When all the pancakes had been eaten and the plates cleared away, Branch took Poppy's hand and lead her out of the kitchen and down the staircase.
"Time to begin your 'queenly' duties for the day." Branch joked as they walked.
"Yeah!" Poppy beamed, excited. She loved being out with everyone, singing and dancing and hugging. Especially with a certain blue Troll.
"Good morning you two!" A voice interrupted the conversation, and a moment later Cooper appeared beside them.
"How long have you been up?" Branch glanced sideways at him.
"Oh, a while." Cooper grinned. "Been getting everyone else up! The day is too good to waste not dancing." With that, he disappeared again down a branch to their left, and leaning over the edge, Poppy saw that a dozen or more trolls were already down on the branch below. They milled about, some sitting and eating breakfast and others standing together and having duets in the early morning sun. Their voices floated up through the leaves to reach Poppy and Branch, and a moment later they saw Cooper join them.
"We'd better get down there." Branch suggested, taking Poppy's hand.
"Ooh! It looks like fun!" Her eyes were clearly fixed on the Trolls singing together. "Let's go!"
With that, she dragged him off the branch and used her hair to swing them down to the one below. Immediately, the Trolls in the immediate area gathered around them, voices raised in happy greeting, and proceeded to envelop them both in a group hug.
"Good morning queen Poppy! And you Branch!" DJ Suki beamed at them.
"It feels like it's been forever!" Guy Diamond crowed, squeezing the life out of Poppy.
She laughed, and squeezed him back.
"It's only been one night!"
Amongst the greeting and chatter, Peppy's voice rose louder.
"Today is the day! The final trip back to the old camp before it is abandoned forever." He wiped an imaginary tear from his eye. "What memories we have there!"
Poppy nodded. "We know dad! We're heading there in a while. Right after this!" With that, she bounded forward toward the group of singing Trolls, and joined right in.
Behind a wall of Trolls hugging him, Branch watched her go. He sighed, and then smiled. He might not ever get used to all this hugging and being around so many other Trolls all the time, but as long as Poppy was happy, he was happy. She deserved to be after everything she had done for them all. Without her, he would have never found happiness at all.
"Alright! That's enough." Peppy parted the Trolls surrounding Branch and pulled him out of the throng. "I wanted to talk to you, my boy. Come with me."
With that, he led him further down the Branch, away from every other Troll. More were gathering now, emerging from pods and rubbing sleep from their eyes. Branch spotted Chenille and Satin drop down from their shared pod and join in, taking Poppy by the hands and spinning her around. He watched as she laughed, the sound muted to his ears by the roaring noise of dozens of Troll voices separating her from him. He took one more wistful glance at her before Peppy pulled him around the corner.
"How can I help you King Peppy?" Branch spoke as he stopped, turning to look at him.
"Just Peppy now." Peppy corrected him, and Branch cringed a little at his mistake.
"Ah, sorry."
"Don't be sorry, it's perfectly alright. Now, I've pulled you away from everyone to speak to you privately. It's very important that you don't mention this to Poppy though."
Branch nodded seriously, eyes fixed on the old King. "What is it?"
"When you become king-"
Branch's eyebrows shot up and he opened his mouth to interrupt, but Peppy silenced him with a raised hand.
"-And you will become king. That much is obvious. You must promise me to look after Poppy. She means well, but she is impulsive. Don't think that I don't know about how you saved her from those spiders all those months ago. I haven't forgotten and neither has she. Without you, she would have died."
Branch nodded seriously, and this time stayed quiet, waiting for Peppy to continue.
"Without you, I fear she will be too impulsive to rule on her own. You should be by her side, level headed as you are. I've never met a Troll more responsible than you are. Promise me Branch."
Branch blinked, and then nodded. "I promise."
He hadn't expected the conversation to be so serious, but he supposed he should have expected it. Poppy was Peppy's daughter, and he was old. He couldn't always be there to look after her and stop her from making rash decisions.
"Good. Now let's get back to the party. I suppose you'll be leaving for the old camp soon."
Branch nodded once more, and then began to make his way back, walking beside the old king.
As he walked, he thought about what Peppy had said, and then about the mission back to their old home. There were but a few items remaining to collect, and once they had them, there would be no need to ever return there again. A part of him felt sad, nostalgic for his bunker. He knew he wouldn't want to go back to living that miserable life again, but it had been his home for twenty long years. For a moment, he wondered if Poppy felt the same about her pod.
Once they had reached the ever growing crowd of Trolls, it took Branch a moment or two to spot Poppy. He saw her bright pink pony tail first, bobbing along in the mass of yellows and blues. He began to make his way toward her, nudging aside chatting Trolls as he went. Some were dancing, others singing, and Branch had to dodge quite suddenly to avoid being smacked in the face by a purple Troll's foot.
"Poppy!" His voice was drowned out by the now at least hundred other voices around him. She was only ten feet away now, but had her back to him. Frustrated, he shot his hair out and wrapped it around her wrist. As she squealed and spun around, he withdrew his hair and put his hand in the air to wave at her. When she saw that it was just him, she smiled and waved back, before pushing her way through the crowd to meet him at the edge.
Breathless from the crush, Branch spoke first. "Shall we go?" He smiled.
"Yes!" Poppy was breathless too, face a little pinker too, glowing with exhilaration. Clearly she had been having a lot of fun.
Once Branch had grabbed his pack from their bedroom, the two of them proceeded to the top of the tree, to the tunnel exit. It was the quickest way in and out of Burgentown, and did not carry the risk of being squashed underfoot.
"So what exactly have we left to collect?" Branch asked as they walked.
Poppy pulled a list out of her pocket and read from it.
"A few books that Blackberry left behind, A shirt and a waistcoat belonging to Tweak, and Bumble's teddy bear- oh no! Bumble left his teddy bear behind!" She frowned, glaring down at the list. Bumble was one of the small Trolls that Poppy taught.
"Hey, don't worry." He took the list from her and stuffed it in his pocket, taking her hand in his instead. "We'll get it and it'll be okay."
She squeezed his hand and nodded. "Okay." The frown remained though.
After an hour or so of walking, they had reached a large field. Poppy remembered traveling through it the first time around with Branch, and she turned to him, eyes bright. "This is where those super soft dandelions were!" She nearly skipped in between the stalks and disappeared from view. Branch eventually found her perched atop a fluffy dandelion puff. She beamed down at him, and squealed with glee when he rolled his eyes, smirking, and began to climb the stalk after her.
"Yay Branch!" She cheered when he finally reached the top. Sitting beside her, he wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her cheek. The view was beautiful, and the sun shone brightly, nearly directly overhead. Midday was approaching, and the couple felt it in the glaring heat that seemed to rise from the ground in waves.
Giggling, Poppy plucked a single dandelion seed with puff attached and put it in Branch's hair.
"Hey!" He glared playfully at her. "You naughty Troll. How dare you."
Poppy simply smiled sweetly at him, holding back giggles, and then smiling wider as Branch kissed her on the cheek and pulled her into a cosy hug. "I love you anyway."
"I love you too!" She hugged him back, blushing a little. If the blush was from his words or from the heat, she couldn't tell.
The rest of the day was filled with sweet conversation and the occasional hug whenever their bracelets went off. Branch had retrieved his from a dusty box back at the bunker a week or so after he got his colours back. He had worn it ever since. The flower was soft blue, and Branch realised quickly that he had missed the comforting ding to mark the passage of time, and to mark when he would get to hug Poppy. He would never miss an opportunity to do that.
They were just setting up camp for the night when it happened. A sharp pain shot through Branch's body just as he bent down to unroll his sleeping bag.
Poppy heard his cry go up from the other side of the fire where she was unrolling her sleeping bag, and she immediately spun around, half expecting to see Branch being attacked by a monster, but found only him there, by himself as she'd left him. He was kneeling on his sleeping back, head down and arms clutched tight around his belly. He was groaning low in his throat, and he seemed to be quivering.
"Branch?!" Poppy's voice was high and panicked, and she rushed to his side. "Are you okay? What happened?"
It took a moment for him to reply, but when he did his voice sounded gravelly.
"I… I don't know." He shuddered then and closed his eyes against the wave of pain that swept over him. He hissed and his breathing seemed to accelerate, as though he couldn't get enough oxygen fast enough. Even he wasn't sure if it was from the pain, or from the panic of not knowing what was causing it.
It was then that Poppy saw the blood.
"Oh my god. You're bleeding."
Branch shivered, terror engulfing him as he realised he was kneeling in a pool of blood.
Poppy seemed to be handling it even worse than he was. Frantic, she helped him gently to his feet. They had to get back to the Troll Tree, and they had to go now.