[ There isn’t much beyond Surrey these days, but that’s alright - there isn’t much left of Lily Evans either. A lingering protective haze remains, a patina of love that sticks close to the baby now in her sister’s care, the invisible remnants of her last stand.

Her return to (semi) solidity is as sudden as dying itself had been. One minute, she wasn’t, isn’t, could not be again, and in the time it takes for a wish-seller to wheel their ramshackle cart by, she is again.

It takes a few rounds of the bazaar to collect herself after returning to existence, and when she’s handed a pendant and a cloak, the familiarity of the first object is so keen she starts laughing. After asking the kind soul who handed the object off to her if they’re having a laugh, Lily grins down at the thing, continuing to get her bearings as she drifts through the bazaar, cradling the precious pendant as memories come flooding back. The farm, the fish, Taravast and all the time she spent digging graves there.

Some might cross paths with the willowy spirit lingering by the beggar children, accommodating their asks for help with their lanterns, or perhaps she’s spotted evading capture, or ducking out of the bloody rain. ]

Hello? [ There’s an echo beyond the din of the bazaar she drifts through, something that imbues what might be an otherwise familiar voice with a disjointed, almost eerie dissonance, but then - that’s being dead for you. ] Am I in Akhuras again?

[ There are names she remembers, names she desperately wants to call for, Wangji and Hermione, Emilia, Wei Wuxian, but she doesn’t test her luck. Just an answer to the first question would be enough to satisfy. ]

[ if you build it, they will come, i guess? lily is a few years older than she was when she disappeared somewhere around ke-waihu, and indeed very dead, however, like taylor swift she remembers this all too well. very here for sad/happy reunions with old cr. ]