"Sakura's definitely a Japanese name, it's those cherry tree flowers," says Jackson.

"More than one language can have the same name in it, I guess," says Brian. "Uh, Jackson, go look up a map."

Jackson hops up and scurries to the next room.

"My name does mean 'cherry flowers'..." she says. "Is it unusual, that I wouldn't know what the United States or Japan are?"

"Uh, they're countries," says Brian. "And you have a Japanese name and speak English. Also your hair is pink so probably you aren't from a monastery or something... yeah."

Jackson returns with a laptop displaying a Mercator projection of the Earth.

She examines the map, brow furrowed.

"...I think I might be very far from home. I don't recognize any of this."

"How can you be a space alien if you speak English and have a Japanese name?" asks Jackson.

"I honestly have no real idea. I know dimensional travel exists, though. Some people can make portals between worlds with different sorts of base rules... But I haven't heard of two worlds being so similar they have the same languages but different nations before."

"I've never heard of a mage who can make portals," Jackson says, "and I went to magic school."

"'Base rules' varying means magic, usually, at least for worlds we can survive being in. My world has a sort of omnipresent energy we call chakra, which everyone can manipulate, but most worlds lack it entirely." She frowns. "I'm not trained in sensing natural chakra, but - your world probably doesn't have it, either."

"...don't think so, yeah," says Brian. "I might have heard the word but I could be mixing it up with something else, like tai chi maybe."

"Yeah."

"The problem is I can't make portals, do not know what I did, and do not know how to get back at the moment."

"You could maybe get a teleporter to figure it out," says Jackson.

She nods. "Teleporting and portal making are often related in my world, too. I'm sorry to keep imposing, but - could you tell me how to find a teleporter?"

"I can ask people I know from school if any of them know anybody?" Jackson says.

"Yeah, you do that," says Brian, and he pulls Jackson in by the braid for a kiss before releasing him to complete this task.

"Thank you," she says, still sincere.

"I have some questions about this world, sort of just in general, but I would like to repay you for your kindness, as well."

"Magic pays the big bucks," Brian says, "can you do any?"

"Yes," she says. "Though my skill sets might not overlap entirely with what's common locally."

And, of course, it's strategically dumb to share more here than the minimum needed for being polite.

"That probably just makes it even more expensive, people who can do rare things are usually very expensive," says Jackson absently, typing.

She nods, humming. "A familiar principle... The income gap between those experienced in a niche specialty and those who just graduated with the basics is rather astronomical."

Shrug. "Of course, I don't know how much would just be replicating what's easy local - my main specialty is in healing. I'm somewhat better at physical issues involving solely the patient's own body than at treating toxins, and better at toxins than at externally sourced diseases. Still, I'm at least proficient in all of them."

A rather dramatic understatement, of course.

"Mages can do that and there's lots of demand so lots of them learn it but they still make bank," Jackson says.

She nods. "It's an exceptionally common skill in my world, too - we try to ensure one out of every four people trained in chakra has at least some medical training."

"Many of my rarer skills benefit most from their recipient being able to use chakra as well..." She hums, making a little show of thinking her skills through.

"Like, what, chakra transfusions?" asks Brian.

"I can imbue items with chakra - it's very hard, especially to get fancy effects, and doesn't often last long, but it's very useful for short term applications - but activating them requires a small burst of chakra, even if it doesn't require any training."

"Yeah, we probably can't do that," says Jackson.

"I might think of something else, though, especially once I'm more familiar with magic here. Some things might seem too obvious to me to actually mention..."

"Give her the basics on magic, Jackson," says Brian.

"Yes Brian. There are two kinds of eclipsed, that's people who can do magic, psions and mages. Mages do things with physical effects, like healing or flying or telekinesis or setting things on fire. Psions - I'm a psion - do things without physical effects, like seeing the future or telepathy or lucid dreaming or running a virtuality which is what I'm working on being able to do. - a virtuality is a sort of imaginary world that new eclipsed go into, so their powers think they're there instead of in the real world, and don't hurt anyone. New eclipsed are dangerous."