FPK - Memories to haunt you 1: Crossroads Demon

Sometimes, when Aguanin sat at the bottom of the ocean, meditating, his legs crossed, his eyes shut, he knew the answer. The answer was quite an easy one. The question was more difficult.
The question was: Why had he moved away from sociality more and more?
The question was: Why was Lira, who had been so close to him, a stranger now?
The question was: What had happened to him, what had he done to himself that he thought of himself as a person he used to know years ago?
The answer was: Because he lived a life he was not made for.
That was the very difference to all the other Rotherans. Empress Ashling and her sister Altice, they were made for ruling, and they ruled. Viridian was made for fighting until the last drop of blood, and she was a mercenary. King Cold, Lord Derren, Marquise Jezzebelle. They all had the purpose to aim for power in some form, immediate power in combat, control over other people, power to mess up the world.
Lira was made to aim for power as well. She'd become a priestess to gain power. She lived the life she was made for.
Aguanin was not made for this here. He was not made for ripping off the hearts of sea people, for attacking ship travellers, for raging like an animal in a trap. He was made for having his home, children.
And Maora. He was made for Maora.
Aguanin opened his eyes. Barely a beam of light found its way down into this depth, but he was fine with that, and so was his symbiont. Down here, Aguanin felt closer to the octopus – they were almost one being. It was a great relief. The octopus had instincts and needs, but it had no memories.
"A guerilla war would be just right for the beginning", Empress Ashling had said. "Wreck up the sea kingdom, weaken their moral and strengthen the distrust of the sea travellers. Once the trading partners and allies of Aquamarine have noticed that none of their ships reaches its destination undamaged, they will turn against them."
Aguanin turned west and swam quickly. The coast was not far, but when he got there, he went ashore only reluctantly. He soon felt dried out, he could not see very well in this light, and using his lungs felt strange and wrong.
Also, his orientation was not at its best ashore. He searched long for a road, even longer for a crossroad. Then he stood there, frowning.
What was to do? He had never spoken to her. Would she just appear? Or was there some ritus he should know about? "Crossroads!", he shouted at random. "Hey, Crossroads! Demon Princess! The Empress sends me to offer you a deal!"
"No. You're only sent by your own wishes", a voice whispered into his ear, and Aguanin recoiled. But there was no one to see. The voice whispered on. "Only people with wishes and yearnings find me. The wishes of the Empress don't matter – because she's not here, you are."
"Whatever." Aguanin rolled his eyes because of her rhetorics, and then she stepped out of the void, first a vague gleam in the air, then a person.
The Demon Princess was a pale, strikingly beautiful young woman, her eyes red, her blonde hair permeated by blood red streaks. She smiled sweetly as she approached Aguanin. "Greetings, friend..."
"I am not your friend, Crossroads", he retorted bluntly. "I am here to ask your support for the attacks against Aquamarine, the realm of Princess Thalassa."
The Demon Princess raised an eyebrow. "Thalassa is dead."
"Is she?" He'd heard something different. But he did not trust the red-eyed girl and would not tell her everything Thanael had told him. She should think whatever she wanted. "Her realm is still there. And when Empress Ashling starts the war against Avalonne, she wants the sea people out of the way."
"Why is that my business?" The girl winked at him. "And yours, why is that your business? You don't seem like a willing lap-dog of Her Majesty... why didn't we introduce ourselves to one another? I am Aquixun."
Aguanin shrugged. "Nice for you. Will you give a few of your men for attacks against Aquamarine?"
Aquixun smiled sweetly and reached out for his cheek – he caught her hand with one tentacle. "Why so unwilling?", she purred.
When he gave no answer, she threw her head back. "The men who are bound to me by contract owe their souls to me, not loyalty in battle. If I'd send them to war, I'd have to release them. Why would I do this? They are mine."
"I don't need many", Aguanin replied. "Four, five good warriors are enough for a guerilla squad. And as soon as we've messed up Aquamarine, there will be many people with wishes and yearnings. Many, many desperate souls."
This time she seemed interested. Either that, or her smile announced something he would not like. "Desperate souls? Like you?" Her hair fell over her face, and she pushed it back with her arm – only the hair falling over her shoulders was suddenly snow white, and black eyes looked at him from a gentle face. Maora.
The long suppressed pain descended upon Aguanin; this face that had haunted him in his dreams for too long! In a heartbeat, he had her throat in his tentacle, pulling tighter. "Stop this!" She did, looked like Crossroads again, and he dropped her on the floor. "Don't you ever do this again!"
Aquixun stood up, her face had turned cold and angry. She was not used to people who resisted her. Especially those who had an unrequited or lost love somewhere else could not resist the chance to reach their wishes. "Alright. I will collect my souls and bring the warriors. Choose a few of them, they will be desperate for the possibility to win back their souls. But it comes with a price."
"As I said...", Aguanin started, but she raised her hand, suddenly holding a scroll.
"For every warrior I give to you, you will bring me ten souls during the war." The price was enormous, yet it was not out of reach. "And you will be liable for this with your own soul. If you die before I got my full payment, you are mine."
For a moment, her smile was not sweet at all, it was a vicious grin, the grimace of the demon that she was. She raised the scroll. Aguanin nodded. His soul did not mean too much to him. And if he managed to eventually become a sea being – how would she find his soul anyway when there was none? "How do I sign it, with blood?"
"Oh, how crude", she chided. "Not at all. I have my own way to seal contracts." She approached him, and Aguanin backed away. "What..."
"Close your eyes and enjoy it", she whispered and gave herself the looks of his wife again. Then she kissed him.
For one wonderful shining moment, Aguanin held her in his arms and enjoyed his self-deception. Then he remembered that this was not Maora and he pushed her away in disgust.
When he turned over to run back to the sea, he heard a scornful laughter behind his back.

Down in the sea, he'd lie down and curled himself up, wishing for another night of oblivion. But he had thought of Maora too much during the day, thanks to this damn Demon Princess – he'd barely closed his eyes when she was already there.
In his dream, he was younger, not exactly the young man he had been back then when Maora was still with him, but definitely younger than now. He had no symbiont, his thoughts were clear as a crystal, he was healthy and happy. Because Maora was there.

Maora jumped rightaway into his arms when he came home. "There you are!" She kissed him, and Aguanin embraced her and lifted her up – Maora was two heads shorter than him and as delicate as a fairy. "You've been dearly missed", she chuckled. "I had to fight my monsters alone."
"Papa!" There was the monster, running around the corner. She was all covered up in dirt and held a wooden sword in her hand, but it was dismissed and fell to the floor when she hopped up into his arms, clinging to him with both arms and legs, smiling all over her sweet face.
She looked exactly like Maora, that was Maora's fairy face between her white braids. In about ten years she would be grown a beauty.
"Now, what have you been playing at, dear?", he asked, and the little one bared her teeth and crooked her hands like claws.
"I am the big sea dragon!", she proclaimed, and Maora rolled her eyes.
"The big sea dragon, you say?", Aguanin raised an eyebrow. "When you live in the sea, you should be cleaner, won't you say?" He put her down on her feet, giving her a gentle push in the direction of their fountain in the middle of the room.
The girl turned over to him and frizzed her nose. "Nah... Papa, have you never seen the sea?" She jumped up and down at every word following. "It's – all – dirty – to the – ground!" With that declaration, she climbed onto the edge of the fountain, balancing on it.
Aguanin pulled Maora into his arms. "What are you telling her about the sea? It's a wonderful, giant, mystical thing, I heard the greatest depths are actually very clean..."
"Yes, but if I'd told her that, she would have wanted to take her bath in the real sea", Maora shook her head. "Bad enough that she wanted me to teach her swordsplay... my, that kid is not even grown big enough to hold a sword."
"That's why I'm the sea dragon", the little one explained patiently. "So I have giant teeth, so I don't need a sword – oh!" She slipped and fell backwards into the water. A moment later, she surfaced again, spitting out water and laughing. "Now I'm clean, Mama!"
Maora gave her a glance between scepticism, amusement and motherly desperation. "Almost."
Aguanin laughed. What could be more wonderful than the thousand little troubles about the child? And having no big troubles about her, and about nothing at all, and he had the most beautiful wife in the world. With that thought, he cupped Maora's face between his hands and kissed her.
The little one widened her eyes looking at her parents, giggled, held her nose shut and dived down again.

Aguanin awoke to cold loneliness, and the water surrounding him swallowed a scream of wrath and agony.

Amerri sat up all of a sudden. She remembered a bright house, a fountain. A smiling woman, her face so familiar... was it just something her subconcience made of her last look into a mirror, or was it indeed a memory of her mother?
"Mama" and "Papa" she had called them, and there was that tall man joking with her and holding her in his arms. Amerri remembered the sound of his laughter, the kiss he gave to her mother. She remembered an impression of being dearly loved.
"What is it?", Ravenna grumbled, interrupting her thoughts. "Is something important going on, or did you just wake me up for your own amusement?" Her rough tone was no insult to Amerri, it was just Ravenna's usual manner. The grade of trust they shared was beyond unnecessary politeness.
"I... just had a weird dream. There's nothing."
Ravenna growled sullenly. "Go back to sleep. Tomorrow we'll be in Rothere, and there is a bit of way ahead yet."
Amerri lay down. Ravenna's feathers tickled her neck, but that was not what kept her from sleeping. Tomorrow they would be in Rothere, the land where her mother had come from. She frowned. As far as Amerri knew, she had no father. It could have been one of the masters, that's what she'd thought... had her mother been married before she'd become a slave? How would she know?