"Who's this Sarah person Claire keeps going on about?" Barbara asked as Jim helped her set up gifts on a rough stone table that Bagdwella had let them set up outside of her shop. "She seems upset that she couldn't come to the baby shower."
Jim cringed slightly, hoping the pile of gifts in his arms had hidden his reaction. "It's... complicated."
"Well, is she a friend?" Barbara asked, taking boxes from Jim's arms one by one and arranging them on the table in some kind of specific pattern that seemed to make sense to her. "I've never heard of a troll with a common name like Sarah before."
"She's... she's a human," Jim explained, trying to keep his voice from betraying his nervousness at the line of questioning.
"Really?" Barbara gasped, turning her wide, blue eyes on Jim, her expression surprised. "I guess I can see why she couldn't make it today; I'm guessing she doesn't know about you or the trolls?"
"Well, she's met me with the Glamour Mask on," Jim said, letting his mother take the last of the boxes from his arms and arrange it this way and that way until she was satisfied with the presentation before her. "But, yeah, she doesn't know anything about the trolls."
"It's good that you and Claire have a human friend out this way, though," his mother replied, shooting a not so subtle glance at the healing remains of his left horn. A month and a half later, and the keratin had built back up over the raw center and it was starting to look more like the other one again, though still short enough that it only showed past his hair by an inch. "I hate that you both went all that time without any human contact."
Jim shrugged, uncomfortable with the conversation — mostly because his mother had no idea that their 'friend' was actually Jim's only a few months younger half sister. He'd been too confused and angry to bring it up to his mother, knowing that to do so would only break her heart all over again. "We're never bored living with the trolls, though."
"No, never that," Barbara agreed with a laugh, gesturing for Jim to follow her back over to the pub, where the food and drinks (both for human guests and troll guests, though Jim made Glug promise to keep her brew fairly weak for the current event) were set up. Claire was seated in a high wooden chair that had been brought in by a scrap runner a few nights before in the corner of the room, a blanket folded on the seat to act as a cushion. She was wearing a simple and comfortable black dress, her swollen, bare feet propped up on a low stool in front of her. Mary and Darci were both seated on the bar next to Claire, and they were laughing and giggling over something. When they spotted Jim, they all burst into giggles again, and he rolled his eyes, but smiled, glad that they were relaxed and having fun.
"Ugh, where do you want this basket?" Toby asked, hefting a wicker basket full of cheap, pink knickknacks up on a table.
"Oh, those are for the games!" Barbara said in excitement, clapping her hands together in delight. Jim couldn't remember seeing his mother so excited about something in his life. She put a hand to her chin thoughtfully, looking around, and then pointed to a table in the far right corner of the room. "Put them there for now, and I'll decide where they should go when we have everything else set up."
"Rightio, Dr. L!" Toby saluted dramatically and then dragged the basket off to its temporary destination. "Are you sure it's okay to use the pub like this?"
"Glug's pub," Glug grunted from where she was brewing in her tub behind the bar. "Glug say it's fine — others can go suck Merlin's ba—"
"Most of the trolls are home with their families during the day," Jim interjected quickly, before Glug could finish her sentence. "Unless someone decides to go on a bender, the pub doesn't get much traffic during this time."
