Chapter Text
Davie wandered through the wilderness with a numb look in his eyes.
Why did he have to sing those songs in public?
Why did he have to like them?
Why was he like this?
Why was he pop?
He hissed when he walked right into a stone wall.
A stone wall?
The rock troll looked up higher and felt horror when he saw the sheer height of it.
Hesitantly, Davie stood up and began walking around the wall in an attempt to find an entrance.
When he did, it was a metal gate so big the space between the bars was wide enough to fit his cousin's wheelchair.
The tailless rock troll stepped through and gasped when he noticed the giants miserably roaming the streets.
He nervously adjusted a strap of his backpack before flinching at a sudden shout.
“Troll!” a kid screamed before running straight at him, some other giants rushing for him as well.
Davie desperately dodged the grabbing hands, running in the least occupied direction at each second.
At some point he turned a corner and spotted a huge colorful tree in the center of town, forced to run towards it as more ugly giants tried to catch him.
He willingly ran towards it however when he saw trolls inside, brighter than any he’d ever seen.
Davie rushed through the bars, the gap similar to the ones in the gate, before slamming into a troll.
“Sorry!” he screeched, helping the soft blue skinned troll up after doing so himself.
“Oh it's okay! But you know scouts aren’t meant to go out during daylight. I haven’t seen you around before. What’s your name?” the troll replied, her tail wagging as though she was angry but her face showing joy.
“I’m Davie. You?”
“I’m Silk! The tree seamstress. Your outfit is horrible. Where’d you get that?” she asked, gesturing to his tattered band shirt and more-ripped-than-normal jeans.
“I packed it when I left. Never learned sewing. I don’t really understand what's going on here? Where is this, what are those giants and why is your tail wagging?” Davie asked, gesturing around them before pointing at the giants walking around and then her tail.
She looked at him confused.
“I think I should take you to queen Rose…”
——
Turns out he was with the pop trolls he liked the music of so much. And those giants were bergens, who captured them a few generations ago and began eating them.
When they suggested him living in a recently emptied pod, their version of a cave, he expressed discomfort about moving into the house of someone who’d apparently died just last month.
So he was sent to live with a young troll his age, Ari, and her aunt, Rosiepuff, until they could sort something out.
——
Davie sat on the soft couch, holding a cup of water loosely in his hands.
Why did he have to be so stupid?
Why did he have to leave?
Did they even notice?
Who was he kidding?
They probably didn’t even care…
Davie choked back a pained mew.
With a shark inhale and a tightening of his grip he let out lyrics.
“Would anyone notice if tonight I disappeared? Would anyone chase me?
And say the words I need to hear?
That I’m no burden, not so worthless. Bent so much that I just might break.
All consuming. So confusing. The questions that keep me awake.
Would anyone care? Would anyone cry?
If I finally stepped off of thi-”
“Davie?” the troll in question whipped around to see Ari halfway down the stairs.
“Are you okay?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yeah. Just couldn’t sleep.” he answered almost automatically.
“I heard you singing. It's different from what I've ever heard.” she replied as she came down and sat next to him.
“Sorry.”
“Don’t! I like it. Feels raw and real. Would you like to talk about it?” Ari asked, combing her hand through her turquoise, green and magenta colored hair.
“No.”
“Oh.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“So, what did you call us earlier? Pop trolls? What's the story behind that?” Ari queried.
Davie sighed.
“It's a long story.” he flexed his claws, sharpened by a year and a half in the wild.
“I got time.” she grinned.
He gave a soft smile before he began.
“Centuries ago, trolls lived in silence…”
——
During the next seven years Davie made a life for himself, something apart from the weird pop liking prince. He learned basic sewing and mending and became Silk's assistant. He dated and eventually married Ari.
The dark thoughts of leaving and ending himself came back once in a while, leaving his colors grayer than his childhood. He broke down more than once, a few times with Ari.
But then someone came along who silenced those thoughts almost completely.
——
It was an average evening of Davie gossiping with Rosiepuff while Ari cooked dinner, since neither him or his aunt-in-law could cook for shit, when Davie felt something weird on his scalp.
Davie had been feeling off for the past 3 months. Eating more, getting frequent headaches, his hair feeling stiff, stuff he’d brushed off with poor excuses.
When he went and actually checked his hair however, his eyes widened.
“Are you okay?” Rosie asked, watching Davie rummage through his hair for a moment.
The rock troll brought his hands down to show what had just detached.
An egg. Shades of light blue with speckles of the same dark blue in Davie’s eyes, a tuft of Ari’s turquoise with two streaks of green and magenta.
“Oh my Thalia.” Davie ignored Rosie’s whisper as he watched a crack rattle on the shell.
“Holy mother of Calliope!” he yelled as the crack spread farther along the eggs surface until it looked about to break.
“What's wrong!?” Ari came running in just as the shell broke away.
The pod fell silent as they all stared at the kid.
The kid looked like a mix of Ari and Davie, his hair consisting of colors in Aris family and his genre related features all from Davies.
“Ba!” the newborn squeaked, his small tail curling up.
“Thalia.”
——
They named the kid John Dory, after an old friend Davie made on the road. He quickly showed the same excited head-first personality he’d demonstrated when he hatched.
John Dory, or Dory as they called him for short, became known as one of the weird kids because of the kids dna choosing to only have rock features, except for his teeth, which were rounded like his mothers.
Four years later they had come to a new peaceful normal.
And then they found an egg in Ari’s hair.
——
“Egg!” John Dory exclaimed, pointing at the purple haired egg in the pillow nest.
“Yes Dory, it's an egg. You’re getting a new brother or sister!” Davie confirmed from where he was strumming his guitar on the couch. It was just him and Dory home with the egg since Ari and Rosie were out grocery shopping.
“‘Oh don’t you dare look back, just keep your eyes on me’. I said ‘you’re holding back’. She said ‘shut up and dance with me’.
This woman is my destiny, she said ‘ooh hoo, shut up and dance with me-”
“Egg dying!” John Dory screamed, making Davie almost throw his guitar out of instinct.
When Davie looked over however he saw the egg hatching.
And then the panic he hadn’t gotten with John Dory kicked in.
“Oh Calliope I’m gonna be a father! Again!” Davie stood up, leaving the guitar on the couch.
Thinking quickly, Davie put the slowly cracking egg in his hair and grabbed his son, running out to find Ari.
——
The egg had hatched by the time he’d found Ari and Rosie halfway home, giving them their second son, Spruce. Named after Ari's grandfather. The kid had the same habit as his brother of wandering and hiding in places he shouldn’t, only worse because unlike his brother he’d barely make a sound except for the occasional giggling as he watched them look for him.
Just a year later they found another egg in Davie’s hair, keeping it in Ari’s hair after it detached.
——
“Davie.”
“Davie.”
“Davie!”
“Huh? What?” Davie mumbled, waking up to his wife sitting next to him holding what he assumed was their egg.
Looking closer, he realized it was a newborn the same colors as the egg.
“Wha-He hatched!?” Davie shot up in bed, instantly regretting his volume when the baby sniffled and started to cry.
“Middle of the night. Woke up to him lying on my face,” she giggled as she comforted their child.
“Hes so cute.” Davie shuffled into a proper sitting position before holding out his arms to take the sniffling newborn.
“He looks just like my ren’s baby pictures! Well, except for this of course.” she booped one of his sharp tipped ears, making it twitch.
“Well then how about we name him after them?” the rock troll suggested.
Ari sighed and handed the baby to Davie.
“Well Clay, I hope you’re ready to meet your oldest brother and Irish twin in the morning!”
“Nah he missed that by three days.”
“Dang it.”
——
Their third son was the most loud and energy filled out of all of them, making putting him down for any kind of rest an absolute nightmare. He and his almost Irish-twin turned into two peas in a pod.
The couple was pretty sure they were done with kids until they found another egg in Ari's hair.
——
Davie and Ari walked through the front door, the nine-year-old following them still grumpy about the surprise doctor check-up despite the lollipop in his mouth.
They looked confused when they saw five-year-old Spruce holding a sleeping newborn in his arms, his tail pointed up and shaking at the tip in joy.
Spruce meowed as a greeting while Clay barked towards Rosiepuff, who was practicing poker while watching the kids.
“Who’s the baby?” Davie asked as said baby blinked awake.
“Your kid. She hatched while you were out.” Rosiepuff explained.
Davie screeched when Ari’s tail whacked him in the leg during its sudden fast paced wagging.
Ari immediately rushed to hold the baby while Dory watched with confusion.
“The egg hatched?” Dory asked.
“Yep! You’re a big brother of three now!” Davie grinned.
Dory stared at the baby before announcing his opinion.
“He’s ugly. Return it.” Clay gasped as dramatically as a four-year-old could before running across the room.
“He not ugly! He bootiful! No return!” he barked as he began slapping Dory on the lower torso, the highest spot he could reach.
“Hey! Stop!” Dory hissed.
“I guess he’s a son now?” Ari shrugged.
——
Floyd was the quietest of their sons, quieter than Spruce. Meaning when he occasionally dappled in his eldest two brothers' habit of hiding in small spaces they had to either wait for him to come out on his own or spend hours looking. The loudest he was was when he was crying, and he cried loud, like he was dying or something.
Ari got sick when Floyd was two, being bedbound by Dory’s fourteenth birthday and passing away a week before Davie found their youngest’s egg in his hair.
——
“Why do I need to know how to use a bow and arrow?” Spruce asked as Davie brought him and Dory to the spot he’d deemed the training spot. Davie had decided on teaching each of his sons how to use a bow and arrow when they were eleven after he heard Dory mentioning the idea of a band four years before.
“Theres a lot of creepers out there ‘ruce. If you’re going to have a band, you all need to know some way to defend yourself,” Davie explained.
“Is that why you showed Clay how to kick someone mid-backflip?” Dory asked. Davie had finished teaching him archery a year ago and now he was coming to give his own technique tips.
“What kind of creeps?” Spruce queried.
“Well, I’d tell you but you’re eleven and probably too young to hear about your grandpa Smoke’s band days.” the father and sons arrived at the spot and Davie began setting up what wasn’t already there.
“We have another grandfather?” Davie saw his eldest’s eyes widen in his peripheral vision.
“Yeah. You have three. One on your moms side and two on mine. Floyd is just like my dads,” Davie joked, remembering his dad making the same joke about Davie being like his grandmothers when he admitted his first crush.
Spruce and Dory gave identical expressions of confusion before a sudden shout and loud thumps rang out from behind the forty-three-year-old.
“Rogue bergen!” John Dory exclaimed.
Panicked, Davie took the egg he’d been keeping in his hair and put it in Spruce’s hold before pushing his sons towards a hiding spot.
The rock troll watched his two eldest crouch down between the tree roots and a small bush, Dory covering Spruce's ears while Spruce held the unhatched egg.
The last thing Davie did before being snatched was give his eldest a small smile when he looked his way.