"Since when did they give driving lessons in Ancient Egypt?" My indifferent voice could finally be heard in the silence that had fallen in the car since we left the town.
"I thought you were going to stay silent all the way," Bast raised an eyebrow, but kept her eyes on the road ahead.
"Do you not prefer that your father's killer would remain silent?" I asked back.
"I don't blame you for what happened, you know..." she replied after some silence. She parked the car on the side of the road and turned to face me. "Whatever happened back then, it was Set's fault, not yours. And I am grateful for your help back then, otherwise I would have died alongside Father Ra."
I looked into her eyes and saw that her words were genuine. The memory of me halting Set and telling her to escape was still fresh in my mind, even though thousands, if not millions, of years have passed for Bast since then.
I took some time to think about the best and most logical way to reply to her, "I do not feel guilt for killing Ra, nor gratefulness that you forgive me for what happened back then."
"Do you feel anything at all?" she replied, her tone rather sharp at my response.
I shook my head and said blandly, but truthfully, "No, I don't feel any emotion."
She sighed and asked, "I get that you temporarily lost your memory back in the town, but you still recovered most of your memories before I arrived, so why didn't you teleport to the Mansion and instead wait for me to come get you?"
"My powers are sealed, so I can't teleport," I admitted. Yes, my powers were sealed, that was a revelation when I regained my memories. Something must have happened after that battle and sealed my powers, although I think that is for the best. The horror that those powers have caused...
"You had no problem saving that child from burning earlier, nor changing the environment of the town," Bast retorted, a skeptical look on her face.
"My powers as a Lord cannot be removed or sealed until my death. Because it is Yggdrasil that gave those powers," I explained. "When I sensed the child crying from fear of the fire, I unknowingly asked the wind to take me to the burning house; and since my body was naturally cold, the fire could not harm me, and this same coldness extended temporarily to the child's body so that he couldn't be burnt as we exited the house.
"As for the rain, I asked Yggdrasil to change the environment so it can rain there again. Apparently, Yggdrasil has removed rain from that area so that I can repay the favor that Eisen did for me."
"And Yggdrasil told you all that?" she asked, and from her tone, I could tell that she thought that I was spewing nonsense.
"Yggdrasil is a spirit that doesn't have a consciousness, so it cannot talk. More like that it conveyed to me those things."
"I see." She started the car again and continued on the road. Two hours passed silently. I had nothing else to say to her, and apparently, she had nothing to say either.
Suddenly, the car came to a halt. I shifted my focus to the front to see what caused Bast to abruptly stop the car. And there he stood, my other self.
Bast immediately went out of the car and shouted at Richard, "What the hell, Grandfather?"
"You have done well, Bast," Richard calmly replied. "I will take it from here."
I stepped out of the car, and while walking towards Richard, I said to her, "Thank you, Bast, for the ride."
"Save it, you don't feel the gratitude anyway," she shot back, glanced between me and Richard, and then drove off.
"Took you long enough," Richard started. I gave him the same indifferent look as always, which prompted him to say, "What I sensed is true, then."
"And what did you sense?" I asked coldly.
"I thought there was something wrong with you the moment you arrived back in this time period. And it seems I am right."
"There's nothing wrong with me."
"Is that so?" Then, suddenly, his hand grasped my wrist. I didn't stop him because I wanted to know what was going on with me as well. After a moment of thought, what he said sounded like a fact rather than a question, "You sealed your emotions."
"I woke up like that, and I certainly didn't do it after my battle with Set," I replied.
"You must have instinctively done it then," he offered an explanation. "And that sealed your powers."
"I don't see the relation."
"Have you forgotten, Orion? Your powers come from your emotions; if you do not have emotions then you do not have powers. The Lord and draconic powers are innate to you, so they cannot be tucked away."
I said as much to Bast earlier. "Then undo the seal and let's be done with this."
"I'm afraid it's not that simple," he shook his head. "You will have to undo it yourself when you are ready to do so. The possibility that your instincts have done it means that you may not be able to handle any emotional surge."
I suppose I wasn't exactly able to truly handle it. The scenes of death and destruction in my memory indicate clearly that I was against it, that I should feel guilty and angry and even suicidal. But I don't feel any of those.
"Let's go back to the Mansion then," I told him.
"Oh no. I am not letting our parents see you in this state. Mother was already ready to beat me up for some answers regarding your situation!"
Our parents? Mother? So Richard considers my parents as his as well then...
He extended his hand and said, "Come, I would like to introduce you to someone."