And off they go.

They have a forty-five minute wait and then there appears a Loki.

"You must be Loki," says one of the triplets. "I wanted to thank you for inventing the spell that saved my planet."

"I heard about that. You're welcome, saving planets is the original use case."

"And - well, they probably still would've managed to save my planet without it, but things might not have turned out so well for the hundred billion genocidal aliens who are now happily non-genocidal. I hear they had to juggle a lot of planets around to pull that off."

"I'm glad that worked out. We've got just the broad overview of genocide-alien information - are their previous genocides being put back like Vulcan was, do you know -"

"Not yet," says Ashras, "they want to give the aliens a while to calm down before they put the new lack of xenophobia to the test."

"But later?"

"Yeah, that's the plan."

"Good. So what are your names? I'm Loki, if you found me by a non-name parameter of some sort."

"I'm Ashras Kevarsin, and this is Inlaith and that's Elarron. I'm an alt of the Taliars and as far as we know my brothers aren't alts of anybody in particular."

"We feel very deprived," says Inlaith.

"Yeah, there's a Bell with a twin and I'm adopted and I have a sister, other than that we are siblingless. Well, Golden has adoptive in-laws and often drops the in-law to talk about them. Alts! They're weird!"

"Although I bet," says Inlaith—

"—I've got a never-before-seen way to confuse the issue."

"He does a perfect me," Ashras explains, "it's probably more impressive if you've known me and/or an alt of me for years."

Inlaith reverts to his original mannerisms with a grin. There's a definite contrast, but if anything, it's his natural state that's more familiar...

"Well, fooling me isn't that impressive anyway, our standard althood-checking procedure involves Maitimos."

"Haven't met one of those yet."

"There's two kinds. I'm not sure anyone who first encountered your neighborhood variety has met a regular one yet, the regular ones are mostly steering clear of your neighborhood's goings-on."

"Yeah, we've heard a bit about that."

"It's why T'Mir was point person, she can turn her emotions off and not perseverate on evil Maitimos' personal lives. Also she's not individually attached to any of them or any Findekános."

"Calling the category 'evil Maitimos' seems a bit much," says Inlaith.

"It's a bit of a habit; we'll switch properly to 'dark' over an awkward transition period. I think T'Mir already has it down."

"Well, fair enough."

"We did get the hang of saying 'Midnight' pretty much as soon as he picked it but now there's this entire category, so."