The escort is someone whose hair is fire.

"This is the beetles one, huh. How'd you do it? Nobody could please this fool. Could barely talk to him."

"I found a stupid beetle."

"Simple way out." She nods thoughtfully. "Hey genie, I can fly faster than you, go ahead and keep going." So they do. Fire Hair flies with a burning halo behind her - it's really quite pretty.

Wheee~

Oh look that one park.

Fucking finally. Where is she?

The ghost is by the stream.

She looks at the genie. She looks at Kaede. She starts crying again.

Fire-hair says, "...Hey that's the, what's her face. She was in the news."

The genie asks, "This is the one you wished for me to restore?"

"Yes."

The genie - breaks. Or something. A big chunk of its substance flows into Terrana Hastings. She remembers things. She feels. A hot wash of pain, but a cleansing pain, a restoring pain.

She becomes solid once more. Her outfit has the full saturation of color, and a sense of weight and magic.

She falls to her knees, panting. "I'm... Alive? I really am?"

"Yes! Thank you!" she tells the genie. "You are," she tells Terrana, getting down on their knees, too. "You're alive. You're back."

The genie flies off, promise fulfilled.

Fire-hair looks between the two scenes, says, "Make sure to talk to the SA office later, you two!" And follows it.

Terrana hugs Kaede. "I - thank you. I think the genie cured my depression. It's - well, slightly unnerving that it can do that, but under the circumstances... Thank you."

She grins and hugs her back. "I'm very happy you're back."

"You're the only one who seemed to care, once I was that far gone. They - my old friends tried to drag me out of my slump, but it just wasn't working. It's not their fault... Eventually they stopped calling. I only got gawkers after. And you."

"People shouldn't die. Ever. And I can't save everyone and bring everyone back, but... I'll do what I can."

"So will I. I'm going to start touring hospitals again. I don't have the brains for medical research, but my magic saves enough by itself, yeah?"

"Yeah." Pause. "What did happen to you?"

"...I was sued. The media jumped all over me for months. I got death threats and people protesting outside my apartment and harassing me at all hours. I kind of gave up... Figured everyone would forget about it in a year and I could go back to helping people. But when the protests died down I couldn't make myself go back out. Maybe I should have gone to California or something instead."

"Why were you sued? Was my guess right, that you gave someone a medical transition?"

"Oh, it wasn't even that. I very subtly adjusted xer face and hips to be more androgynous, that's all they wanted."

"...seriously?"

"Yes. Xer parents had a massive fit, and the SA was still in its nope-I'm-not-involved-with-this stage of politics, so I had a public defender. I'm still angry about it... I hope that kid got away from their parents sooner or later. Not a good situation..."

"That's stupid—ugh, why are people terrible."

"I could give you a few medical reasons. We humans like having a strong group identity, for example. But no, no. I just want to go home."

"...Oh. They'll have rented to someone else by now."

"—do you want to stay at my place while you get your bearings?"

"I appreciate the offer. No doubt I'm in for several days touring the wonders of modern bureaucracy. Ghosts recovering can't happen very often... I wonder how much of my belongings I'll be able to get back?"