There are many different kinds of deities in the universe. There are the gods and goddesses who are nothing more than figureheads, ideas around which beliefs are invented and defended; there are those who watch from afar, deigning only to show their might for world-changing events; there are even those who lovingly monitor the minutiae of their followers' lives. And then there are those gods and goddesses who are very much more like their followers, in their favours and in their faults, than they'd care to admit.

The small planet of Avengaea housed two deities of that latter type, a pair of goddesses who called themselves sisters and acted in every way as such. One was Asuka, her original name lost in ancient obscurity, the Goddess of Light and a member of the Asandus breed. Hundreds of years ago she had sworn not to meddle in the affairs of her world unless her sister Zenite interfered and created a problem that needed fixing. It had worked well enough, and the world's cultures had grown and thrived free of divine ultimatums, but Asuka was tiring of her noninterference policy. Whenever she turned the other way Zenite stole the moment to bother her beloved Asandae, to destroy and maim and terrify. It was frustrating, almost infuriating (that is, if she wasn't a benevolent goddess), and she was sick to death of it.

So the Avengaean Goddess of Light began to look into her options, in the ways only goddesses can.

In the subversive darkness of an unoccupied room in tropical northern Oppiuk, some small, unidentifiable creature foraged for dropped crumbs. It scurried with the industrious quickness of one not quite confident in one's security, pausing here and there to nibble and listen.

A flash from above made it squeal and skitter for safer ground, leaving the room vacant except for that foreign golden glow.

A bit of paper curled its way into being on the table, glowing progressively duller golden until it ceased completely to emit light. A little purple ribbon wrapped itself around the center of the curled paper, then almost as an afterthought, a little Caetran skull ornament appeared where the ribbon knotted itself. Something seemed to consider, and a moment later the skull disappeared again. (Too gaudy for Zenite, Asuka had decided.)

Then the godly note looked like any other item placed on the low, chairless table; quite inanimate.

Until, that is, Aratlan Keptvag came prancing into the room, innocent as any Caetran, and felt a shiver as his eyes fell upon it. He crouched his barrel-chested Biran bulk to the floor and crept forward, extending his nose to sniff at the new bit of paper, already curling up at the edges with the air's humidity, and shivered again. "'Tyos," he called, nearly a yelp, "have you left one of those spell-scroll thingies of yours out?"

There was a stirring and a brief glow around the corner, before that glow moved into the room proper. A barely-adult Gyjtoan shuffled in and peered at the other Caetran. "No," it said mildly. "Why? Oh--what's that?" It had scented the strange note, too, and leaned in, intrigued.

"It feels...it feels, well, godly," muttered Aratlan, dubious.

"Does, too," commented his distractible friend.

"Could be a trick," warned the Biran, but his friend was already reaching for the parchment. Foretyos touched it with a forepaw and yelped, sitting back on its haunches in shock. Aratlan snarled at the paper, then stopped self-consciously. "Did it hurt?"

"It...tingled." Tyos was shaking out its forepaw. "It's definitely powerful enough to be godly."

Aratlan was unconvinced. "Are you sure?"

"Would you like to touch it and find out?" When the Biran sat back and shook his head violently, Tyos went on. "It couldn't be Asuka-magic, why would she send something other than to kill us all? And it's got purple on it." Everyone knew purple was the color of Zenite; the so-called Sun Goddess would have used yellow. "So it seems that Zenite must have a message for us."

"Well, why wouldn't she tell us in a dream, like everyone else?" Aratlan whined.

"You really think a couple of half-grown Caetrae are high on the Goddess's list of priority subjects?" Tyos pointed out dryly. The Gyujtoan picked up the note, adjusting to the initial shock of power that it felt, and cut the ribbon with a claw, unfurling it.

"Mm," it finally commented.

Aratlan had lost his pious timidity in his impatience. "What? What?" He leaned over its shoulder, reading the note.

"Foretyos Ghksten and Aratlan Keptvag,

You will purchase passage with a portal-maker to Star City. There, you will seek out the Abstract Destiny and each sign up to Synth with a donor from the Biopool.

This is my will. You will obey."

It was unsigned, but it seemed obvious who the note was from. The looked at each other, and Tyos carefully re-placed the note on the table.

"What...does that mean?" Aratlan finally voiced, sounding stunned.

For once, Tyos was without a convenient answer. "I imagine we'll find out," it said slowly.

Finding a portal off-world was difficult for the two young Caetrae. Most off-world portals were far, far north, in Upper Novinitu, and under Asandus control, while this small province tucked away in the northerly equatorial part of Oppiuk was barely industrial, much less sophisticated enough to have interplanetary portals. Aratlan and Tyos ended up scraping and borrowing up the funds to move south towards Petswerk, where the more advanced psionists tended to set up shop. "I'm going to come home from this broke," whined Aratlan at one point, as they were handing their money over to a rather smug savant Upan, the only psionist they'd found who knew of a 'port-in point to Star City.

"Why are you visiting such an unpleasant place?" asked the Upan, preparing his 'port. "It's all steel and technology." Tyos smiled and shrugged mysteriously; it quite enjoyed implying and playing up their divine direction.

"Just get us there," grumbled Aratlan, still sore about handing over all his hard-earned barter funds.

As the pair appeared in the space-bound halls of Star City and made their way to the Abstract Destiny to find out what a Synth was and sign up for it, Asuka began to pay attention again. She checked the inhabitants of the space station, and was satisfied; they had arrived during the sleep period of most of the station, which suited her purpose perfectly.

The goddess, right now a mind without a body, moved through the walls and levels to a particular ship docked in one of the bays. She moved through walls and to one particular sleeping form (giving a nod to the ship's local godling Aki as she felt her pass). Then she fell into one Dr. Schroeder's mind, gently moving past mental barriers to move into, and begin to shape to her purposes, the dream that currently occupied his mind.

God-induced dreams have a particular lucidity, and this odd quality crept up on the Doctor slowly enough that it only became truly apparent when an unmistakably foreign form coalesced and sat with great dignity in an armchair that hadn't been there a moment ago.

"Good evening, Dr. Schroeder." The deity, currently in a human form, said sweetly. "Please sit. I am Asuka, Sun Goddess of Avengaea--but you might know that already? I've been watching you for some time." And here the golden-haired figure smiled brilliantly. "I liked what you did with my Asandae. I hope you don't mind that I modified your work with the Cascatan genes; you make gorgeous art, but..." She looked a little demure. "A girl must have her fun."

Schroeder nodded, looking mildly amused. "I didn't mind, Milady."

"Oh, good." Asuka was still smiling brightly. "If you don't mind, then, I have a project for you! I've noticed you, well, you tend towards making creatures that are, um, nicer than they could be. Even those hydra-spawn turned out...well, most of them were good, I suppose, even with all those heads.... But!" She clapped her hands, clearly full of delight at being able to reveal her scene to someone; Schroeder was intrigued. "I've, well, borrowed some of my sister's Caetrae, though they don't really know it, and I've sent them to your lovely little ship to sign up for a Synth. I was wondering, could you, well, change their offspring a little? Mix them with something good, so that they end up nice?" She looked so hopeful.

"Hmm. Well, then." The sleeping doctor smiled back, thinking. "I imagine I could come up with something."

"Wonderful!" Asuka hopped to her feet, grinning like a little girl. "Thank you, Dr. Schroeder! Oh, but I should let you get back to your normal dreams. I'll be looking in to see how you're doing from time to time; ta for now, though!"

Schroeder blinked, having enough time to be entertained by the strangeness of the sensation of sinking back into dreamland without ever really leaving it, before true dreaming took back over and staved off consciousness for another few hours, at least.

In the outside world, Aratlan and Foretyos had just finished the process of signing up for the next available Synth.

In the morning, seated at his desk, Schroeder pondered the two Caetrae's applications and pondered what "something good" to add to them would be.

Asandae were good, but that would be like mixing matter and antimatter.

Mystic Dragon would probably be displeased if he tried to use Hathians as a mitigating element on an "evil" creature again.

His own Venator callidus draconis were good, but fierce and sometimes temperamental, and Asuka wanted "nice".

Schroeder was just starting to think he'd have to fall back on the ever-adaptable Whorling genetics again, when Aki (in her bipedal "disguise") decided to appear in his office.

"Can I help?" she asked with a grin.

She had a small body tucked in her arms, which she placed on his desk. A little terisae, an example of the species Aki had "commissioned" the terigon from, chirped up at him with a happy face. Schroeder regarded it thoughtfully. Despite being the creations of a chaos god, terisen were so saccharinely sweet they were practically cavity-inducing.

"Well, that'll do for 'nice', certainly," he agreed, "but what about 'good'?"

"I found somebody for that, too," Aki replied. "Friend of yours. Use my little fuzzball here on one of the Caetrae for 'nice', and your friend's agreed to be the 'good' on the other Caetran."

"And who would that be?"

Aki snapped her fingers, and the holographic displays of Schroeder's desk-computer lit up in the air between them. Wiggling one clawed digit, the godling flicked through his windows until the Destiny's crew roster came up, singling out one of the dossiers.

Schroeder had to chuckle at the name and ID photo that came up. "Israfil Armaita. Excellent choice."

Aki beamed with pleasure.

Divine intervention, indeed.