"...excuse me?"

Jackson repeats himself more slowly.

"...I don't see how my sex life is relevant to this conversation?"

"...I didn't ask? I just can't tell what you're presenting as. Oh, are you switches, I forgot to say switches," says Jackson.

"Next time just say 'what role are you'," suggests Brian.

"Yes Brian."

Why did they have to get picked up by the weird kinky ones. "We're not... presenting as anything."

"What she means," adds Daria helpfully, "is 'stop shoving your kinks in our face.'"

"I guess 'what role are you' would cover nondynamics too?" says Jackson uncertainly.

"He didn't shove anything in your face, chill out," says Brian. "You don't want to make conversation, that's fine, just say that."

"...I think we're missing something."

"Maybe you just heard him wrong. No big deal," says Brian.

"'Are you doms or subs, it's hard to read," quotes Daria. "I can't tell what you're presenting as. Oh, are you switches, I forgot that.' I don't think she misheard." Then, to Mariam: "No, you're right, they're being... very casual about that."

"Um."

"Um?" says Jackson.

"Listen," she says, apparently to the roof of the car, "I had just about come to terms with some kind of inexplicable time travel bullshit, please tell me today hasn't gotten any more sci-fi."

"- oh. Do you really think...?"

"Inexplicable?" says Jackson. "You said you were mages."

"We assumed it was some slang term for necromancers! I can't believe I'm saying this but this conversation would make a lot more sense if I'm right. ...please tell me I'm wrong and you're some kind of kinky hermits who think everyone's like them and that necromancers can do time travel."

"Necromancers?" says Jackson, baffled.

"We're not hermits," says Brian. "We're roadtripping to visit Jackson's family. Mages can't do time travel but I'd expect it to be them, not psions..."

"Can you explain mages, psions, the role thing? Assume we're, I don't know, aliens or something."

"...mages do magic to stuff and psions do magic to minds?" says Jackson. "Roles are whether you're the sort of person who wants to be in charge or the sort of person who wants not that."

"Aliens?" says Brian, slowing down the car a little.

"We're not actually aliens," she reassures him. " - I think. We don't have any of that, though. Daria's theory was that we'd traveled to a different universe, dimension, whatever the word is. It's... really implausible, but not actually that much more implausible than time travel."

She notices Daria open her mouth to speak and makes a cutting motion with her hand that translates to something like do not tell the nice people giving us a ride the other option is that they're delusional.

"Uh, wow," says Brian.

"That's really wild," says Jackson.

"You're telling me," Daria mutters.

"How do you do that with necromancy?" asks Jackson. "Isn't that the zombies thing..."

"You don't, that's what I've been saying, I have no idea how we got here. Theoretically I could imagine modifying whatever it is that lets spirits be called instantaneously in a focusless ritual, but we don't even know if something's traveling or if spirits are omnipresent after they die. If anyone had made progress on that I would know, there's no reason to keep that kind of thing secret."

"Wait, is this magery or psionics," says Jackson.

"Neither," says Daria, rolling her eyes. "- actually, good question, does it count as one of those here? Can you tell? Does it even work here? Our link works, that's suggestive but not conclusive, maybe it's only passive but not active - I was going to try a call, I should really do that." She starts pulling things out her bag, continuing her questions as she does so. "How does magery work, how does psionics work, can anyone do them? Are either of you mages or psions? What does "do magic to the mind" mean, is it that they interact with what's left when someone leaves a spirit, can mages affect neurons or something?"

Eventually she has a bit of hair wrapped around a chunk of lead in the center of a complicated geometric figure drawn on lined notebook paper, the entire set-up balanced precariously on her lap.