Chapter Text
Branch had discovered, six months into being married to Queen Poppy, that there were worse things than mortal danger.
Formal headwear, for example.
Danger, at least, had rules. Danger could be calculated, trapped, mapped, outmaneuvered, stored in a laminated binder with emergency tabs and a backup copy in case the first binder was damaged by glitter-related negligence. But a crown? A crown had no logic. A crown simply sat there on his head, polished and smug, catching sunlight like it had personally negotiated peace among the tribes, while every nerve along Branch’s scalp insisted it was one strong breeze away from becoming a public humiliation with precious metals involved.
And, naturally, Poppy thought he looked handsome in it.
That was the real problem.
The celebration had spilled through Pop Village in every direction, a bright, bustling tangle of music and laughter and ribbons strung from pod to pod until the whole clearing seemed gift-wrapped by someone with too much enthusiasm and no respect for structural limitations. Lanterns bobbed from the lower branches in warm little clusters, catching against strings of beads and woven flowers, while the air smelled of spun sugar, crushed petals, sun-warmed moss, and whatever Guy Diamond had decided qualified as perfume this week. Something citrusy. Something fizzy. Something that made Branch’s left eye water when the breeze shifted.
The late afternoon sun poured gold over everything, turning the village into a living song. Trolls danced barefoot in the grass, their hair flashing in streaks of pink and blue and green, little ones darting between ankles with sticky hands and shrieks of joy, while somewhere near the snack tables, Cooper was attempting to play three horns at once and succeeding in producing a sound that suggested a goose had discovered jazz and immediately regretted it.
Branch stood beside Poppy on the raised platform near the center of the clearing, wearing his usual leafy vest, his brown patchy shorts, his wedding ring, and the traitorous crown.
The crown was technically lighter than it looked, shaped from gold-veined wood and tiny hammered leaves, with dark stones tucked into the twists of the branches as a nod to him, because apparently even royal accessories had to participate in emotional symbolism now. Poppy had designed it herself, which made it impossible to hate properly. He had tried. Valiantly.
But the first time she had placed it in his hands after their wedding, biting her lip like she was bracing for him to reject it, he had looked down at the careful little carved leaves, the subtle green thread wound between them, the way it didn’t try to turn him into something polished and untouchable, and his entire planned speech about the impracticality of monarchal jewelry had collapsed like a badly packed supply shelf.
So now he wore it when the event demanded it.
Or when Poppy asked in that bright, dangerous voice of hers, the one that sounded like sunshine and meant he had already lost.
“You’re glaring at your crown again,” Poppy murmured beside him, smiling and waving at a cluster of cheering trolls with the effortless warmth that made everyone near her feel as if they’d been personally chosen by the sun.
“I’m not glaring,” Branch said, keeping his own wave smaller, controlled, the kind of wave that said yes, hello, I acknowledge the continued existence of my subjects, please do not start a group hug. “I’m assessing.”
Poppy turned her head just enough for the edge of her flower crown to brush his shoulder, a soft riot of bluebells, yellow poppies, and tiny green leaves woven into her pink hair. Her dress today was a bright blue-green that shifted with her movement like pond water under sunlight, cinched with a woven sash that matched the little leg warmers hugging her calves. She looked like spring had gotten ambitious and decided to hold office.
“Assessing whether it’s still there?” she asked.
“Assessing whether it has developed hostile intent.”
Her smile tucked itself into one corner of her mouth, mischievous enough to make him immediately suspicious and fond enough to make his chest ache in the private place where he kept all the feelings he still pretended were under control. “It’s a crown, Branch.”
“That’s what it wants you to think.”
Poppy’s laugh escaped under her breath, warm and delighted, and Branch felt it ripple through him with the stupidly reliable force of a favorite song. Six months of marriage had not made him immune to it. If anything, marriage had made it worse. Now she laughed like that in their kitchen, in their bed, in the soft lamplight of the bunker when the world above got too loud, and every time, some ancient, guarded part of him looked around in disbelief and whispered, This is allowed? We get to keep this?
He flexed his fingers at his side, the cool band of his wedding ring catching briefly against his palm.
Poppy noticed, because Poppy noticed everything he tried to hide from her. Her hand found his with royal smoothness and wifely precision, slipping their fingers together as though she were merely shifting closer for the crowd’s benefit. Her thumb brushed his ring once, then settled there, warm and certain.
Branch glanced at her. “You know, if you’re trying to distract me from the crown situation, it’s manipulative.”
“Is it working?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Then I’m comfortable with my choices.”
He snorted despite himself, and her smile bloomed wider.
Below them, the village was in full festival fever. It was technically a Harvest Harmony celebration, although Branch suspected Poppy had invented at least three new traditions in the last forty-eight hours and then retroactively declared them beloved customs. There were tables piled high with berry tarts, ribbon races, a community mural, a three-part harmony contest that had somehow become a six-part harmony contest when the K-Pop Gang and Reggaeton trolls arrived early, and a “Royal Gratitude Circle” that Branch had only agreed to after confirming that it was not, in fact, a circle in which people hugged him individually while making eye contact.
Poppy had been radiant all day. Not just happy, though she was that too, joy fizzing through her like bubbles in pop nectar, but settled in a way he still found quietly miraculous. She had always been good at standing in the center of things, at opening her arms to the noise and color and needs of the village without flinching. But lately, since Viva had come home, since the tribes had loosened into something closer to friendship, since Branch’s brothers had folded themselves messily and imperfectly back into his life, there was a deeper ease to Poppy’s brightness. The kind that came when a person stopped reaching for missing pieces because at least some of them had finally found their way back.
Branch loved that for her.
He loved it so fiercely it scared him if he looked straight at it for too long.
“Okay,” Poppy said, leaning closer as the current speaker, an elderly troll with orange hair and a voice like a squeaky wheel, began a heartfelt speech about communal vegetable storage. “Be honest. On a scale from one to ‘I have memorized all possible exits,’ how badly do you want to leave?”
Branch kept his face perfectly neutral. “Define leave.”
“Branch.”
“There are degrees.”
“Branch.”
“I’m present,” he said, lifting their joined hands slightly. “I’m smiling.”
“You are doing something with your mouth, yes.”
“That’s hurtful.”
“It’s almost a smile.”
“It’s crown-related muscle strain.”
Poppy squeezed his hand, biting back another laugh. “You’re doing great.”
“Don’t patronize me. I’m a king now. I can have people gently redirected.”
“You can have people gently redirected?”
“Yes. It’s one of my kingly powers. Along with looking mildly uncomfortable at ceremonies and pretending I understand tax scrolls.”
Poppy turned her head fully this time, her eyes sparkling, pink and bright and so full of him that for a moment the rest of the festival dimmed around the edges. “For the record, I think you look very kingly.”
“For the record, I think you’re biased.”
“Wildly,” she agreed. “Shamelessly. Historically.”
“That does explain the wedding.”
“It explains a lot of things,” Poppy said sweetly, and her gaze dipped to his mouth for half a breath, just long enough to make heat curl low in his stomach before she looked back toward the crowd with perfect queenly composure.
Branch stared at her profile.
Six months married, and she still pulled that little trick like it was nothing. Like she hadn’t just turned his brain into warm pudding in the middle of a public event where he was wearing ceremonial shrubbery on his head.
He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “You’re abusing your power.”
“I know.”
“That wasn’t a denial.”
“I’m Queen. Abusing my power is my specialty.”
Before he could answer, a burst of laughter rose near the front of the platform, and Branch looked down to see Tiny Diamond streaking across the grass in a blur of glitter, pursued by three younger trolls, two snack cakes, and what appeared to be a sentient ribbon streamer. The chase scattered a group of toddlers sitting near the steps, and several adults rushed in with the casual panic of caregivers who had accepted long ago that children were basically small weather events with opinions.
Branch straightened instinctively, eyes tracking every wobbling little body, every uneven patch of ground, every cup of juice placed too close to disaster.
Poppy felt the shift in him before he said anything. “They’re okay,” she murmured.
“That table has four unsecured corners.”
“It’s a table, Branch.”
“Exactly.”
“Tables have corners, honey.”
“Which is why society remains deeply flawed.”
Poppy’s thumb rubbed across his knuckles, a tiny, soothing circle that made his shoulders loosen despite his best efforts. Down below, one of the toddlers, a round-cheeked little girl with lavender hair tied into two springy puffs, lost her balance near the platform steps. Branch moved before he thought, stepping down from the dais in one clean motion, crown flashing as he crossed the small distance and caught her gently under the arms before she could topple forward.
The little troll blinked up at him, startled for one breath, then broke into a gummy grin.
Branch froze.
She was impossibly small. That was his first coherent thought, followed by a cascade of more practical ones: her balance was terrible, her shoes were untied, there was berry jam on her sleeve, and whoever had designed toddler anatomy had clearly prioritized roundness over survival. Her hands curled around his fingers with startling trust, tiny palms warm and sticky, and she stared at him as if being caught by the reluctant king of Pop Village was not only acceptable but deeply entertaining.
“Hi,” she said.
Branch looked around for an adult. “Hello.”
“Cown,” she announced, lifting one hand from his finger to point at his head.
“Yes,” he said gravely. “I’m aware.”
“Shiny.”
“Unfortunately.”
She giggled, a bubbling little sound that seemed too large for her body, and grabbed his finger again. Her whole hand barely wrapped around it. Barely. Branch stared at the place where her lavender fingers clung to his blue skin, and something strange moved through him, quiet and sudden, like a door opening in a room he hadn’t known he was standing inside.
He had held children before, technically. Pop Village was made of music, glitter, hugs, and poor boundaries, so avoiding children entirely had never been an option, especially after marrying the queen. Kids climbed things. Kids ran into legs. Kids handed him flowers, rocks, suspiciously damp drawings, and once, memorably, a beetle named Sir Crunch. He liked them well enough, from a safe distance and preferably after they had completed a basic safety orientation.
But this was different.
The little girl rocked on her heels, trusting his grip, her tiny face tipped up toward him with the sort of open expectation that made his lungs forget their job. She had no idea who he had been. No idea what he had survived. No idea that his mind could turn a loose ribbon into a choking hazard, a loud noise into a threat, a loved one’s absence into a wound that still remembered how to bleed. She only knew that she had almost fallen and he had caught her.
That was all.
For her, that was enough.
“King Branch?” a breathless voice called, and a troll Branch vaguely recognized as the child’s mother hurried over, cheeks flushed, hair slipping loose from its ribbon. “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry, she’s gotten so fast lately, I swear she was sitting down two seconds ago.”
“She was,” Branch said, because accuracy mattered. “Then she attempted a high-risk stair maneuver.”
The mother blinked, then laughed nervously. “That sounds like her.”
“I would recommend tighter shoes,” he said, releasing one of the child’s hands long enough to gesture toward the loose laces. “Possibly a perimeter. Nothing extreme. Waist-high fence. Soft corners. Maybe a moat if she’s a repeat offender.”
“Branch,” Poppy called from above, and he heard the laughter in her voice before he turned.
She stood at the edge of the platform, glowing like a secret she was trying very hard not to tell, her hands folded in front of her and her eyes fixed on him with a softness that made his stomach tilt.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
“That’s a suspicious nothing.”
“It’s a very supportive nothing.”
“There’s no such thing.”
The toddler tugged his finger. “Up.”
Branch looked down. “What?”
“Up, up,” she repeated, more firmly, and lifted both arms.
The mother reached for her, flustered. “Oh, sweetheart, no, King Branch is busy—”
But the little girl’s face scrunched with immediate and dramatic disappointment, and Branch, who had faced Bergens, bounty hunters, rock zombies, and his own brother’s leadership style, found himself utterly unprepared for the weaponized wobble of a toddler’s lower lip.
He cleared his throat. “It’s fine.”
The mother hesitated. “Are you sure?”
No, Branch thought, because he was not qualified to operate anything this small without written instructions.
“Sure,” he said.
He picked the child up carefully, one arm supporting her back, the other under her knees, every motion slow and precise. She settled against his chest with a happy little hum, one sticky hand immediately patting his cheek and leaving behind a faint smear of jam. The crowd nearby softened into delighted murmurs, the kind that made heat crawl up Branch’s neck. Somewhere, he heard Smidge make a noise that sounded dangerously close to a squeal.
Poppy’s expression had changed.
Not much. Not enough for anyone else to catch, maybe. But Branch knew her face the way he knew the hidden turns of the bunker tunnels, the particular tilt of her smile when she was teasing him, the bright widening of her eyes when she saw something beautiful, the tender tremble she tried to tuck away when happiness surprised her too hard. She was looking at him now with all three at once.
It made him want to hand the baby back immediately and also never move again.
The toddler leaned her head against his shoulder, apparently satisfied with her new elevation, and reached toward his crown. Branch leaned back.
“Nope,” he said. “That’s restricted airspace.”
“Shiny,” she insisted.
“My answer is still no.”
“Pwease?”
Branch narrowed his eyes. “You drive a hard bargain for someone with jam in her eyebrow.”
The mother covered her mouth, laughing now, and Poppy descended the steps with a grace that made the whole celebration seem to lean toward her. When she reached him, she lifted one hand and gently wiped the jam from his cheek with her thumb.
“There,” she said. “Royal emergency handled.”
“You mean royal emergency barely survived.”
“You were very brave.”
“I need hazard pay.”
“You get to be married to me.”
“That’s not pay. That’s a long-term strategic alliance with unusually good kissing.”
Poppy’s smile flickered hotter at the edges, quick as a spark. “Careful, Your Majesty. People are watching.”
“I know. That’s why I said kissing and not the other thing.”
Her cheeks pinked beautifully, which was one of his favorite things in the known universe, mostly because Poppy blushing was rare enough to feel like discovering a hidden room full of treasure. She recovered fast, of course, lifting her chin and giving him the look that had probably convinced entire committees to approve things involving glitter cannons.
“Scandalous,” she whispered.
“Accurate.”
The toddler, apparently bored by adult flirtation, stretched again for the crown. This time Poppy caught her little hand midair and gave it a gentle shake. “Hi there, sweet girl. That’s Branch’s fancy event crown. He only wears it when he loves me very, very much.”
Branch shot her a look. “That is not the official policy.”
“It’s the emotional policy.”
“Ugh, even worse.”
The child giggled and wrapped one hand in the edge of Branch’s vest instead, fingers curling into the leaves with easy fascination. Branch looked down at her, still careful, still tense in all the places that insisted small fragile things required vigilance, but beneath that, something else had taken root. Something warmer and far more dangerous.
Poppy saw it.
Of course she saw it.
The mother thanked him again and took her daughter back, settling the little girl on her hip while the toddler waved at Branch with grave affection, as if they had formed a diplomatic bond. Branch gave a small wave in return, then immediately regretted it when several nearby trolls made audible melting noises.
“Adorable!” someone whispered.
“Our king is so good with kids,” someone else said.
Branch stiffened.
Poppy’s hand found his lower back before the words could sink too deeply under his skin. Her palm was warm through the back of his vest, steady and familiar, and she leaned in close enough that her flower crown brushed his ear.
“Breathe, sweetie,” she whispered.
“I am breathing.”
“You’re doing that thing where you breathe like you’re mad at oxygen.”
“Oxygen knows what it did.”
Her laugh was softer this time, meant only for him. “You okay?”
Branch glanced toward the mother and child, now safely away from the steps, the toddler babbling happily as she was handed a cup with a lid. Sensible. Good. At least someone here had basic risk awareness. He should have felt satisfied. Instead, his fingers still remembered the tiny grip around them, the uncomplicated trust, the weight of a small body resting against his chest like he was a safe place by default.
Safe by default.
The thought landed somewhere deep and tender.
“Yeah,” he said, a little too late. “Fine.”
Poppy did not call him on the lie, not there, not in front of everyone. That was one of the things he loved most about her, though the list had grown so long and ridiculous by now that it needed subcategories. Poppy could burst into his darkness with a lantern and a marching band when he needed it, but she also knew when to dim the lights and wait beside him instead.
She slid her hand into his again, her wedding ring pressing briefly against his. “Come on, King Grumpy. We still have to announce the start of the harmony games.”
“Do I have to speak?”
“You have one line.”
“Is the line ‘Run while you still can’?”
“No.”
“Can it be?”
“No.”
“You’re stifling my leadership style.”
“I’m refining it.”
“You keep using romantic words for censorship.”
Poppy beamed up at him, bright and merciless. “And you keep being married to me anyway.”
Branch looked at her, at the pink sweep of her hair beneath her flower crown, at the curve of her smile, at the blue-green shimmer of her dress and the gold ring on her finger, and felt that strange door in his chest open a little wider.
“Yeah,” he said, quieter than he meant to. “I do.”
The teasing light in her eyes softened, and for a moment the festival seemed to hush around them, though it didn’t really. The drums kept thumping, the children kept shrieking, Cooper’s horn experiment continued its brave assault on melody, and the whole village spun on in color and noise and life. But Poppy heard the change in him. She always did.
Her thumb stroked once over his knuckles.
Then she rose on her toes and kissed his cheek, quick enough to be proper, lingering enough to make his pulse trip. “Good,” she murmured. “Because I like you.”
“Bold of you to be publicly admitting that.”
“I’m fearless.”
“You’re married to me, so clearly you enjoy risk.”
Her smile went soft at the corners. “Best risk I ever took.”
The words should have been easy by now. They’d said worse to each other. Sweeter. Deeper. Promises in the dark, vows under flowers, half-laughing confessions tangled in blankets while dawn crept over the edge of their bed. Still, Branch had to look away for a second, because sometimes being loved by Poppy felt exactly like standing in full sunlight after years underground. Warm, wanted, unbearable if he forgot how to breathe.
He squeezed her hand once.
Then he climbed back onto the platform beside her, adjusted the crown with as much dignity as a troll could manage while wearing a symbolic shrub on his head, and prepared to say his one approved line to the waiting crowd.
Poppy stepped forward first, because she always stepped forward first, not out of arrogance but because the world had never taught her to be afraid of offering her whole heart to it. The crowd quieted for her, smiling before she even spoke.
“Pop Village,” she called, her voice bright enough to ring through the branches, “thank you for making this year’s Harvest Harmony celebration one of our happiest yet!”
Cheers rose, loud and immediate. Poppy soaked them in like sunlight, her hand still tucked in Branch’s, anchoring him to the noise instead of letting it sweep him away.
“And now,” she continued, turning her smile toward him with the sort of wicked sweetness that suggested she knew exactly how much he hated this part, “King Branch has something very important to say.”
Branch looked out over the crowd.
Hundreds of eager faces looked back.
His crown slipped half an inch.
Poppy’s mouth twitched.
Branch exhaled through his nose and delivered his line with the solemnity of a troll announcing wartime evacuation procedures.
“Let the harmony games begin.”
The clearing exploded.
Music burst from every corner, drums and strings and voices rising together as the crowd scattered toward the game fields in a rush of laughter and stomping feet. Confetti popped somewhere overhead, raining down in pink and yellow flecks that immediately clung to Branch’s crown, his hair, his vest, and what remained of his patience. Poppy clapped delightedly, then turned to him with both hands pressed to her cheeks.
“You nailed it.”
“I said seven words.”
“With royal presence.”
“I said them under duress.”
“With royal presence.”
“I’m putting that on the record.”
“Already scrapbooked in my heart.”
“That is a terrifying sentence to come out of my wife’s mouth.”
She laughed and tugged him down the steps before another wave of well-wishers could reach them, steering him toward the edge of the clearing where the flowers grew thicker, and the shade fell cooler. They weren’t leaving, not yet. Poppy never slipped away from her people early unless she had to, and Branch had made peace with that, mostly, in the way a person made peace with an alarm system that occasionally sang. But she knew when he needed a breath. She always made room for one.
They paused beneath a canopy of broad leaves threaded with lanterns, where the festival became a blur of color beyond the green. Branch lifted the crown from his head and inspected the confetti caught in its carved branches.
“Great,” he muttered. “Now it’s festive.”
Poppy plucked a yellow fleck from his hair. “You say that like it’s a disease.”
“In high concentrations, it might be.”
“You’re cute when you’re dramatic.”
“I’m not dramatic. I’m proportionally concerned.”
“About confetti?”
“About confetti today. About society generally.”
Poppy leaned her shoulder against his arm, still watching the festival, though Branch knew from the softness of her posture that her attention had curled back toward him. “You were sweet with her.”
He didn’t pretend not to know who she meant. There were games he’d play with Poppy forever, arguments about crowns and glitter and whether owning twenty-seven emergency whistles was excessive, but not this one. Not when the memory of that tiny hand still sat warm in his palm.
“She almost fell,” he said.
“And you caught her.”
“That’s generally the goal when someone almost falls.”
Poppy tilted her face up toward him. “Branchifer.”
He looked down at her.
The noise of the celebration seemed to soften again, tucked away behind leaves and lanternlight, while Poppy searched his face with that open, careful love that always made him feel seen past the point of comfort and somehow safe anyway. Her own face was still flushed from the sun, her smile quieter now, her flower crown slightly crooked from all the dancing and royal greeting and general Poppy-ness of the day. She was beautiful in a way that never stayed still, not a portrait, not a jewel, but a living burst of color and warmth and stubborn hope. His wife. His queen. His home above the bunker, his lantern in the tunnels, his impossible, beloved risk.
“You looked happy,” she said gently.
Branch’s first instinct was to dodge. Make a joke. Say he was merely relieved the child hadn’t launched herself into preventable injury. Point out that happiness was an imprecise observation and therefore inadmissible.
But Poppy’s hand was still in his, and his ring was pressed against hers, and something about the small metallic touch made lying feel ridiculous.
“I don’t know what I looked like,” he said finally, rougher than intended.
Poppy accepted the answer like it was precious, because she had an infuriating habit of treating his half-confessions like full ones and giving them somewhere soft to land. “Okay.”
He glanced back toward the crowd. The little lavender-haired girl was sitting now on a blanket with two other children, waving a wooden spoon like a scepter while her mother tried to keep her from anointing a stuffed caterpillar with pudding.
Branch watched her for another second, then forced his gaze away.
“She was very sticky,” he said.
Poppy’s lips curved. “Babies usually are.”
“That seems like a design flaw.”
“Or a feature.”
“Of what, chaos?”
“Of being loved enough that someone always wants to clean you up.”
Branch looked at her sharply.
Poppy’s smile stayed soft, but there was something tucked beneath it now, something careful and bright and not yet spoken. For one wild moment, the future seemed to lean through the leaves toward him, all tiny hands and soft hair and lullabies in the rooms above the bunker, and Branch felt his heart respond with a painful, startled reach.
He swallowed.
Poppy didn’t push. She only lifted his hand and kissed the back of it, right over his wedding ring, as if sealing whatever thought had passed between them without demanding he name it yet.
From the field, someone shouted for the queen, and Poppy turned automatically, her brightness rising back into place. “Duty calls.”
“Duty yells,” Branch corrected.
“Duty has poor volume control.”
“That’s why duty and I have never gotten along.”
She grinned, then reached up and set his crown back on his head before he could stop her. Her fingers lingered just a moment too long at his temple, smoothing his hair beneath the rim, and her voice dipped into something private.
“Later,” she said.
One word.
Soft. Simple.
Loaded enough to make Branch’s chest tighten.
He arched a brow, because sarcasm was safer than whatever had just passed through him. “Later, you’re removing this crown and apologizing to my scalp?”
“Among other things.”
His pulse stumbled again, because Poppy knew exactly what she was doing, and from the sparkle in her eyes, she enjoyed his suffering with the full confidence of a woman who had married him and therefore owned partial rights to his composure.
“You’re dangerous,” he said.
She winked. “You knew that before the vows.”
He did.
He’d known it under starlight and lanterns, standing before their friends and families with flowers woven through the arch overhead and his brothers behind him trying very hard not to cry loudly enough to become part of the ceremony. He’d known it when Poppy walked toward him in a dress the color of morning, Viva beside her as maid of honor with tears already spilling down her cheeks, King Peppy beaming from the front row like his heart had outgrown his chest. He’d known it when Poppy took his hands, her ring still waiting, her eyes bright and wet and fearless, and promised that loving him would never mean asking him to stop being careful, only asking him to believe there was more to life than surviving it.
He had almost broken then.
Not visibly, he hoped, although Floyd had later hugged him without a word for so long that apparently visible enough.
And when Branch had slid the ring onto Poppy’s finger, his own voice low but steady, he had promised to come back to the light with her as many times as it took.
He hadn’t known, then, how many times it would take.
He hadn’t known that marriage would be less like arriving somewhere safe and more like learning, day after day, that safety could have windows. That home could have music upstairs and reinforced storage downstairs. That peace could be bright without being fragile. That Poppy could love the bunker because she loved him, and he could love the house above it because she had filled it with so much color that even his shadows had started looking less alone.
“Branch?” Poppy said softly.
He blinked, realizing he’d gone quiet too long.
Her expression gentled. “You drifted.”
“Occupational hazard of wearing a crown. Cuts off circulation to the personality.”
“There it is,” she said, and smiled like she had been waiting for him to return.
Something in him warmed.
Then a group of children shrieked as their ribbon race collapsed into a giggling pile, and Branch turned his head so fast his crown nearly slipped again. Poppy caught it with one hand, laughing.
“Okay,” she said. “Maybe we stay near the game fields for a little while.”
“Good. Someone has to supervise.”
“There are already six adults supervising.”
“I said someone.”
“Branch.”
“What? I respect them as citizens. Not as safety professionals.”
Poppy shook her head, but her smile stayed soft as they walked back toward the noise together, her hand in his, her flowers brushing his shoulder, their rings catching the sunlight every few steps.
For the rest of the afternoon, Branch did what he always did at public celebrations: endured affection, monitored hazards, made dry comments under his breath that Poppy pretended not to enjoy, and kept one careful eye on the little lavender-haired girl whenever she toddled too close to something climbable. He told himself it was vigilance. Basic responsibility. Good leadership, even.
But every time she laughed, something inside him listened.
Every time she reached for her mother, something in his chest pulled.
And every time Poppy glanced at him with that thoughtful, tender brightness, he felt the unspoken question waiting between them, small and warm and impossibly alive.
Later, she had said.
Branch spent the rest of the celebration pretending he didn’t know exactly what later would ask of him.
And failing.