Most of Popp's close friends came with a rocky start; Gaia being snooty at him and then siccing him on a scary dark sorcerer is mild enough to be a fond memory at this point.

Violence is a great medium for forging close relationships. Not the only one, but it's up there! You learn a lot about people once you have thrown a Frizzle at them, such as their coping mechanisms for being set on fire and sometimes interesting new swears. Being hit by a hammer is a general purpose remedy for being weird about girls, the key is to not do it so often that he builds up an immunity.

"For real?! That's great!"

His voice cracks a little while he's shouting, let's go ahead and ignore that one too as long as we're ignoring various types of voice quality!

"I haven't seen anyone else I know; maybe... we worried so much the gods overheard and shoved us over here?"