"I mean, depends where he is and what he's up to, I guess." (He glances at War and apparently receives a summary.) "Huh - I'll bet he'd rather be left alone for anything short of 'only you can stop the nameless horrors outside reality from crawling in the sky and raining death and destruction on the world', then."

"Vivid," comments Minus.

"That was my guess too. You're from the Boots-fork's world?"

"Yep!"

"At least the Bells themselves have different nicknames. They're going to have to rename their worlds now that 'Materia' is apparently a fucking category."

"Yeah, that is not my favourite fact," says Celo. "One was enough. Maybe we'll finally get the traction to make them suck less, though."

"Boots has taken wizardry much farther than Aether has and has been gradually evacuating hers."

"That works too! But there might be people who don't wanna go, and they still don't deserve - that," he says with a vague wave of his hand.

"Yeah. Aether's aura would be key to being able to base any operations from within Materias."

"Yeah. Anyway, duty calls," he says, and disappears with a smile.

"Thanks for indulging me," Loki tells the remaining Joker and Minus, and then she follows the sounds of thunder to see how her sister is doing.

Her sister is having a fantastic time sparring with the Yggdrasil Thor! Apparently they have gotten over their respective Asgardian sexisms far enough to give each other a real fight.

Well that's adorable. (The existence of Yggdrasil was a surprise, since apparently there is a Loki there but he's not a Bell, but at least Thor is having fun.)

They knock each other out of the sky a few more times and then land together, clasp arms amicably, and head directly for Loki. (It seems they have both braided their hair in deference to Elven sensibilities, but then disarrayed it rather badly while they were trading hammer-blows and lightning bolts.)

The boy Thor waves. "Loki!" he says. "My alt has been telling me many tales! I would count myself blessed indeed to have a sister such as you!"

"I'm flattered! To hear thirdhand reports tell it I should be embarrassed by the fellow going around with my name."

"He is... troubled," says Boy Thor with a frown. "And troublesome. But he is still my brother."

"I find it nothing but reassuring to have this evidence that my sister's loyalty could have tolerated worse."

He chuckles. "That is well."

"Your embarrassing namesake has done some awful things," says Thor. "But my alt is magnificent! I nearly fear you'll want to trade me in! Tell her about the battle with the Destroyer, Odinson!"

He laughs. "If Loki wishes to hear it."

"Regale me."

So he tells the story of how frost giants raided Asgard on the day of his coronation as the Allfather's heir, and he rashly and impulsively ran off to Jotunheim to crack a few heads, and Odin banished him to Midgard reduced to the form of a mortal, and Mjolnir landed nearby but rejected him when he went to reclaim it, and his brother found out about his heritage and went mad with rage and pain and sent the Destroyer to Midgard to kill Thor, and Thor found a mortal girl who was worthy of Mjolnir and gave her what little instruction in its use he could in so short a time, and she saved the town and together they returned to Asgard to stop his brother from using the Bifrost to scour Jotunheim of all life.

He's... older than his Edda alt. And not just in years. Reading between the lines a little, this seems to in fact be the story of how he acquired enough wisdom and maturity to make Loki's sister joke about Loki preferring him.

Well, Loki is not going to attempt a trade, that would leave her poor sister with Embarrassing Not-Exactly-An-Alt. "I commend your defense of Jotunheim. I've got to be fond of the Edda version of the place, of late."

"I was raised on tales of the monstrous frost giants, so that they seemed little different from a wyvern or a landwurm, but... they are a people, as worthy as any other, and it was not right to destroy them."