[Branch's idyllic time is now. Or at least, it was before he got here. Back home, where open arms have enfolded him back into village life, where people try to learn his boundaries, and work around his idiosyncrasies, where they help him learn to quiet his anxieties.]
[There is no idyllic part of his childhood though. His teen years in his bunker were unhappy; it was a place of isolation and paranoia and scrawling his nightmares on the walls. And back when he'd lived at the troll tree, even when his brothers had still been there, and it felt like he was encased in the relative safety of a large family, there were still always threads of fear. His brothers and grandma had always kept him close, had warned him to hide from the looming shadows of the big people.]
[When his brothers managed to slip away, he'd felt even less protected, without a fence of family around him. He felt abandoned. And while he'd carry all his grandmother's love and care with him always, the memory will always be intermingled with the fear.]
[Like the way she'd do a puzzle with him every day. A beautiful memory of her telling him that some things fit perfectly, like the two of them fit together as a family of two.]
[But...]
[It was also a place to channel his obvious anxiety. To redirect him from staring fearfully out the window of their pod. A way to give him something he could have tangible control over. Puzzles could make sense in a way that trolls being carried off by massive hands - sometimes randomly, on the days between Trollstices - never would.]
[And all the good memories of his grandma still will always coexist with the memory of when he saw her last. The bad doesn't erase the good, but the good can't erase the way she screamed as she was carried off, either.]
[He's not sure how honest to be with any of these big people, though. It's hard to figure out how much they'll understand, whether they'll see vulnerability as something to exploit. A terrifying prospect when he's already so vulnerable - by default, by sheer virtue of scale. And he's not inclined to share much, as a rule.]
[But he also has been slowly gleaning that many of them seem to understand hardship and pain and fear. That they've probably experienced it. And to see them not just plastering a smile on their faces and singing songs has him burning with curiosity about how alike they may be. Their attitudes aren't constantly upbeat and saccharine and that means they might be more alike than unlike. Maybe even more alike than himself and some of his people.]
It wasn't safe in the village. My people like to sing; it's important to our culture. After we escaped Bergentown and built the village, I thought the singing would let the Bergens find us again. I thought we were still too close to risk it.
It took twenty years after we escaped but I wasn't wrong. We're lucky we all got out alive thanks to Poppy. And thanks to Bridget - she's the only Bergen that ever helped us.
[It's a terrible thing when reality 100% justifies your fear. Even making friends with the Bergens would never change that the bunker wasn't built for nothing. It's why he still can't make himself leave it to live in a pod in the village.]
[He goes back to looking at the beads, still mostly just sorting them to have something to do with his hands.]
That's why I'm still wrapping my head around you guys. Bridget is special. She shouldn't have been, but she was. [It feels a little too negative to say, when the village is trying to befriend the Bergens now. But he's feeling weirdly daring while talking to these people.] Even if you didn't want to eat me, I would've expected...I don't know. Something else.
Wanting to squish me. Or put me in a cage to do little dances for you. Something.
[The sense of it isn't entirely wrong. There are humans out there who would, just because they could. He wouldn't be surprised to learn they exist. He's just surprised they're not the only types of humans to exist, that they're not all uniform. Even his own people are pretty much all on the same general caterbus the attitudes they face the world with. Relatively uniform. He's the odd one. (One. Singular).]
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[There is no idyllic part of his childhood though. His teen years in his bunker were unhappy; it was a place of isolation and paranoia and scrawling his nightmares on the walls. And back when he'd lived at the troll tree, even when his brothers had still been there, and it felt like he was encased in the relative safety of a large family, there were still always threads of fear. His brothers and grandma had always kept him close, had warned him to hide from the looming shadows of the big people.]
[When his brothers managed to slip away, he'd felt even less protected, without a fence of family around him. He felt abandoned. And while he'd carry all his grandmother's love and care with him always, the memory will always be intermingled with the fear.]
[Like the way she'd do a puzzle with him every day. A beautiful memory of her telling him that some things fit perfectly, like the two of them fit together as a family of two.]
[But...]
[It was also a place to channel his obvious anxiety. To redirect him from staring fearfully out the window of their pod. A way to give him something he could have tangible control over. Puzzles could make sense in a way that trolls being carried off by massive hands - sometimes randomly, on the days between Trollstices - never would.]
[And all the good memories of his grandma still will always coexist with the memory of when he saw her last. The bad doesn't erase the good, but the good can't erase the way she screamed as she was carried off, either.]
[He's not sure how honest to be with any of these big people, though. It's hard to figure out how much they'll understand, whether they'll see vulnerability as something to exploit. A terrifying prospect when he's already so vulnerable - by default, by sheer virtue of scale. And he's not inclined to share much, as a rule.]
[But he also has been slowly gleaning that many of them seem to understand hardship and pain and fear. That they've probably experienced it. And to see them not just plastering a smile on their faces and singing songs has him burning with curiosity about how alike they may be. Their attitudes aren't constantly upbeat and saccharine and that means they might be more alike than unlike. Maybe even more alike than himself and some of his people.]
It wasn't safe in the village. My people like to sing; it's important to our culture. After we escaped Bergentown and built the village, I thought the singing would let the Bergens find us again. I thought we were still too close to risk it.
It took twenty years after we escaped but I wasn't wrong. We're lucky we all got out alive thanks to Poppy. And thanks to Bridget - she's the only Bergen that ever helped us.
[It's a terrible thing when reality 100% justifies your fear. Even making friends with the Bergens would never change that the bunker wasn't built for nothing. It's why he still can't make himself leave it to live in a pod in the village.]
[He goes back to looking at the beads, still mostly just sorting them to have something to do with his hands.]
That's why I'm still wrapping my head around you guys. Bridget is special. She shouldn't have been, but she was. [It feels a little too negative to say, when the village is trying to befriend the Bergens now. But he's feeling weirdly daring while talking to these people.] Even if you didn't want to eat me, I would've expected...I don't know. Something else.
Wanting to squish me. Or put me in a cage to do little dances for you. Something.
[The sense of it isn't entirely wrong. There are humans out there who would, just because they could. He wouldn't be surprised to learn they exist. He's just surprised they're not the only types of humans to exist, that they're not all uniform. Even his own people are pretty much all on the same general caterbus the attitudes they face the world with. Relatively uniform. He's the odd one. (One. Singular).]