"I should probably go home before I say something atrocious and ruin your opinion of me forever."

"She's best friends with your alt," Elarron points out, "she's probably used to it. Then again, she did say he had social skills..."

"They're kind of weird social skills, though."

"Sounds about right," says Ashras.

"I met Sigyn when he disguised himself as a girl and snuck into a combat practice hall."

"That sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'd do if combat practice halls were commonplace and I had to appear to be a girl to be allowed into one."

"That's how this alts thing tends to work, yes." She conjures up a mini illusion of the scene.

He examines it in fascination, tail swishing delightedly.

The illusion proceeds! There is fighting! And dialogue!

"Oh, he is just like you," murmurs Ashras.

"Except I can't wield a sword like that," says Inlaith, "a flaw I intend to correct immediately."

"Ooh."

"Are there lessons conveniently available somewhere around here or am I going to have to make Ashras solve it?"

"Asgard continues hopelessly sexist but I might be able to princess you in somewhere. Or apply to some Elves, who will do fine for the basics - you'll need later timeline Elves than my set for more than that."

"I'd be happy to disguise myself as a girl if necessary."

"Yes, but your brothers, who definitely want in on this, would be slightly less so," says Ashras.

"I'm very tempted to teach you myself but I am afraid I haven't the time."

"Understandable. Although, speaking of, if you can think of any problems we might be able to help you solve, we're all itching to get our wings after the parade of interdimensional visitors fledging by the dozen."

Loki materializes her wings, long pointed swift ones, and folds them smugly before dismissing them again. "My personal energies are spent on being a princess of two planets, one of which kidnapped me from the other, and on spell development and on things best handled by deployment of magic items it's not safe for anyone to try touching; I'm not sure I'm the person to go to for things that respond particularly well to outside help..."

He shrugs. "For wing-getting purposes it works just as well if you pass us along to somebody else. Although I hear the Taliars can replace you as free will distributors, so it's not all hopeless - Ashras is going to be just about equally general-purpose, we're pretty sure."

"I'm really glad to be replaced as a free will distributor! My free will distribution solution was both imprecise and highly uncomfortable!"

"Any more imprecise and highly uncomfortable magical artifact effects I could try replacing, or was that the last one?"

"Anything else I'd need the Aether to do, pretty much. Handling the Tesseract isn't uncomfortable and the time stone isn't - well, it's uncomfortable but not painful, it's weird. And none of these work more than a hop from Edda so outright copying me is potentially useful too."

"Maybe that can be my niche. It would be nice to have a niche."

"Do not ask if you can touch the unsafe magic items just to see if your soul copies them," says Inlaith.