LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES
Sea of Stars, 333 years ago
Far away from the world, through fields of light and curtains of mist, was the Sea of Stars. This eldritch place was a world of pure magic, an eternal night sky dotted with stars, swirling with multicolored nebulae and sparkling with silvery dust.
One of the Sea's inhabitants walked across the sky, her armored hooves creating ripples as she stepped. She was shaped like a very tall and thin pony, but beyond that it was impossible to tell what she looked like: her entire body was encased in a suit of armor.
The armor was held together by magic, and as such was wrapped around her as fully as a second layer of skin. Most of the armor was lavender, including the protrusions that surrounded her ears, but three other colors were prominent as well: golden plates covered her cranium, cheeks, hooves, back, and belly; green caps over her snout, throat, and rump; and blue-green circles on her elbows, knees, and hips.
The only thing that the armor left uncovered were a pair of narrow, nut-brown eyes that stared ahead with single-minded focus. She had opened a vortex leading to another world, and was mentally preparing herself to step through. The location she had chosen was one of two countries on a small continent to the east of Equestria. Seemingly, this was the only major region of that world to have no goddess.
"Song Li?" said a male voice.
The armored figure turned her head. A typical male of her vaguely pony-like species stood there. He was a tailless creature covered in electric-blue fur that was amazingly long and shaggy. From in front of his hairy, fin-like ears grew long tendrils of a paler blue fur that hung down past his shoulders; similar tendrils grew on the sides of his snout. A pair of dark brown eyes blinked at Song Li disdainfully… followed by his second pair of eyes, then his third.
Song Li turned to him, looking somewhere in the vicinity of his neck rather than at his face. "Um… yes… Yao Xing. Hello."
He scoffed at the mechanical nature of her response. "What are you doing?"
"…Why would you ask me that?" Song Li said blankly. "This is all I've spoken of for months."
"What, traveling to some crude physical world to become a goddess?" Yao Xing demanded, staring at the vortex. "You're actually going to do it!"
"This surprises you?" said Song Li. "I repeat, I've been discussing the matter for months."
"Yes, but I expected it to end up like all of your other plans," Yao Xing said. "A few months of talking and planning, followed by nothing."
Song Li pointed an armored hoof at him. From her forearm rose a shiny violet cannon, and she shot a blast of energy into Yao Xing's face. He flinched, but seemed unharmed.
"Is that all?" he said casually. "Come on, Song Li, take off that mask and let's talk some sense into you."
"No!" she said firmly, glancing at his face for less than a second before averting her eyes once again. "I… I've made a vow to never again take off my armor."
Yao Xing smirked. "You're regretting that already, aren't you? You can't bear to be stifled or confined."
"There's some mild panic, nothing I can't deal with," Song Li said casually, her voice breaking a bit.
Yao Xing sighed. "Song Li, why is the one plan you actually implement the one that requires you to run off to some alien world like a crazy person?"
"Because," she said shakily, "my other plans have all relied on me remaining in the Sea of Stars, where I have no future."
"You've never tried to have a future!" Yao Xing retorted. "You make plans that you never see through!"
"My plans are lost causes," Song Li said gravely. "This world is against me, intolerant of my condition, my needs, my emotions! Only on another world may I find some shelter from this crushing despair."
"Despair?" Yao Xing laughed.
"Don't laugh at me!" Song Li sobbed. "I want a purpose in life, something to give me knowledge that I belong and am worthwhile! Yao Xing, I want friends… I've never known the feeling of fitting in."
"Song Li—"
"And YOU!" she growled, suddenly angry. "You, the most wretched excuse for a 'sweetheart' it's ever been my misfortune to know! Everything I ever did, I did to get you to love me! And the little you do for me in return, you do out of pity! Do you deny it?"
Yao Xing said nothing.
"Well, I am not so broken as to accept pity," Song Li said. "Once, but no longer. I will be revered as a goddess. I will have purpose beyond anything I have ever known."
"Song Li, you're acting crazy," Yao Xing said forcefully.
She turned on him and glared deeply into his six eyes with the two of hers that were visible. "Has there ever been a place for me? Ever? You are all I have. If I am to stay here, you have but to say that you want me to stay. But you don't, do you?"
Once again, he didn't answer.
"Yes, you would like to see me go," Song Li said knowingly. "I cannot help that I need to be loved, to know that I am loved, to be reassured each time I falter that I am loved! You have long since grown tired and ceased trying to maintain the charade. I shall free you from my tight hold and the exhaustion that I'm sure accompanies the task of dealing with my emotions."
She turned toward the swirling portal. "And still you say nothing. My only regret shall be that I never learned why being loved by a single creature on my own world was so much to ask. Farewell." She began walking.
"So… where are you going, exactly?" Yao Xing asked, with the faintest hint of concern for her.
She didn't look back; she only continued walking. "Someplace I might be needed," she said. "Or, if fate is willing, maybe even… wanted."
-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-
The trip through the vortex took many minutes. Her armor only partially protected her from the pain of hurtling between worlds.
When she landed on solid ground, she was dizzy for a moment, but the world soon came into focus. There it was, the green of the forest, the brown of the earth, solid under her armored hooves. It was all so foreign to her, but she quivered with excitement. Just as this world was alien, its inhabitants would surely find her just as alien… and just as beautiful and impressive.
She peered through the trees to the small village she had targeted. It was a very nice place, with multi-story houses with slatted walls and tiled roofs, fences and stone streets. The inhabitants of this particular village were deer. Song Li could see them going about their business, buying and selling, while fawns played in the streets and musicians gathered around a fountain.
Song Li had landed outside of the place, to give her time to compose herself, but she was ready already. She propelled herself off of the ground with the jets on the bottom of her armor's hooves, hovered there for a moment, then took off through the village's streets.
It took her only a few seconds to race from one end of the village to the other, then she circled around it a few times from a high altitude, sure that every eye in the village was now on her.
She floated above the small town, spreading her front hooves wide. "Behold, folk of Westeroceros!" she declared. "I am your—whoa!" Her hind hooves snagged against a chimney, and she stumbled in the air. She looked back indignantly at the chimney, then back to the crowds of deer below. "Um… right. I am your goddess!"
Perched on a rooftop, she looked around at the staring crowds.
"I was… going for applause…" she muttered. "Perhaps I should… yes. Erm, my name is Song Li, good people! I wish to become the goddess your country so desperately needs."
The deer turned to each other and started muttering in confusion. When they looked back up at her in silence, their expressions didn't change: every face displayed detachment and bewilderment. Song Li quivered and backed away, wishing she could disappear, knowing that all she could do now was try not to cry.