Trolls Shorts

Poppy's Bad Dream

Poppy rarely had nightmares. Being the optimistic Troll she is, the vast majority of her dreams were good. Really good. They were part of the many things that motivated her to get up, sing, and dance every morning. However, every so often she would have a bad dream.

She was unable to remember when she had fallen asleep and when the dream had started, but now, she was running. Not only did it feel like she needed to run from some form of danger, but it also felt like she couldn't run as fast as she was trying to.

As she tried to run and run, she kept yelling at herself things like "C'mon!" or "Faster!" The tears started to form in her eyes as she ran through what looked like Pop Village, looking for some form of safe place. But nothing seemed to be within her reach.

Eventually, Poppy woke up from her bad dream with a gasp and sat up in her bed, panting and crying. The dream had terrified her for some reason. She didn't even know what she was running from. She then spent about half an hour crying before finally looking outside her window to see the sun starting to rise.

All of a sudden, her bracelet made its ding sound, startling her. She jumped slightly, then looked down at the wrist it was on. The small flower lit up the room a little as she sat there thinking for a moment. After a second or two, the flower closes itself up, and Poppy is left in her dark room again.

She then decided to get up and get ready for the day. She found her everyday blue dress and her unique floral crown. Her hair was done up with an elastic, as usual, and once she was done, she could hear some Trolls talking and moving around outside.

That night, she had the same dream. Nothing was different, but she found it startling when she woke up and realized it was the same. Luckily, she spent less time crying when she did wake up, but she woke up earlier in the morning, getting less sleep.

She thought it was weird. Usually, she only has a bad dream once every couple of months. But this was the same bad dream two nights in a row. She didn't want to spend a lot of time dwelling on it.

So, she got up and got ready, then looked at her calendar to see what was planned. It was a camp out with her friends: Biggie, Smidge, Barb, Hickory, and of course, Branch. Poppy has been looking forward to this one night camping trip with her friends all week. Her excitement managed to take over her thoughts about her dream and she spent the day thinking about the camp out instead.

-

"Marshmallows?"

"Check. Fire starters?"

"Check! Speakers?"

"Check. First Aid Kit?"

"Check! Sparklers?"

"Can't see how they're necessary, but check,"

"Oh c'mon. Of course they're necessary. They're so pretty and fun and-"

"Ok, ok. I get it. Lanterns?"

"Check!"

The two of them continued down their checklist until everything was checked off. Since they were in charge of most of the supplies, it was important that they made sure they had everything. At least, that was Branch's reasoning for going down the list for the third time.

"I think we have everything," Poppy said, making it look like she was thoroughly checking the list when she was actually drawing a flower in the bottom corner of the sheet.

"Can you please take this seriously, Poppy?" Branch asked, taking the list away from her to look at it himself. "We need to make sure we don't forget anything." He looked down the list and smiled when he got to the small drawing in the corner.

"I know how paranoid you can get, but we won't be traveling that far away. We can easily walk back home and get anything we forget," Poppy tried to calm him down. She ended up taking the list away from him again and gave him a hug before he could yell at her for taking the list.

"It's not Hug Time, though," he said, slightly confused but accepting the hug anyway by wrapping his arms around her. Then came the hourly ding of their bracelets.

"Now it is," Poppy said, smiling and hugging him tighter.

-

After a couple hours of singing, dancing, playing games like truth or dare, and eating delicious marshmallows, it was time to get some sleep. There were three tents, and each tent was big enough for two Trolls. The pairings went: Biggie and Hickory, Smidge and Barb, and Poppy and Branch.

The Trolls settled down for bed and all six of them went to sleep pretty quickly after having such a fun filled day. Then poor Poppy had her bad dream once again. She never did tell anyone about her dream nor did she mention having the same one twice. But as she was tossing and turning in her sleep, she ended up waking up the Troll she shared her tent with.

Branch woke up, confused as to why Poppy was moving around so much. Then he heard her whimpering and looked to see her face wet with tears.

"Poppy?" He whispered, then started to shake her a little to wake her up. "Poppy!" He said again, louder this time. Eventually, she woke up with a gasp and started to cry. She put her hands over her eyes and brought her knees to her chest. Branch then put a hand on her shoulder, which startled her and caused her to whip her head up to look at him. "Are you ok?" He quietly asked.

Before Branch could even comprehend what was going on, she quickly hugged him tight and cried into his shoulder. After a second, he then wrapped his arms around her and let her take her time to calm down.

It didn't take her long to calm down. Once she did, she had stopped crying but kept hugging Branch, not wanting to let go. But Branch wanted to make sure she was ok.

"Hey," he started off with. He waited for a little for a reply but Poppy remained quiet. "Wanna talk about what happened?"

Poppy didn't say at first, but then backed out of Branch's arms and took a deep breath, looking down. "I've been having the same bad dream for three nights in a row now."

"What were they about?" Branch asked, but wanted to keep an open mind just in case she didn't want to tell him.

"Well... all of them started off with me running from something. I never knew what it was. It just felt like I needed to get away from it. But as I tried to run, it felt like I wasn't going that fast. As if something was weighing me down," she told him, not looking up from her hands in her lap. Tears started to form in her eyes again. "I'm not sure why, but it all started to make me panic." A single tear rolled down her cheek and Branch took his hand and softly wiped it away.

"It's ok to panic," he said softly. "It's ok to be scared. But it's not entirely ok to hide this from your friends. Especially if it occurs more than once. I want you to know that you can come to me anytime. We can talk about anything you want for as long as you want. Even if it's the middle of the night. Ok?"

Poppy took a moment to cherish the words he just said to her. They made her feel really special. "Ok," she finally said, then hugged him once again.

After a second of the two of them hugging, Branch backed away and said "Ok. Now I think it's time for more sleep,"

"But you said-"

"I know what I said. But we both know that sleep is important. So seeing that you are calm now, let's go to sleep,"

Poppy smiled at him for a moment, then said "Fine. Sleep it is," Then the two of them laid down and had a good night's sleep. And after that night, Poppy stopped having the reoccurring nightmare and whenever she did have a bad dream, she would go to Branch without a second thought.

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