...Crescent is definitely her. If Mariam wasn't quietly miserable this would be the best thing that has ever happened to her. Daria's practically bouncing with excitement by the time Crescent is halfway through the description of her abilities.

"Necromancy is... hmm. Ritual based magic, drawing from an energy source almost everyone - in our world - has in varying amounts. There are theories that everyone has at least trace amounts, and that necromancy only works on someone with that energy; the other theory is just "living things", because there are people that don't register to a necromancer's senses if they're trying to check. Mariam is very powerful, I borrow from her - this requires an initial ritual and creates a bond between the two people proportion to how often you do it, we have a general location sense across the entire continental US, some awareness of strong emotions, a sense of the other person that's - hard to describe. I push that energy into a prepared focus, usually someone's remains - traditionally bone or hair or blood, but it can be anything that was part of them - and direct it through various diagrams and patterns."

And they talk like that for nearly an hour, trading information about each other's magic systems, until Crescent remembers she has somewhere to be and rushes off with a promise to put them in contact with someone either more local or more flexible.

"Thoughts on nicknames?" she asks Mariam after Crescent has hung up.

"Their magic has the obvious theme, ours is rather grim. Precious stones, maybe?" She looks at the rings and bracelet on Daria's left hand. "Gold Silver Copper Diamond Sapphire Amethyst Pearl Amber?"

"Amber fits you."

Mariam smiles. "I can be Amber, then. I like it. Hmm. Mythological references, maybe? I don't know much except the Greek myths, nothing's sticking out to me. Your middle name?"

"'Elizabeth' is a terrible name, I have no idea why my parents picked it."

"Yew, Cypress, Holly? Wood's a bit less twee than gemstones."

"Aspen." Often used for clarity in a casting, or when searching for something.

"Oh, that's nice. Aspen, okay. I'm going to go see what Sun figured out with the money and then I think I'll look around a bit, do you need me for anything?"

"I wanted to try a couple things Crescent suggested, but most of them I have the energy for and the ones I don't will wait."

"All right, I should be back in a couple hours at the latest."

After she leaves, Daria sets all the components she has with her in neat rows on the floor to see what she has to work with, and then pulls out her notebook and starts sketching designs for a diagram. She swears at it when she notices mistakes and taps her pencil with excitement when she thinks of something clever and generally enjoys herself quite thoroughly.

Elsewhere, the other Daria is as excited, if less capable of novel experiments. She precogs calls with various acquaintances, looking for someone who would be close by and willing to help the newcomers in exchange for getting to see new magic (!!), but most of the people she knows are on the east coast, or at least not anywhere near Billings and not willing to drop everything on short notice for such an implausible-sounding circumstance. Eventually, she remembers a psion she met during the last eclipse who had seemed like she'd be appropriately interested. Her pre-eidetic memory is pretty recent - she digs Isabella's phone number out of her old notes, and makes the call.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this is Daria Osfell, we worked the last eclipse together? I have some very weird news I thought you might be interested in and a favor to ask."

"Hit me."

"Yesterday Mariam got a call from someone who said," she quotes from the memory Sun had bounced her. "'My name is Mariam Kasparian. I'm you, I think, by the voice and the matching phone number, from a different universe where it's 2014 and we have necromancy instead of eclipsed and no roles. Daria and I ended up here somehow a couple hours ago.' The voice matched, she listed a bunch of facts that my Mariam hasn't really talked about to people, and when I called her Daria I tried to catch her in an inconsistency in precog. They seem - exactly like us, adjusted for the different universe."

"- okay. Can you think of any reason you'd be targeted by people with this sort of capacity?"

"I'm not doing anything high profile, impersonating me or Mariam won't get you an in anywhere better than the New York fire department, and if you can do that there are much better targets."

"They're not impersonating you, exactly, is there anything you can get them access to if you trust them - money, maybe, though not the most likely, eclipsed make bank - or an in with somebody or something like that -"

"Good point. We're paying for their hotel room, got them a couple hundred in cash, but it'd take more than just showing up and claiming to be - versions of us - to get us to hand over anything significant, at that point you'd be better off building trust the conventional way, I can't think of how this'd make sense financially. I don't think we have an in with anyone that would be worth this kind of complicated plot, any more than your average eclipsed - nothing we do is particularly unique in that sense. I do some research on eclipsed, I'm planning to do more once my contract with the fire department expires? but I'd share that with anyone, it's not secret."

"Huh. Okay. Well, worth asking the question, but it's good that it doesn't seem to be that. What's the favor?"

"I want someone to keep an eye on them. Mariam and I can't drop everything and fly to Montana, it'll take at least a week to arrange for someone to replace me, and they don't have any ID that's not from 2014, so they can't fly here or rent a car or anything. If they're who they say they are they'll be tremendously useful, the other Daria has a magic system that does communication with the dead; and if not it's probably better to make sure we know what they're doing."

"Gosh. Okay. Yeah, I can reschedule my visit with my dad. How are you planning to get them to New York without their having any ID, though, get them copies of yours via shenanigans? I can't fox the TSA, not that kinda psion."