Faded Rainbows

Bleeding Colors

He flinched, his eyes narrowing as he looked over at Beat. "So what do you suggest then? Leave our people to fend for themselves? No troll in this place has dealt with this in living memory. I'd have to go and talk to a tribe that has." He returned to staring out the window again. "I'll stay and take care of them. It's the least I can do for letting them down already..."

With a frustrated groan, Beat stormed out of the room, kicking up swirling currents in his wake.

Trollex didn't acknowledge his friends departure, staring into the deep darkness just outside of the palaces ever present glow. He often found himself staring into that darkness nowadays. Sometimes, he felt it tugging at his heart, trying to drag him into its cold embrace.

He always pulled away from the sensation, throwing himself at whatever task he needed to complete. In this case, that was the issue of caring for his trolls.

He paused.

Was Beat right? How could he take care of them, if he felt so empty? He couldn't even find his hearts song, the beat his life had always followed. He felt hollow. Quiet. He pushed himself out of his chair and squeezed himself out of his window. He couldn't protect his tribe right now, not as he was, so he had to fix himself. He needed to go and see a tribe that knew about the loss of one's heart song and color.

He paused, blinking a bit. Which tribe HAD dealt with this before? He hadn't delved very far into recent troll histories, but he did remember hearing something about the pop trolls suffering a mass color loss recently. That settled it; he'd go and see Queen Poppy and King Branch.

He flicked his tail and tried to use his track skip ability, blinking and staring down at his tailfins. "What? I can't use track skip?" He huffed. "Clams... I'll just have to swim there..." He closed his eyes, trying to pull up a map from memory. "The pop trolls are far inland, but I can get there a bit quicker if I use the river system..."

He nodded, having decided upon his course. He propelled himself forward with a deft swish of his tail, narrowing his eyes a bit against the current as he reached it, letting it sweep him up and carry him towards the shore. The easy, steady journey gave him plenty of time to think.

And so he did just that. His mind chasing itself around in circles as it threw situation after situation at him in which he had made a mistake that cost another something. He gritted his teeth, shutting his eyes in a pathetic attempt to shut out the voices as well.

When next he opened his eyes, he panicked. The current was about to throw him directly into an underwater cliff face. He threw up his arms, trying to protect himself as he was tossed from the currents rushing waters and smack into the rock wall ahead of him.

He groaned softly, floating in the still waters for a moment as he regained his senses. Once he could see one of everything instead of two he tried to take in his surroundings. He noted that the water was far warmer than his home in the deep ocean, and figured that fact, plus the terrible taste in the water, meant he was somewhere around the far side of Volcano rock island. He swam to the surface, poking his head out and glancing at the surroundings on land.

He could see pop troll forest just ahead, and was rather shocked by how close he had already come. "Time flies, I guess... Well, time to go see the king and queen of pop..." He swam forward lazily, finding a shallow shore to pull himself onto. Once he was lying on the sand, he let out a sigh. He hated the adjustment period for his Flow ability to kick in, which allowed him to move through the air as he would the waters of his home.

After a few minutes of lying in the warm sand, he gave his fins an experimental flick, propelling himself a few inches above the ground. "Alright, ready to go." He glanced around. He couldn't use a jet stream to travel quickly when out of water, and without his track skip ability, he wouldn't be able to avoid the natural predators in the area. He grumbled to himself a bit, and opted for staying up in the foliage of the trees. He knew that since Pop trolls lived in the area, any predators that ate them primarily would live on the forest floor.

His travels were slow, getting lost fairly often with no land markers. He eventually relented and risked the danger of the forest floor, just so he would be able to actually find the village in the first place. After a while longer, he began to wonder if he'd ever find the place.

He let out a startled squeak as he was suddenly yanked backwards, a look having closed around his waist. He let out a distressed cry when he realized he was stuck fast, held in a rope trap of sorts. "Who'd set a trap like this?!" He whipped his tail; doing everything he could to tug himself free.

He quickly ran out of stamina though, falling limp within his bonds. "Great, like a fish on a line... how humiliating..."

He didn't have to wait long to discover who had set the trap. He jolted in his bonds when he heard crunching leaves, the sound moving closer. "Clams...! I gotta get out of this..." He began to use his hands to tug at the bonds, but found himself only hurting his own tail.

His ear-fins perked slightly when he heard a troll's voice approaching, and one he recognized as well. "I know I heard something over here..."

Trollex turned his attention to the bushes as they began rustling. A moment later, a dark colored troll stepped from the foliage. "Ah, there it- w-what in the..."

The young king blinked in shock, staring at the troll in front of him, though the other was upside down thanks to his current position. "King Branch...?"