Loki shoves her. Gently.

She just laughs.

Loki snorts.

"Thanks."

"Any time."

"Want me to talk to Adela? Let her know what happened? It - I don't know. She might know more about what's up."

Loki hums.

"Thanks for the offer, but - I think I should talk to her myself." Eventually. Not today.

"Okay. Lemme know if you wanna talk more about it?"

"I will. Though I kinda wanna do something that isn't moping now."

"I suggest video games. There's a new couple PS2 games in the lounge."

"Sounds fun."

Then off they can go for an afternoon of thoroughly hogging the lounge television.

(Well, they can play some three or four player games once other people want to tap in...)

It leaves Loki feeling better, at least.

Silv doesn't bring up the older kid drama when he next tracks Loki down, though he does drag Loki into exploring more of the grounds, goofing off and chasing each other through the trees.

Best friends.

And, when tension in the classroom doesn't seem to be going down, Loki goes to find Adela.

"Something up?" she asks, expression friendly, after inviting Loki into her dorm room.

"Kinda, yeah," Loki says, coming in to sit awkwardly on the desk chair.

She sits on her bed, waiting patiently for Loki to speak.

"Some of my friends in one of my classes stopped talking to me," she says after a bit of struggling with the words.

"Do you know why?"

"No. Raine hasn't talked to me and Mal said a lot of stuff about us being different ages even though that didn't matter before."

"I'm sorry. That sounds tough."

"...It is. Yeah."

"What do you want to have happen?"

"...Them to be magically my friends again. But I can't have that. Or can't without being a bully."

"Real life's unfortunate like that. Do you want to try to win them back non-magically?"

"...No. They left me. It'd... No. I don't want to - be pathetic at them."