((An ongoing drabble of various scenes of the Trolls and humans interacting and daily life for the Trollhunter to help tide everyone over until I have my next multi-chapter story ready to start posting. Obviously fans will understand where I got the title from, but may wonder 'why 49, when in canon there's only 47 books?' Well, search for 'A Brief Recapitulation of Troll Lore volume 48 and you'll see! *seriously adds that thing to my WANT list.*

Many of these themes will stem from my fondness for the 'Humans are Space Orcs/Weird' meme, as well as from random things that happen to me that make me wonder how the Trolls would handle it. Granted, I know that Blinky at least is 600, but as the episode 'Blinky's Day Out' proved he's - and thus the other Trolls as well - are likely learned about human life, but not very intimately acquainted with it, and lets face it there's a lot of little things we humans do that would be new to them. XD

Some stories will be one-shots, but there might be an arc or two in there as well that would span several. I'll post a note so there's no confusion when that might happen.

Also, I'm throwing wide the suggestion box on this one! If you have ANY ideas for a segment, post it in a review, or PM me, or whatever! I'm looking for as many ideas as I can get to keep this thing going forever!

Enjoy!))

Chapter One: Language

It was a training day in Trollmarket, and Blinky was heading towards the Hero's Forge. He was a little late, having been caught up in some research for Vendel, but trusted in his human friends to begin on their own. Granted, he half expected such self-starting to have devolved into a two-on-one roughhousing match, with Jim being the one, but that was alright. They learned a bit even in such informal sparring, and he was never one to deny them their fun.

(The last time they had also gotten Aaarrrggghh into the match, humans against the large Troll, and watching that had been quite a treat for the scholar! Especially when the match turned into an unarmed wrestling competition that was quite obviously more than a little one-sided!)

Entering the Forge at last, Blinky was pleased to see Jim and Toby trading blows back and forth. There was a fair bit of banter as well, as could be expected. Aaarrrggghh watched them, ensuring that they didn't accidentally injure each other, and to one side Draal trained against a target dummy with his sword. But where was Claire?

It took Blinky a moment to spot her, six eyes or no, sitting with her back against one of the pillars that lined the training grounds. Her staff lay at her side, a book open in her lap holding her attention, and she was gesturing with her hands in the air above the pages, lips moving as she murmured to herself.

Now Blinky was a bit surprised, and confused. Though it didn't often come to light, and Blinky couldn't say for certain that any of the humans even knew, the blue-green Troll was quite a skilled arcanist. He could inscribe runes of power and utilize ritual circles, and had pulled magic from scrolls. He had practiced hexes along with his brother, and even though he hadn't had reason to tap into those skills in ages he could recognize when others used similar skills, and it certainly looked like that was what Claire was doing. But to his knowledge, Claire was not a human who was capable of using magic, aside from her staff. Perhaps she wanted to expand her skills? But without a guide it would be a risky endeavor to say the least.

For a moment Blinky hesitated, then decided that to interrupt her would be the less-wide choice and came to join Aaarrrggghh, just in time to praise both young men as Toby blocked Daylight and Jim in turn spun free of the small clench.

"Well done!" The two boys turned at hearing Blinky's praise and smiled, taking a break.

"Hi, Blinky," greeted Jim, panting a bit. Blinky returned the greeting, then spared a glance back at Claire before regarding the Trollhunter and his best friend again.

"If I may ask, is Claire aware that studying magic alone is quite dangerous?" Both Jim and Toby blinked.

"Huh?" Jim looked at his girlfriend. "Magic?"

"Is she not practicing the somatic components and incantations from her book?" Their voices carried across the empty room, and Claire looked up and smiled.

"Practicing what?" she asked, closing her book and standing to join them.

"I apologize if I disturbed you, Claire," Blinky spoke up. "I know how much focus is required for arcane study." Now it was Claire's turn to mimic her fellow humans' baffled expression.

"Arcane – what?"

"I saw you gesturing and it seemed you were speaking to yourself, much in the manner of one practicing the art or sorcery." Claire blinked, then seemed finally to understand and laughed a little.

"You mean this?" She held out the book that was tucked under her arm. The title on the cover read American Sign Language.

"Oh!" Jim spoke up, getting what the misunderstanding was as well. "I get it!"

"'Sign Language?'" echoed Blinky as he took the offered book, opening it to glance inside at the diagrams of hand gestures and the words written beneath them.

"I have a cousin coming to visit next month, and he's mostly deaf. So I'm brushing up on my sign language," the girl explained cheerfully.

"Really?" Toby was both surprised and clearly in awe of the hidden talent. "That is so cool!"

"Deaf?" Aaarrrggghh repeated, puzzled at the human word.

"It indicates a person who is unable to hear," the smaller Troll clarified with an addition of the Trollish term for reference, eyes never leaving the book. "You mean to tell me that your cousin can communicate by the gestures in this book?"

"Well, he can also read lips really well, if someone is looking right at him when they're speaking and don't cover their mouths, and he didn't become deaf until he was around six or so, and has had speech therapy too, so it's easy to understand him. But I know he likes it when we show that we can adapt to him, rather than making him 'adapt to us.'" Claire started gesturing as she spoke, using the sign language in demonstration. "He's a bit older than I am – he's already in college – but when I asked he started teaching me how to sign, and I've kept it up for when he visits. And I've been signing everything I was just saying."

"Incredible!" Blinky flipped carefully through some of the pages, eyes alight with the allure of new knowledge, then he closed it and held it back out to Claire. "If I may ask, could you possibly lend me the book when you have sufficiently refreshed your knowledge?" Claire took it with a smile, nodding back to where she'd been sitting.

"Why wait? I'll help you get started; it's easier with help at the beginning, though I think you'll have an advantage in maintaining a conversation!" She laughed as she said it, lifting one of Blinky's lower arms to elaborate. The Troll just chuckled as well, taking her up on her offer and going with her out of the way of the training pair to begin their lesson. Jim, Toby, and Aaarrrggghh looked at one another, amused at how easily diverted Blinky could be when he found something he didn't know at hand to be learned, then resumed their training. Blinky did his duty to Jim as his trainer, looking over at them periodically to monitor their progress and calling over encouragement and advice, then turning back to the images in the book and gesturing slowly with his hands, sometimes doing two different signs at once in his quest to learn!

Needless to say, within a week and a half Blinky was able to add another language to his already impressive repertoire.