Branch tapped his toes and looked around. His stomach felt funny. He didn't think he felt nervous or upset, or homesick. He wasn't normal sick. He just felt weird, and he'd felt weird all week since coming to stay with Vendi.
He felt just fine in the daytime. As soon as he woke up he would hear Vendi humming in the kitchen, making breakfast and some snacks for the kids at the daycare. When she saw he was awake she would smile at him and ask if he wanted to help her. Sometimes he said yes. Sometimes he said no. And she was fine with it either way.
Branch didn't really like cooking. Ingredients got all over his hands and he didn't like the sticky feelings. But he liked helping Vendi. Helping her in the kitchen was a lot different than helping his brothers. With her there was no weird pressure. They were just making breakfast. With his brothers he either 'helped' because the brother in charge of cooking the meal needed to babysit him at the same time, or because there had just been a tense fight between the bros and Floyd needed both cuddles and cookies, though he always claimed he was fine.
He wasn't fine. Branch could tell…sometimes. He wished he knew how to tell all the time.
Vendi always sang while making breakfast, dancing around the kitchen. Branch wasn't the best dancer, but he would giggle and laugh when she lifted him up and swung him around, or had him stand on her feet while she danced. It was fun.
He didn't know that dancing could be fun and silly. Not like this.
After breakfast Vendi would brush his hair and help him get ready for the day. He was used to getting ready by himself, so this was weird and for the first several days Branch didn't know how he felt about it. Did she not trust him to do it by himself? Did she just want him to go faster? Was he doing it wrong?
He didn't know why Vendi helped, so it was stressful, but eventually it started to feel a little nicer. He liked how she was able to brush out the tangles in his hair that he always missed. He liked the way that she straightened his vest so that it looked just right. He liked the way that she knelt down to his level while she helped him put stuff in a backpack that she had gotten just for him, and that she talked out loud about anything he might need for the day and why, and she always let him grab something if he thought she had forgotten it. She wasn't trying to do it for him, she really was just helping him, and once he got used to this new schedule he really came to like it. It made him feel warm and fuzzy inside.
She would hold his hand when they walked to daycare together. On the first day she had insisted on carrying him when they had to swing to other branches. On the second day when he insisted he could do it himself, she said okay, as long as they went together. Now she just trusted him to swing from one branch to another on his own. She even said that his hair control was really good for his age.
The compliment was really nice. She had a lot of nice words to say, and Branch felt like she meant all of them.
Daycare was fun, though it was a lot. There were about a dozen kids, though not all of them were there at the same time. Some kids were just there during the morning. Some kids came in after lunch. There were only two or three other kids who were there all day, and they weren't there every day.
Branch didn't know if he liked the unpredictableness of it all. He liked to know where everybody was going to be when. He tried to play with the kids, but it was hard. He would warm up to some of the kids, but then they would leave in the afternoon, just when he was starting to feel comfortable around them. Or he'd start to get close to one kid, and then they weren't there the next day.
He tried to play with the kids, because they were nice, and he really did want to be friends, but it was scary. Sometimes he would just sit in the corner and watch them. On really bad days, when he needed contact but couldn't handle interaction, he would crawl onto Vendi's lap while she read a story to some of the other kids. She didn't pause in the story. She just wrapped one arm around him and kept reading, giving him what he needed without making a big deal about it.
Daycare got a lot easier when Vendi gave him a new game to play. She said that there was a pattern to some of the other kids' schedules. She knew he had fun with patterns, both making them and finding them. So when some of the other kids started drawing pictures he would sit with them and started drawing little notes of the patterns he had found so far.
Sometimes the other kids asked about his drawings, and they thought it was fun, like he was solving a mystery. Talking to them about the patterns he was looking for was a lot easier than talking to them about scrapbooking.
Branch's favorite time of day was lunch. Floyd always came here for lunch, and it was nice to see him. He liked Vendi, but his brothers were still so important to him. Floyd liked to listen to what he had to say about his days. He never seemed to talk about what he was doing at school, or what it was like being with Everett and Payton's family. Branch just assumed that he didn't have time. Lunch was only so long.
After daycare Vendi would usually take Branch for a walk around the Troll Tree before they returned to her pod. While she made dinner she asked about his day, which he thought was weird, because she had been with him all day, so shouldn't she already know? But he talked about it anyway.
If he mentioned that there was a game he had wanted to play, but they didn't have time or he didn't know how to ask the other kids, Vendi would play it with him in the evening, and it was fun and really nice.
Everything went great until it got close to bedtime, and that was when Branch started to feel weird. His stomach twisted up tightly and made him want to curl up in a ball and cry. He didn't want to talk to anybody when he felt like this, but Vendi was persistent and sometimes she was able to get through to him. If he was able to be distracted by her, he felt a lot better. Maybe he was nervous about something, but he didn't know what. How could he feel so anxious that he felt sick, but he didn't know what he was anxious about?
Bedtime was hard. He just wanted to curl up and sleep, but it just made him feel even worse when he tried.
Sometimes he felt like Vendi knew what was wrong with him more than he did. She was very understanding, and she seemed to know just what to say to make him feel a little better. She even made it easier to sleep by bringing his blankets into her living room and making a little fort.
"Like a sleepover." Vendi said slowly, and somehow those simple words made Branch feel a lot better about the whole thing. He would crawl into the pillow fort, and it made everything feel like just another game. A bit of pretend. And eventually he'd be able to go home and everything would go back to normal.
The days went on, and every single day he felt a little bit better. He started to feel a little more like himself. He found more patterns with the kids at daycare. He was able to figure out who was going to be there when, and even if some kids didn't follow the schedule, a lot of them did, so he could go in with an idea of who he could play with and what they could do together, and that made playing a lot easier.
On his fourth day with Vendi Branch did a silly dance with Vendi while she made breakfast. It wasn't choreographed or rehearsed, it was just fun.
He felt more comfortable at Vendi's pod, and on his fifth day there he went to get himself a snack, not even thinking twice about whether it was allowed or not. He trusted Vendi's word that her food was his food.
On his sixth day he was able to make a game suggestion at daycare, and the other kids played with him.
After a week he had that weird feeling in his stomach all day, and distractions didn't make it go away. He constantly felt tears at the corners of his eyes, but he didn't cry. He didn't really feel sad, exactly. He didn't know how he felt.
He didn't play with the kids at daycare that day, and he didn't really want to talk to Floyd at lunch. Branch just curled up against Vendi and tried to figure out what he was feeling. It was really confusing. He actually felt a little bit happy, but it was a sad kind of happy. He hadn't known that was even possible. Were his emotions broken?
He was really quiet that night and he didn't want to eat. Eventually it was bedtime, and Branch didn't immediately crawl into his fort. He just stared at it for a while.
Vendi said the fort made this like a sleepover, but this didn't feel like a sleepover. This felt more real. More permanent. That didn't feel like a good thing or a bad thing, it was just a thing. He liked it here with Vendi. It was fun, and it made him feel good in ways he didn't with his brothers. But he still missed them.
Maybe that was what this feeling was. He was happy here, but he was sad that he wasn't happy like this back home.
But this feeling had been getting better the longer he was with Vendi. And Spruce had told him that while he would feel homesick at first, it would get easier with time. He just needed to wait and keep going, and let the change happen.
Branch slowly reached out and grabbed one of the blankets. He wrapped it around himself and made his way to the room that Vendi said was his. She didn't say it was the room he would be using, or the guest room. She said it was his.
He'd never had a room to himself before. He wanted to give it a try.
He went into his bedroom, feeling like he was doing something weird and not allowed. He crawled onto the bed and laid down on it. It was…weird. But nice. But it also made tears come to his eyes again while his stomach did the twisting up thing.
"Branch?" He heard Vendi say quietly. "Are you okay, Sweetie?"
"Uh huh." Branch said honestly. He felt fine. Maybe a little weird, but fine. Vendi sat at the edge of the bed.
"You don't have to sleep in here if you're not ready." Vendi said. "You shouldn't do something you don't want to do."
"I want to." He said. "It just makes me feel a little weird."
Vendi didn't look like she quite believed him, but she didn't argue more. She just left the room, only to come back a minute later with the pillows and the rest of the blankets.
"Maybe you'll feel a little less weird if you're comfortable." Vendi gave him a small smile. "But remember, if you change your mind it's okay to make the fort again. I just want you to feel safe and comfortable here."
"I do." Branch said. It didn't quite feel like home, and he wasn't sure if it ever would, but he did feel safe here. He was happy. And maybe that was good enough.
Clay had thought that he was underqualified to tutor the princess. It didn't take him long to figure out that he was the perfect troll for the job, because Viva didn't listen to anybody else. She frequently got bored and wandered away from her other teachers. She believed that if she didn't want to think about something, then she shouldn't have to think about it, and she definitely didn't want to think about how she was supposed to be responsible for all of the trolls that were being eaten by the bergens.
She wanted to be a fun leader. Somebody that people could go to for a good time. She didn't want to deal with the sad parts. It was Clay's job to figure out how to talk to her about it anyway.
It was difficult, but Clay felt like he was making it work.
She still tuned out any mention of the bergens, but there were other things they could talk about. He could ease her into it. What Clay had been trying to focus on were other royal responsibilities, and apparently there were a lot of them. Viva was actually pretty good at the 'keeping up morale' bit. She was happy and enthusiastic all the time, but Clay thought that was part of the problem. It just took him a few days to figure out how to talk to her about it.
Eventually it came to him when he saw Viva hugging the little egg of her younger sibling. The egg wasn't supposed to hatch for a few months, but that didn't stop Viva from cuddling with it and talking to it. She fawned over the little thing, and it was sweet, but it distracted her from her responsibilities. Clay had tried to talk to her about it multiple times, and she just continued to say that her little sibling was her biggest responsibility, and nothing could be more important.
Clay had heard this kind of sentiment before. Spruce and John Dory used to have fights about it all the time. Spruce said that their family should be their biggest priority. John Dory said, ideally, yes, but that couldn't be the case and they just needed to get over it.
Clay didn't want to agree with John Dory about anything. He still thought he had been wrong about so much he had done for the sake of the band. But Clay remembered a lot of what he said, and while they hadn't been good points for their situation, he thought they applied to Viva's.
"Vee?" Clay said. "Can I talk to you?"
"Of course." Viva said, but she continued to focus on the egg. Clay remembered the multiple times when John Dory had gotten upset because he had asked the same thing of Clay, and while he had said yes he still didn't put his book down. Clay had thought he was sincere about agreeing to talk, but he hadn't shown it.
He didn't want to think about those moments. He didn't want to consider that he might have done something wrong. But even though he knew that Viva was listening to him he felt like she wasn't really in a space where she would really hear him.
"This is serious." Clay said.
"Of course it is." Viva said with a slight laugh in her voice. "You're always serious." The words should feel great, but they didn't. It felt like she was making fun of him, just like everybody else did.
Clay felt hurt and frustrated, and he hated it. He knew she didn't mean it like that. She was the only troll who ever took him seriously. But the hurt and feeling of being disrespected was still there.
Clay felt an ugly feeling in his chest, and he didn't like it. He had thought he was through with feeling like this. He knew that if he tried to talk then he would just get mad and defensive. That was okay with his brothers, but not with Viva. He didn't want to show her that side of him. Besides, trolls that were respected and taken seriously didn't throw tantrums if they weren't.
So Clay swallowed his complaints and just walked away. He heard Viva call out for him, sounding confused and concerned, but he didn't stop. He walked outside and just leaned against the pod.
This was so hard. He knew what he wanted to say, but getting the words out was hard. He'd never had a hard time speaking his mind to his brothers. Why was it so much different here?
"Clay?" Viva's voice was very quiet. It wasn't like her, and Clay felt guilty for bringing out this uncertainty. He didn't want her to be afraid to talk to him. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine.' He forced out.
"You don't look fine." She came to stand next to him. "You said you wanted to talk, and then you just left."
Clay pressed his hands against his thighs. "Because you weren't listening to me."
"Yes I was." Viva said.
"You were fawning over the egg." Clay said. That wasn't how he wanted to say it. He knew she could still pay attention, even if it didn't look like she was, because he did it all the time, but he hadn't felt like it.
"But I was still listening." Viva insisted. Clay sighed. This was going nowhere, and he blamed himself. He didn't know how to find the words he needed, and he was making it her problem.
He didn't know how to talk about it, but not talking about it wasn't really helping. He needed to try.
"I know you were." Clay said quietly. "I promise I know, but I didn't feel like it. I felt like you were focused on the egg, and that I was just a second thought for you."
"But you weren't." Viva sounded upset. "I was paying attention."
"I know." Clay said. "But I still felt like you weren't. You know how sometimes you know something with your head, but your heart is maybe saying something else?"
"Oh, yeah." Viva fidgeted uncomfortably. "I get that sometimes." She took a deep breath. "Well, I'm sorry. I'm listening now. I promise."
This was going okay. Maybe he could handle this. "It's, uh, actually kinda about this. So, you know how we've been talking about your responsibilities as the princess?" Viva nodded. "Well, you have a lot of trolls looking up to you. It's really important for trolls to feel like they can talk to you about anything."
Viva gasped and brought her hands to her mouth. "And I made you feel like you couldn't talk to me."
Clay wanted to say that she hadn't made him feel anything, but she kinda had. She hadn't meant to, but he'd still felt that way because of what she said. In a way, that was on both of them.
"How do I do better?" Viva asked, as if Clay had any answers.
"Um…look, I'm not saying you can't ever pay attention to your sibling, or even just the egg." Clay said. He really admired that she prioritized her family. It was refreshing in comparison to John Dory. But whether she liked it or not, she had responsibilities to people outside of her family.
"But you have others counting on you too." Clay said. "And when you have conflicting responsibilities you need to sometimes pick one over another."
"I can't pick." Viva said. "What if they both need me?"
"Well, you have to think about who might need you more." Clay said. "Maybe…maybe your younger sibling wants to play, and they just want a little attention, but there's a troll in the village who is hurt, or upset, and they really need your advice. You can help both of them, but you need to figure out who to help first. So, which of them would you ask to wait just a little longer?"
Viva bit her lip. "I guess my siblings. Like…like when I was with the egg. That was important, but I can be with the egg any time. You needed me then, and I chose the egg."
"You won't always have to choose." Clay said. "Sometimes you can do both, and sometimes you can't. It takes practice to figure it out." It was something he needed to figure out himself.
Viva took a deep breath. "I'll work on it." Her eyes brightened as she seemed to come up with an idea. "Oh. It'll take practice. I was going to watch the egg tonight, but Dad's been wanting me to go out and get to know the trolls in the tree. Maybe I can go get to know them now."
"I think that's a great plan." Clay said. He was proud of Viva for it.
She smiled brightly and took his hand. "Come on, let's go!" She started to pull Clay along. He faltered just for a second. Viva turned to look at him. "Are you okay?"
Clay took a second to gather himself. He was more than ready to work, but going out and getting to know people took a lot of time and work. It was a big commitment. Clay wasn't afraid of that, but he had another commitment that afternoon. School would be getting out soon, and Clay always walked Floyd home.
That was his only time where he saw Floyd, and he knew it was important to his brother. Floyd always looked relieved and excited to see him, like he was worried that Clay wouldn't show.
He knew his little brother was having a hard time with this whole 'being away from their brothers' thing. He couldn't get over that their family wasn't ever going to be perfect and happy the way they were supposed to be.
Clay thought that Floyd was slightly delusional, but he didn't want to be the one to shatter that for him.
But he'd just talked to Viva about putting her responsibilities to her people ahead of her responsibilities towards her family. It would be hypocritical of him to say that, and then leave Viva and his own responsibilities with her because he had promised to walk Floyd home from school.
He knew this was important to his brother, but Viva's responsibilities were important too, and she needed help with it. Was he really supposed to abandon her just because his brother was being a little clingy?
Clay felt really bad, but it didn't change what he needed to do. "No, I'm okay. Let's go." Floyd could handle walking himself home one time. He'd be fine. Clay would make it up to him later.
School had ended two hours ago. Floyd knew that it would be time for dinner soon. Payton and Everett didn't have a lot of rules, but being home for dinner, or at least checking in by then, was one of them.
Floyd didn't want to get in trouble with them or make them upset, but he couldn't bring himself to stand up from where he had settled in front of the school to wait.
Clay was running late, but he would come. He always came. He was just busy, but he had promised Floyd that he wouldn't just forget about him and Branch just because they weren't living together anymore.
Clay was working. He was probably doing something very important. Floyd didn't hold that against him. He could be patient. He just needed to wait.
Floyd sat cross-legged on the ground and rocked back and forth as he just looked for that familiar shade of yellow hair. Any minute now. Clay would be here. He'd probably have a really interesting story about why he was late. It was probably a really good excuse. Like a magical reason that perfectly explained why he couldn't be there sooner.
He hadn't just forgotten Floyd. He wouldn't.
His brothers had promised that they would still be a family, even if they weren't living together. They said that being around each other less would make them care about each other more. It still didn't make sense to Floyd. If you cared about someone, wouldn't you want to be around them all the time? Or at least some of the time?
But John Dory and Spruce weren't here at all. Clay was at least still at the tree, but Floyd was seeing him less and less.
Sometimes on days he didn't have school Floyd would go find Clay himself, just wanting to hang out or read together or something. Clay always acted like he was happy to see him, but his smile was becoming more and more performative. It was a little insulting that Clay thought he couldn't tell the difference. They'd been performing in the band together for long enough for Floyd to know when his brother was putting on a show.
Clay always said he was too busy to play, so Floyd couldn't stay with him for too long. He still didn't really know what Clay's job was, but obviously it was important and kept him super busy.
Floyd just hadn't thought that it was more important than their family.
He couldn't go after his brother himself, but he didn't want to go back to Payton and Everett's home on his own. What if Clay showed up and he wasn't here? Floyd didn't want to give up on him. So he stayed. He didn't want to think about what he might do if Clay didn't show up at all. That wouldn't happen, because Clay was coming. He was on his way. Floyd just had to wait a little longer.
"...Floyd?" He perked up at the sound of his name, but immediately drew in on himself when he realized it wasn't Clay. Everett was coming towards him, a sad, almost pitying look in his eyes that Floyd didn't like. He didn't want Everett to feel sorry for him, because nothing was wrong. He was fine. "Shade said you were waiting for your brother. Have you been waiting here the whole time?"
Floyd drew his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "He's coming." He didn't have to see Everett to know that he was looking at him in disbelief and more pity. Of course he wouldn't believe Floyd. He didn't know him. Not really. Everett was practically a stranger to him. A really nice stranger that Floyd liked and looked up to, and he wanted to get to know him more, but a stranger nonetheless.
He thought that Everett would gently but firmly tell him that no, Clay wasn't coming. He thought that Everett would drag him back to his home and tell him that it was getting late and he could talk to Clay tomorrow. What he didn't expect was for Everett to sit on the ground next to him. He didn't say anything, he just sat there and waited.
Everett didn't sit too close to him. It wasn't crowding. Everett put his hand on the ground between them. Floyd didn't reach for him and return the touch at first, but a few minutes later he put his hand down as well. He didn't initiate contact yet, and Everett didn't push it. He waited until Floyd moved his hand again. It was a few more minutes, but eventually he put his hand on top of Everett's, holding it. Everett didn't hesitate to return the hold.
They sat together for a while. The sun had set. Dinner time had come and gone, and Everett didn't say a word about them needing to go. They just sat and waited.
Floyd felt a little better with some company, but the longer they sat together the more his stomach twisted in knots, because he knew that Everett wasn't waiting for Clay. He was waiting for Floyd.
He was keeping himself from his own family so that he could sit with Floyd, who couldn't be with his.
Floyd squeezed Everett's hand. "Clay's not coming, is he?"
Everett sighed deeply. "I'm sorry." He didn't give Floyd reassurances that he was sure that Clay was coming. He didn't try to tell him that everything was going to be okay. He just said he was sorry, and Floyd felt something in him break.
He had managed to not cry while he sat outside the school, but he burst into tears. Everett finally made the first move to give him comfort. He wrapped his arms around him. It didn't feel anything like John Dory's or Spruce's hugs. He wished they were here. But the hug was great, and he couldn't help but lean into it.
He didn't know how long he cried for. Eventually Everett pulled him into his arms and stood up. Floyd didn't necessarily want to leave. He still hoped for Clay to come, but the hope hurt. He was too tired to resist as Everett started to carry him back to his home.
"Why don't you stay home from school tomorrow?" Everett suggested. Floyd's chest hurt. It felt really weird to hear some place be referred to as home when it wasn't his home. How could it be when his brothers weren't there?
He tried not to think about that word. He couldn't focus on it. He just nodded. Not going to school actually sounded nice. And if he didn't go to school then he wouldn't have to wait around for Clay after school again, waiting for him to show up.
Floyd wasn't giving up on his brothers, but maybe…maybe a little break wouldn't be too bad. He didn't know if that made him a bad brother, and he didn't want to think about it. He didn't want to think about his brothers at all, because it just hurt far too much.
A break. Just a small one. And then…he didn't know. He didn't really know. Right now he didn't know if he wanted to know.