Archive of Our Own ^beta

‘The bounty was so short’ Theodora lamented as she walked uphill with slumped shoulders in the cool night. ‘It was my first bounty. Why did it have to be fun and over so soon?’ she huffed—it was true, she was twelve now and it had been time for her to start helping out her fami–caretakers with bounty hunting. The bounty had been simple, a bar owner had reported a troll making trouble around the town and put up a price on the guy.

Grandpa Owen had taken it, and he put up aunt Ethel to take care of the guy. Along with that he allowed Theodora to come along much to Ethel’s protest of “Why do I have to take the brat?! She’s supposed to be working the warehouses!” and after a while grandpa convinced her she needed bounty experience soon anyways. Theodora was ecstatic when grandpa told her about it in his office. She would get a break from just carrying crates around the warehouses all the time, it was boring not to mention lonely and tiring. 

Theodora rubbed her wrist as she continued on the forest path out of the town where their bounty had been finished a few hours ago.

Ethel did most of the work and all she let Theodora do was be the pianist for the stage preformist to keep up their disguises as performers before catching the target later.

Theodora finally made to the top of the small hill and she looked back to the town, now tiny with the distance on top of the small hill that led into the forest surrounding the buzzling town. It was in full swing with music and dancing, trolls lined up at the town square, musicians took out their saxophones to play, and everybody was just happy.

Distantly Theodora wondered if Ethel was among the dancing crowds, having fun swinging and swaying her curls loose and enjoying herself for a job well done.

She hoped so.

She looked down to the stone pathway—sighed softly and turned to walk down the hill to go into the forest deep.

Theodora was tired and this walk was supposed to cheer her up not bring her down anymore after what happened with Ethel after they turned the bounty in.

Theodora had wanted to go with her to see more of the town as she was rarely let out of the house to do anything since her caretakers took her in. But that hope was dashed when Ethel had just dropped her off at the front of the inn they were staying at and went off with a group of musicians. Leaving her with just the keys to their room and an order of “Pack up our stuff Theodora. I’ll be back in two days!” 

Her heart dropped when she heard her aunt say that to her—she wanted to yell for Ethel to take her with her but she had clamped her mouth shut before any words had left her mouth.

Instead she just smiled tightly and nodded.

Ethel just left without sparing one last glance at her.

Now all their packed up stuff was just sitting in their room for hours now.

She couldn’t sleep and being near the forest always calmed her down, maybe it was the familiarity that nature gave to Theodora. 

When the stone pathway she had been walking faded into dirt and the sounds of gentle swaying water took her out of her thoughts, she raised her head and was greeted by the sight of a forest lake. The one she had seen briefly when her and Ethel had arrived at the borders of the town before their bounty had started. The moonlight lightened up the shadows and on the surface she could see a couple of swans on the far end sleeping with their heads tucked under a wing gently floating without a care in the world.

Yet the image of the cool forest lake faded for a few seconds and she saw something different.

A warm fire flickered in front of her eyes, while a troll hummed an upbeat song with a guitar so different from any Jazz music she grew up with. Another held her close, curls of deep pink spilled between her fingers like ink as she played with them and his muffled voice echoed in the back of her head. 

Theodora pursed her mouth and pulled closer to the navy blue cardigan of her outfit, hugging herself to keep in the present and calm the nerves that had started to well up in her.

She walked to the edge of the lake where the water touched her doll shoes gently and she would be in the moonlight.

“Stop thinking about them Thea,” she whispered, her nails digging into her arm, a weight placed in her heart with how stupid she felt for wishing that warmth of that cracked memory to stay. It felt like a personal insult to the trolls, her caretakers that had taken her in when her dad and papa died in that accident. Why should she long for something that left a long time ago? Why should she be stuck in the past when her caretakers were...

'Were...' she thought with downcast eyes to the surface of the water.

She felt smaller than she actually was.

"They take care about you in their own ways” she muttered as she knelt to her reflection on the water. She had the same blue skin and rounded eyes as her papa, her dad’s long magenta curls, only hers was cut short to her nape peeking out of her cloche. The boxy silhouette of her outfit and the frills of her skirt that was lent to her by aunt Ethel just for this one bounty. 

The only weird thing about her was how abnormal it was to have such a pastel coloring of pink and blue unlike many Jazz trolls who had sophisticated and polished palettes.

Other than that she looked like a perfect Jazz troll with a soft face. 

A Jazz troll just like her family even if they only allowed her to call them her caretakers.

She is a Jazz troll. 

“They still care about you in their own ways” Theodora knelt down to her reflection, her eyes slightly glossy and the makeup Ethel applied on her she didn’t dare to take off made her look more Jazz like that she ever had in her entire life. 

But it didn’t hide her still too bright pastel palette.

Nothing could remove it. 

“They care about you…” Her voice trembled as she smiled at her reflection.

Ethel’s careful steady hands applying makeup on her face—Ethel seeing her pianist parts during the performance, Ethel leaving and ignoring her at the inn's door to have fun.

Grandpa Owen seeing her for the first time with soft eyes and taking her in, grandpa Owen making her work at the warehouses when she didn’t want to.

Her reflection’s smile wavered but she fought to keep it on and resisting her urge to cry as that would ruin the makeup Ethel applied on her to wear just this once.

Even if she felt her knuckles turn sore at how tight she was clenching the hem of her skirt. 

“They still care even if you're half-pop.” she uttered as her shoulders began to shake slightly and she quickly rubbed her eyes to stop any tears from ruining her makeup. 

Theodora stopped looking at her reflection and slumped to the ground with her head huddled to her knees and her hands clutching on the hat on her head, trying to find some type of warmth in the cool night. “They care about you. They care about you. They do care…” she repeated to herself over and over again as her chest began to feel heavy and everything just felt like it was sinking away—

SNAP!

“AHHHHHH!” 

Theodora jolted like lightning shot through, her heart racing and still heavy. Knocking back some of the lake's water from the sudden scream and the squawks of swans erupted in a canopy. 

‘What was that?’ she thought fearfully as stood up eyeing her surroundings wildly and fumbled to get the shift knife out of her skirt's pocket. Her breaths ragged as she stood up with her shift knife in both hands. She swallowed hard and looked again at the lake then to the pathway where had come from, focusing on making out any type of silhouette that might pose a threat to her. 

There was nothing.  

Theodora lowered her shift knife slightly and her breaths slowed down but she stayed alert as she stepped forward towards the pathways where she swore she heard the noise came from. 

‘Was that a fluke?’ she thought as she came closer to the pathway and there was still nothing dangerous there. ‘No it’s not a fluke I can hear something’ her ears flickered, distant as it was but Theodora did hear something but she only caught one clear line. 

“Poppy are you okay?!” the voice to the left of the pathway that led to the edges of the town’s territory came about. 

Theodora’s brows furrowed, ‘Wait did someone get caught in one of the border traps?’ it was a common thing to do in Jazz, making sure to keep out any unwanted trolls or critters into any town. She lowered her shift knife completely and slid it back to her skirt’s pocket. Carefully, she walked quietly to where she heard the voices call out. If the trolls who got caught were dangerous she’ll just sneak back to town before they could spot her and if they were harmless well it didn’t hurt to still check right?

As she made her way through the darker parts of the forest, where it was the best to lay the traps, she treaded carefully for any tripping wires that could trap her with the unknown trolls. Soon enough Theodora saw a dense lengthy tree and she could make out blurred figures trapped in the nets up in the branches.

All of the trolls were trapped in the nets.

‘Huh guess they're harmless,’ she thought, her heart finally settling in her chest and a weird set of amusement came to her for her overreaction. At least that gave her a reason to smile a little again. She hid behind a nearby tree to get a better look at the trapped trolls, just to see who they were clearly before she could decide to help them out or not only for her to freeze with a gape when she saw exactly who were trapped. 

No mistaking the bright colors that made them look like a rainbow threw up on them. There were four of them all in varying hair colors, purple, green, a muted blue, and hot pink. The first three were trapped in a net together while the hot pink one was in a lone net a little higher than theirs.

'Pop trolls' her mind supplied to her.

It was Pop trolls that she had heard screaming and what was seeing now. 

What even—

“Branch, are you sure this is even worth it? We could just–”

“Clay yes! We need all of our brothers if we want to save Floyd!”

“Well we can’t exactly find him if we're stuck in these things!” 

The three pop trolls fell into some type of argument and Theodora continued to watch curiously. Hidden behind the tree and the darkness of the night she thought ‘should I help them?’ they didn’t look threatening at all, in fact they looked like the opposite with their bright colors and general bickering sounding less hostile and more so just annoyed banter that she only heard every now and then with her caretaker’s workers. 

Theodora looked down, her hand hovering over her skirt’s pocket where her shift knife was—contemplating if she should just leave or…

She shook her head at that, then she took a deep breath and stepped cautiously forward towards the elevated nets, her hand in her pocket. 

“Hey! You guys okay?” She called out and immediately felt a stone plummet to her stomach at her useless question. Of course they weren’t okay they were literally trapped! Still Theodora pushed down her embarrassment and looked upwards to the nets where the pop trolls were staring at her with surprise and the hot pink pop troll zeroed in on her before breaking out into a wide smile. 

“Oh my sparkles! I love your hat! The flower's so pretty!” She squealed to Theodora who only flushed at the sudden compliment and looked back to the ground out of habit. Her hand unconsciously brushing to the side of her hat where the purple fabrics had been designed to look like a flower. 

“Uhm…thank you miss its a hydrangea. Oh! Wait, hang on, I'll just get you guys down real quick!” she cried and quickly went to the base of the tree.  

“Uh thanks…?” the green one said to her, and she only smiled back as she unstrapped her doll shoes and left them on the roots of the tree. Then she started to climb the trunk of the tree with ease.

A skill she had picked up in her very blurry childhood. 

“Don’t thank me yet. I still have to get you guys down!” she grunted, coming towards the tree branch where the three trolls trapped together who she was going to assume were probably brothers with their argument earlier.

“I’m Theodora by the way.” She said casually as she hauled herself to the tree branch where the first net was hanging the three brothers. “Who are you guys?” she asked—positioning herself to lie on her belly on the branch and started to inch closer to where the net’s ropes hang. The purple one with long hair answered with “I’m Bruce, these two are my brothers Clay and Bitty B.”

“Its Branch!” 

“And I’m Poppy!” she announced from the branch above them. 

Theodora got near to the ropes of the first net quickly and managed to get her shift knife out. Carefully she reached out with her blade to the tip of the net tied at the branch and started to cut. 

Snap!

The net fell along with a thump along with the heap of the pop brothers. The tree branch wobbled a bit when the sudden weight of the net was gone and Theodora managed to stay on, then she started to make her way back to the trunk of the tree and to the slightly higher branch where Poppy still was. 

“So what’s got you guys going to the Jazz lands?” Theodora asked as climbed closer to the net containing Poppy whose hair now that she took a good look at it was a much vibrant and brighter pink than Theodora’s is. With a quick snap from her shift the net fell in heavy thump from the elevated tree branch and a short scream from Poppy.

“Were looking for our brother we heard that he moved here a couple of years ago,” The muted blue, Branch called out, shaking off the remnants of the rope from his discarded net on his foot while his brothers, Bruce the one with long purple hair and Clay the one with curly green, he got trapped with brushed off the dirt on their clothes behind him. 

“Huh, I might be able to help. My caretakers meet a lot of people in Jazz so I might have heard of him.” Theodora offered as she crawled back to the trunk of the tree. “What 's his name?” She asked as she hugged the tree trunk and slowly started to climb down, her back facing the group. 

As Theodora climbed down she knew how it probably wasn’t a good idea to help out strangers, especially pop trolls but ever since that whole world tour debacle it seems things between the genres were lighter. She was half pop too so maybe it was okay? Besides, her first bounty was meant to give her experience in the world. Why not add ‘meeting pop trolls’ to the list? Plus she wanted more time before coming back to town to wait for Ethel.

All that would be welcoming her would be a hollow room and waiting to go home to her… caretakers. 

“His name’s John Dory” 

Theodora’s hand stopped dead, midway down on the trunk—eyes wide and her shoulders turned tense as her world stilled at those simple words, the heaviness in her heart she had long grown to use to being in the background suddenly was towering over her, her senses felt fuzzy and the edges of her vision blurred.

Never had Thea been more thankful for her face being hidden in her life. She didn’t want to know this strang—uncles? She just didn’t want them or anyone to see what she felt as she zeroed in on the name she hadn’t heard since she was seven but memories flashed before her eyes before she could stop it. A fire flickering, soft song two voices sang lovingly, and the warmth she felt between them. Fractured moments she could only feel but never remember properly.

“Dad, am I pressing the keys right?”

“Your doing great sweetheart soon enough we’ll playing smooth jazz together as a duo”

“Papa! Papa! Look what I found, it's perfect for Rhonda!” 

All her caretakers ever called papa were always insults, ‘sting stealer, pop bastard, disgrace of music, harmony destroyer’.

While they rarely brought up her dad at all and when she ever tried to ask…

Her bare feet touched the ground before she knew it and her senses finally caught back to her present.

She closed her eyes trying to keep herself calm enough not to make a fool of herself. 

Thea pursed her lips and let out a slight shaky breath—hoping that no one noticed it and she turned to the group. She mustered up her best neutral gaze and regarded the expecting group in front of her. Branch was helping Poppy up while Clay was picking leaves off of his hair. 

A couple of times Thea had fantasized what it would be like if she ever met her papa’s brothers—her uncles if they were in front of her. Even though she thought through her papa they were dead, she made scenes in her mind of her singing with them or feeding Rhonda when she was being picky with her food. Just to feel a little less alone when she needed it when she worked at the warehouses.

Even if the faces of her uncles were non-existent. 

Now they were really in front of her and she could see a familiar resemblance of her to them.

From the corner of her eyes she noticed Bruce was squinting at her as if he had seen her somewhere before. 

Maybe it was because of the same blue skin and blue eyes she shared with them but Theodora shut that down, after all they never met until now so he wouldn’t know who she is.  

None of them do. 

But they deserve to know what happened to her papa.

“You won’t find him here then…” Theodora's voice cracked, forcing her eyes to stay up only to go back to the ground as she felt her throat was closing in as if trying to choke her with the blurry memories she once had of him coming back to haunt her. 

“Why not?” Clay asked, hints of suspicion in his voice. 

“He’s m—was my papa .”  Theodora bite out, forcibly keeping her eyes from tearing up and gripping her wrist like her life depended on it.

“He’s dead.” She said objectively—like a fact, mimicking the way her grandpa always spoke to his friends in meetings.

“That’s not funny” Clay breathed out, crossing his arms with a raised brow at Theodora. While Branch and Bruce both had gone quiet—Bruce had confused a look with eyes darting like he wasn’t sure if he heard something right. Branch on the other hand froze and stared at her in disbelief with his mouth gaping, wanting to say something before clamping his mouth shut. 

‘Fair enough’ she thought as her hands reached to the back of her neck. Hidden by her blouse’s lacey collar, she unclasped her locket. Theodora’s hand stilled for a second when she held her locket again in her palm. It was a bronze heart shaped one engraved on it were the initials of '𝓣 ' next to a music note—on the edges of the small flowers and even a cupcake in the corner.

Something she vaguely remembered was her papa bickering with dad about letting be on the design.

She opened it and there laid a black and white photograph of her dad, papa, and her when she was only about maybe four months old? Both smiling, dad wearing a Jazz outfit while papa had worn just his normal fur laced jacket, while she was sleeping soundly in her papa’s arms ruffled in lace blankets. The picture had faded slightly at the edges but Theodora had made sure to keep it intact and hidden away from her caretakers even when she had to work long hours in the warehouses. It was the last thing she had left of them nowadays anyways.

She looked up to her uncles with a pursed lip and felt hesitant to give them the locket as who knows what they might do with it? But a part of her nagged her to just let them see it just for a second so she could prove she wasn’t lying. Besides she was taught to be a bounty hunter since she was taken in by her caretakers even if they had forbidden her in actual hunting until this one. 

So she could hold her own if something funny happened. 

“I think this is proof enough right?” She whispered, holding the open locket by its chain and handing it to Branch's hand. His eyes grew wide when he saw the photograph and briefly looked at Theodora. 

His eyes were the same as hers—same as her papa’s.

Soft blue eyes clashed suddenly with Branch’s expression that gave her a strong sense of deja vu. Then her heart sank at the oh so familiar heaviness that suddenly felt too much in her chest. The world around felt like it had eyes watching her, all the eyes being colors of pointed silver, bronze, or violet, all belonging to her caretakers. 

The locket landed on Branch’s hand without a sound.

“Here take a closer look if you still don’t believe me,” She mumbled with a rock in her throat and turned around just as quickly. Going back to the root of the tree where she just climbed to save her uncles and where her doll shoes were sitting patiently on the roots. 

“If you guys want your brozone stuff don’t worry I still have it, it's in Rhonda. She was my papa’s before but she’s my caretaker’s ride now,” She commented as she sat down on the roots. Just wanting to fill the air with something so those eyes can just stop staring at her. Rhonda since her parents…accident, she along with Theodora was taken in by her caretakers—though Rhonda despite being mostly okay with Ethel or Finn, never let anyone including her, take away the brozone stuff her papa had stored up in her. Always somehow kicking any troll that even touched it. 

“He kept that stuff?” she heard Clay mutter, though there was a crack in his voice and Theodora gulped quietly. Her hands shook slightly as she brushed away the dirt on her feet and clipped her shoes back on. 

“Yeah he did…you guys looked good in those denim tuxedos though,” she said casually with her mind telling her to just be quiet at this point. Her cheeks flushed with the way things were going and the very uncomfortable silence that stretched on she turned her back to her uncles and just kept going with “Um if you guys want I can call Rhonda here right now? Like Ethel is with her friends right now so she wouldn’t notice at all! And I…uh—”

“When did he die…?” Bruce whispered.

Oh

Well wasn’t she just stupid? 

“Since I was seven so he’s been gone for five years now I think,” she confessed, her hand rubbing her wrist as she looked back to the ground not really knowing what else to do. This was getting too uncomfortable for her, honestly, and she was beginning regretting not listening to Ethel to just stay at the inn. Maybe she could just walk away from this? 

“Not to be weird or anything but…can I have my locket back?” Theodora tilted her head up with a strained smile to see her uncles having huddled up near Branch who still had her locket in his palm. All of them looking at the photo within with some type of sadness or maybe it was disbelief? She didn’t know how to describe it—it kinda looked like it was a mix of the two in a daze. 

Her question seemed to snap them out of whatever daze they were though, Branch blinked before saying “Uh yeah sorry here…” he said quickly, handing the locket back to her and Theodora could only give out a sheepish smile but it didn’t show that well. 

“Theodora can you just give us a minute?” Bruce said with a forced tone and looking at his brothers expectantly. She only nodded, clutching the locket back at her hand as her newfound uncles huddled up away from her along with Poppy. That only now Theodora was realizing had been behind her uncles the entire time. For a second she swore she saw something sparkling moving in Poppy’s hair as she came into the huddle as well but she ignored it. 

Theodora sat back down to one of the roots of the tree, her arms around her knees as she waited on what her uncles were going to do now with the news her papa…was gone. She stared curiously at the huddled group of her uncles and Miss Poppy for a moment. ‘Maybe they do want their brozone stuff again’ she thought looking away, fiddling with the hem of her skirt, ’I can’t take them to Ethel, she'll blow her wig if she did…’ as her thoughts strayed. Theodora missed the glances her uncles and Poppy threw her way as their conversation was steadily becoming panicked whispers. 

Theodora’s ears flickered slightly when she heard a fractured parts of the conversation. 

“John had a kid…”

“...perfect family harmony…save Floyd…!” 

“She’s clearly not okay, she wouldn’t be out here alone…!” 

“We can figure…mission and get her hel–-”

“This is Mount Rageous were tal…”

Theodora’s eyes widened when she heard those two words, the place where she often heard horror stories from Ethel.

Mount Rageous. 

The place where greedy and worst of the worst bounty hunters in the past would make ugly dealings with Rageons for good bounties. Nowadays it was a social hub for hunters for business and the one place Theodora had wanted to go to for years since her dad once told her stories of that place in her hazy memories of him. 

And ‘perfect family harmony’ wasn’t that something her papa told her was some type of weapon that could shatter diamond? Or was it just a powerful harmony? That didn’t matter to her though as pieces started to fit into her mind. 

Mount Rageous, a powerful harmony her uncles were going to use, saving someone—there were bounties that meant having to rescue a ransom every now and again now that she thought about it harder. 

Were her uncles hunters like her? 

Are they on a hunt like she was?

Theodora didn’t know pop trolls had bounty hunters among them too but then again they literally just came out of the idea that the tribe had died out years ago because of the Rock apocalypse just two months ago. Something in her chest burned but it didn’t bring her down like it always did—instead she felt excitement fill her heart up at the thought of going on another bounty. Whatever hunt her newfound uncles were on she wanted in. 

Theodora wanted nothing more than to become like great bounty hunters like her parents were.

 Muses her dad, Ethel, and Finn at her age had already done more than her! 

Just one bounty, it was pathetic. 

Theodora’s jaw clenched and her hands bunched up her skirt at what she felt for herself. She steadied her shoulders though and subtly brought a small whistle to her mouth playing a near silent short tune on it. She stood up with as much grace as she could muster despite her heart rapidly thumping in her chest at what she was going to do.

Rhonda was coming.

Ethel said herself she wasn’t coming back for another two days and this bounty had only lasted barely a few hours.

 So she had a lot of time for another right? 

“You guys are going to Mount Rageous right? I want to go with you guys” She wanted to see more of the world. She wanted to see the colors and the chaos of what she once saw all the time when her dad and papa were still with her. Not brought back to the small cold house and warehouses she knew.

 She wanted to be a real bounty hunter.

Just a few more hours…

Her uncles and Miss Poppy stopped their whispered fight when they heard her and for a moment they were quiet. All looking at her with disbelief or worry that only fueled Theodora’s drive to join them. 

“Theodora I don’t think that’s—” Branch started but she cut him off, shaking her head. 

“I don’t know how to sing pop music but I can play instruments really well! I can just play supporting melodies to help the perfect family harmony so I can help!” She exclaimed, stepping closer to the group. Her eyes steady and determined to get them to take her with them, to see what she’s been missing for years since her parents died. 

“Please just let me go with you guys! Even if you don’t want me to help I–I already called Rhonda here, she’s an armadillo bus. She'll be great at Mount Rageous and I can get her to—!” Theodora continued increasingly becoming nervous at a rejection from her uncles.

“Whoa whoa! Theodora slow down!” Branch exclaimed, raising his hands. That was when she realized her breathing had been getting deeper but she didn’t care. Then she felt a slight tremor from the ground and the tree nearby shook, she snapped her neck when a familiar rumble was heard from the distance.  

“Rhonda…” She whispered and her hand squeezed her locket unconsciously. She looked back to the group and to Branch in particular in the eyes.

“Let me come with you guys.” She said again. 

No one spoke 

Then…

“You can come with us.” Bruce said firmly.

Theodora broke into a wide smile at that and only vaguely took in her uncles looking at Bruce like he was crazy but she quickly turned around to whistle with her fingers. 

Getting Rhonda’s attention along with “Rhonda! I’m over here girl! Guess what?! We’re going on another bounty!’ she squealed as she saw Rhonda’s figure coming towards them and she only ran to get the stuff inside ready so they could leave as soon as possible. 

She’ll be a real bounty hunter just for a little longer…