Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It was dark until it wasn’t. 

He tried to crack his eyes open; the light was so intense, and he had a massive headache, so he kept them closed instead. Voices chattered away around him, loudly, and the excitement seemed to intensify as he moved his arm. A shrill, energetic BEEPing began to blare next to him. He squeezed his eyes tighter, as if doing that could cause the horrific sound to stop. His headache worsened with every blare.

Voices started to reign even louder and closer. It sounded like chaos.

“He’s awake! Somebody go get Doctor Plum!”

“Oh my hair, Branch, are you alright?”

He didn’t really understand half of what everyone was yelling about, if he was perfectly honest. The light dimmed a little, and he took the courage to open his eyes just the slightest amount. A number of trolls he had never seen before stood around him, looking extremely concerned, but he couldn’t focus on any of them. To top it off, everything hurt, especially his left shoulder. As his eyes adjusted to the light, the white sheet over him and the colorful walls of whatever room he was in became clearer and added to the assault on his eyes.

“We all thought you were a goner when you fell out of that tree!” a voice near him announced. He focused on that troll now that the light wasn’t as bright, since she seemed to be the most concerned out of everybody there. Bright pink skin, darker pink hair, and a green headband decorated with blue flowers graced her. He would have smiled at how pretty she was if everything didn’t ache.

She started to approach him, but a much older troll next to her placed an arm around her shoulder to stop her. The older troll whispered something to the pretty one and left the room before himself, bedridden, could figure out why he looked familiar.

A purple Pop Troll and two Funk Trolls: a purple and a yellow one, all dressed in white coats, burst into the room just as the other troll was leaving.

“Well, Branch!” the Pop Troll exclaimed. “You gave us a scare! How are you feeling?”

How was he feeling? Like he fought three rounds with a mama cuddlepup and lost. He just ached all over, from his hair to his feet. The icing on the cupcake was that nothing seemed to be making any sense.

“What am I doing here?” he managed to slur out, sounding a whole lot stronger than he thought he would. It hurt to talk. “Who are all of you?”

The entire room gasped, albeit a bit more dramatically than he would have thought. The pink troll stepped forward again.

“Branch...?” she whispered nervously. “It’s me. Poppy.”

He reached back for any memory of her and came up blank. A few random scenes played in his head, but none of them included her. When he actually tried to remember more, barely anything surfaced.

Hair, he didn’t even know what his name was.

A clipboard the purple Funk Troll held caught his eye, so he craned his neck and shifted to his side to get a better look at the clipboard. The pole beside him started blaring again, and the yellow Funk Troll ran to him and tried to ease him back on the bed properly. His ears and head started splitting.

“Easy, Branch! You don’t want to hurt yourself any more than you already are!”

He followed her instructions and laid back on the bed, which he noticed had been raised so he could sit up. Well, that was one good thing that had happened in the past ten minutes.

It was silent in the room again until he worked up the courage to break it. “I need a mirror.”

The Funk Trolls exchanged a look. The purple one looked at him again. “That’s probably not the best idea right now, Branch.”

“It’s like a b- to the -ad idea!” the yellow one exclaimed.

“Just give me a mirror!” he snapped.

The pretty troll who called herself Poppy fumbled around on a nearby table before handing him his wish. 

He gazed for a long while at his reflection and swallowed hard. He was as much of a stranger as all these other trolls.

Amnesia. That’s what Doctor Plum said he had. The complete or partial loss of memory caused by brain injury or shock.

“So how come I’m not dead?” Branch asked as Plum jotted down more notes on a clipboard. “I mean, I’m not complaining, but I hit my head pretty hard, right?”

Pretty hard was a bit of an understatement. According to the doctor and the others, he was found lying on the ground, unconscious, next to a giant tree. Falling off the lowest branch alone would mean a major impact.

“Based on the damage done, it seems like your shoulder absorbed most of the blow,” the doctor responded without looking up. “A logical conclusion would be that your shoulder hit the ground a few seconds before your head did. That’s also most likely why it’s been dislocated. If that hadn't been the case, you wouldn’t be here right now. You should consider yourself very lucky, Branch.”

He grumbled. “I sure don’t feel very lucky.”

Plum laughed. “I don’t think anyone would in your position.”

“Ok… and why is it I can remember some totally random thing like what amnesia is or that I can die if I hit my head too hard, but I can’t remember my own name?”

“We can answer that!” the Funk Trolls - Rhythm and Blues he learned were their names - chorused together.

“Yeah?” Branch asked in anticipation.

“We actually don’t know all that much about amnesia,” Blues supplied. “There are a bunch of different types-”

“You know, long term, short term, and a bunch of others we really don’t need to mention,” Rhythm added.

Branch raised an eyebrow and bit back the urge to laugh. “What does that have to do with me?”

Someone handed him a glass of water that he immediately downed. He had no idea how parched he really was. How was that taken care of when he was out, anyway? Branch made a mental note to ask someone later.

“With a traumatic injury like you have, amnesia is actually pretty unpredictable,” Blues continued. “You can remember a bunch of basic stuff, like how to talk and breathe and everything; you just can’t remember details about yourself and what’s happened in your life.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t to us either, Branch.”

Since the various visitors had long since left, Doctor Plum had plenty of space to check readings and make notes, making sure Branch was well enough to be on his feet. Made sense considering he was apparently asleep for four days.

Rhythm and Blues, on the other hand, were happy doing tests on him to further their research. He wasn’t really sure what kind of research they were doing, although they insisted all the  poking and prodding at him was worth it. Alright.

Eventually, Branch was up. It took a little doing since everything ached and his shoulder was separated, but Plum was sure he was fine to leave as long as he took it easy.

“You know, no critterboarding, no loud parties, no spontaneous dance breaks… Not that you do all the stuff anyway, but we just need to be careful,” the doctor had told him, fueling Branch’s confusion even more.

As the four of them entered the waiting room of the hospital pod, Branch caught sight of the old orange troll who had been in the room earlier when he woke up. The one who had been next to the pink Troll… uh, Poppy. He never actually learned the guy’s name, but he sure did look familiar….

“Well, Branch!” the Troll exclaimed, standing with the help of his cane. “You look like you’re doing well!”

The two shook hands after the old Troll stuck his between them. Branch wasn’t really sure what to think about him from the first impression. On the one hand, he used a cane and seemed just a little absent-minded. On the other, he was probably some village elder or something, so Branch assumed he had some kind of leadership skills. He just hadn’t seen them in action yet.

“Uh. Please forgive me,” Branch muttered, a little embarrassed. “I don’t… know who you are….”

The troll’s smile faded. He glanced over to Doctor Plum.

“Amnesia, King Peppy. The fall, as we assume it to be, damaged the medial temporal lobe in both cerebral hemispheres of Branch’s brain, causing what we assume to be the total loss of autobiographical and episodic memory.”

The King? The air the guy gave off didn’t really scream royalty….

Peppy looked at Plum like she had two heads after that explanation. The Doctor sighed.

“He hit his head and forgot everything about himself and his life.”

“Ah! Well, why didn’t you just say that?”

Plum, Rhythm, and Blues all gave him a look. Peppy cleared his throat and glanced at Branch.

“Ok. Now, Dr. Plum, if there isn’t anything else…?”

“There is, actually.” Plum stared intently at Branch. “I failed to ask earlier, but is there anything about your life you can remember? Anything at all?”

Branch concentrated hard on the hole of his brain where his memory should have been. Honestly, it was kind of scary not having anything there when he was alive and mostly well and had all these life experiences. It was like everything had just been… erased.

The hazy mist started to clear just a smidgen, making way for an extremely fuzzy image. Branch closed his eyes and focused on the image, hoping it would come into focus.

“See something, Branch?”

Nobody in the room breathed. The details of the memory finally started to appear visible, slowly but surely.

“What is it, son?”

He saw… a Pop Troll, one with purple skin and green hair. It disappeared as soon as it appeared and was quickly replaced by someone handing him a stuffed crocodile. He also imagined singing into a rose and planting something blue in a small pot. In every one of them he couldn’t remember concrete details, only that he was sure the moments happened to him. Finally he saw the ground and shuddered, because every detail was accentuated and made his head hurt.

“...I remember a stuffed crocodile, and gardening. Singing. Uh… there’s a purple troll, and for some reason he reminds me of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.” Branch chuckled through his nose. “Also, I remember I like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.”

The two Funk Trolls exchanged a surprised glance, while Plum smiled. “Anything else?”

Branch tried to think of anything else and was surprised when he also recollected him as a child hugging an old troll lady. It was more detailed than the other memories, but he didn’t exactly know how.

“Um… there’s also this lady-”

“A lady?” Doctor Plum turned to King Peppy. “Did Branch have a girlfriend or anything?”

The king made a face. “I don’t believe that’s very likely, Doctor, considering…”

Branch decided to ignore his crushing confusion about King Peppy’s words and interjected before Plum could ask another question. “She’s not a girlfriend or anything. She’s an older Troll with purple skin and teal hair tied up in a bun and stuff. I remember her a little more vividly than the other memories.”

The King furrowed his eyebrows at the same time Plum jotted down even more notes. “Do you know where you’ve seen her? Why she’s so important?”

“You’re seriously asking me that?”

“Oh, yes. Sorry. Well, I want you to keep thinking about her and your other memories,” Plum stated. “Perhaps if we can find out why you remember them and not anyone or anything else, then we can find out how long it will be until your memory starts to come back, if at all.”

Branch nodded. “Got it.”

Thinking about the few memories he still had? Easiest thing in the world, right? Right?

Yeah, maybe not. But Branch really, really wanted this to be over, and like the doctor said, this was his only hope.

“Branch?”

He snapped out of his thoughts and glanced at the king.

“If it’s alright with you, I’d like you to stay in my pod for a while just to make sure you’re ok. I don’t feel comfortable letting you go to your home in this state.”

Branch just nodded and sighed.

“Alright. Let’s go, then, son.”

Branch followed the king out of the hospital pod and into the bright sun, immediately regretting it when his eyes were still sensitive from both the dimness of his room and his recent inactivity.

Hair, he hoped he would be alright.

Chapter Text

Ah… The sky was blue, the grass was green, the sun was out…. It was the perfect day for an amazingly huge song and dance number.

Well, without the cage, it was perfect. Maybe he should start one just because. It would be super, ultra, extra fun, especially if his friends joined in too.

Yeah, that’s what he would do. There weren’t any adults around to tell him not to or to take over the lead. Confident, Branch started dancing like nobody was watching. Nobody was watching anyway, but that was his favorite kind of dancing.

So he danced until he heard a voice.

“Hey there, kiddo. Whatcha doing?”

Branch jumped around to look at the purple-skinned, green-haired Troll. “Hey, Uncle Stream! I’m just dancing!” To prove it, the trolling did a little dance in place.

His only uncle chuckled. “Well, kid, remember what I always say?”

“Umm…” Branch stopped dancing for a second since he was deep in thought. “Dancing is a crime?”

“Oh, yeah.” Stream grinned. “But it’s only a crime if you do it without us. You wanna go get your parents and your friends? Then we can make this a real dance party. That sound good?”

“Ok, Uncle Stream!”

Excited by the prospect of having a party with all his friends and family, Branch ran off to find them. He was just passing the center of the village when he spotted a familiar head of periwinkle hair.

“Hi, Biggie!”

The timid blue Troll turned his head and smiled wide when he saw his best friend. “Hi, Branch! What are you doing?”

“Me and Uncle Stream are having a dance party! Wanna join?”

Biggie called something to one of the adults in his pod, then ran to join Branch. “Who else is gonna join us?”

“I’m gonna get mom and my dad and my grandma and Creek! It’s gonna be super fun!”

The two friends ran off to find Creek, the third member of their little group. Branch’s family was most likely back at his pod, so it wouldn’t be very hard to find them. Creek was the main priority right now.

“Where do ya think he’s gonna be?”

“Um….” Biggie quickly looked around the tree and pointed to a nearby bough. “How about over there?”

Branch looked in the direction of Biggie’s finger. Creek was there alright; he was balancing on a branch sticking out well past the cage. Branch and Biggie ran in his direction.

“Hey, Creek!”

Branch made a break for the tree limb while Biggie stayed behind, yelling about how Branch shouldn’t have gone out there because it was dangerous. Branch didn’t hear a word as he came up next to Creek, who had now noticed him.

“Hi, Branch!”

Branch danced on the bough and looked down into Bergentown. He almost fell but caught himself just in time. “Whatcha doing up here?”

“Just lookin’ at the town. Why do you think they’re so miserable all the time?”

Branch opened his mouth to answer and almost fell off the tree again when he heard a voice behind him.

“Creek! Branch! Come back from there, boys!”

They both smiled at the green/blue skinned, purple haired Troll standing back on the main tree looking worried. Branch waved enthusiastically.

“Hi Dad!”

“Good morning, Uncle Cedar!”

The older Troll was starting to look worried. “Boys, you need to get off of there!”

“Aw, but Dad…!”

“You come back here right now, young man!”

Branch and Creek made their way back to the main tree, not at all worrying about falling. They actually almost fell a few times, but they didn’t care; it was just more of an adventure.

The only downside to that “adventure” was that Branch’s father, after hugging each of them tightly, scolded the two best friends as soon as they were safe.

“Don’t you boys ever do that again, understand?”

They hung their heads, but both had mischievous smiles. “Yes, sir.”

Cedar eyed them and smiled wryly. Much to Branch’s chagrin, his dad also ruffled his frizzy cobalt hair. “What were you two troublemakers doing out there, anyway?”

Branch jumped up in excitement before Creek could give his own answer. “Ooh! I was lookin’ for Creek ‘cause me and Uncle Stream are gonna have a dance party! Doya wanna join?”

Cedar smiled and bent down to his son’s eye level. “Of course I do.” His expression turned serious all of a sudden. “But Branch, you have to understand something. You can’t be going out on those limbs over the town anymore, ok? That goes for you too, Creek.”

“But why?” Branch asked in exasperation. He and Creek went on those all the time! It was fun!

“See, it’s just not the safest place. The Bergens, they’re… not as patient as we think they are.”

Branch and Creek tilted their heads in confusion.

Cedar sighed. “I’ll explain it to you when you’re older. Let’s just say that it’s really easy to fall off a thin branch like that and get seriously hurt. Don’t go on one of those ever again, ok? Can you do that for me?”

“Ok, Dad.”

Poppy was trying and failing to talk to her friends about the… situation, if one could even call it that. It made sense; after all, none of them were really too fond of Branch, and even though they cared deeply about his well being (as any normal Troll should have), they didn’t really press to hear any details beyond that. He was, well, not dead, and that was good enough for them.

“But guys,” the princess pressed. “He didn’t recognize me when he woke up! Doesn’t that seem, well, wrong to you?”

“Well, yeah, but Branch tries to ignore you a lot anyway,” Smidge noted. “If he’s not yelling at you or scolding you for singing too loud or something equally useless, he ignores you. All of us have noticed it.”

Poppy groaned. “It’s not like that, guys! He literally didn’t know who any of us were! He was all like, ‘What’s going on here? Who are all these Trolls?’”

The others tried not to laugh at her hilarious impression of Branch. It was easier said than done as their best friend continued to talk.

“It was just weird! And not weird like Branch normally is! Even more weird!”

“I think I read somewhere that after a fall, people’s brains might get messed up, and then they can’t remember stuff for like, eight hours or something,” Guy unexpectedly replied.

Everyone else recoiled at the glitter Troll’s surprising knowledge.

“How exactly did you know that?”

Guy shrugged. “Just heard it somewhere.”

Poppy smiled knowingly and placed her hands on her hips. “You picked that up two days ago when you went to Doctor Plum’s pod because you had a speck of dirt in your hair, didn’t you?”

“Guilty!”

All the friends laughed, including Poppy. 

“Alright. It’s probably that temporary thing you said. He’ll remember everything by the end of the day. I’m sure of it.”

“Great!”

“Alright.”

“Sounds good.”

An awkward silence fell on the group. Nobody really knew how to change the topic from something so touchy to a subject more uplifting. Usually it was easy, but somebody’s near dodge from death wasn’t usually what they talked about. Poppy was actually surprised that more Trolls weren't talking about Branch’s accident. Hair, she hadn’t even heard from any of the other leaders since she sent out letters about the incident. Not many Trolls in the six kingdoms were big fans of Branch, but that was not a good enough reason to-

“Hey there, Popsqueak! How’re things going over here?”

Poppy broke into a run for the familiar voice of the Rock Queen, completely forgetting about her train of thought. Her friends all followed closely behind. It was no surprise; Poppy was excited to see Barb any time since they really only ever saw each other every couple months at official leader meetings in Trollstopia or at special occasions like birthdays and such. Both of them had their own kingdoms to run, after all, so they couldn’t be going back and forth between the different tribes to socialize.

After a bit, Poppy finally released her best friend from the Hard Rock tribe. “So, Barb! What brings you here? Is anyone with you?” She craned her neck to the side to look in the distance where the critter bus was.

The Queen of Rock looked bored, but concerned. “We actually got your letter a few days ago. The one about Branch’s accident. Riff insisted that we take a trip over here, ‘cause apparently being in a coma can kill you or some junk along those lines. We just wanted to make sure he was alright.’”

The group of friends exchanged glances.

“He actually woke up about an hour ago,” Poppy finally reported after a few antagonizing seconds. “Shaken up a lot, but he seemed fine overall. He separated his shoulder or something, but that was the only thing.”

Of course, she didn’t mention anything about his not remembering her, but that was just because she was going with Guy’s theory. No need to worry everybody over something that probably wasn’t even as big a deal as it seemed. Trolls had a very long history of freaking out or blowing some situations out of proportion when the problem didn’t really need to be dwelled on so much.

“Oh. Well, that’s good. Can I see him?”

Ah. The inevitable question.

“Well, uh…”

“I sure don’t know where he is.”

“You know Branch. He’s probably already back at his bunker, wherever that is.”

Poppy gave everyone a look. “I’m pretty sure I mentioned this, guys. My dad was going to offer for Branch to stay with him while his shoulder was still messed up. Did I not mention that?”

“You didn’t!”

“Have you met Branch?”

“It’s called optimism, guys!”

As they kept arguing, nobody noticed that, not too far away, Branch was, indeed, following King Peppy to the latter’s pod. They were in for one big surprise.

Nothing was familiar. The trees, the pods, all the Trolls from different tribes - none of them were even the least bit recognizable.

It was the weirdest thing. Well, not only weird, but a bit scary, too. Branch felt like there was somewhere in his head where everything about the village should have been stored, but instead, there was nothing.

He tried to look like nothing was wrong as he trailed behind the king, but it was easier said than done. Everything was just so… weird. He would probably be using that word a lot if he thought about it.

Branch rolled his shoulders once and looked around. Some Trolls were minding their own business. However, the majority of them were looking in his direction and whispering with each other. He didn’t question it; he would have probably talked about someone who had just woken up after four days and had a sling, too. Him falling was probably the most exciting thing that had happened in the entire village.

The farther he walked, the more it became clear that nobody seemed to want to approach him or even ask how he was doing. Many Trolls, after just seeing he was alright, went back to whatever they were doing, whether it be spending time with their families and friends or only grabbing a cup of hot cocoa. Others continued to whisper among themselves.

Well, it was probably better not dwell on it, like he had ignored his confusion about everything Plum and the King had said about him in the doctor’s pod. He would have plenty of time to think about everything while he was resting. Later, maybe he could go out for lunch or something or get some ice cream. He was starving. Probably a side effect of his four day nap.

Branch snapped out of his thoughts when he felt something hit his foot. A small, red ball continued its course another few centimeters before stopping. Probably belonged to one of the many groups of nearby Trollings.

That was exactly right. One of the kids, a yellow boy with magenta hair, slowly approached, obviously trying to figure out some way to get the ball back. It was actually kind of cute how shy he was.

In an effort to help, Branch picked up the ball and offered it to the Trolling with his best effort at a smile. It felt foreign for some reason. “Here you go, kid.”

The boy grabbed the ball while staring fearfully at Branch and ran back to his friends, scared. Branch straightened up and stared after him as he and his friends ran off. The boy stole a glance back and still looked uneasy.

Huh. That wasn’t the first weird thing that had happened since he woke up. Branch slowly turned and started following the king again, immensely confused. Why was that kid so afraid of him?

He tried his best to ignore everything else while continuing the walk. King Peppy started talking to fill the silence - like that was a thing the village had. Something about prank wars or something that had broken out in the village. Branch wasn’t really listening.

“Well, this is it!”

Branch crashed into the king and embarrassingly apologised. His eyes darted upward to the blueish pod in the tree, and he assumed it belonged to King Peppy.

The inside was larger than the outside seemed and was even significantly more organized than Branch thought it would have been considering that King Peppy - especially his hair - looked a little frazzled.

King Peppy pointed to a corner that had been closed off by a fake wall. “I made up a little nook for you over there. There’s a bed, a little table, and a lamp in there. Go right ahead if you want to rest for a while. I have some things to take care of in the village, so I’ll instruct everybody not to disturb you. That’s what you want, right? Privacy?”

“I guess.”

The king smiled and clapped him on the back. Well, so much for his condition. “Perfect! Rest up!”

Then Branch was left alone in the pod. He sank down on the mattress prepared for him and looked around. Pictures littered the walls, and various boxes had been skewed on the floor. Besides the little nook in the corner, it didn’t look any like the king was really expecting a guest. Well, obviously he was, since the guy had set up the nook in the first place. It was yet another thing that was overly confusing. He would probably have lots of time to sort out his thoughts while he was there, though.

Not all of them were very good thoughts, honestly. Branch was scared. Like, really scared. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. Or maybe it had. There was no way to know anymore. There was no way to know anything. 

Everyone else in the village probably knew him beforehand. He could ask around and find out who he used to be. That is, if people didn’t think he was crazy first. He did just get a giant conk on the head, after all. That was enough to scramble anyone’s brain, but going through the town and meeting King Peppy for the first time he could remember, he didn’t really get the impression that the Trolls around the village had much medical knowledge. That would prove to be a problem when trying to explain his condition. Everyone seemed very chummy, though, so maybe Trolls would be understanding when it came to the situation. Hopefully, that would be the case. It would make Branch’s life - or lack of memory of - a whole lot easier.

Chapter Text

Branch wasn’t sure what to do while sitting inside the King’s pod.

He could always take a nap. It would probably alleviate his headache a little, but he also just woke up from the “nap” he spent four days in, so it honestly didn’t sound that appealing.

Instead he sat on the little bed and looked into what he could see of the pod. He had a clear view of the window from there, even if he couldn’t actually see out the window. 

Hm. He continued to sit on the bed. This was boring.

As Branch stared into the distance, he figured maybe when the King returned they could go get something to eat. It wasn’t like he knew where anything was, and he wasn’t too fond of going out on his own. Just walking to the pod gave him anxiety, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. 

“King Peppy, King Peppy! There’s been a-”

A Pop Troll ran into the pod and froze when he saw Branch inside. Branch just stared.

“He’s not here. He said he had some stuff to take care of in the village.”

The troll looked disappointed.

“I could take a message for him, if you want,” Branch added.

The troll took a small step back and gave a shy smile. Some emotion Branch didn’t recognize hid behind it. “No, that’s okay. I’ll go find him.”

With that, the visitor was gone, and Branch was again left confused. That seemed to be happening a lot during the day. Curious, he hopped up and looked out the window, where things seemed normal. Or at least he assumed they were normal. He didn’t actually remember how things ran or why so many different types of Trolls were in the village or what the other tribes were like. He just knew they existed and assumed they didn’t interact much in their different nations.

A bookshelf against the wall caught his eye, filled with various books and scrapbooks about Troll rule, tribe history, and royal proceedings. That might be a good place to start.

Branch hoped the King wouldn’t mind if he looked through some of these to get his bearings.

He picked out the most recent scrapbook on the subject of the tribes, delighted when he saw it was as new as several months prior (after a quick glance at King Peppy’s calendar). Page one featured a map of Troll Kingdom, with all the tribes labeled in their own little area. A ‘Trollstopia’ marker sat in the middle of Pop Village, and Branch figured that was why he saw so many different kinds of Trolls in the village. Trollstopia must have been the capital of all the nations.

The next page was about the Pop Trolls, and Branch made sure to pay close attention, because as far as he knew, he was Pop.

Ruler: King Peppy. Successor: Princess Poppy.
Location of Trollstopia - Rock Hollow, Classical Crest, Vibe Town, Country Corral, Techno Lagoon.

Branch made a mental note to ask the King about those locations later, since he really had no idea about-

Wait, hold up!

Successor: Princess Poppy

Hair, that was the Princess he had been talking to!? And he snapped at her… Now he felt even worse than he did before. Next time he saw her, he needed to remember to apologize about that.

Getting back to the scrapbook, subsequent pages were just about the same, only with the other tribes. He skimmed most of it, mainly noting the rulers so he would recognize them if they ever met.

Techno Trolls
Ruler: King Trollex. Trollstopia Ambassador: Synth Shockwave

Classical Trolls
Ruler: Conductor Trollzart. Trollstopia Ambassador: Royal Composer Dante Crescendo

Country Trolls
Ruler: Mayor Delta Dawn. Trollstopia Ambassador: Holly Darling

Funk Trolls
Rulers: King Quincy, Queen Essence. Successors: Prince Darnell, Prince Cooper. Trollstopia Ambassador: Lownote Jones

Rock Trolls
Ruler: King Thrash. Successor: Princess Barbara. Trollstopia Ambassador: Val Thundershock

Several images of the rulers and the territories accompanied each tribe’s page, giving Branch a good idea as to the cultures and important members of the different places. Honestly, he wasn’t sure why he remembered the names and looks of the different Trolls in the first place, since according to the scrapbook, they only united about seven years prior, but if it was any kind of memory he wasn't going to complain. 

Turning to the last page, he was happy to find a blurb about how “Trollstopia” was a project created to further unite the tribes by bringing them to live in different areas around Pop Village. Huh.

Branch put the scrapbook back on the shelf and perused a little more until he found a book about the history of the tribes. Also fairly recent, which was good, so he opened it up.

In the beginning there was silence. Then, one Troll made a sound. The elders were so inspired that they created six strings, each about to play a different type of music. These strings could play the main six genres, plus every kind of music in between. Life was one big party.

One day, the elder from the Pop genre, after much fighting, took the harp containing the strings. He used it to spellbind the Trolls of other genres to perform and sing only Pop, sampling and remixing other kinds of music. The elders of the other tribes knew something had to be done, so each one of them grabbed a single string from the harp and ran. From then on the six tribes were divided.

Hundreds of years later, after the Funk Trolls came across the Pop Trolls while searching for their lost son, they decided to create an alliance. They were shortly followed by the Country Trolls, Techno, Classical, and finally Rock, and soon the six tribes were united once again. The strings remain functioning in their respective nations.

The Tribal Council was eventually established, consisting of the rulers of each nation, and meets every three months to discuss major happenings in the nations. The meeting place rotates between tribes. Special meetings may be called by any ruler but must be approved by other leaders.

Five years after the tribes came together again, King Peppy and Princess Poppy invited Trolls from each nation to live in Pop Village for a program called Trollstopia, in order for each genre to further learn about each other and be able to exist together rather than in their own nations. Several ambassadors from the nations represent the tribes in locations around the forest and meet once a month to discuss the further improvement of the project.

Branch stared at that page. So that was why he saw so many other types of Trolls mingling in the area. He had to admit it was an interesting concept, Trollstopia. He’d have to wander around later and re-familiarize himself with the different tribal spaces now that he knew what they were.

On that note, it was going to be interesting, trying to explain to any friends he had around that he lost his memory. Sugar, he wasn’t even sure who his friends were, let alone where to find them. Then again, if everyone hearing about his accident was any indication, he figured maybe they would come looking for him. Then he could have even more help in trying to figure out who he was.

Word around Trollstopia was Branch had fallen out of a tree and hit his head, and that was how he was knocked unconscious. 

Ha! Like falling was a thing that guy could do. Branch was probably the most safety-oriented Troll in the six kingdoms; if he climbed some crazy tall tree, he would bring a rope and make sure his hair wasn’t out of commission. If he was going out at night-

Nope. Scratch that. Branch would never go out at night unless there was some super important reason that trumped his own safety. There were never any kind of late-night risks or fun or anything. Bor-ring.

Anyway, that wasn’t the reason Barb had a beef with the guy. Oh, no. That was because he had the audacity to ask what no Troll should. The guy should have known better, but that was quickly proven wrong with one single conversation (and argument) they had. There was no use in getting into it. After all, even Barb had a heart, and if the guy was just released from Pop Village hospital and in a worse state than he went in, she supposed there was some room to be nice.

Some.

“I’m gonna go talk to Branch.”

Poppy gasped in delight, which was somewhat surprising since Barb already said she was going to do that exact thing like, five minutes before. “Are you serious!? Barb, be real, here. You never talk to Branch.”

Barb shrugged. They had talked in the past, not that Poppy knew. Mostly it was either by association with Riff when they visited for meetings, or because the grumpy troll begrudgingly came to Rock territory for supplies he couldn’t get anywhere else. Sometimes they played a round of pool, others they simply nodded. There was always an unspoken respect, a certain amount of consideration given the circumstances they’d both been through over the years. Neither of them had any kind of problem with each other, and that always showed.

Well, until the thing happened and she kicked him out of Volcano Rock City.

“Well, he just got out of the hospital, Popsqueak. There’s some room to be nice.”

“Ooh, ok! Well, I’ll come too, then!”

Barb stopped in her tracks. “I wanna talk to him about something alone. I’ll see you later, though.”

She didn’t wait for a response before continuing to walk and heard Poppy’s confused goodbye from behind. That was kind of funny, actually. But that wasn’t the thing to focus on right now.

No, right now, Barb was going to find out if Branch’s fall had anything to do with what she thought. Let’s see… where was King Peppy’s pod, again? She stopped a nearby Rock Troll and got directions.

“Nothing’s wrong, is there?” the troll asked, not looking too worried anyway.

“Nah. I’m going to see how Branch is doing after that fall. Had to be nasty to be staying with the old man.”

Barb found the pod quickly enough and hopped up to the entrance. At first glance no one was inside, but then she caught sight of Branch in the corner pouring over a book and looking comfortable on the floor. Well, he never could read those scrapbooks.

Branch was trying to further study the book on the other tribes and was so engrossed he didn’t bother paying attention to the sounds of the world outside King Peppy’s pod. He adjusted his position on the floor - it was comfortable, but his foot kept falling asleep.

“Hey, man.”

Branch snapped his head up, surprised. A muddy red Rock troll (he assumed, based on her appearance) stood in the entrance of the pod, looking partly standoffish and partly concerned. He figured it was someone from Trollstopia who needed a problem solved, not that he could help. “The King left to go take care of something in the village,” he explained. “I don’t know where he is, though.”

The troll looked confused but shook her head. “Dude. I came to see how you’re doing. We heard you fell out of a tree, and Riff was super worried. Don’t be thick.”

Branch thought for a fraction of a second that maybe they used to be friends before he finally recognized her from that scrapbook. This was the Princess of the Rock Trolls he was being an idiot in front of. 

“Uh, sorry.” He almost dropped the book he was holding but managed to give a little bow instead. “Good to see you, Princess Barbara.”

When he looked at her again she looked angry. Oh. Oh, this wasn’t good. What did he do? Did she not like formalities? Hair.

The Princess stomped up to him and tried to tower over him, not that it worked all that well since they were both about the same height. Branch didn’t exactly know what was happening as she started to scream in his face.

“Bro, are you thick? Are you crazy!? Out of all the- you little- dude!”

Branch furrowed his eyebrows. Ok, they definitely knew each other. He opened his mouth to tell her about the amnesia thing, but then she backed off and gave him a pointed look, and that threw him off somewhat.

“Did you say that to get back at me?” she asked darkly.

He said a lot of things. “Say what?”

The Rock Troll pinched the bridge of her nose and then gave him an incredulous look. “Frickin’ Princess Barbara. Not even you’ve stopped that low before.”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Queen Barb, man,” she continued. “It’s been like five months.”

Branch stole a look at the scrapbook with the leaders and realized it was a little older than that. Well, talk about misinformation. He sighed and laughed through his nose. “The book said Princess Barbara. Guess it’s a bit outdated.”

The Queen furrowed her eyebrows. “What?” She shook it off again. “Ok, no. You know what, I don’t care. We need to talk about last week, man.”

Branch looked down at the history book he was reading, then at the nook the King set up for him, then at the Queen. Well, now was as good a time as any. Rip it off, like a bandaid. “I’m gonna be honest… I don’t actually remember you.”

She just stared at him, and for a second Branch wondered if putting the news that bluntly was a mistake, so he decided to give a little more context. “Dr. Plum said my fall damaged some hemisphere in my brain and caused amnesia. I don’t remember anything. Not you, not King Peppy, not the village, nothing.” He held up the book. “I was just reading up on the Trollstopia thing and the history of the tribes so I could know something.”

He laughed again. “I was so confused on the way over here because I didn’t know why there were so many other types of Trolls in Pop territory. Funny, right?”

He smiled again at the Queen, waiting for a response, but she was quiet.

“You don’t remember… anything?” she finally asked.

Branch frowned. “Not really. You’re the first person to talk to me besides Dr. Plum, Rhythm, Blues, King Peppy, and Princess Poppy.”

“Oh.”

She stole one last look at him and then started to leave. She paused in the doorway. “Hey, I’m glad you’re alright, or some junk like that.”

Branch started to thank her, but she left too quickly. He was somewhat confused, though, because what she said had a bit of bite to it. Hm. There was history, there, he was sure of it. But now he didn’t know who to ask about it.

Barb felt sick .

But… this didn’t change anything, she told herself. She was still angry at Branch. She still hated his guts because of what he wanted to do, but like she knew, there was some room to be nice, even if her problem just got a whole lot more complicated.

Did this solve things? Maybe underneath the memory thing Branch still had an inkling of his old self, and if he did, he and Barb were gonna have some problems. If not… well. Let’s just say she wasn’t completely convinced he wasn’t faking it to get out of taking responsibility for that question.

They would have to see.

Word traveled quickly around the kingdoms as to Branch’s state, partly because of the letters Poppy had sent to the other leaders. Even though Branch wasn’t too popular of a Troll, he was the only grey Troll in the land, and he did have “friends” in the other tribes, so Poppy figured it was only right to let them know something had happened.

That being said, word traveled even more quickly around Pop village itself that Branch was actually awake.  

And then the rumors began to spread.

“I heard he was up in the tree in the first place to spy on the Princess.”

“That’s crazy! It’s too far away from the village.”

“Besides, he may be a grump, but he’s not a creep.”

“How do you know? He doesn’t let anyone talk to him!”

“Well, he let King Peppy talk to him. I just saw the two of them walking toward the King’s pod!”

“Why would Branch be going there ?”

“Well, Tulip told me her cousin heard from Dr. Plum’s assistant that he forgot where he lived and needed to get his bearings.”

“That’s not right. King Peppy is helping him because he broke his arm!”

“Shoulder, actually. My sister is one of Plum’s nurses, and she said Branch dislocated his shoulder when he fell.”

“Why was he up in that tree, anyway?”

“My brother thinks he was hiding something.”

“That tracks. Branch is always really shifty.”

“I know, right?”

“Yeah! Who lives in an underground bunker, anyway?”

“Heh, yeah. It’s not like the Bergens are ever coming back.”

“He’s way too paranoid. Almost makes you confused about why he wouldn’t have been more careful up there.”

“Something’s up with that Troll. I can feel it.”

Chapter Text

Poppy had nearly forgotten about the incident with Branch until about two days later when she was walking through the marketplace. She noticed that morning she was running low on some scrapbook supplies and resolved to pay some of the local craftsmen a visit.

As she approached a nearby booth to get ice cream, she caught sight of a familiar tower of black hair. Branch stood at the edge of the market investigating an array of flashlights. Poppy sidled up to him.

“Morning, Branch!” she yelled, grinning. He jumped and looked angry for a second, but it melted away when he caught sight of her and put a hand to his heart instead.

“Hair, you scared me.”

Poppy snickered and craned her neck to look at the flashlights. “Whatcha looking at there, buddy? Flashlights?”

Branch gave her a once-over and studied her face for a second before looking at the booth again. “Yeah. I’m actually waiting for King Peppy.” He paused. “Who’s your dad. Because you’re Princess Poppy.”

Huh. That was kind of weird, but Poppy shook it off. He couldn’t still be struggling to remember stuff, could he?

“Heh, yeah. Anyway, why’d my dad come out here?”

“He said he had to see a Troll about a Puffalo? Whatever that means.”

Poppy stifled a laugh. “It means he wanted to come buy cake for a surprise party but doesn’t want anyone to know who the surprise is for.”

Branch nodded and gazed around at the market, looking a little lost. Poppy expected him to pay special attention to the stands that were trading stuff like rope or paper, but he went right past those. Finally his eyes landed on the bake shop. He was silent for a few long moments.

“You alright, Branch?”

His gaze tore from the shop and towards Poppy instead. “Oh, yeah, yeah… just thinking. I’m kind of bored just standing here.”

Poppy gave him an odd look. Why didn’t he just walk around and get his supplies like usual, or even go to the bake shop? She nudged him with her shoulder, and for once he didn’t flinch. “Hey, wanna get a brownie? I saw how you were looking at that bake shop.”

Branch frowned and lightly tapped his head. “Dr. Plum said I can’t go anywhere by myself because of the concussion.”

Poppy gazed at him and then around at the market, searching for her father. When she didn’t see him she smirked at Branch. “Well, you’re kinda by yourself right now, Branch.”

The frown remained as he looked around. “King Peppy brought me out here to get lunch after he did the puffalo thing. That doesn’t mean he always stays with me. He seems kind of… absentminded.”

Poppy snorted at that. “Seems? Buddy, you should know by now that he’s not the King he used to be.”

Branch frowned again. “I have amnesia, remember? You were there when I woke up. I don't remember what the King is like.”

The Princess searched his gaze as he stared at her, trying to find some indication that wasn't entirely true, that he did still have his memories and everything in his brain was just a little fuzzy. The longer they scanned each other, though, the more she realized no recognition was visible in those eyes.

She matched his frown. “I forgot.”

“That much is obvious.”

Well, the loss of memory didn't seem to affect his sarcasm bone. Branch was still there.

“We used to be friends, right?” he inquired, then backtracked. “I mean, we are friends, it seems like? I'm just- trying to figure things out.”

Poppy gasped, ecstatic. Cupcakes, this was her chance to become friends with Branch!

“Uh… are you alright, Princess Poppy?”

“Poppy. You haven't used my title since I was 6 years old, Branch.”

He slapped his face. “Sorry!” Blue eyes studied her for a couple seconds. “Now, you're… 20? 21?

“Yeah, I'm 20.”

Branch pointed to himself.

“I… I actually don't know how old you are. A few years more than me, I know. But that would be something to ask my dad.”

Wanting to change the subject quickly so Branch didn't become suspicious, she nudged him and pointed to the bake shop. “Anyway, I'm gonna ask again: do you wanna get a brownie? Sink your teeth into some of that fudgy goodness?”

He hesitated.

“My dad probably won't mind. He trusts you. Besides, you'll be with me!”

Branch finally shrugged. “Sure. Besides, I really should eat something. Do you want to get lunch and then a brownie?”

Poppy perked up. “Absolutely! Ooh, and I can show you around and stuff, too! Y’know, since you apparently don't remember anything.”

She still wasn't 100% convinced. On the one hand, he could have been faking to try and befriend her without fear of bashing his reputation.

On the other hand, she guessed something like this was definitely possible, seeing as though Branch was acting really weird. Plus, didn't Dr. Plum say something about amnesia before she left the medical pod on the day Branch woke up?

But… well. Maybe she was completely convinced, because of one thing: Branch would never lie to her. Be prickly, closed off, overly prepared, snap, insult, everything , yes. But lie?

Never. He was one of the most honest Trolls there was.

“I mean because you don't remember anything!” Poppy blurted out after he frowned. She laughed awkwardly in an attempt to cover her little blunder. “Not apparently. Obviously I know you actually have amnesia. You wouldn't lie about that. You never lie!”

Another awkward laugh escaped her. Branch just gave her a weird look. Wow, great first impression.

She grabbed her companion’s hand with the intent to drag him across the marketplace. “Anyway, let's go get lunch!”

Branch yelped as Poppy began to lug him through the village. As they passed more little shops and booths run by all different types of Trolls, she pointed out each and every one of them, plus everyone she saw.

“So over there is Striped Smiley’s Taffy Shop. Next to him is where Lolly gives away her special frosting. Over here is Bokah’s Techno rave pop-up. Ooh, you see over there that pink booth? DJ sets that up every year to give away old records she's burned and doesn't need anymore.”

She glanced over to Branch, who seemed to be eagerly drinking in all the info she was dumping on him.

“Let's see… oh! That's where you can get paper and compasses and stuff, the, uh… topography? No, that's not right. Anyway, I see you over there like, all the time. I think you have some kind of map making obsession or something.”

She paused. “ Cartography ! That's the word! Yesss! Take that, dictionary!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Poppy caught Branch’s mouth quirked up in an amused smile. He seemed a bit uncomfortable with it on his face. She squealed. “Your smile is so cute!”

Branch blushed and ducked his head a little. “Thanks, Poppy.” He looked to the side as if contemplating something. “It feels kind of weird. Is it supposed to feel weird?”

“Maybe it’s just because of your concussion,” Poppy reasoned a little too quickly. 

Branch nodded. The smile dropped as he brought a hand to the side of his head and rubbed his temples. His eyes squeezed shut.

…

…

…

“...Branch? Are you alright?”

Branch’s eyes cracked open. “Headache. It’s been… happening since I woke up a couple days ago.”

Poppy gazed at him with a concerned frown. “You should go back to Dr. Plum. She can give you something for that.”

“No… I’ll be fine. It’s really not that bad.” He scanned the surroundings of the market and stopped at a little sandwich pop-up. “I should eat something. That’ll probably help.”

Poppy didn’t exactly buy it, but she began to walk with Branch over to the sandwich place anyway. “Ok… but if it gets really bad, remember you can always go see Plum.”

“I’ll remember.”

After again meeting Poppy and having her show him everything there was to see and do in Pop Village, Branch realized it was really boring having to sit inside the King’s pod all day.

He guessed one good thing was doing nothing didn’t make him feel bad, physically. A dull but persistent headache had been following him the past few days, and moving around wasn’t making it any better. It didn't make him want the ground to swallow him, thank hair, but it was uncomfortable in the least. 

And when Rhythm and Blues burst into the royal pod yelling about some experiment, it became almost more unbearable.

“Branch, there you are!” Rhythm exclaimed.

“You were there when King Peppy offered for me to stay in his pod,” Branch deadpanned. He wasn't sure where the bluntness had come from, but it felt kind of good to put it on someone. “And it's not like I've gone many places in the last three days.”

“Well, we're gonna change that!” Rhythm exclaimed.

“Come with us, Branch!” Blues gestured outside the pod, where their funk ship was hovering. “ If you don't mind, we'd love to do some more looking into your amnesia.”

He crossed his arms and turned to the floor, unsure.

“Please, Branch. Not only will it help with our research, but it’ll also help you understand more about what’s happening!”

Well, he did want to know more about this…. Ok. He took a few steps toward the exit of the pod and nodded. With matching smiles, the Funk Trolls pointed remotes at the ship and beamed all three of them inside. 

Branch studied his surroundings, taking in the purples and oranges of the ship and what he assumed was a lab of some sort. Experiments and machines of all sorts sat against the walls and cluttered the room so much he almost felt overwhelmed standing there. 

He looked back to Rhythm and Blues and caught sight of a purple Techno Troll with glasses writing on a clipboard. Upon noticing him staring, she paused what she was doing and stuck a hand between them. Branch quickly shook it.

“Laguna Tidepool, Techno antrollpologist,” she said. “We already know each other, of course, but I thought I should introduce myself given the circumstances.”

“Oh. Uh, thank you.”

A crash made him jump, and he turned to see Rhythm and Blues nodding at each other, both wearing grins.

“Is everything ready, dear sister?”

“It is indeed, dear sister!”

Branch took that as a cue to sit in the chair provided near him.

“Tell us what you remember, Branch!” Rhythm exclaimed

Blues pointed to a recorder attached to a larger machine. “As you talk, we’ll take note of everything here and process it into a timeline that matches your brain activity. Then we’ll be able to figure out why the memories you have were maintained and compare you to other cases to figure out if and when more memories might come back.”

Rhythm smiled at him. “Does that make sense?”

Branch stared at the machine. The explanation was long and confusing, but somehow… he did understand. It actually made a whole lot more sense the more he thought about it. “Yeah. So I just tell you about the memories I still have?”

“Yep!” the two Funk Trolls chorused in unison.

Branch let out a breath as Rhythm turned on the machine. With all the alone time he’d had, he’d been thinking constantly about his only memories, running through them in his head, trying to pick apart what their significance might have been. “Ok, well… The strongest memory I have is this older Troll with purple skin and teal hair. Probably about King Peppy’s age. I don’t know who she is, though. I just remember her being with me, I guess.”

The troll wasn’t just in his memories; she seemed to linger in his mind, and he had no idea why.

Blues jotted something down on a notepad and fiddled with something on the machine. Rhythm gave him an encouraging smile to continue.

“Uh, let’s see. There’s also this other troll. Also purple skin, and green hair. I think he taught me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I had one earlier today, and I really liked it, so I guess that’s something. Mmm… I remember Trollmas, too. Someone gave me a stuffed crocodile for a present. I asked King Peppy about it and he said it got lost a few years back. Oh, I also remember gardening. Nothing big, just something small in a pot. Like a- like some kind of hair.”

Blues perked up. “Sounds like you might have been planting a Troll Gem!”

Branch furrowed his eyebrows. “A Troll Gem?”

“It’s a custom of the Pop Trolls,” Laguna explained. “When you get your first hair, you plant it, and as your happiness grows, so does the hair, until it sprouts into a gem.”

“That’s… kind of cool, actually.” Without much thought, Branch stuck a hand into his hair to see if he could find the gem, but his searching slowed after a couple seconds. What the hair was he doing?

He slowly removed his hand and stared at it, then ran it over the front of his hairline. “I don’t know why I did that.”

The sisters threw him matching confused looks.

“I don’t know why I put my hand in my hair. It’s not like I’m going to be keeping the gem in there.”

An understanding smile crept its way onto Blues’ face. “Actually, Pop Trolls store things in their hair! I guess that’s one piece of information you didn’t remember.”

“That makes sense, actually,” Laguna chimed in from next to him. “All of your memories so far seem to be from your childhood, and trollings tend not to keep a lot of items in their hair. You probably have no recollection of ever storing anything there.”

Branch stared at the floor, his heart beating rapidly. No recollection . His own culture, and he had no recollection of it. His brow furrowed as his chest pounded.

It shouldn’t have been like this.

A hand landed on his shoulder. “Hey, breathe with me, Branch.”

Branch closed his eyes and took a deep breath, then another. After four his heart stopped working overtime and he gazed up at Rhythm. “Thanks. I… I think I just got a little overwhelmed there. This whole thing is….”

“Weird?”

“Scary?”

Branch nodded. “Both of those. I feel like… I should know this stuff. I should know that Pop Trolls keep things in our hair, and that I have a special gem, and that…and that-”

“It’s alright if you don’t know any of that, Branch,” Rhythm interrupted. “Memory is a precious thing, but it’s also mysterious.”

“Yeah! And whatever you remember or don’t remember, we’re here to help you out.”

Something tightened in the pit of Branch’s stomach, but it didn’t feel anxiety-inducing like he’d been experiencing the past few days. It felt… nice. Kind of weird, but nice.

“Thanks.” He paused briefly before glancing at the big machine next to him. “Do you want me to keep going with the memories?”

“If you’re still feeling up for it, go for it!”

“‘Kay, let me think then. I’m sure there was something else.”

The three other Trolls stared at him, smiling.

“Singing,” Branch finally announced, proud he remembered something else. His satisfied smirk dropped, though, when his companions all frowned. “I was singing into a rose, out in the open. Or at least, when I think about it, I get that feeling of openness, like I was able to take on anything. I’m not sure the song, though.”

He thought about that memory and just felt… fond. Free. How often did he feel like that, he wondered? Often? Rarely? What else did he do that gave him that feeling?

Branch had so many questions. For half a second he considered asking Rhythm and Blues, but he wasn’t sure how well they had known each other beforehand. He didn’t want to pester them with a ton of questions, either.

“How well did we know each other?” he decided to ask the sisters, stifling a laugh at the way they jumped. “Like, before I lost my memory. Were we friends?”

“Kind of,” Blues confirmed. “We didn’t hang out a lot, but sometimes you would come up here to get a look at the workings of the ship and would end up in the lab.”

“We were more…” Rhythm seemed to search for the right word. “Acquaintances, I would say. You’re always moving around, investigating, on alert. I don’t think any of us really stopped to get to know each other more.”

Branch blinked. “Well, do you want to be friends now? The only other Troll I know is my friend is Princess Poppy. I mean, I’m still figuring everything out, too, and I haven’t talked to a lot of people, so that’ll probably change, but I think I’d feel better if I knew that I had friends while everything is still confusing. Does that make sense?”

The sisters exchanged a glance and grinned warmly at him. “Perfectly,” Rhythm assured. “And we’d be glad to be your friends, Branch.”

Branch’s smile returned, and it still felt foreign.

Chapter Text

Creek’s best friend was Poppy, but he remembered a time when it used to be Branch.

Things were simpler in the Troll Tree, he sometimes thought. Grey Trolls were common but only ever remained that way for a few days at a time. Support systems proved stronger than the Bergens could ever hope to be, and the encouragement of an entire village tended to wash away grief and make way for a clean future.

Branch was the exception.

The two were inseparable back then, before Cedar died and Rosiepuff got taken and Stream was lost in the escape. Creek supposed the loss of Grandma Rosiepuff was the final straw for Branch. Creek hadn’t been there; in fact, nobody had but Branch, but nobody was ever able to get the whole story out of him, only that their grandma had been taken by a bergen right in front of him. 

Things were never the same after that, between Branch and the other trolls, since he seemed to feel like he had no support system left to lift him out of grief. And really, he did. King Peppy was willing to help out when Rosiepuff passed. Stream was always there to fill the gap left by Cedar (no matter how flaky he could be). Creek and Biggie stuck around through thick and thin. Creek couldn’t imagine ever filling any kind of gap, though he used to hear rumors of Branch having brothers who left before Creek even hatched. He never dared broach the topic, even to push Branch’s buttons about it.

And hair knew, even now, that he loved to push Branch’s buttons.

After the escape they quickly grew apart. Any attempts by old friends to reconnect were met with a grumble and a fervent denial they were ever friends at all. Only the older trolls in the village even remembered anymore that the two of them were cousins. When Branch began to pull away from society as a whole along with his support system, everyone let him.

Yet, somehow, Creek had come to peace with that. 

After all, everything changed, and over the years he had learned to roll with the changes with a mantra and a cup of tea. 

Though… there were some things a cup of tea couldn’t help with, like the guilt of a survivor that plagued one’s entire mind, or the feeling of abandonment that came packaged with an entire village’s lack of support.

Creek quickly shook his head. It wasn't good to think about depressing thoughts like that, no matter how prevalent they may have been. He needed to meditate; that would help him stay positive.

“Um, Creek?” came a voice next to him. He didn't need to open his eyes to know who it was. “Are you alright?”

He cracked one eye open and offered his friend a serene smile. “Ah, Biggie. Just the troll I wanted to see.”

“Yeah?”

“Yep. I've been thinking about Branch.”

Biggie simply stared. “Do you mean the rumors that have been going around? About how he lost his memory?”

Creek opened his other eye and dropped his meditative pose. He heard about Branch’s fall, even that he had woken up several days ago, but nothing about loss of memory. Then again, he always made it a point nowadays to try and avoid the rumor mill that churned throughout the village. “I didn't know about that.”

“Nobody's completely sure,” the blue troll elaborated hesitantly. “But a lot of trolls saw him and Poppy having lunch together a few days ago. And it's going around that he's been spending time around the village and hasn't growled or yelled at anyone even once.”

Creek thought about that for a second. It had been awfully quiet for the past week….

“That complicates things a little.”

“What do you mean?”

Creek moved to roll up his yoga mat. “Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to go with me to see how Branch was doing after his fall, but now I think that wouldn't be very productive seeing as though he probably doesn’t remember us.” He gazed in the direction of the village, then into the forest. Branch didn’t remember them… interesting.

“Join me, Biggie. We’re gonna do a little investigating.”

Biggie timidly followed him toward the village. “What exactly is it we’re doing?”

“Investigating.”

Creek didn’t offer any more, only walked in silence with his yoga mat under his arm. Once they reached the marketplace, he surveyed the booths before landing on a cupcake shop, a popular hangout location for the Rock Trolls.

Biggie stopped just short of the entrance. “Uh, Creek? Why are we here?”

The blue troll had a point. Neither of them often spent time among the Rock Trolls due to their contrasting personalities, and Creek had to admit even now he was a bit out of his element. But he wanted to talk to the Troll who found Branch, and he knew the guy was often seen here.

“Remember I said I wanted to do some investigating? I’m curious about Branch’s accident. Friends help out friends when they apparently fall out of trees.”

With that, the two entered the cupcake shop, a little surprised when it wasn’t as rowdy as it normally was.

“Welcome in!” shouted the Rock Troll running the shop. He leaned on the counter. “What can I do for you Pop lot?”

Creek offered a smile. “We’re actually looking for-”

He was cut off by an excited yell. In a corner booth, a young Rock Troll had just lost an arm wrestle to a purple Pop Troll with blood red hair. Perfect. The two investigators made their way over.

“Creek!” the Pop Troll exclaimed when he caught sight of the two. He gestured to the booth he occupied. “Join me, man! How’ve ya been?”

Creek slipped into the booth. “I’m afraid we can’t stay to talk long, but I had something I wanted to ask you about.”

“Sure thing! Who’s this?”

Biggie stuck a hand out to the other. “I’m Biggie, nice to meet you…?”

“The name’s Ablaze,” the Pop Troll stated, leaning back in the booth. “Awesome to meet you, my dude!”

Creek almost laughed at how taken aback Biggie was by Ablaze’s energy. “Well, now that introductions are out of the way, I have something to ask you, my friend.”

“Ask away!”

The guru took a breath. “You were the one who found Branch outside the village last week, right?”

Ablaze’s grin dropped. “Yeah. Why do you ask?” 

“I wonder if you can tell me just how that happened.”

Blue eyes narrowed at Creek. “I already told Dr. Plum and King Peppy everything. Why do you want to know about it?”

Creek considered that for a second. Why did he want to know, anyway? Perhaps it was because he and Branch used to be friends, and he wanted to look out for a friend. Maybe it was because he liked knowing the major happenings in the village and Branch’s accident was the big story of the month. Or possibly, he told himself knowing what really happened would put his mind more at ease. He’d been on edge ever since he heard the news, and that wasn’t good for the chakras. Trolls came to him for help all the time. If he wanted to help his friends, who depended on him, he at least needed to seem like he was sane and knew what he was talking about.

He didn’t like not knowing what to say, and Branch’s accident was all the village had been talking about since it happened.

“Just looking out for a friend,” he finally settled on. Ablaze stared at him for a second longer before shrugging.

“I don’t usually go that far into the forest, but you probably guessed that,” he started, leaning back in the booth. He took a swig of whatever drink he had in front of him. “Nobody really does. But honestly? I went ‘cause of a dare. Yeah. Y’know Hype? He dared me to go out of the village and into that part of the forest with all those big firs. I dunno, I wasn’t really expecting to find anything that far out except for critters, but then as I was walking back to the village I saw Branch lying next to the border ‘tween the village and the trees. Man, the way he was sprawled out and covered with leaves and everything made it look like he had taken a swan dive off one of the high branches. Crazy.”

Biggie looked horrified, and if Creek had to be honest, he was too. Trolls were notoriously reckless by nature, but Branch had always been the exception. The guy wouldn’t get within twenty paces of danger and was always spouting off some kind of safety lecture to anyone who put themselves in clear harm’s way.

Biggie must have been thinking the same thing, because he whispered, “That doesn’t sound much like Branch. He’s always very careful around the village.”

Ablaze shrugged. “Hey, I’m just tellin’ you what I saw. Lot a’ weird stuff happens before the sun comes up.”

With the new information fresh on his mind, Creek thanked Ablaze and bid goodbye. He and Biggie reconvened outside the cupcake shop.

“Well, that was…” Biggie searched for the right word. “Informative.”

“It was,” Creek replied. He had an idea about the situation now, which served him well because it meant if anyone asked for his opinion he could actually give one. Well, he could at least give one about the accident itself. As for Branch’s character now that he lost his memory, he wasn’t sure. He’d have to see his old friend to form an opinion about that.

He wondered, though, if this apparent loss of memory served as an attitude adjustment, because hair knew Branch needed one of those.

Once again, Branch journeyed into the village with King Peppy, only to be abandoned after a few minutes. It was typical of the king, he found, since the older Troll’s memory often seemed to be off its game. So why did it feel so bad?

He tried not to dwell on it and instead began to explore on his own like he did the last time this had happened. Walking around may not have been the best idea seeing as though he didn’t know where he was going, but it also proved to be a great way to see new faces.

Faces grinned.

Faces glared.

Faces rushed away in fear. Branch had no idea why and was almost too apprehensive to ask.

As he strayed farther from the main marketplace and reached a more secluded area, he heard an excited gasp come from behind him.

“Branch Branch Branch! Hi!”

Branch swiveled around and caught sight of Poppy. Finally, a familiar face.

Behind the princess were five trolls all holding ice cream cones. He recognized some of them from around the market but hadn’t ever talked to them. He started to wave, only for Poppy to run up and drag him over to the group.

The five other trolls gave him quick glances and then went back to their conversation and ice cream like he wasn’t even standing there. Uh… okay. That was a bit odd. Based on what he’d heard, Pop Trolls were the most hospitable of the tribes. Plus, if these were Poppy’s friends, he was sure they would be his friends, too.

Poppy pointedly cleared her throat. “Guys, say hi to Branch.”

Two trolls attached by the hair sent matching glares his way and then continued to chat. A teaspoon troll didn’t spare him a glance, while a girl with headphones waved without looking at him. The only one of the group who provided any kind acknowledgement was a Glitter Troll who threw a smile in his direction.

Poppy seemed somewhat oblivious to the rudeness. That, or she didn’t care. “Alright, so that’s Satin, Chenille, DJ Suki, Smidge, and Guy Diamond!” she introduced, pointing to each troll in tandem.

Branch waved. “I know we probably already know each other, but hi.”

The Teaspoon Troll - Smidge, he thought - nearly dropped her ice cream on the grass and provided him with a hard stare. “Wait, so he actually did lose his memory?”

Poppy facepalmed. “Uh, yeah! I told you guys about this like a week ago.”

“To be fair, we've learned to tune out-” one of the Trolls attached by the hair started - Branch wasn’t sure if it was Satin or Chenille - before getting elbowed by her sister. They glared at each other.

Branch grabbed a chair from a nearby table and pulled it to the group. “Can I join you?”

Poppy gasped. “Yes! That’s an amazing idea! Guys, scooch so Branch can sit down.”

A few grumbles came from the group as Branch took a seat around the cramped table, immediately feeling out of his element. Everyone gazed at him with the discomfort he had grown to know over the past week.

“Guys.”

Smidge rolled her eyes. “Ok, ok. So Branch… how are you? How has your day been?”

She forced a smile that made Branch uncomfortable, and he didn’t try to reciprocate for once. He just stared, not knowing what to say. He and his day were good? That was a lie. Poppy told him he didn’t lie, and he wasn’t going to throw away that admirable trait.

“I guess I’m… anxious? And my day has been boring?”

The other Trolls gave a start, taken aback.

“He speaks,” DJ whispered, awed. A little more loudly, she added, “Cool!”

Branch stared at her, confused. To his left Guy sidled up and poked at his side. Branch recoiled.

“So what’s it like?” Guy asked, trying again (and failing) to poke at his side. “Having amnesia, I mean. Is it as dramatic as the scrapbooks make it seem?”

Branch almost scoffed at that. Dramatic? Terrifying was more like it. This was serious business, not something to be made fun of in a storybook. “No,” he answered with a scowl. “It’s not dramatic. It’s real.”

“Is there anything you remember?” DJ asked. “Or did you just forget everything?”

Well, the question was a bit intrusive, but at least it wasn’t stupid. “I remember some things. From my childhood. But it’s pretty fuzzy.”

“What kinds of things?”

“I… I don’t want to say.”

Maybe Branch was overreacting, but there was something about the way his maybe-friends were asking questions that put him on edge. Before they could pester him to share his memories, he attempted to deflect. “I didn’t recognize any of you when I came over here. You’re Poppy’s friends?”

Poppy grinned and pumped a fist in the air. “Oh yeah, they are! They’re only my bestest friends in the whole wide world!”

“So that makes us friends, too, then?”

The group didn’t respond right away. If anything, they looked uncomfortable about the question, but that was crazy. Right?

Poppy shoved him a little to get his eyes off the rest. “Of course they are!” she exclaimed, laughing awkwardly. “If I’m your friend, and they’re my friends, then they’re obviously your friends, too.”

“That’s riiiiight!” Guy agreed a little too quickly, voice modulating with a tempered autotune. He slung an arm around Branch’s shoulders.

Branch instantly hated it.

“Now tell me, my friend, have you experienced much of the village over the past week? All the shops and sights?”

“Poppy showed me the marketplace a few days ago. Otherwise I’ve just been reading and resting.”

Disappointment flashed across the glitter troll’s face before it was replaced with another grin. He dropped his arm from the half-hug. “Well, there’s plenty of time to see everything, right everyone?”

“You should go check out Techno Lagoon,” DJ chimed in through a mouth stuffed with sandwich. “They’ve got some sick beats and stuff.”

“Or maybe the Trollstopia Wishing Well!” Guy exclaimed. The others brightened. “Lots of magic happening over there! 

Smidge leaned across the table, practically in his personal space. “Have you been to the funtime factory yet?”

Branch stared. “I don’t know what that is.”

An awkward silence fell over the group.

Branch didn’t really know what else to say here, to trolls who were obviously his friends. He imagined it was just as awkward for them, talking to a friend who didn’t remember who they were. So, in an attempt to alleviate the silence, he asked, “So what kind of ice cream did you guys get?”

Three different voices overlapped each other with the flavors chocolate, mango, and strawberry. Branch nodded in interest despite not actually knowing if he actually liked any of those.

He started on a new string of questions about his friends and the village to try and further distract from any form of awkwardness, and by hair, it worked. Within two minutes he had Guy, Smidge, Poppy, and DJ in a conversation about nearly everything under the sun, which was extremely helpful for his addled brain and lack of knowledge about the happenings in the village.

By the time Branch ran out of things to ask about, almost an hour had passed. He decided he liked Guy and DJ. Smidge he wasn’t too sure about, because despite her participation in the conversation, she seemed standoffish toward him and he wasn’t entirely sure why. And the twins…?

Hm. That was a whole different can of worms. Either they really didn’t want to talk to him, or they were just shy. 

As Guy finished up a long soliloquy about the importance of glitter at a party, chimes filled the air. Six bracelets bloomed all at once.

“Hug time!” Poppy exclaimed, pulling Branch into a tight embrace. He immediately squirmed, uncomfortable, but didn’t say anything.

This was part of his culture, so why did it feel so weird? He also wondered, for the second time that week, why he didn’t have a bracelet of his own.

Chapter Text

“Look at him in there. He’s all alone.”

“Should someone go in and do something?”

“Nobody has been able to get through to him in two weeks. Why would now be any different?”

Creek tried to block out all the horrible things people were saying about Branch. That he was ugly and hopeless and how he would never get his colors back in time for the escape in two weeks. He hated it. He hated hearing trolls talk that way about his best friend.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and glanced up to see Stream. “Hey, buddy. Whatcha thinkin’ about?”

Creek stared at Branch’s closed pod. “Branch. He hasn’t talked to me since Grandma was taken away….”

Creek still didn’t understand that. Why would the bergens take someone before they usually did? He missed Grandma. He missed her hugs and her cookies. He still had his dad, though, so he was okay.

“Is Branch gonna be alright?” Creek whispered, sending nervous glances toward his friend’s pod.

“He’s a strong little guy,” Stream answered, ruffling his son’s hair. “I’ll bet if you went in there you’d be able to cheer him up.”

Creek hesitated. He had only talked to Branch once since he turned grey. All the adults who had tried to talk to him and get him out of the pod had left sad or angry.

“You should try to talk to him,” Stream urged again, nudging Creek in the direction of the pod. “He’ll talk to you.”

Creek finally perked up. He slowly crept toward the white pod and jumped into the entrance. Branch sat inside, but even at the sound of footsteps he didn’t turn around.

It was odd seeing grey and black instead of Branch’s usual bright blue.

“Branch?”

His best friend turned slightly toward the door. Creek crept closer until he was directly behind the other Troll.

“Are you okay, Branch?”

No response. Creek tried again, a little louder, but Branch stayed silent. He tried tapping him on the shoulder. Nothing. 

“Branch! Come on, Branch!”

When the grey troll remained stationary once again, Creek’s ears drooped. He glanced toward the open pod door where Stream stood. His father grinned and gifted two encouraging thumbs up. He gestured to Branch.

Creek tapped Branch on the shoulder again, a little more firmly.

“Go away,” Branch mumbled.

“Branch?” he still tried, ignoring the request. “Do you wanna go play? We could- we could color, or play go fish, or I could have my dad read to us-”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!”

Branch finally spun around to face him, angry. It scared Creek. “Go away! I don’t wanna talk to you!”

Creek backed up and peeked at the door. Stream frowned and rushed forward, pushing Creek behind him. “Branch, buddy! You gotta get out and do something! It’s been two weeks, man!”

“I expected you to understand,” Branch retorted. He sounded like he was angry, but his downturned mouth and ears and the way he was avoiding eye contact said otherwise. “She was your mom.”

Stream’s face hardened. He almost seemed like he was going to yell, but one glance at Creek made him frown again. “That doesn’t mean we can’t try to help-”

“Go away,” Branch whispered again. 

“Branch-”

“NO! I HATE YOU! GO AWAY!”

Stream didn’t leave. Creek stared at him, then at Branch, and sat himself next to his friend. He shook his head furiously. “I don’t wanna leave, Branch.”

Branch whimpered like he was gonna cry and then spoke so quietly Creek had to lean in to try and hear him. “ Everyone else always leaves… Floyd and Mom and Dad and Grandma…. ”

The grey troll finally noticed Creek was sitting so close and shoved him. “Go away….”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Just do it! I hate you! I hate how you’re always hanging around me! You’re so annoying! Just- go bother someone else!”

Stream noticed the impending fight and Creek’s unshed tears and unfroze. “Branch, the escape is in two weeks, and you need to get over this by the time it’s time to leave.”

Creek tugged at his father’s hand, his eyes downcast. “I wanna go.”

With one last glance at the now crestfallen trolling, Stream and Creek made their way out of the pod.

“I’ll be back to get you on the day of the escape!” Stream called.

Promises were often broken, they would learn.

Poppy was everywhere, Branch was beginning to notice. It didn’t matter where in the village he visited; he always managed to run into the Princess. Not that he minded. They were obviously friends, and even though he only had just over a week of knowledge about her, he knew she was nice and she was really pretty.

So, yeah. He didn’t mind running into her every day.

Today, though, she wasn’t by herself looking around or with a big group of friends like she had been yesterday. Instead she was strolling next to a single troll when she spotted him.

“Branch, my man!” Poppy exclaimed, rushing over to meet him. Her line of sight flickered between him and the troll behind her, and it was almost like she couldn’t decide whether to smile or frown. 

“So.”

Branch quirked an eyebrow. “So?”

Poppy glanced back at her companion. “There’s another one of my friends I want you to meet.”

“Ok.”

“And I don’t want you to freak out.”

“...Ok?”

Confused, Branch followed Poppy into the center of the village, where the other troll, with green-blue hair, stood. He looked vaguely familiar, but Branch couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.

“Branch,” Poppy started, smiling wryly and rocking back and forth on her heels. “This is Creek, another one of my best friends.”

The entire area around them, filled with trolls and previously buzzing with activity, had gone silent for some odd reason. Branch took in the calm, smiling Troll in front of him. The entire village seemed to hold its breath. 

After a few long, agonizing seconds, he finally stuck his hand in between them. “Hi there.”

Something flashed in the purple troll’s eyes before he took Branch’s hand and shook it up and down. “Nice to see you, my friend.”

As their hands fell, Branch tried to figure out why he seemed to know Creek. It couldn’t have been the marketplace; he would have remembered such vivid colors. He wasn’t part of the group he met the previous day, either. Branch ran through every place he had been, every troll he remembered talking to, and every book he had read from King Peppy’s pod, and he came up completely blank.

In all honesty, all he could really focus on was the fact it was almost lunchtime, so he should probably eat a sandwich or something before he went crazy.

A sandwich.

Just like that, it hit him.

Creek looked like the troll in one of his memories, the peanut butter and jelly sandwich one. Though the image was vague, Branch recognized the colors.

“I recognize you,” he blurted out, not thinking through exactly what he planned to say afterward. Creek and Poppy exchanged what seemed like a worried glance, but Branch tried not to think about what it meant. “You kind of look like someone from one of the memories I have. It’s not you, though. It’s an older troll. And he doesn’t really have that gradient in his hair. But otherwise I think he looks probably exactly like you, I think.”

Creek’s previously serene expression turned unsettled, causing nearby trolls to cast concerned glances in their direction. 

Poppy placed a hand onto his shoulder, concerned. “Hey, you alright, Creek?”

The purple troll shook off his troubled face, and just like that the smile was back. “I’m alright. Thank you.”

Trolls returned to their activities. Branch just stared at Creek. What had he said that got this guy on edge? He chuckled, trying to alleviate the tension.

“Speaking of sandwiches, do you wanna get something to eat? I’m starving.”

Poppy squealed and began to run toward the nearby booths, dragging Creek behind her. Branch followed closely as the hustle and bustle of the village slowly regained life. A few shocked trolls lingered, and he became hyper-aware of the whispers following the three of them.

“Wow, I guess he really did lose his memory.”

“Crazy, right? I didn’t know what to expect when the Princess brought him to see Creek considering what’s happened between the two of them in the past.”

The past? What had happened in the past?

“Amnesia on top of all the other problems he’s got has gotta be tough.”

“Just be nice. Remember when Pixie got bonked on the head and couldn’t remember what she did the week before? How anxious she was?”

“That’s a good point.”

“I saw him with the rest of Poppy’s friends yesterday, and they all seemed to get along well.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Poppy knew something was wrong as soon as her dad called her to his pod.

For one thing, he wasn’t smiling. That was bad. Like, horrifically bad. It had been a long time since she saw her dad frown.

Secondly, when he called her, he said it was for “Official Business.” That happened every so often, them being the primary rulers of the Pop Trolls and of the entirety of Trollstopia, but usually it wasn’t so formal.

She was worried.

“What’s wrong?”

Her dad made sure the pod door was shut, something nobody ever did during the day, then gestured to a mushroom stool. They took seats across from each other. “Poppy, you can’t tell anyone about this, okay?”

Poppy’s eyes flickered to the far end of the pod, where Branch’s little nook sat. He faced the open pod, engrossed in a book.

“He’s alright,” her father assured. “If he hears it, well, I trust him not to say anything.”

He glanced back, then leaned in conspiratorially, grinning. “I think he’s too focused on that book, anyway.”

Poppy grinned back, only for a second, then focused back on her dad. “So, uh. What’s going on?”

“Oh, right.” The King cleared his throat. “Make sure you don’t tell anyone about this. I’ll let the other leaders know at the next meeting, but for now, well… It's best nobody else knows. I don’t want to cause a panic.”

“About what?”

A pause. “I discovered this morning that the Pop String has gone missing.”

Poppy sucked in her breath. Ooh, this… this was bad. She wasn’t an expert in the six strings, of course, but she wasn’t dense. She knew why the tribes split up. Everyone did. Everyone knew getting the six strings together meant disaster.

Though, she wasn’t sure what a single string in the wrong hands would lead to. It was bad, obviously. If it were to be destroyed that would mean the end of Pop music. The end of happiness and harmony for an entire genre.

“What are you gonna do?” she finally asked.

“WE are going to keep an eye out. It was in place the last time I checked a few weeks ago. We should be on the lookout for any kind of suspicious activity around the village.”

Poppy nodded firmly.

“When you become Queen this’ll be one of your responsibilities,” her dad continued. “Protecting the string. It has powerful properties even I don’t understand. Some do, however. I can name a good deal of trolls who have done enough research to comprehend manipulating music without destroying it. We need to be careful.”

Poppy hadn’t heard any of this before.

She was going to be on guard now.

The Princess glanced over to Branch in his corner. After a few seconds he looked up, caught her eye, and horribly attempted a smile.

Poppy smiled back and made a note to ask Branch about those books. Maybe she could learn a little more about the strings.

Chapter Text

For the first time since everything happened, Branch wandered into the forest.

He wasn’t sure where King Peppy was, and honestly, he didn’t really care at this point. After two weeks of being left alone by the guy, Branch figured he was good to explore on his own. And sometimes being around all the other trolls in the village gave him a little bit of anxiety, anyway.

Somehow he knew his way around the forest; it wasn’t exactly that he knew the trees or was able to spot familiar landmarks, but more that he felt good walking in the relative silence of nature and knew how far to walk that he could still easily make it back to the village.

What he didn’t expect to see was another troll in the forest, standing by a berry bush.

Branch had to admit the sight of the bright yellow berries made him hungry, but just as quickly as the hunger came he realized something about that bush just felt… off. He couldn’t quite put his finger on exactly what.

The feeling was strong enough that, when the small troll reached for one of the berries, Branch found himself rushing toward them. “Wait, don’t eat that!”

The troll turned around, and Branch realized he recognized her. This was one of Poppy’s - HIS - friends. Uh… Smidge!

“Don’t eat that,” he repeated.

Smidge, confused, looked at the berry in her hand, then at Branch. “Why?”

Why? 

“It’s poisonous,” Branch found himself saying. He didn’t know how he knew. He just knew. Those were poisonous berries. “Yellow is a warning sign. And see the milky sap on the stem? That most likely means the plant is toxic.”

Smidge stared at him for a second more, frozen, as she dropped the berry and slowly backed away from the plant. Branch felt a twinge of pride beat in his stomach.

“Wow Branch!” Smidge finally exclaimed, grinning. She lunged at him for a hug. “You saved my life!”

Branch awkwardly patted her on the back. “Uh, yeah. I guess I did.”

Smidge fell back to the ground. “How’d you know that berry was poisonous?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted, staring at the bush. “I don’t know.”

Smidge blinked at him.

“Sorry. That was kind of weird.”

Smidge punched him on the shoulder, his good one, thankfully. “Aw, don’t worry about it. You should see some of the stuff the rest of us do on a daily basis.”

“It’s pretty crazy?”

Smidge laughed as the two of them began to walk back to the village. “Yeah! There was this one time Guy tried to paint and buff his own skin to make himself golden, but he had an allergic reaction to the paint! Now that was weird. And another time, Biggie lost Mr. Dinkles in a tree that was in the middle of the flavorberry patch and almost drowned in glitter. That was fun to handle because I was the only one strong enough to both pull him out of the quickglitter and rescue Mr. Dinkles.”

Biggie and Mr. Dinkles? Branch didn’t think he had heard those names. “Who are they?”

“Who, Biggie? He’s another one of our friends.”

“And the other guy? Is he one of our friends, too?”

Smidge began to cackle. “Oh my guh, Branch, no! Mr. Dinkles is Biggie’s pet worm!”

Oh. Now that he thought about it, he remembered seeing a Giant Troll around the village carrying a worm. “I think I’ve seen them around. Does the worm have a little hat?”

“Yeah!” Smidge paused for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Did you remember that?”

Branch shook his head. “No, I’ve seen them in the village.”

Branch wasn’t sure what else to say. What was Smidge like, besides what he had gathered in the combined maybe two hours he had spent with her recently? The only thing he knew now was she definitely wasn’t as standoffish as she had seemed to him a week ago.

“I still haven’t been to the Funtime Factory,” he settled on, taking in Smidge’s confused look. “Last week, you asked me if I had been there. I read about it in one of King Peppy’s books, but I haven’t had the chance to check it out yet because I’m still technically supposed to be taking it easy. But it sounds cool.”

Smidge stared at him as they reached the outskirts of the village. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool.” She glanced toward the village, then back to Branch, and stuck out her hand. Branch went to shake it, only to be thwarted by an unexpected fist bump to his open palm. “Welp, thanks Branch! I gotta say, for once I actually don’t want to kill you!”

With that she sped away into the village, leaving Branch standing confused with his right arm still extended for a handshake.

As soon as Barb got the letter, she almost panicked. There were a million and one things it could be: her dad was getting worse, the Rock string was taken (even though she just checked it three weeks ago), the bounty hunters found bad news by the volcanoes….

It wasn’t any of that, thank goodness. No, apparently somebody back in Volcano Rock City had located a huge copper supply beneath the houses, and now a dispute had risen between those living in the homes and those who wanted to dig up the metal.

It was a mess. And also a time-sensitive issue, which meant she needed to get back home now .

As Barb packed her bag to venture out of Trollstopia, she mentally went through the list of all the stuff she had to do.

Take stock of existing copper deposits

Check on Dad

Bad Hair Day concert next week

Nodding to herself, she strode to the angler bus and froze.

Up there was King Peppy’s pod. She needed to let him know about her sudden departure.

Except… Branch was there. She didn’t exactly know how to talk to him now. Or, y’know, particularly want to talk to him after what happened.

Well this sucked.

“Yo. Val.”

The Rock delegate froze in her tracks and slowly, painstakingly turned around. “Yeah?”

Barb hitched a thumb toward the bus. “I gotta get back to the city. Think you could pass on a message to King Peppy for me?”

Val’s face twisted. “Do I have to?”

“dO i HaVe to,” Barb mocked. “Yeah, you have to. My dad chose you as a delegate for a reason. You can’t just sit around here on your butt all day without being involved.”

“Ugghhhhhh. I’ve been doing that for the past like, two years. I go to all the meetings. I oversaw the construction of Rock Hollow. Heck, Demo and I even set up a Hopscotch Extreme arena over by Misty Meadows.”

“And I’m happy about that. But I still need you to talk to King Peppy for me.”

“Why can’t you just do it yourself?”

“Because I need to get back to Volcano Rock City.”

Barb grabbed her bag, rushed outside, and hopped into the bus. “Just let him know I’m heading home. Oh, also, Riff’s staying here for a while, that cool?”

Val nodded and stared.

“Cool. See ya later, Thundershock!”

With that, Val was left standing in the angler’s dust. She glanced up at King Peppy’s pod, then started for it, grumbling. She didn’t get why Barb couldn’t just talk to the guy herself. It’s not like they were on bad terms- Barb had been a part of the quarterly meetings for years to help out her dad before becoming queen herself. Hmph.

Still, she sucked it up and hopped into the entrance, only to find no King Peppy. Well.

“King Peppy isn’t here, if that’s who you’re looking for.”

Val jumped. Her eyes shot to the far end of the pod. Branch.

Ack, that’s right. She knew the talk from around the village. The guy had amnesia. He was staying with the Pop king until his shoulder was better. 

She nodded at him and was about to leave when she caught sight of the book he was holding and rushed over. “Dude, are you reading about Rock Troll culture?”

Branch blinked once, startled, then nodded. “Yeah. I’ve been trying to understand more about how things work around here.”

Val grinned. Idea time. “Y’know, if you really wanna learn about Rocker culture, I could give you a tour of Rock Hollow.”

Branch’s face lit up. It scared Val just a little, because she had never seen anything but doom and gloom in the grey troll’s eyes. “That would be great!”

“Awesome.” She led him out of the pod and into the main village. “I’m Val, by the way. I’m the Rock ambassador for Trollstopia.”

“I thought you looked familiar. From a book I read about tribal structure. I’m Branch.”

Val snorted. “I know who you are. Everyone knows who you are.”

At that mention, Branch seemed to become aware of all the trolls who turned their heads at the sight of him; some scowled, some frowned, some backed away out of fear. As per the norm. She was stubborn, of course, so she was always trying to get him interested in Rock culture. Amnesia? An open door was more like it.

The stares seemed to be getting to Branch. As he walked he was wary, head down to avoid eye contact with anybody, focused on the grass crunching beneath his feet.

Val bumped his good shoulder. “Hey, don’t worry about what those jerks think. Doesn’t matter as long as you’re rockin’.”

Branch glanced at the nearby villagers, many of whom quickly turned away once they saw him looking. But still, he took in the rest of the village with curious eyes and didn’t leave Val’s side the entire walk.

“Welp, here we are - Rock Hollow!”

Sparklers shot out of the canons on the sides of the entrance, creating a glitter title in the sky that read “ROCK HOLLOW!”

“Is that… normal?”

Val waved him off. “Psh, of course it’s normal. Happens all the time. Lesson number one: Rock Trolls love dramatic flair.”

Branch nodded, then looked around helplessly. “Oh. I don’t have anything to take notes.”

Val almost laughed. Notes? Lame. But still, she could see where he was coming from. “C’mon. Demo probably has a notebook you can use.”

Branch quickly followed her brisk steps into the cave. His eyes searched the reds, greys, and purples as he studied their denim architecture and the punkish aesthetic it gave off. “Demo?”

“My band manager. Well, not just that. He’s kinda my right-hand-troll of sorts. Takes care of all the boring stuff around the hollow that I don’t wanna deal with.”

The stage was deserted, shining in the bright lights and littered with broken guitars from yesterday’s concert. That would get cleaned up eventually.

The real party began when the two crossed the threshold into backstage. A guitar flew across the room, narrowly avoiding their faces. Branch gave a shocked start, but Val didn’t flinch. “Yeah, so here we go.”

She scanned the room once, twice, before landing on familiar hair spikes. “Yo, Demo!”

Her manager jumped and grinned when he spotted her. “Say it isn’t the great Val Thundershock! And… Branch? You’ve never been to Rock Hollow before! What brings you by?”

Val stepped further into the cave, ignoring the various guitars being smashed and the card games being cheated at. Branch, on the other hand, drank in the scene with wide eyes. “He wanted to learn about Rocker culture! And he needs a notebook; think you can help us out with that?”

Demo produced a small book and pen from his hair and extended them to Branch. “Nice to see you taking an interest! Can I ask what prompted this?”

Branch gingerly accepted the notebook. “Uh… I was reading up on the culture and Val offered to show me around.”

“He has amnesia,” Val supplied. “From that swan dive he took a few weeks ago.”

Demo frowned. “I had forgotten about that. I’ve been pretty busy lately trying to get everything sorted out for the concert last night. Guess the rumor mill never made it to me.” 

“What do you mean-”

Demo hopped up on a table. “Nevertheless! Let’s make your first experience in Rock Hollow an epic one!”

Nearby Rock Trolls cheered even though most of them probably didn’t know what was going on. Val and Demo ushered Branch deeper into the hollow.

“‘Kay, so over there is where all the boring admin guys hang out. Like Demo.”

“Hey!”

“Then here’s where Axe Woodshed accidentally broke his favorite amp. Scandal for weeks after that. Uh, over there’s where all the equipment is stored.”

Branch looked around. “It kinda looks like the entire place is equipment storage.”

Val stared at him, then at Demo, then at the surrounding chaos, then back at Branch. “Nah.”

She pointed out more sights until the trio reached the inner inner workings of the cave, where all the coolest Trolls in the house hung out. “Now this is a great place to unwind, get a drink, and smash a guitar, alright? If you’re in here you’re part of the elite. Which, y’know, I am.”

As they made their way to a booth in the corner, trolls began to turn their heads. Val didn’t blame them; Branch had never been one to show any interest in the Rock Trolls. Hair, she was pretty sure he had never even set foot in Rock Hollow until today. Still, she glared them off and everyone quickly returned to their conversations.

“So, amnesia, huh?” Demo asked once they were settled. “A guy back home had that once after he got a snare smashed over his head. Couldn’t keep anything for more than fifteen minutes for like a month.”

Branch’s face twisted. “Mine’s a little different than that. I don’t have any problem retaining new memories. It’s just the ones that are already there I have trouble recalling. Anything before… What was it you said earlier? I took a ‘swan dive?’”

“Yeah. That’s what we say whenever someone falls from one of the rafters.”

Branch raised an eyebrow.

With a shrug, Val explained, “Hey. Rock Trolls do what they want. I don’t know what to tell you, man.”

“Ok then. So uh… Question. Are we friends?”

Val gestured to the cave around them. “Obviously. I don’t bring just anybody back here.”

Branch’s eyebrows furrowed. “No, I mean, were we friends before I lost my memory.”

“Ohhhhhhhhhhh. No.”

Disappointment flashed across Branch’s face. “Why not? You two seem pretty cool. And Rock Hollow is a pretty cool place.”

Val shrugged and leaned back in the booth. “Yeah, before the whole ‘amnesia’ thing, let’s just say you weren’t all that excited about Rocker culture. It was too loud, or too edgy, or some junk like that, I dunno.”

“You were friends with Riff, though!” Demo piped up. “He’s Barb right-hand-troll. Whenever he and Barb came into town for the meetings and stuff, I would always see you two talking.”

Branch lit up a little. “Is he here? I’ve been trying to find more trolls who used to be my friends other than Poppy and her group.”

Val and Demo shared a look Branch likely missed. Popsqueak was saying the two of them were friends? She was kinda conflicted about that, but honestly? It made a lot of sense.

“Riff stayed behind when Barb went back to Volcano Rock City earlier. I bet we could find him.”

Branch frowned as they traversed back to the main backstage area. “Barb as in Queen Barb? She came into King Peppy’s pod the day I woke up. I got the feeling she didn’t like me all that much.”

“That’s weird,” Demo noted. “I always thought you and Barb were on good terms. Not exactly friends, but you’d talk sometimes.”

“Yeah, no, you’re right,” Val agreed. “Barb hates a lot of things, but I don’t think you’re one of them.”

“She yelled at me,” Branch elaborated. “Because I called her Princess Barbara.”

Val and Demo snickered.

“And then when I told her I had amnesia, she looked really scared. She kind of grunted that she was glad I was alright and then left really quickly.”

Riff suddenly popped up behind them. “Maybe it’s because her dad is losing his memory and you reminded her of that.”

The others jumped. Val clutched her heart. “Riff, dude. You scared me. Don’t do that.”

The drummer backed away sheepishly. “Sorry.” 

Branch quirked a curious eyebrow. “So you’re Riff?”

Riff stuck his hand out. “Yeah! Barb told me about the amnesia. I’m glad to see you’re alright, though!”

As the two got to talking, Val glanced at her manager. “Hey, Demo, let’s talk for a sec.”

Branch seemed not to notice their departure to the nearby stage, too engrossed in his conversation with Riff. Val almost laughed. Riff could talk anybody’s head off if you gave him the chance.

“What’s up?” Demo asked, standing in front of the stage.

“Don’t you think it’s a little crazy that Poppy basically lied to Branch about them being friends? I mean, I know she’s been trying to make friends with him for years, but lying to someone who’s that vulnerable doesn’t seem very much like her.”

Poppy would do a lot of crazy stuff. She would try way too hard to fix mistakes, and Val had seen her lie a lot in the two years they had known each other, but that was usually in the case of protecting her friends’ feelings. This felt… different.

That also brought up getting to know Branch now . The guy asked Val if they were friends, she said no, and he wanted to become friends. What was different with Poppy that made her want to go a different direction?

Demo shrugged. “You know Poppy. She was probably worried he wouldn’t want to be friends.”

Hmm.

“You know what I find really epic?” Demo hitched a thumb toward Branch and grinned. “How he’s interested in Rock culture now.”

“It is pretty cool,” Val agreed. She nudged Demo. “Whaddya say we finish giving him that tour? We still haven’t shown him the mosh pit and the recording studio.”

When Val looked at the Pop Troll again, he was furiously taking notes in his new book while Riff chatted his head off. “Yo, Branch! How ‘bout the rest of that tour?”

Branch nodded. “Yeah. Y’know, Riff was just telling me about the infrastructure of Volcano Rock City. How is it you guys can live in that kind of environment and still thrive? The volcano alone seems like it would decrease the air quality so much the city would be unlivable.”

Val snorted. She didn’t have any time to worry about that kind of thing. “I have no idea. But you know who you should ask…”