The Bergen finally made it to Bergen Town after twenty minutes or so, making sure to keep every troll he had in his bags secure.
As he arrived to the castle, he shoved the front doors open and went to go look for where Chef was, bumping into King Gristle accidentally.
"Watch where you're walking!" He poked him in the stomach roughly, since you know, he was shorter than him and all of the other guards.
"Apologies sir, have you seen Chef anywhere?" He bowed before asking about Chef's whereabouts.
"She's somewhere. I don't know where she went. What do you want with her?" He raised an eyebrow.
"I-I just need to show her something, that's all."
"Show her what?" Gristle looked down at the bags he was holding and grew even more curious.
"What is that you're holding? Give it to me!" He snatched the bags from him, "No funny business shall be done behind my back!"
"Erm-"
Once he opened one of the bags, his eyes widened at what he saw.
It was all- well, some of the trolls, from the village.
"You.." He looked in the other bag to find more of them, "you found them all.."
All the guard did was give a nervous toothy smile.
"You really found them! T-This is amazing!" Gristle practically jumped up and down with the bags, his joy blocking out the small yelps of surprise in the bags.
"Haha, yeah well-"
"Found what, now?"
The two turned their heads hearing a feminine voice from a few feet away. They could see Chef walking up to them.
"Sorry about my absence, had to take care of a few things. Now what did I miss?" She crossed her arms.
"This, is what you missed!" He opened the bags wide enough so she could see inside.
As expected, she looked inside and was astonished at the sight.
"You got all of them, and didn't miss one! Hm, I guess you guards aren't so brain-dead like I always thought you were." Chef smirked.
"Why thank you Che- hey!"
Chef turned to Gristle.
"I'll just be taking these from you sire." Her smirk grew maliciously wider as she grabbed the bags from him.
"Make sure they don't escape this time! I'm hereby declaring our trollstice after many years tonight!" Gristle clapped his hands together.
It was unbearable how much wider Chef's smirk had grown, almost wide as the grinch's.
Even it made Gristle a bit uneasy, but he just decided to ignore and assumed she was just as excited as he was.
"Welp, I gotta go spread the word to my fellow citizens and start getting things set up! Toodles!" Gristle hopped away, humming a random tune.
"You do that little boy, you do that." Chef mumbled as he hopped away, afterwards turning her attention to the guard.
"Go get me the biggest but most secure cage you can find. We've gotten this far and we are NOT letting these pests get away from our grasp again. Once you find it meet me in the kitchen."
The guard immediately nodded and ran off to go find her the "biggest but most secure" cage for her.
Watching him leave, she turned around and kept her grip on the bags while walking to the kitchen.
"Only a few steps closer.." She mumbled to herself, her smirk forming back on her face.
•°○♡♡♡♡♡♡○°•
"Are we there yet?" Branch, clearly bored, leaned against the fabric of the pocket they were inside and groaned.
"Dunno, let me check." Poppy carefully hopped up and peeked her head outside the pocket and saw they were indeed nearly there.
"Yes!"
"Finally! It's hot in here." The Blue troll complained.
Poppy kept her head peeked out, noticing that they were getting close to the front doors.
She began to think and hopped back down inside the pocket.
"We need a plan."
"What?"
"When we get inside the castle we need to think of how we'll get out of this pocket, without being noticed!"
Branch's eyes widened.
"Seriously?! We could've been thinking about how we'll get out of here this whole time and you just now mention this!" Branch practically whisper-yelled.
"Well sorry, I wasn't thinking about it until now!" She whisper-yelled back.
"Well maybe you should've been!"
"Well if you're so upset about this why didn't you mention it before huh?" She poked his chest.
"Because! I- well-"
All arguments were halted when the guard made his way inside, and they quickly zipped their lips and kept quiet.
The guard who was talking with Chef earlier was holding a large cage while walking towards him.
"Where have you been?" He asked raising an eyebrow.
"Out making sure there were no more trolls left back at their stupid village, obviously." The other guard snorted.
"Whatever. The King needs help getting things prepared for trollstice tonight. You should go help."
"And what about you, huh?" The second guard eyed him.
"I'm helping Chef out with the trolls, obviously. Now go make yourself useful." The first guard carried the cage to the kitchen where Chef was.
The second guard just rolled his eyes and walked to go find Gristle.
"Well now what?" Branch whispered to Poppy.
Poppy peeked her head out again and desperately looked for something that said "escape" written all over it.
They couldn't jump out since there were Bergens around and they were far too high from the ground.
Finally, something caught her eye.
She saw a pole near a corrider they were about to pass with a plant pot sitting on a small wall mounted table next to it and she immediately got an idea.
"Grab my hand!" She whispered to him.
Branch looked at her puzzled but asked no questions and just grabbed her hand.
"You better know what you're doing right now." He said in a serious tone but there was a hint of worry in his voice also.
"Trust me, if I didn't I wouldn't be doing it. Now try not to scream!"
"What!"
As the bergen was about to turn to the right Poppy wrapped her hair around the pole and swung her along with Branch upward to the wall mounted table and immediately behind the plant pot.
Poppy fist bumped the air at her successful plan and looked at Branch.
"You okay?"
"Surprisingly.. I didn't scream."
Poppy quietly laughed at him, making him smile.
"Sooo now what do we do." He questioned again.
"We go save our friends!"
Branch coughed and said, "Your friends. And how? We don't even know where they are right now."
"Oh geez, do you have to question every single thing?" Poppy shook her head and peeked her head from behind the pot and looked to see guards walking around, specifically the guard with the cage.
"Branch, look, it's him!" She pointed to the guard.
Branch peeked his head out as well and looked at him.
"Yeah, what about him?"
"He said earlier he's gonna help out with the trolls so that obviously means he's going to the room with them inside!" She reminded him.
"It makes sense, but how do you know that for sure? It could be any other room."
Poppy looked at him about to approach a door.
"I guess we'll just have to find out." She smiled.
A/N: Whoops
It's been like... 4 months-
sOrrY abOut tHaT
I'm terrible at updating my books, ik
But maybe this summer that can change-
Hopefully
Anyway I hope y'all liked this chapter that was due sOOOO long ago
Mkay byez