A Deus Ex Machina of One's Own

Dedicated to The Rainbow Warrior:

Her Captain and Crew who fight the good fight

Prince Nyktos was bored. It hadn't always been so; once his job was a demanding one, riding his silver chariot across the sky, dragging the darkness behind him. But ever since they'd gone computerized, it only took him three out of twenty-four hours in the day to do the job. That left twenty-one hours to fill, and it was so monotonous. How long had it been since he'd visited his sister, Princess Aurelia? He'd just pop over to her place and see if she still had that mortal consort...Nyktos never could remember his name.

But just before his skimmer arrived at Aurelia's palace, Nyktos changed his mind. It was depressing to see Aurelia and what's-his-name still so happy together after all these centuries. How could she have kept a mortal around for so long and never tired of him? Nyktos always tired quickly of the mortal women he chose...it was unfortunate they were the only ones he could choose. He turned the skimmer around and floated randomly over the surface of Olympia; there were many other brothers and sisters he could visit, but none of them appealed to him. How many years had it been since his last trip to Earth? Since he couldn't remember, perhaps it was time to go and find another consort. The souls-in-resting who served him in the Palace of Night just weren't the same, somehow. They lacked the substance of mortals. He chuckled at his own pun, but the truth was Nyktos didn't mean substance in any real sense of the word. It was just that mortals were so amusing, in their busy, preoccupied little way.