"Huh. Some people where I'm from don't have mine, though it might be that they just have so little we can't tell." 

"I think yours is really different, then."

"Probably, it does really different things. - speaking of which, I'm not going to be able to maintain the spirit too much longer, I don't have a lot myself." 

She considers this.

"Do you know who it is?"

"The spirit? No."

"What are spirits--like?"

"At first, almost like the person they're patterned on. Later they lose memories, personality - everything, really. That one's been dead about a century - still has the ability to follow through on basic tasks, but no real remnants of who it was."

"--Oh wow, that's really different."

"What're yours like?"

"I mean we don't really have spirits as such but any undead who wasn't complicated enough to be a person or designed practically from scratch can't do anything as complicated as language--and hundred-years-old bodies aren't going to be much use for anything, unless they were frozen or bogged or something."

"They're not really doing language as such, it's - look, this is fascinating but I'm already getting a headache from holding the cast, I don't think this is a priority."

"Sorry."

"I'm not used to being energy limited like this, it's fine."

"What do you normally use for energy?"

" - Mariam. Friend of mine. We have a link so I can draw from her, she's practically drowning in it."

"Oh."

"I'll get back," says Daria half to herself. Then, more clearly, "do you know where you were going to go next? Would I be in your way if I came with you?"

Shrug. "Not here. Besides that, no, not really."

"I would be trying to come up with ideas but -" on a fucking pre-industrial planet where I don't speak the language "- in this setting I don't think I'd be much use, unless an adult to point at to assure people that you're fine would be helpful. I know a native to point out things like 'don't say you're a necromancer or they'll kill you' would be helpful to me, but you're not obligated to play tour guide just because I accidentally landed on top of you."

Shrug.

"I don't have anything else to do," she says softly.

Oh god, she's figured out how she'll get home, Mariam is going to find her and laugh about her habit of taking in strays from another goddamn dimension. The poor kid.

"It is, in fact, relatively easy for me to defend myself, if I need to. Give me two, three weeks and nothing I can see coming will be able to hurt us."

"--Really?"

"I've made death-charges before, they're complicated but don't require anything I expect not to be able to find. You take something of a dead person's and charge it, and when you snap it the person you're centered on at the moment suffers injuries that mimic the source's death. They're - taboo. For good reason."

"Oh."

"Yes. I can't do much non-lethally, not with what I have. But - if I need to."