"To say that I don't miss my friends during my years in Ptolodecca would be a lie. It was just… the situation back then was too confusing to me and I had just gone along with the flow, and before long, there was little time to reminisce about friends I missed.

Grandpa Aarin and mom were much stricter than dad when it comes to training, and while at first I had only done as I was told with some reluctance, they were in the right. The five years in Ptolodecca by far dwarfed all the results of the training I've had my whole life in Vitalica. I guess it is indeed as they said, that no gains could be had without the pains.

Diarmuid had been especially ecstatic at our return, so he could show off the fruits of his training on our elder brother Faerghus. They had even gone out to spar during grandpa's meeting! And then came back all bruised up, right into a stern scolding from mother.

I couldn't help but notice the schadenfreude in Diarmuid's eyes as mother scolded them though, nor the conspiratorial looks he sent my way, paired with occasional glances as Faerghus. I do have to admit, the prospect of finally beating my eldest brother in a spar does appeal to me, as he had always been the one most into physical training since we were children.

If only I heeded his admonitions more back then, and had trained better… but there's no turning back time, and we only have the road ahead of us to traverse." - Diary of Aideen Fiachna, the First Unliving.

Later that evening, after the negotiations between the Bone Lord and the Pope was finished, and they all had a meal together - simple, home cooked fare her parents prepared -, Aideen went out to visit her old friend.

Akeshia and herself were of the same age, and both of them had studied magic at the seminary since they were children. Even since back then they had shown high potential, both of them possessing the life affinity. They had been close friends, although Aideen had not spoken with her friend since… before she departed on that fateful trip, over five years ago now. Well before the mess her friend's family had been embroiled in due to their grandmother's actions.

At least her friend still lived nearby, in Megaera's former house. The councillors mostly lived in the same area as the Fiachnas, so it was but a five minute walk before she stood before another two-story wooden house very similar to her own, and knocked at the door.

"Yes? Gasp!" A young woman, around her own age, with gentle features and dark brown hair opened the door, and gasped audibly the instant she saw who stood before the door. By a stroke of luck, it was Akeshia herself who had answered the door.

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"Long time no see, Akeshia," said Aideen to her old friend, who kept looking at her with guilt and trepidation in her eyes. By now the story of what had happened to her, and bits of her revival, had been circulated in Vitalica to let them know, and Akeshia must have felt guilty due to her grandmother's act leaning directly to what happened to Aideen. "Mind if I come in?"

"Aideen…? It's really you?" Stammered Akeshia as she stepped back and opened the door to let Aideen into the house. The girl looked at Aideen half in disbelief, and shut the door behind her before they sat by the table. "So the stories they told of late… were true then?"

"They are. Feel for yourself. Go ahead," Aideen said as she laid a hand on the table. Akeshia nervously gripped her wrist, with fingers pressed against where her veins are, fo feel the pulse of blood flow, and found nothing to feel there. "Use your magic if you like. It'll be fine."

Aideen felt the other girl's magic tentatively probed within her conduits soon afterward, and she manipulated her mana to allow it through, to allow Akeshia a good look at her condition. At what she had become. She felt the probe linger for a while when it was around her unbeating heart, felt it flit around here and there, before it was withdrawn back out.

"Your heart… really doesn't beat anymore…" mumbled Akeshia as she took in Aideen's current conditions. The brown haired girl raised her head, and looked her friend in the eye, before she said her next words with care. "Yet it's still you inside there, is it not? Please tell me this isn't some cruel joke with a necromancer using your body as a puppet or something."

"You last wet your bed when you were seven, when you were staying over at my place," Aideen said with a chuckle as her old friend blushed red like a beet at her words. "I took the blame for you and told mother I accidentally spilled my drink on the bed back then. Pretty sure she has a good guess of what actually happened though."

"Okay, okay, stop already!" Akeshia said as she blushed even redder. "I totally believe it's you in there now."

"Why? Cause nobody else knew about it? Mom likely guessed, and she's a necromancer."

"No, because I doubt a necromancer would have so much free time at hand just to bloody tease me about that shameful past!" Replied Akeshia as she playfully punched Aideen on her upper arm. She actually withdrew her hand and massaged it afterward, as Aideen's body had grown quite a bit harder over the years due to the training she had undertaken.

It was yet another oddity they learned about her body. Apparently she could adjust how she looked using her magic, to weave flesh to look like another, yet her body would naturally revert to how it was in days. The process also involved horrible pain, and she doubted anyone living could have tolerated it.

On the other hand, her body remained nearly identical to the day of her death, when she was but twenty years of age. As hard as she trained, muscles refused to grow any larger, yet they grew denser and harder, and the improvement was something she felt wholeheartedly.

Experiments with the old duck had correlated what she felt, and while the old therian was now far fitter than how he was at the end of his life, his frame remained that of a stooped old man. Aideen had once tried to reconfigure his body into a younger one, and it had worked for a while but he reverted back to his older form within two months.

"Anyway, what brought you here?" Asked Akeshia as she went and fetched them some drinks. Her parents and grandparent seemed to be away, which wasn't that strange considering that they were still involved with the government and the Bone Lord visited just today.

"Oh, mostly looking to catch up with an old friend," said Aideen as she took a long drink from her glass of cold water.

"Also to let you know that my brother's kinda pining for you," and she laughed freely when Akeshia spat out her drink on hearing her next words.