They made it back without incident, though Jim was sure that he felt a bullet whizz passed his head, right before the magic of the Transportation Charm engulfed them. A week later, he noticed a chunk taken out of one of the rock walls in his living room, which scared the heck out of him. If Claire had been standing in that spot... Well, thankfully, she hadn't been, and though their sudden appearance had startled her, she hadn't noticed the bullet either.
Almost two months passed by without much drama — at least, on the Troll side of things; although Aja and Krel were just "upstairs," so to speak, they hadn't visited as often as Jim had assumed they would. From what little he had heard via Toby's gossip, the interplanetary beings had added one more to their household. Vex, the old man that Jim had seen only a couple of times when he lived in Arcadia, had apparently been rescued from the moon — yes, the moon! Honestly, Jim didn't know why he was surprised anymore — and was living with them again. And, while his old man persona was fake, obviously, that had not stopped Vex from falling head over heels for Toby's grandmother, much to everyone's combined amusement and horror. Even worse — or better, on your point of view — Nana seemed to reciprocate Vex's feelings.
Thank goodness their spaceship could rearrange itself to be as big as needed on the inside, because that was bound to get awkward for all parties.
Further, Zadra and Vex seemed to be furious with each other, and even Aja and Krel seemed cautious around the warrior alien. Toby had told Jim a long story about a political coup, betrayal, and regret, but he hadn't really understood the details too well. It was all far too political. Claire had pointed out that the Troll society was political, too, but Jim's position was more like a magical policeman; he still had to answer to the council of Elders. Aja's and Krel's society was a monarchy, and they were, essentially, the queen and king, even displaced as they were.
On the Troll side of things, however, everything had been quiet — which was more than a little unnerving. Sure, calm was good, in general, but this was one of those cases where no news was not good news. Every day ticked closer to their deadline of the Blood Moon. Sarah was safe, having gone with Anson to his rebel base in the jungles of South America, but that didn't mean that the Draknagoth wouldn't choose a different host to gather in. They all kept in contact, to share information (not that there was any, at the moment), and so Jim could stay in touch with his sister. She was coping well enough, even starting to learn some Trollish — which had resulted in some embarrassing miscommunications when she practiced with him; Jim had never thought of it, but the Trollish word for friend was pronounced only slightly differently from the Trollish word for mate — mate as in sex. He'd never laughed so hard in his life before, when Sarah had tried to say the simple sentence "Let's be friends" and ended up implicating something far more risqué.
The incident had been the first bought of humor that Jim had had in weeks, too stressed and worried over the lack of information, and the lack of anything to do, to really be able to relax. Things had been a little easier, however, now that Toby and Darci lived just above them, with the Tarrons. Jim hadn't realized how much he had missed his best friend until he was able to see Toby every day. Further, it gave him someone to spar with and actually talk to — not that he couldn't speak with his wife, but there were some things that it was just nice to be able to speak to another guy — his best friend — about.
"And then—" Toby grunted, deftly blocking Jim's wide, right-handed swing with a weightless thrust of his magic hammer. Daylight flew from his grip, but with practiced ease, Jim summoned the blade back, this time into his left hand, bringing the sword up to pin Toby's exposed torso. With a laugh, Toby flipped his hammer into the air, where it hovered a foot above his head, and threw his arms up in surrender. "Damn, I'm never gonna catch up with you, at this rate."
