She wasn't sure how old she was.
At the beginning, there were no crossroads. There were no roads at all. But then animals came, and their tracks wore paths into the earth, and wherever those paths crossed there was a spark of Trivia.
She didn't know how long that time lasted. It was a kind of not-life, as if she were on the cusp of waking. Either something would wake her into life, or the power would disperse, and she would sink into the sleep of death.
She woke.
It was the humans who woke her at last. For a long time they were little more than apes, but over the centuries they learned and grew. They walked upright. They made tools. They hunted and traveled and learned to speak. And as they grew, she took form—a form not unlike the humans whose travels and beliefs gave her power.
She was Trivia, and she was of the crossroads.
In those early days, the crossroads were more peaceful. They represented the future, the unknown, paths unexplored. They were the doorways to new worlds, and Trivia was revered as a symbol of hope and possibility.
But the humans grew, and they grew dark. Greedy, and hungry, and violent. The crossroads became dangerous. They laid traps for animals, first, and then for their fellow man. Humans rushed through her crossroads in the day and avoided them at night. Her domain became a place of danger and death, and so Trivia became a goddess of death. The humans prayed to her and gave her tribute in hopes of safe travels through the crossroads. The more they prayed and the more they sacrificed, the more powerful Trivia grew. She added sorcery and witchcraft to her domain.
By the time the humans began to build homes and plant crops and cobble together something resembling civilization, she was truly alive, and powerful. She was the ruler of the crossroads, and of graveyards, sorcery, and witchcraft. She was the queen of ghosts. She was Trivia.
There was something of a ruckus, then. Trivia was only distantly aware of the God who created a garden for two humans—the first true humans, they said, unlike the proto-humans whose soul-deep superstition and minor sacrifices had brought her to life. Trivia kept her distance, because this God and his angels had more power than she and others like her, and no respect for their lives. But she also kept her ear to the ground, because she could sense that the events this God and his ilk set into motion would shape the world in ways no one could imagine.
She was right.
The humans were corrupted and cast out. One of the strongest angels, too, was cast out, and caged in the underworld where Trivia had sometimes traveled, which had once been part of her domain. She visited less, after that, unnerved by the rattling of that terrible cage.
But time went on, and humans prospered. Their numbers grew, and they built great cities. Those cities traded with each other, and for every new metropolis there were a dozen more roads and trade routes, and where they intersected, Trivia thrived.
For thousands of years she had watched animals and early man travel the world, had witnessed their journeys and lives and deaths. But soon after the dust-up with God and his angels and his chosen, something curious began to happen at her crossroads.
One of the souls that Lucifer had dragged down to the pit, that had been twisted and tortured until it was a flayed, withered, hurting thing, possessed a human body. It met with a human man at Trivia's crossroads. They made a deal, and sealed it with a kiss. At first it was infrequent, but soon word spread, and many demons were making deals for countless souls.
Sometimes the demons would bring with them massive dogs. They were invisible to human eyes, vicious, and stank of death. Trivia was immediately fond of them, so much that she made a special journey to the underworld to acquire one. Soon all who believed in her knew that Trivia's presence was preceded by the barking of dogs.
And then Trivia watched, intrigued, allowing her domain to become this macabre bartering place. It was interesting to see what humans loved and valued enough that they found it worth trading their immortal souls for. Mostly it was worthless, temporary things. Wealth, health, fame and glory. Many a king and conqueror visited Trivia's crossroads and walked away with a 10 year deadline. Sometimes it was obsession, the mad determination that their unrequited love be returned, or the search for vengeance against an unfaithful partner. Sometimes the humans were sick, soon to die, and so they traded their eternal life for an extension on their mortal one.
Trivia could understand all of these things, and even respect some of them, although she doubted many of the mortals who traded at her crossroads knew exactly what they were getting into when they died. But sometimes a human would come to her crossroads for something else. To raise a loved one they couldn't bear to live without, or to save the life of a dying child. These were the humans who surprise Trivia the most. They, more than the others, seemed fully aware of what the price of their treasures was. But still, they made their deals with weary, determined faces, because their love was stronger than their own sense of self-preservation.
Trivia couldn't really understand why they would make such deals, but she developed a fondness for these sorts of dealers. And while she couldn't, wouldn't ever tample with a demon's deal, Trivia did sometimes send the humans away with a touch more good luck than they'd had before.
Times changed. Civilizations rose and fell, rose and fell again. Cities grew. The deals changed little over time, and eventually Trivia turned up to view them less and less. Instead she watched her expanding domain of roads on roads on roads, amazed at how far the humans had come, and how quickly. And even though they forgot her, she still drew power from their crossings, from their sense of unease about roads not taken and highways at night. For a time, Nell forgot her interest in demons and deals.
And then, hundreds and hundreds of years on, Trivia heard something interesting. One of the demons, those foul, twisted, upstart little human souls, began to call himself a king. A king of the crossroads.
Trivia was amazed at the audacity. She and those like her had been ignored and nearly-forgotten by man, yes, but they still had power. She still had power. Who was this frail, demented little soul to lay claim to her domain?
And so she watched.
His soul wasn't like other demons. It wasn't just the red color—that had become common among demons of the crossroads—but the shape of it. Other demons' souls lashed and writhed, like they were still being tortured, like they were screaming and pain and wanting desperately to feel relief, even if only a little, by inflicting that pain on others. This demon's soul was calmer, more controlled. Like waves on the sea. And Trivia guessed, when riled, that he could be far for dangerous and vengeful than those others, because his fury was not rabid. It was tightly leashed, finely focused.
He wore a man, not too young but not quite middle aged, with dark hair and gleaming, intelligent brown eyes that seemed to be always laughing at some private joke. Trivia watched from shadow as he dealt, deal after deal, night after night. Grudgingly she could see why he was called the king, however presumptuous it might be. He was good at what he did, better than any other demon she had ever seen.
After weeks, Trivia watched as he suavely traded away a woman's life and love and free will in exchange for a balding older man's soul. Trivia had always had rather a soft spot for women, and a disdain for the men who traded their souls to subjugate them, and so she cursed the man as he strode away so that bad luck would dog him like one of her beloved hounds.
The demon seemed to sense the magic as it passed him by, and he turned to Trivia as if she'd called his name. Few demons ever noticed her minor magics, let alone located the source. A peculiar demon, indeed, this 'King'.
She stepped from the shadows at last. "You're the so-called King of the Crossroads?"
A red tendril of soul wavers in barest curiosity, and the demon smiles disarmingly. "You have me at a disadvantage, love."
"Trivia." She had hoped her name would be sufficient, but at the demon's lack of reaction she added, a little irritated, "Goddess of the Crossroads. And death, and magic."
Now he looked interested. "I thought that was Hecate."
Trivia shrugged. "We're related." She paused, then corrected, "Or, we were. She was too flashy, drew the attention of some hunters."
He accepted that easily. He strolled closer, so they met in the middle of her crossroads. He did not seem afraid of her, though she could kill him if she wanted. She had considered it, for the audacity of a demon to lay claim to her realm, but she found she rather liked this demon. She liked the quiet malice of his soul.
"Well, goddess of the crossroads," he greeted, "To what do I owe the honor?"
"I just wanted to get a look at you," she said easily. "The stain who has the audacity to declare himself king of my crossroads." She paused, looking him up and down. "Figured you'd be taller."
He doesn't miss a beat. "I measure up where it counts."
And Trivia is surprised into laughter. She doesn't laugh often, and it is like bells in a graveyard, and the howling of dogs, and the touch of magic. His vessel smiles a demon's smile, all teeth and red eyes, and the demon behind the flesh quivers in anticipation and a sort of question.
Trivia ponders that question, but not for long. She is interested, engaged in the world much more deeply than she has been in a long time. She wants to see what road this demon takes, and where it leads him.
And she discovers that when you are a goddess of the crossroads, you need not make a deal to kiss a demon.