Back to the Future

When Seisi reported about the almost finished Portal build by the Dark Priests lurking in the Mirror World, Trueth felt a pang of longing and selfishness.

She had never meant to follow Metjen and his family in Kemet and, despite the adjusting hadn't been easy, she had found her own place among those people, something that she had never truly achieved in her blood family. And she had found her place in Selket's Temple. Adjusting there had been the most difficult, since her dislike for organised religion, and yet there she was, a Blessed One: she almost lost it all because of her stubbornness.

Things change, she though as Mrs Al Nour brought in a large plate of snacks and sweets, and a steaming jug for them to share.

Her Wisdom's ultimatum was almost over, when the accident occurred. Someone had tried to get rid of Metjen and Seisi, and she had been helpless as she watched one of her superior heal her friends with his sun-flow.

You were with them and you could have healed them sooner, if you had received the Blessing.

Trueth chased away the memory of the ceremony, and focused on all the good things she had gained from it. The Al Nours – felines included – were one of them, Rani-Ra wasn't her only friend at the Temple as Kiya had grown to be something more than an assistant; then there were the peasants. Her Wisdom frowned upon Trueth's habit to visit the villages and offer her help to whoever needed it: when questioned, Trueth told about the Hippocratic Oath and how every healers had to pronounce it.

With that, the feeling of loneliness and uselessness had been long gone and she shuttered remembering what she was about to do when Metjen had come to look for and take her back in Egypt. Trueth more than often fancied her feelings for her friend were just a misunderstood sense of gratitude: he had saved her life, thrice, and in a childish manner that made him a sort of fairy tale prince – and what could do the fair maid but fall in love with her saviour?

Those were the musing Trueth had forced herself into after Metjen had friendzoned her – to use a term dear to her TV series addicted sister. Those were the thoughts whirling in her mind whenever she got an instant for herself, may it be when lying in her bed in the dead of the night or once the adrenaline from an emergency washed away.

As the people around her talked about the best action to take, Trueth took the mug-like cup – a gift from Seisi – and breathed in the coffee's smell. She would never thank enough Professor Al Nour, who had been able to find some wild coffee trees in Ethiopia, introducing the oh so desired beverage to the people in Kemet – Her Wisdom had welcomed the bitter drink and its helpfulness during the long vigils. Coffee tasted of home, the one she had left behind, bitter and sweet at the same time.

Beyond the rim of her mug-like cup, she could see Metjen giving a warm smile to Itet as she handed him a plate filled with honeyed dates. The girl's only guilt had been to ask why, at the age of four and twenty, he was still unmarried – did he lost his previous wife? Did he divorce? – and Trueth had to painfully explain how he just wasn't interested or hadn't found his Mrs Right yet. And now he seemed to have found her in Itet herself.

Trueth had no idea of the current stage of their relationship, but lately Itet hold an intimate glow and Metjen was a bit more amiable. And Trueth's coffee tasted more bitter.

"Couldn't we sabotage the Portal so that to invert the direction?" Trueth wondered after a bit, more to herself but loud enough for Imhotep to hear her.

It was an option no one had thought about. They all fell silent – or were considering this possibility through a mind-talk she wasn't involved into.

Lady Thueris do you realise someone should go back in the Demon World and destroy the exiting Portal? Imhotep's fatherly voice echoed into her mind.

Trueth stared at the bottom of her mug-like cup. When she was still in university, she had met an Italian Erasmus student who could read coffee dregs.

He's right, we cannot ask Seisi that: going back in the future would mean to never see his family again, Metjen added.

A feeling she preferred to not name squeezed Trueth's stomach as Itet leaned over Metjen, whispering something known only to the two of them - she thought mind reading rude - with a slightly concerned look on her face.

I'll do it, Trueth replied. Just tell me what I have to do.

"Are you really sure?"

"You know I didn't want to come here in the first place."

"Yes, but now you've found a place you belong to." Metjen paused, then added in a lower voice: "I've heard Her Wisdom sees you as a potential successor."

Trueth held her old jeans in her hands - they had gotten smaller in the almost year she had spent in the Mirros World - and glared at him, her eyes two tiny slits. "Did you really think that would make me change my mind? You of all people?!" She spat angrily. "You know why I'm going back!"

"Ehi, it's not my fault if you're just a friend for me!" It was his turn to be angry.

"And I did try to feel likewise, but... I don't think I could be in the same world as you." She tried to hold back a sob. "Let's say my departure is my gift for Iset and you, okay?"

"What about Seisi, then?"

Trueth didn't tell him how that blow hit her twice. Because she did try to love Seisi back, only to realise he was nothing but a surrogate; and because when he told her about his feeling, Seisi had added how the class difference was too deep to be crossed - after all, he was still a potter's son and she was still the adopted daughter of a noble.

Trueth snorted and ignored him, keeping packing her things.

"I was already planning to go away." She hissed after a bit. "I was thinking about going North with Ninian: he's of my own people and I was curious to know the people of the Mists, as they are supposed to be my ancestors. But now I have a change to go back in England, to the place I was supposed to return: why shouldn't I grasp this chance?"

With that, any other counter argument was simply ignored and Trueth finished packing.