Page 48 of Vicar
Chapter Twenty
RATHER THAN SIT rightaway to eat with Trinity, Vicar rested his hands on her shoulders when the next memory manifested. She had clearly been born at this point but was still relatively small.
“I’ll catch you fish,” his little dragon assured when little Trinity pouted. “I always do.”
“I know.” She tapped an impatient talon. “But maybe it’s time I caught my own.” She smiled sweetly at Vicar, which was natural for her, before her gaze changed. “Maybe it’s time I take care of myself more when I’m here instead of depending on you so much.”
“While that sounds like a perfectly logical thing to suggest,” Trinity murmured, “I get the sense it’s not quite natural...” The corners of her mouth tugged down. “I’mnot quite natural.”
Something that little Vicar picked up on as well.
“Why are you acting so different?” He cocked his head. “I told you that you could hunt anytime you like, it’s the way of our people, yet you act like I hold you back.” He cocked his head the other way. “You know I would never hold you back, right?”
“You say that.” She padded toward the shore, eyeing the water for jumping fish. “But I’m not so sure you really mean it.”
“Of course I mean it.” Vicar frowned and followed her. “Why wouldn’t I?” He stopped beside her and peered from the sea to her. “I’m ready to teach you now if...”
He trailed off when she shot him a flippant look, took off, and snagged a fish out of the water with expertise before the memory faded.
“It was my Múspellsheimr side surfacing for the first time,” Trinity said softly. “That’s why your younger self was so confused. He sensed something different stirring in me.” She looked at him over her shoulder as the memory faded. “I was infected with it before you.” She shook her head. “Because I didn’t sense any difference at all in your dragon, did you?”
“No.” Confident Trinity was all right now, that her emotions no longer overwhelmed her, he sat beside her and sipped the ale he’d manifested for himself. “I was all Sigdir.” He frowned, perplexed. “Interestingly enough, my kin and I never really looked at that. We never paid attention to when I started acting like my other half.”
“So they didn’t sense your Múspellsheimr side in you from the get-go?” she asked. “Your parents didn’t sense it when you were born?”
“No.” He shook his head. “They knew who my soul had been in my previous life but thought nothing of it until I started acting differently.”
“So they assumed it just surfaced out of the blue.” She sipped her wine. “Because things like that can happen.”
“Ja.” He nodded. “In fact, a personality from a previous life surfacing is probably one of the least bizarre things that have happened to us Sigdirs over the years.”
Trinity offered him a small smile. “Somehow, I believe that.” Yet, she sensed more to it. “Do you think I influenced you somehow?” She pondered the possibilities. “That by affiliation, your past life started seeping through? And if that’s the case, why isn't your Múspellsheimr side not more like your previous soul? Because I highly doubt he slept with slews of women at once, never mind chained them to a wall.” She shook her head. “Hard to imagine when he did nothing but advocate for women’s rights Múspellsheimr style.”
“No, he wasn’t like my current inner Múspellsheimr.” He offered a small smile, too, understanding twenty-first-century dialect well enough to appreciate what she was saying. “I’ve heard the tale of my previous incarnate, and he was exceptional. Never cruel.” He shook his head. “Never a usurper who would have...”
He hesitated, caught off guard by how clearly his Múspellsheimr side’s motives of late suddenly came through. Motives his other half had done well keeping from him.
