but the cloud moisture would in all likelihood make his hair soggy—and therefore functionally worthless—before he could get to a safe falling altitude. Same applied to hairachuting.
Might be worth it anyway.
... He raises one leg before being promptly yanked backwards by the arm.
"Hey, check this out!" He has approximately .7 seconds to intake the sight of several dozen oddly-shaped vibrant—verging on garish—flowers before being assaulted from multiple angles with powerful plumes of some kind of airy substance.
"Ahh! What the heck?!" He cries as he stumbles back.
"Those are called perflowers. They spray out different smelling perfumes based on their color. Aren't they amazing?" A cloud person with a cloud ponytail asks.
"Amazingly aggravating is what they are." Branch tries to scrub the smell off of him using wads of cloud he plucked from the firm.
"Unfortunately the smell wears off rather quickly I'm afraid." A cloud wearing a bunch of bracelets chimes in.
"Thank goodness for small mercies." Branch grumbles, dropping the pieces of fluff and turning tail to be anywhere but near there, only to receive a loud honk to the face. "Ahh!" He screams in surprise, falling on his rear.
"You like it? This one's a morning reveille." A cloud with a tie informs.
"If by 'like' you mean 'greatly detest' then yes, I like it very much." Branch gets out through gritted teeth, his ears ringing lightly.
"Alright everyone, time to go over the itinerary!" Someone shouts from a small ways off.
Branch was unsure how he didn't get trampled when the horde of clouds rushed to group around the shouter, who was holding a giant piece of paper.
He stands up and brushes off his pants, not that he needed to, cuz there wasn't any dirt to brush off. Huh, that was one upside of this place. Probably the only one. He would happily go straight back to his attempt at returning to sweet, sweet earth, but unfortunately Cloud Guy was now free to stand beside him with an arm around the troll's shoulders. Which he was currently doing. Branch's eyebrow twitched.
He tries pulling away from the nuisance, only for the noodly arm to stretch along with him, then gently snap him back into place. Branch lets out a small growl and decides to listen in on whatever inane drivel the giant group of talking clouds is spewing. He hears details of a bunch of random events and parties that start at seemingly random times, overlapping and everything, until the-
"Wait, so all this fuss is over a wedding?" Branch asks.
"That's right, Branchy-baby~" Cloud Guy confirms.
Branch would do him the favor of ignoring the nickname in the spirit of gathering more intel. "Okay, but why are we here now? It doesn't sound like the wedding is happening until tomorrow."
"Well you see, my poor ignorant Other Half, Clouds are very strict with attendance when it comes to weddings. Everyone shows up a day early so they can have more time to party before the ceremony, and so no one can possibly be late or miss it." Cloud Guy explains.
That… was actually rather pragmatic. Not that Branch would ever admit that out loud. "Gotcha." He mutters before he hears a loud, low-pitched whistle and sees all the clouds suddenly form two straight lines.
"Huh? What's happenin- AAHH!" Branch had no warning before four walls of cloud sprouted up around the two of them, fusing together above their heads and suddenly raising them a couple feet, jostling Branch hard enough for him to fall into Cloud Guy, who easily caught him, almost as if he'd been anticipating such a thing.
"Geez Branch, why so jumpy? It's almost like you've never ridden in a train made of cloud before." The sock-wearer says, clearly trying to hold back a snicker.
"That's because I haven't!" Branch spits while shoving off his vexer. He then pokes his head out the window-like aperture on his side to see that there did indeed seem to be an entire train made of cloud which had just… sprouted from the ground. He's tempted to ask how that even worked. But not tempted enough to go through with it. He crosses his arms in front of his chest and plops down on the seat as far away from the now-sitting Cloud Guy as he could, which wasn't very far considering the rather diminutive size of the train car. "So, who are all these clouds in the train anyway?" Branch asks somewhat grumpily, deciding to get some more information while he was stuck.
"'Clouds'."
"Huh?" Branch looks over at the other with a single raised brow.
"The species is 'Clouds', with a capital c." Cloud Guy informs as he settles in.
"Okaaay," Branch wonders how the vaporous dude could possibly tell whether his words began in majuscule or not. "So who are all these 'Clouds'?" He amends, allowing his annoyance to slip into his tone.
"Immediate family and close relatives." Cloud Guy replies without fanfare, staring ahead at seemingly nothing.
"What? But there's got to be at least fifty of them!" Branch exclaims, shocked.
"Yup, full deck to be exact." Cloud Guy mutters, arm laying casually on the other window-like opening.
Branch pauses before replying this time, unable to help but notice that Cloud Guy's whole demeanor seemed to have changed. "So… which one of them is getting married?" He asks in a softer tone than he'd been using up until that point, as he uncrosses his arms.
"Oh, none of them." Cloud Guy gave a non-committal wave, still staring ahead.
Wow, Branch couldn't recall having ever seen the annoying guy so, uh, non-incredibly hyper, enthusiastic and cheery before. Might even describe his current state as *gulp* glum.
It was making Branch uncomfortable.
"Oh. Friend of yours then?" The survivalist asked while trying not to fidget.
"Nah, just a couple random schmucks." The lumpy one murmured listlessly.
"Huh? If you guys don't even know them then why are you all attending the wedding?" Branch was confused.
"Like I said, Clouds are very strict with attendance when it comes to weddings." Cloud Guy sighed.
What? That answer didn't make any sense. Branch was about to ask him to elaborate when the train came to a jarring stop. The only thing that prevented him from smashing face-first into the wall ahead was Cloud Guy's arm that had snaked out across his chest just in time to anchor him to his seat. Cloud Guy didn't even look like he was actively paying attention, rather reacting on instinct, as he was still staring forward, seeming to be stuck somewhere in his own thoughts.
Branch just stared at him for a good few seconds and was about to thank him when the train suddenly disappeared and he fell the couple feet to the ground, landing on his butt.
"C'mon lazy bones, don't want to get left behind, do you?" Cloud Guy lilted before booping him on the nose and skipping ahead to catch up with where the rest of the group was walking.
Aaand just like that his gratitude suddenly vanished. "Actually I would like that very much." Branch grumbled, knowing full well he had to follow them despite his intense aversion to do such a thing, lest the blue-limbed menace come back and bodily retrieve him in what would invariably be an extremely annoying manner.
"This way, my little blue marshtato~!" Said menace called back when he had caught up with his group, some of who started 'awwing' at the term of endearment.
Branch was going to kill him
A/N: Hope you enjoyed this chap! Drop me a review to let me know what you thought~ :)