Veneer nodded, looking over his shoulder at Velvet again. Velvet finally showed herself and sat next to Veneer. A silence hit, briefly.

"Like my brother said, he and I just want to talk to you…" Velvet said, her voice small. Almost regretful, Floyd could tell. In the two months that he had been held captive by them, he had never known Velvet to sound like that.

Veneer, yes, he was used to that. But Velvet?

Velvet reminded him so much of John during their childhood. Loud, impulsive, a bit narcissistic, and so much larger than life.

Sure, John was bratty and untitled and self absorbed but he was confident. He was a kid. That's how Velvet was. Floyd saw a lot of the old John in Velvet so to hear her sound so small... so broken and defeated… so… regretful... it struck a cord in him.

"Are... are you guys… are you two okay?" Floyd softly asked, but the twins just shook their heads. "Do you guys wanna talk about it?" Two nods this time.

Floyd allowed Veneer to place him on one of the higher branches of the closest tree.

Another silence hit, this time broken by Veneer. "Are you okay?"

Floyd looked down, briefly, then he returned his attention back up towards the twins. "Well… my body kinda hurts from the whole having the magic sucked out of me by you guys for two months straight thing."

"Sorry.…" It was Velvet who spoke up now. But that one word was barely a whisper and Floyd almost missed it.

"What?" he asked, glancing solely at Velvet now.

"Sorry about the whole talent sucking thing... I just wanted to be famous... to..." Velvet fell silent and glanced down, closing her eyes. She didn't know what to say next. For a moment that was. "To…"

"To be loved, right?" Floyd guessed, a small, but still slight smile slowly appearing on his face. He'd never heard the teen sound so sincere before.

"Yeah," Velvet muttered out. Again, like earlier, she couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I get that," Floyd said, breaking a silence as it started to make itself apparent.

"How come?" Veneer asked, sharing a brief glance with Velvet before they looked back down at him.

"My oldest brother wasn't that much different from you," Floyd explained, after a bit of thinking. "He and I had this small talk a little while back. The day after everything that happened. He told me all about why he needed BroZone to be perfect and whatnot. He just wanted to be loved, by our brothers and I, you know? John needed the validation. The respect. Our parents were never around and our Grandmother was old. She tried her best but most of the chores and taking care of the five of us fell entirely on John. He knew we loved him but it was much different with all our fans. Way different. At least that was how he had described things."

The twins nodded in unison, Velvet's eyes pricking with tears. "Yeah.." she eventually said, swallowing the lump forming in her throat and blinking back tears. "I can tell…"

Veneer had started crying a while ago, unable to speak… until…

"Velvet, why?" he cleared his throat so his voice wouldn't crack as much. "Why didn't you just tell me that before?"

"I didn't want to be weak!" Velvet responded. "We may be twins but I always felt like being the older twin…... I had to be stronger... larger than life so you felt okay being vulnerable... only one of us could be food for the hungry vultures that were paparazzi and fans... that was obviously you so I had to protect us from that... to protect you... from that..."

Floyd couldn't help but see himself and his brothers in the twins. It was actually a little bit too spot on, freaking him out and making him feel way too emotional.

"At least we're pretty criers, right?" Velvet joked.

Floyd smiled and snorted, covering a laugh. "Gross…Both you and John have the same sense of humor. He said the same thing after that whole talk I said we had."

"Sense of humor? Uhh, I'm not joking. I don't do anything ugly." A small smile formed on Velvet's face, but she couldn't help herself but hide a snicker.

"Yeah, she's right. Remember when you slipped on the diamonds the brothers were in and fell and STILL managed to hold that note?" Veneer asked, mood shifting to a more positive one. "AND look fabulous while doing it?"

"Uhh, duh! Remember when you LAUNCHED me in the air? TWICE!

"Yeah! That was so fun! And remember when we-"

Floyd decided to tune the conversation out for now. He didn't like how fondly they were looking back on their final performance or their time as pop stars since he was trapped in a bottle the whole time, but at least he could see how happier they were now.

He just sat back and watch the twins talk. It was... weird. They were basically a carbon copy of him and his brothers without much of a falling out. It seemed Veneer deciding to disown Velvet himself was short lived.

Maybe it was because they were starting to become more open to talking about their feelings than him and his brothers?

He wasn't going to say it, but he was glad that they still had a sibling relationship despite Velvet's disownment by Veneer. They needed one another.

After a few minutes of them talking, the twins remembered Floyd was there. He smiled at them. "So... you 'got out' of prison," he said, putting 'prison' in hair quotes. "How did you break out?"

"Welllll, ah, you see, basically, it's a long story," Veneer said, softly, waving his hands around.

"I've got all day. Tell away," Floyd replied.

Present

Poppy sighed, her facial expression becoming unreadable. "It took you guys... an entire morning to get here? That's... sort of such a short time... okay." She took a deep breath and exhaled. "Thanks for that information. I'll invite the rest of the tribe leaders over so we discuss a plan of action. My own tribe's not the only one in danger. This also extends to the rest of the tribes. This poses a threat for all of us. My tribe and theirs."

Branch looked at her. "Wait? Does that include the Reggaeton tribe, the K-pop tribe, the Yodelers and Chaz?"

"Uh, duh," Poppy said with a slight soft laugh and a hidden eye roll. "Of course they do. The bounty hunters may all be tribes with smaller populations than us six much bigger troll tribes, but still. They're all troll tribes, nonetheless, and their people all deserve to be safe too."

"Okay... how about this…" Floyd turned. "Poppy, you can handle the safety stuff with Branch, and Clay, and maybe Viva while I handle starting with reforming the twins with some help from John and Bruce. I know the twins better than any other troll. Bruce has kids so he's better at dealing with them and I feel John and Velvet are a lot more similar than they think—"

"Who's the ruler here?" Poppy laughed, once again rolling her eyes, cutting him off. "You or me?"

Floyd pointed at Poppy as a way to say 'you'. She nodded.

A beat of silence hit, then Floyd spoke up. "I'm guessing you want to help me with starting to reform these guys?"

"Uh, duh. Of course I do," Poppy said in a tone similar to the one used earlier when she said the same thing. "Well….we could start right after I finish a meeting with the rest of the tribe leaders but still."

"Do we get a say in this or?" Velvet asked, directing the attention of the three trolls back towards them.

"Do you wanna go back to prison?" Branch chimed in, tone sarcastic.

"Nope! We totally agree with this plan!" Veneer cut his sister off before she could have a chance to respond. For a couple of minutes that was.

Velvet just scowled at the troll and rolled her eyes.

"Ugghhh! Fine! Whatever!" she found herself agreeing.