Shadgirl2: Sorry for the wait.
Midna: With the recent holiday, we've been kind of busy.
Disclaimer: We don't own Trolls. Funshine, Joy, Wendy, Junior, Robert, Marvin, Baroque, and Harmony belong to me and Midna Azusa. All country songs mentioned belong to their respective creators, not us (see that section for songs and musicians). "Waltz of the Flowers" was composed by Tchaikovsky and doesn't belong to us, either.
Creek took a break from rebuilding Happy Fun Town to investigate something he'd heard about from some trolls in the town. A forest fire had burned up several acres of land not too far from the town before Funshine had become queen. He had some thoughts on what he might find out there, and he hoped he'd find something useful. Walking through the area, he could tell the fire had been serious. He could still see the remains of some of the trees that had stood there before littering the ground. He assumed the ash had since blown away or been buried.
"Oh, heavens. This place has clearly seen better days. The poor things," he said, casting a sympathetic look around at the devastation the fire had wrought. "Such a shame that such lovely trees were destroyed." He looked upon the remnants in mourning. Then, as he turned away, something else caught his eye. His eyes widened, surprised. "But wait. What have we here?" He smiled and headed toward some green plants—saplings no taller than him. In the late afternoon sunlight, they looked twice as beautiful. "These lovely young ones look so vibrant and healthy!" He looked around at the forest, both the devastation and the beauty hidden beneath, in awe. "So, even in the midst of destruction, true beauty can still be found." He put a hand to his chin, thinking about that, then said, "Hmm...I can use this..."
He headed back to town to get Funshine, more than ready to use everything he'd learned from Branch's inner being. Hey, if he could find happiness in a place filled with death, there was no reason Funshine couldn't.
Funshine and Joy were busy rebuilding a local bakery, with Joy restocking the shelves using the supplies Creek had brought and Funshine repairing the appliances.
"Well, the oven's almost back in working order," Funshine said as she poked out from behind it, a wrench in her hand. "How's it going on your end?"
"Pretty good, actually. Creek brought a lot of the things we didn't have anymore," Joy answered with a smile.
Funshine smiled slightly as she thought of the heroic guru troll and said, "You don't say?"
He was certainly doing a lot to help everyone in her town.
That's when Creek came over, waving at the two of them, a smile on his face. "Hello, ladies. How's it going?"
Joy looked at him and responded, "Not bad."
"Yeah. Thanks to you, we should have this place up and running in no time," Funshine agreed, giving him a grateful smile as she climbed out from behind the oven and pushed it back into place. "How can we ever repay you?"
Creek offered a gentle smile as he answered, "Well, I can think of one way, love. Are you about ready for that little stroll through the woods of ours? There's something I'd like to share with you."
Funshine blinked, looking nervous, and took a step back, cupping her hands under her chin. Something to share with her? What could he mean by that? Had he set up something special for this pity date of theirs? But nobody did anything too special for those, did they? No sane troll would fall for a gray, depressed troll like her, so what could be going on here?
She turned her unsure gaze on Joy, who waved at her encouragingly. Turning her attention back to Creek, the gray queen said, "...Uh, sure..."
The two of them headed out, with Creek smiling and wrapping an arm around Funshine's shoulders. "That a girl. Then let's be off," he said as they walked. "Say, has anyone ever told you you have a really cute-looking nose before?"
Joy watched them go, smiling a bit. She whole-heartedly approved of Creek and Funshine being together, and she was willing to work on this place alone if it meant someone took care of her best friend. With that in mind, Joy got back to fixing up the bakery, intent on having that done by the time Funshine returned.
Creek took Funshine out to the forest, bringing her to the place he'd just left. "Here we are, love. This forest was recently devastated by a terrible wildfire. You can still see the signs of it in the form of burned tree bark, dead tree remains, and scattered branches. Clearly, the fire was severe." As they moved through the forest, he looked around at the destruction sadly.
Funshine looked around in awe, wondering why Creek brought her here. Had she been mistaken in thinking this was any kind of date? Even a pity date wouldn't involve a trip to somewhere this depressing. Feeling like an absolute fool, she looked down sadly. "Yeah...this place used to be called the forest of flowers because its trees were always filled with all kinds of them. But then the storm hit, and..." She trailed off, not wanting to think about that day.
A lightning bolt struck a tree during a severe thunderstorm, and there wasn't much anyone could do to stop the fire that started. Nobody was hurt in the forest fire, thankfully, and they'd managed to find the critters new homes. Still, the thought of that day was depressing—just not as bad as the day the Party Crashers attacked.
Creek nodded solemnly and closed his eyes. "Ah, yes, I see..."
Funshine turned to him, more upset and confused than before, and asked, "Why did you bring me out here, Creek? This is the most depressing part of the forest. What could you possibly want to show me here?"
He couldn't be mocking her for being as bad off as these woods or something. He wasn't that kind of troll. Was he? Maybe she'd misjudged him and he was about to poke fun at her somehow. There wasn't anything good out here, after all.
Creek smiled gently and said, "I'll show you. Come over here and take a closer look." He took her hand and brought her closer to the saplings he'd seen before. "What do you see?"
The leaves of the young trees were still glistening in the afternoon sun, making it somewhat more difficult to miss them in an area filled with death. Funshine stared at them, amazed. "Th-this is..."
So he wasn't trying to mock her. He wanted her to see the new life out here, surrounded by the darkness of that day. It was sort of breathtaking to think that anything could grow out there, but...
Creek smiled as he walked them over to one of the plants and gently lifted a leaf. "That's right, love. After the fire lit up, the trees that died were made to release some seeds that fell to the ground and started to grow into these lovely new saplings, just bursting with the essence of new life and fertility. Each one a shining, new beacon of the forest's eventual return." He looked away and gestured at the ruins of the forest, still smiling. "And, even though they are currently surrounded by darkness and destruction, they don't let it stop them from showing off their true beauty and elegance." Seeing a pretty teal flower growing in a small patch nearby, Creek picked it and turned to face Funshine, still smiling, as he continued, "So, as you can see, love, there's still beauty to be found in the midst of destruction. All it really needs is a chance to shine." He handed her the flower.
Funshine still looked astounded at this entire thing as she took the flower. Beauty amid disaster wasn't something she'd ever considered before. Yet here it was—flowers, grass, and saplings growing healthy in the middle of a burnt forest. It didn't seem possible, but Creek was making sense. She looked at the flower in her hand in wonder.
"I...I never really thought about it that way before... Beauty..." she closed her eyes as she spoke, "in the ashes of destruction..." She sniffed the flower as she pondered Creek's words.
Creek smiled gently once again. It seemed Branch's advice was working better than he'd expected. He should really ask that guy for advice more often—when dealing with moody or upset trolls, at least. Hair knew Branch knew nothing about happy ones. "That's right, love. It's not impossible to find happiness in the midst of a storm. All it takes is the willingness to get back up again when you get knocked down." He gestured around at the forest and added, "Just like this forest, we, too, can learn to recover from a disaster and return to life as it was before. All we have to do is try."
Funshine smiled at him slightly, hope and affection showing in her eyes. She really was growing quite attached to this troll. He was so wise and caring that she couldn't think of who wouldn't fall head over heels for him. "Yeah..."
Hearing some doubt in her tone, Creek took a couple of steps toward her and took both of her hands in his, looking into her eyes with a reassuring gaze as he tried to emphasize his point. "It's true, love. Sure, things might look bleak right now, but you, too, can pull through it and find everything you lost in the flames. All you have to do is believe."
Funshine smiled back at him lovingly and said, "Thanks, Creek. I needed that."
Creek smiled back at her, glad this little adventure seemed to have helped her.
Funshine pulled away then, looking off to the side uncertainly. "So...uh...the party area's just about finished... Care to help me reopen it with a party tonight to celebrate? It's cool if you'd rather not, though..." She shuffled a foot, hoping he wouldn't reject her, despite her words. After all, who asked a guy on a date to help set up a party? Wouldn't it make more sense for her to ask him to go to it?
Maybe she should have kept her mouth shut. That was absolutely stupid.
Creek smiled back and took her hands again. Funshine looked back at him, her uncertainty showing plainly on her face. He knew what she really wanted. Besides, a party sounded like a great way to perk everyone back up. Funshine must have known it, too, from the look of her aura.
"I wouldn't have it any other way."
She smiled back at his answer, glad that he'd agreed to help her with that. Sure, her people would hopefully love it, but it was still a lousy idea for a date. "Thanks..."
Of course, if her people didn't like this one, she'd really feel like an idiot. Why waste time on such a goofy date idea if it didn't help anyone feel better? Why was that what she asked Creek in the first place?
"Now, come along, love. Hosting a party takes a lot of work, and we don't have much time to spare if we aim to get it all set up in time," Creek said as he headed back toward town.
Funshine smiled, watching him go. "Right." She cast an affectionate look at the flower he'd given her, blushing slightly, and giggled a bit.
There was no doubt in her mind. Creek was the coolest troll ever, especially since he seemed to be falling for a moody, depressed mess like her.
In Lonesome Flats, Branch was shucking corn in the silo while Wendy guarded the door to keep him from making a break for it. The sheer number of husks he was expected to get through before 5 PM left him in disbelief.
"1000. Before 5. In less than 3 hours. What do these guys think I am, a machine?" he complained to himself as he worked on this insurmountable task. "And, while I'm stuck here learning how to be a farmer, Smidge is in jail, Fuzzbert and Aspen are Rock Troll captives, Guy's either dying of dehydration or in trouble with the Funk Trolls, Satin and Chenille are probably being forced to become Classical Music Trolls, DJ and CJ might have drowned with the Techno Trolls, and who knows what happened to the others! Why, for all I know, Biggie and Cooper were killed on sight, mistaken for invaders themselves!" He sighed and looked up, worry for his friends overshadowing all other emotions he'd been feeling lately. "How do we get out of this mess? I mean, it's obvious how we got into it—we let Poppy's optimism run away with any kind of sense she has. If it was just us in trouble, I'd serve my stupid time, no problem. But everyone else needs help, too! What am I supposed to do about this!?"
If anything happened to the others because he'd failed to get himself and Poppy out of here in time, Branch would never forgive himself. No, he didn't really blame Poppy for it in spite of his attitude—she was just trying to help other trolls, compassionate and caring as she always was. It was one of the things he loved about her, that she always wanted to help everyone. But, since he knew she was always trying to help and being super optimistic, he should have been better prepared for if something went wrong so that they didn't find themselves in exactly the kind of situation they now did. Angry as he was, most of that was directed at himself, and he knew he needed to stop taking it out on Poppy. It wasn't her fault she was naive and trusting.
Someone knocked on the door then, and Wendy's concerned voice called, "Ya alright in there!? It's not that hard shucking corn, now, is it?"
"No, I'm fine!" he called. In a mutter, he added, "Unlike everyone I know." He tossed another corn cob onto his small pile—he only had about 30 done, so he wasn't even close to finished. He reached for the next husk he had to clean (he was pretty sure this was the only variety of corn that actually popped, so he wasn't sure what they planned to do with all this popcorn).
As he worked, he thought more about the trolls in Lonesome Flats. "They hate Pop Trolls and everything we stand for, no doubt about that. Or, rather, they hate everything my queen stands for."
Granted, Poppy was a typical Pop Troll, while Branch was a little strange. The Country Trolls technically did hate everything about the Pop Trolls. Still, it was probably best not to think about that right now. He didn't need to start feeling like a weirdo again right now. He had bigger problems to deal with.
"But Delta Dawn started flirting with me after I sang a country song. Maybe I can still figure a way out of here using their genre," he said, pulling his thoughts away from the fact that he was a total misfit back home. Muttering, he added, "Might have to actually become a Country Troll, but I'll do it if it saves the others."
Poppy, of course, was included in that. He might have been a bit miffed at her for not noticing that Larry was flirting with her, but it wasn't her fault if she was oblivious. The main thing that was bothering him right now, really, was that she thought it was acceptable to go into someone else's town and tell them how to run the place. That was the entire reason they were in this mess in the first place, and he should have known she'd do something like that. Why hadn't he come up with a plan to get them out of such a mess or stop it from happening in the first place!? How could he be so reckless!?
Junior barged in then, a lazy smile on his face that made Branch think of Larry for a second. He was pushing a wheelbarrow. "Hey, there, partner! Pa needs some corn for tonight's bonfire. Ya got any ready fer me to haul out?" He looked more bored than tired, which Branch found nothing short of amazing.
Well, that answered Branch's question about the popcorn. No wonder they needed it ready by tonight.
"What I've got's right there," Branch answered, gesturing at the pile before he returned to tearing the husk off another ear.
"Much obliged," Junior responded, and he started loading up some of the ears of corn.
Since there was now someone to hear him complaining about the Country Trolls, Branch chose to continue his plotting silently. If I'm going to convince the mayor to let us go, I need to learn country songs, and quick! Maybe she'll actually be reasonable if I start singing things she likes. And maybe Junior can help me out with that...
Junior did seem to like him, and Branch could honestly say he was growing fond of the farm troll himself. Just because Mayor Delta had a hot temper and didn't treat anyone fairly didn't mean all of her people were trouble.
"Hey, Junior, you wouldn't know any really amazing country songs, would you?" Branch asked casually.
"Huh? Why'd ya ask?" Junior asked, looking at Branch curiously as he paused his work.
"The mayor wants me to sing at the bonfire tonight, and, well... I'm pretty sure pop isn't what she had in mind. I don't know any country songs besides the ones you and your dad taught me today."
Well, there were the things that Rufus sang back in Troll Village, but they sounded so different from anything he'd heard here that Branch worried that he might offend the Country Trolls more if he dared sing one of those.
Junior stared at him, eyes wide. "Really?"
"Yeah. Pop Trolls generally consider country music depressing, so it's not a big hit back home," Branch admitted, hoping Junior wouldn't mind this revelation about Pop Trolls' thoughts on his beloved genre.
He got lucky. Junior smiled, apparently unbothered. "Well, shoot, man. I can't believe ya actually got Mayor Delta's approval! Now I'm plum jealous!" He laughed a bit.
As if Branch really wanted the mayor's approval. He just needed her to decide they weren't a threat to Lonesome Flats so she'd pardon them for their crimes.
"Yeah, well, I'll be losing it pretty quick if I don't learn some country," Branch said.
Junior's face lit up with excitement. To think that his new Pop Troll friend was good enough to get to do a live performance for Mayor Delta herself! He was really starting to admire this country-loving Pop Troll. He wanted the chance to impress the pretty mayor himself.
"Well, why didn't ya say so!? That's not a big thing! In fact, we got plenty of good 'uns ya can choose from. What ya lookin' for as yer theme tonight?"
"Uh...something that'll make it brutally clear that I actually kinda like country music?" Branch suggested, hoping there was something that could do that.
"Yer darn tootin' are ya?" Junior asked, looking ecstatic. "Well, in that case, perhaps one of these will pique yer interest!" He pulled out a pen and notepad from his hair and quickly scribbled down some songs (titles and lyrics) before tearing out the pages and handing them to Branch.
Junior was really glad he'd met this guy. Branch truly did love country music. Still, the Country Troll wished he could take his place when it came to Mayor Delta.
"Thanks," Branch said, glancing over the list of songs briefly. "Gone Country" by Alan Jackson, "A Country Boy Can Survive" by Hank Williams, "Working Man's Ph. D." by Aaron Tippin, "Country Boy's World" by Jason Aldean, "Play Something Country" by Brooks and Dunn, and "It's Alright to Be a Redneck" by Alan Jackson were the titles of some of the songs. It was going to take him a little while to go over that whole list and pick the right one, and he hoped he'd have time for it when he was done shucking corn. If not, he'd be left with nothing to sing—at least, nothing that would help him very much. He stuffed the list down his shirt. "I'll take a look at those later. I'd better see if I can get this finished first." He turned his attention back to the absurdly high pile of corn husks before him. Not sure even I can get 970 more of these stupid things done by 5, but I'll try.
Junior grinned, seemingly proud. "Think nothin' of it. Just keep on singin' them country songs ya learned, and the work'll—"
"Junior, get yer lazy butt in gear, son!" Robert called, interrupting Junior.
Junior jumped, startled. "R-right! Comin', Pa!" He rushed out with the first wheelbarrow of corn, presumably to get it prepared for the bonfire.
"How many times we gotta go over this, boy? There'll be plenty of time for fun when the work's all done!" Robert said.
"Sorry, Pa! But Branch wanted..." Junior answered, his voice getting quieter as he moved out of earshot.
Branch stared for a moment. Junior had taken, what, 5 minutes to stop and talk, and that was a problem? He shook his head, muttering, "Pretty sure Poppy's right. These guys work too hard. Still shouldn't be trying to change them, though."
He needed to keep that mindset, even if he personally wanted them to stop working themselves to death. For one, trying to change them would just prove them right about Pop Trolls. For another, he knew how it felt to have people think you needed to change the way you were. He didn't want to change everything about himself, either, so he wasn't about to tell the Country Trolls they had to change, especially when he hardly knew anything about them.
Regardless, he got back to work shucking corn. If he didn't get it done in time, he knew that list in his shirt would be meaningless. He probably wouldn't even be at the bonfire.
There were few things that could stop the Funk Trolls in their path, but a power outage was definitely one of them. When their flying city lost power, emergency power switched on, which meant certain non-essential electronics stopped working until the problem was fixed.
When the lights went out, Guy was trying to wash graffiti off the walls. However, emergency lights or no, it was difficult to see what he was doing. He chucked his sponge down into the bucket of water in frustration, complaining, "Oh, for crying out loud! How's a guy supposed to get anything done in a situation like this? And what about the rest of my friends!? How can we ever hope to rescue them if we can't even—"
Marvin made a placating gesture as he said, "Calm down, Guy. We'll get everything sorted out. Chill."
The Funk Trolls were running all over the place just trying to find what the problem even was. One opened up the fuse box and marveled at it. "Uh, George!? About 12 of the fuses just blew all at once!" he called out.
"Well, that's a new one!" George said, coming over. "Never had that many out at once!"
Guy stared in their direction, concerned. If they'd never had so many fuses blow at once before, how long would it take them to fix it? "Uh...they can fix all of those right away, can't they? And, uh, how many of those things do you guys have? Enough still working to keep us from faaaalling, I hope?"
He may not have known much about Vibe City's technology, but he did know it had to take a lot of power for the city to stay airborne, and 12 blown fuses seemed like it should be enough to knock them out of the air. Maybe a city in the sky wasn't such a great idea.
Marvin laughed. "Oh, don't worry about that! Power outages are common enough that we have different ways of making sure we stay airborne," he answered. If all else failed, their emergency power supply was good enough to enable them to make a safe landing so they could resolve the situation.
Guy wiped the sweat from his brow, relieved. "Phew! Thank goodness. I thought we were goners for suuuurreeee!"
Unseen by either of them, another Funk Troll ran to the royal family. As if the power outage wasn't bad enough, a duck hawk had arrived with a message while they were stalled in the air. It was addressed to King Quincy, so it had to be important. Hopefully, Mayor Delta wasn't planning another war with one of the other tribes, but it wouldn't really be surprising if she was.
"King Quincy, a message from Mayor Delta!" said a messenger, running into the room where the entire Funky family was. The three all turned to him, concerned.
"Dang. Her timing couldn't be worse! Hold on a second while I take this outside," King Quincy said as he and the messenger headed for the balcony. Emergency lighting was fine for finding the source of the outage, but it wasn't great to be reading by. His wife and son followed, curious as well.
Outside, where the setting sun provided more light than the dim ones inside, Quincy turned to the messenger and said, "Ah, that's better. Alright, lay it on me, dog! What's going down?"
The troll unfolded the letter and read:
Dear King Quincy,
I've got a bit of a problem on my hands. As I'm sure you've noticed by now, there are a bunch of Pop Trolls running around making a mess of everything, and I've just received a letter from one of them asking if her friends can come bail her out of trouble. Turns out, she got arrested for stealing from her own kind in a city called United City. Her name is Smidge, and she needs her friends to go help her out. And, while I do have two Pop Trolls here myself, I'm afraid I am unable to release them for crimes against the state. So, if it's not too much trouble, could you handle this?
Sincerely,
Mayor Delta Dawn.
P.S. - I've enclosed Smidge's letter to her friends for help. Good luck.
"Oh, shoot! That ain't good!" Essence said, growing concerned. After all, Guy had told them his queen went there.
"Crimes against the state? That's not just 'not good.' That's a disaster waiting to happen!" D said, worried himself.
Arresting two trolls for criminal activity in her town was one thing, but Mayor Delta had chosen to arrest a foreign queen while she was at it. That was trouble with a capital T.
"For real, D. This just got serious. And just our luck, the power went out now, of all times. Is that girl cursed or somethin'?" Quincy wondered, looking a bit amazed at how rotten this foreign queen's luck seemed to be.
First, her friend Guy Diamond got in trouble for snooping around where he shouldn't, then they'd found out she'd sent two trolls to Volcano Rock City unprepared, and now another of her friends was in trouble with their own tribe while the queen herself had also gotten herself arrested! Add in the power outage in Vibe City that was keeping them from checking on any of the stray Pop Trolls, and this young queen was both ignorant and plain unfortunate. Maybe there was some kind of curse making her have such a bad time of it. It would certainly explain why the Pop Trolls were all so clueless, at least.
While Quincy debated whether curses existed and the Pop queen was plagued by one, the messenger took out Smidge's letter and quickly skimmed over it. "The letter from the other Pop Troll says she's supposed to get her queen and all of the others to come testify," he said, looking back to the royal family. "Guy alone wouldn't be enough, especially since he isn't in charge of the Pop Trolls' hometown."
"Which means we'd need to gather as many as we possibly can!" Quincy said.
"Easier said than done, what with the power out like this," Essence said as she looked back inside at the dim lighting as she grew very concerned for the Pop Trolls.
If those few were having this much trouble, who could say how the ones in Volcano Rock City were faring? They could have been in worse trouble than anyone thought. It was too bad they were closer to Lonesome Flats than Volcano Rock—they needed to hurry up and get over there before disaster struck. At this rate, Essence was hoping there wouldn't be a war between Rock, Country, and Pop in the near future. One attempted war between the tribes was bad enough—they didn't need three of the tribes trying to start one.
"I'll go see what's up," D said, heading back into Vibe City.
"Good call, D! You do that!" his dad agreed.
"Be sure to tell us what's goin' on! You know our communication team only knows how to use the intercom!"
If D didn't come talk to them, most other Funk Trolls wouldn't, either. Having so much technology was both a blessing and a curse—if anything failed on them, nobody knew how to do things in any low-tech way.
"Will do, Mom!"
Quincy turned to Essence, thinking about this huge failing in their society, and said, "You know, we should really do something about that one of these days. It's almost as if our whole community's gotten so dependent on computers, they've forgotten how to function without them."
"I feel you there, Q. I feel you."
When the conductor found Satin and Chenille, the Pop twins were practicing a short version of "Waltz of the Flowers" by the pond. They weren't doing too badly, either, and Chenille was showing great potential.
"You're doing wonderfully, Chenille!" Baroque praised, glad to have such a naturally gifted student.
Looking overly pleased with herself, Chenille smirked at her sister. Satin gave her an annoyed look, which prompted Harmony to say, "Oh, it's okay, Satin! You're doing good, too!"
"Just not wonderfully," Chenille teased.
"Well, I guess you have to be better at something," Satin retaliated with a smirk.
Chenille gave a start, eyes widening in shock. Then she smirked at her twin and said, "Good zinger, sis."
Trollzart simply watched the two in amazement for a bit. He hadn't expected two Pop Trolls to genuinely show interest in his genre, let alone do so well at learning it. "Oh, good golly! Those two really are doing quite well for themselves, aren't they?" He flew over to them, looking just as cheery as their two instructors, and said, "Oh, how marvelous! Simply beeauuutiful!" He drew the word out a bit for added emphasis, his hands on his cheeks. "I have to say, ladies, when you first got here, I wasn't too sure of you, fearing that you'd come to convert us into Pop Trolls. But now I see that you're just as much fans of our music as we are."
"Well, to be fair, we weren't sure about your music when we got here," Chenille admitted.
"But we never wanted to turn you into Pop Trolls!" Satin assured him.
Trollzart's expression turned neutral as he braced himself for the hard part of this conversation. Hopefully, the Pop ladies were in a forgiving mood or he could find himself gearing up for war for the second time. "Yes. I can see that quite clearly now." He bowed his head apologetically and said, "My apologies for the way I've been treating you." He looked back up at them as he added, "But, with what's written in the history, you can never be too careful."
"Fair," Chenille said, and Satin nodded in agreement, much to the conductor's relief.
Maybe he wouldn't have to worry about a war with the Pop Trolls. It seemed these two were forgiving enough that they might not tell their queen what happened or would, at least, omit some less pleasant details.
Relieved, he smiled brightly and clapped his hands together. "Well! I can see we've got nothing to fear from the both of you! Then you hereby have my permission to go at any time," Trollzart told them with a smile.
"Oh," Satin said, sounding a bit disappointed.
"Right... Does that mean we can stay if we want to?"
That was unexpected. Apparently, they didn't just appreciate classical music but had even come to enjoy it. Trollzart smiled proudly as an idea dawned on him. "Well, I don't see why not. As a matter of fact, I would be honored if you did stay to help me usher in a new era in which Pop Trolls and Classical Trolls live together in harmony!" He threw his arms out, beaming with excitement. Then he blinked and lowered his arms, looking at the twins uncertainly. "Uh, that is, assuming your queen wouldn't want us to change," he added as an afterthought.
"Poppy? No," Satin said confidently.
Chenille elaborated, "If she wanted you to change, she'd have to start turning her boyfriend into a better Pop Troll...and, considering we're allowing him to decide what about himself he wants to change and what he wants to leave, I don't think she's planning on that."
Trollzart chose not to ask about their queen's lover. If he was somewhat unusual by Pop standards, who was he to complain? It just made the twins' promises more convincing. "Well, then, I see no reason why we can't be friends, either. What do you say, ladies? Will you stay and help me make that happen?" Smiling, he held out a hand.
Satin and Chenille looked at each other, both smiling, before Chenille shook the Classical Troll's hand. "We'd love to, conductor."
Trollzart smiled back at them, looking extremely proud now. Then he clapped a bit and said, "Splendid, my lovelies! Simply splendid! Then there's no time to waste! I'll have Harmony here send for you at 7. We can discuss matters further then, at dinner. I expect you both to dress accordingly as we'll be dining and Affabile Nocturne, and it's the classiest restaurant in town!"
The twins both oohed appreciatively. The idea of dining in the fanciest restaurant in Symphonyville with the conductor would have been absurd to them just a day ago, given that he hadn't seemed fond of them. The significance of this event wasn't lost on them.
"Don't worry," Chenille said, already thinking of designs for the outfits they'd need to make for this occasion. "We'll be sure to dress accordingly."
"We always do," Satin added with a smile, waving a hand out to her side.
"Very good! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a few errands to run before then. Carry on," Trollzart said before flying off.
This was unexpected, but he was overjoyed, regardless. Satin and Chenille had just told him that their queen would leave classical music alone, which wasn't consistent with her ancestors' behavior. Not only that, she apparently allowed one of her own to stand out and act differently from the rest. Perhaps there was a way they could get along, after all. If the Pop Trolls had seen the error of their ways, then they might be able to live together in harmony again.
But only time would tell.
A/N: Not really important, but I got the inspiration for the scene with Branch having to shuck 1000 husks of corn in a day from an episode of Ed, Edd, n Eddy that had Ed peeling potatoes in Rolf's shed. I don't remember how many potatoes it was, but it looked like a ridiculous amount.