Married Life

Chapter 49: The card

     The sun shone brightly on Poppy and Branch's bunker. For their first night with the baby, it actually wasn't so bad. Melody would only wake up for her night feedings and fall right back asleep. Today however, was the day Melody would be welcomed into the troll village. As much as he shouldn't be, Branch was beginning to feel his nerves. It was also quite obvious to Poppy.

     "I don't really understand why you're nervous."

     "We're standing in front of the whole village introducing them to our first born. What if I trip and accidentally throw her across the stage like if we were at a concert?? What if she starts to cry in the middle of the ceremony and we can't calm her down??"

     "Branch, I seriously doubt any of that will happen. Besides, this is more of a smile and wave kind of thing. We say 'Hey guys look at this baby we made!' They cheer, we talk to trolls one on one, and we leave. Piece of cake."

     The teal troll began to fidget his fingers as he made a mental list of everything that could possibly go wrong. When Poppy came back through, she was wearing her usual blue dress, but this time, she had the extra accessory of a baby carrier, a little Melody hiding inside.

     "I gotta go run over to Satin and Chenille's to see if they have any cute outfits for Melody. I'll be back in 15 minutes." She said as she planted a kiss on her husband's forehead.

     "Please get ready while I'm out. Thank you, love you, bye!" And with that she closed the door and began her walk towards the town.

     The teal troll stood up and walked towards his outfit for the day. It wasn't a super formal event so he had a nice yellow shirt laid out with black pants. Just looking at his outfit gave him the jitters and added 12 more things that could go wrong on his list.

     After being sucked into his own thoughts, he was pulled out by a knock at the door. Slowly, Branch walked over to the door and opened it ever so gently.

     "Hello Branch! Nice to see you up this morning!" It was Biggie. He was always happy, even at the earliest of times.

     "Biggie, didn't expect to see you until later. What do you need?"

     "Well, we all know you get pretty freaked out when it comes to public events, so everyone in the group got together and made you a card!" He said enthusiastically as he handed it to his friend. Branch carefully opened it, expecting a glitter bomb of some sort, but no glitter was exploding into his face. Only personalized messages for their friend, expressing how they knew everything was gonna be alright. That he needed to loosen up. Branch smiled, then looked up at his blue friend.

     "Thanks.." He said softly, but gratefully.

     "No problem! Well, I have to go get ready. Don't want to be out of dress for meeting the special girl of the day!"

     "See you around."

     And with that, the blue troll went merrily on his way back to his own pod.  Branch walked back inside, looked at his outfit, then at the card. With a confident smile, he looked back to the outfit that was laid out.

     "Let's do this."