"Does she have to come with us?" Branch whispered to Poppy, as he looked back at Chief Nightengail, who was following the group of friends. "Yes, Branch," Poppy said, rolling her eyes slightly. "She can help."
"Help get us killed..." Branch mumbled.

Poppy sighed, looking at Branch, as they both continued walking.

"Come on, Branch. Would you just get over that?" she asked.
"It's kinda hard to get over almost being dropped into lava," Branch grumbled, crossing his arms. "She apologized," Poppy said, rolling her eyes again.
"Oh yeah... that totally makes up for it," he said sarcastically, rolling his eyes as well.
"You know I can hear you, right?" Chief Nightengail said, suddenly right behind the two of them.

     "Ahhh!" Branch yelled, stumbling, and falling to the ground in surprise. "Umm... I... I wasn't talking about you," he lied, smiling innocently.
"Ok... than who were you talking about?" she asked in a firm tone.

     His smile faded, his eyes widening in horror, as he looked at Chief Nightengail, terrified.

     "I... I... I..." he stuttered.

Chief Nightengail crossed her arms, giving Branch the death glare.

"Please don't kill me!" he begged, dropping down to his knees, as he folded his hands together, pleading with her to let him live.

"Branch... just stop," Poppy sighed, lifting him up off the ground. "Sorry about him," she apologized, looking to Chief Nightengail. "He's a little paranoid."
"And your sure he's a troll?" Nightengail asked suspiciously.
"Yes. He's a troll," Poppy assured.

She looked at him, as he cowered behind Poppy.

"I still don't believe it," she said, walking past them.

—————

     The sun yawned up in the sky, as the moon hopped up next to it. They high fived each other, and then the sun dropped down, causing darkness to fall over all the trolls.

     They set up camp for the night, quickly falling asleep.

     "Don't let them know we're here," Branch suddenly heard in a whisper, as he slept. "I'm not stupid. I'm not just gonna tell them we're following them."

His ear twitched, as he slowly opened his eyes, sitting up.

     "Be quiet. The weird ones waking up."

     Branch looked off into the darkness, where the voices were coming from, but saw no one in sight.

     "Hello?" he called out into the darkness.
"Great. He heard us," one of the whispers said.
"Shut up!" said the other.

     "Poppy," Branch said, frightened. "It's happening again..."
"Go to sleep, Branch. It's late," Poppy mumbled sleepily.
"But... but..." He looked at her, but she was already sleeping again, and couldn't hear him anymore.

     "Achoo!" he suddenly heard.

He flinched at the sound, looking at the bush the noise had come from.

"Be quiet!" one of the voices yelled in a loud whisper.
"It's not my fault! I had to sneeze!" the other voice yelled back.
"Shut up! He's going to find us!" the first voice warned.

     Branch lay back down, covering his head with his leaf blanket, too scared to go investigate again. He knew what happened the last time, and he wasn't about to let that happen again...

     "What do we do? They can't know we're here," one of the whispers said.
"Well he kinda already knows we're here," said the other.
"Maybe he won't tell."
"Are you dumb? Of course he'll tell."
"Well then... we'll just have to make sure he doesn't."
"Ok. Let's get him."

     Branch gulped, shaking under his leaf. What was he going to do?

     Slowly, footsteps began to approach him, echoing in the night.

     "Shh... don't wake any of them up."

     Branch listened, his ears twitching slightly, as the footsteps got closer and closer to him.

     "Ok..." he whispered to himself, his heart racing. "You know all about self defense, Branch... you can handle this... hopefully."

     He took a deep breath, reaching into his hair to pull out his emergency nunchucks.

     "3... 2... 1! Ruuugh!" He jumped out of his leaf, swinging the nunchucks like crazy, but no one was there.

     "What..." he said softly, stopping his attack on the air, as he looked around in confusion. "But who..."

     Suddenly, something grabbed him from behind, covering his mouth, so he couldn't scream out for help, as they dragged him away, off into the darkness of the woods.