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"Pfffff... Heh, heh-heh..." He let out a soft laugh, releasing the amusement that bubbled up inside him at the sight of Riff—a rock troll whose instrument was the drums, sporting messy black hair and a gray-and-black beanie that hid his eyes behind a shade unknown to him—tripping over his own feet as he looked at and greeted him with a goofy smile, crashing flat on his face.
He walked over to the scene, setting the crates of strawberries that Branch had asked him to help transport to a spot where they could store them for cooking later on the ground beside his brother, who was reading through some papers with details about where they were headed. He watched as Barb helped the guy up from the ground, grabbing him by one arm while the other propped himself up on the dirt, completely unaware of his approach.
As he arrived, he greeted Barb with a sweet, "Good afternoon, Queen Barb." Respectful toward the woman, he stretched out his hand in an attempt to help Riff up properly. The latter looked up at him; his eyes, previously hidden beneath that beanie, met his with a slight glimmer in their blue irises and a purple tint dusting his cheeks. "And... good afternoon to you too, sky-colored eyes." A shiver ran down Riff's spine, startling him slightly at the nickname about his eyes. He grabbed his skewed beanie and pulled it down quickly over his eyes and past his nose. His hand, resting on the grass, trembled as he accepted the magenta-haired troll's help, leaning on it and finishing pulling himself up in a hurry.
"G-good afternoon... uh... F-Floyd—" His voice came out shaky, avoiding the named troll's gaze at all costs, staring at whatever happened to be within his reach with the beanie acting as his most obvious obstacle.
Barb greeted him too, not quite as respectfully as him, but a greeting nonetheless: "Hey, Floyd! How's it going, cotton candy hair?" That nickname again. He had no earthly idea where she'd gotten it from, though he knew it was just a teasing jab she used with that mocking tone whenever she saw him.
She wasn't the only one who called him that; one of his friends called him that too—Val, a violet-haired girl with two pigtails. She and Barb never stopped throwing that nickname around, and apparently, only the two of them knew what it meant or where it came from.
The magenta-haired troll looked at her with disgust and exhaustion; he found it deeply uncomfortable. It felt like the silly nicknames JD or Bruce used to give Clay and him when they were kids. Though he didn't hate them—quite the opposite, he remembered them with a touch of nostalgia for the days before everything went over a cliff.
Noticing the furrow in Floyd's brow, Barb tried to lighten the mood by wrapping her left arm around him while using her other hand to give him a light punch on the shoulder. "Hey, don't be like that, Cotton Candy. You know it's aaaaaall kinds of a cute nickname, right?"
The mocking tone she used, combined with the gesture, strangely cheered him up. A sideways smile took over his lips; he closed his eyes, chuckled with amusement, and shook his head before finally looking over at the black-haired troll, who was still wearing his beanie crookedly while playing with his fingers and a drumstick. When on earth had he pulled out a drumstick?
Watching his hands was like watching a miniature earthquake. Without thinking too much about it, he stepped away from Barb and took a few steps toward the taller troll. His hand rose up above the beanie, rising onto his tiptoes in the act. Riff gasped as he felt the shadow of the shorter troll's hands over his head, gripping his drumstick tightly and squeezing his eyes shut. He trembled more and more as the hand of the shortest of the three drew closer to him. He simply adjusted his beanie, putting it back in its proper place where it only hid his eyes—which, Floyd now knew, were blue, like the sky, or at least that's what it reminded the magenta-haired troll of.
"Your eyes are really pretty, Riffy," he murmured with an internal laugh.
The other didn't say anything in response; he just swallowed hard and looked at Barb for a few seconds, begging for help. She just kept a hand over her mouth to keep from letting out the biggest laugh of her life, though she definitely looked at him with amusement. She'd tease him about it later.
He turned his attention back to Floyd from beneath his beanie, thinking of a thousand and one ways to reply without sounding stupid or foolish. He was grateful to have that beanie; otherwise, his little panic attack would have been a swirling vortex of red as his nerves rushed all the blood straight to his face.
Seconds turned into minutes, causing Floyd and Barb to instinctively look at each other in unison, bewildered by the third's silence. But Barb knew what he was like, and if he was good at one thing, it was staring at a single fixed point while he began to dissociate to keep a tsunami of emotions from making him pass out or triggering a panic attack. He did it constantly when he felt overwhelmed by his studies, or when he wasn't confident he knew the tempos in a song, though he was an expert at masking it when his worries were real—or in this case, given the way the famous "cotton candy" was something Riff used to mumble in his sleep after a long practice or an intense concert.
"W-well... see you guys later? I've got to go help my brother with some stuff." He broke the awkward silence, proceeding to say goodbye to both rock trolls by lifting a hand as he walked off toward his younger brother, who was still waiting for him while reading through the list in his hands.
He took a few steps forward when a voice full of cracking tones yelled at him from where he had been standing a moment before. It sounded strained, nervous, and forcefully loud, as if it had taken everything he had to say it or he'd spent an hour and a half debating it in the exact same position.
"YOU'RE PRETTY TOO!" echoed out in a loud shout. Pop village trolls and passing visitors turned around to see where the shout had come from. But when Floyd turned back around, he only managed to see the black-haired troll sprinting off in some random direction with no final destination in sight, and Barb watching Riff run, glancing back at Floyd, looking back at the beanie-wearing troll, and taking off running to chase after him.