For the first time in 13 million years, I opened my eyes. I was surrounded by darkness and floating in an endless void. 13 million years ago I was conceived by a race known as humans. I am Maria Forthshadow. I was the goddess of nature. I remember my beginnings vividly. I was just a normal young girl, curly, dirty blonde hair, I was fairly short at 5’3, and was wearing casual clothing of a t-shirt and shorts. I would save the lives of my family and hundreds of animals. Buying them time to escape. I managed to run away but I was bleeding out and I knew I wouldn't make it. I collapsed next to a giant tree in the center of the forest known as Galia. When I awoke, I felt different. My hair was pure blonde and shined in the sun, it ran down to my lower back, and I felt slightly taller than before. I was now 5’8. I walked through the forest hearing voices. I thought it was my imagination, hallucinations perhaps, but then the voice told me that it was the tree. That I was so pure that it chose me to be it’s successor to be the goddess of nature. That is the story the humans came up with. A beautiful, pure, young woman with control over animals and nature itself.
I believed I was going to sleep forever when the humans stopped believing in me and the stories that created me were lost to time. Yet I was awake once again. My peaceful thoughts were interrupted by desperate pleas in a language I had never heard before. Yet I understood them perfectly. As though their words were being translated into English. I used the eyes of an animal nearby and found that a group of sentient ponies of various colors, some with horns, wings, and some without either. I could feel the magic in all of them, spread out through their bodies. I did not know what magic it was though. It seemed to be coming directly from their souls as the weaker of them looked frail and old, his soul looking less powerful than the others. I found that the ponies who summoned me looked terrified while the soldier looking ponies, were quickly approaching. I couldn’t let my new believers die.
I channeled my power into the earth and constructed a wall between the group of ponies and the other group. I trapped the other group in a stone prison. Their screams of panic were music to my ears. I realized what I was about to do and hesitated. They were just following orders. do they have families? do they deserve to die? I pushed those thoughts back and continued with my plan, those who harm the innocent deserve it. I sent the stone wall crashing inwards as loud crunching sounds resonated through the area.
I looked back to the ponies and saw the looks of shock and horror on their faces. One of the ponies, however, asked who did that. When none of the ponies responded he began shouting and praising me. “Our god Forthshadow has saved us.” I felt a burst of energy as I took in the power that their belief gave me. I decided to show myself to them. I created a vessel of the hardest metal in my general area which was the bits of gold that were crushed along with the soldiers. I assembled every fragment back together until my body was made of solid gold. I found plants around me and turned them dye. I painted myself over until I fit my former design. I had slightly tan skin, blue eyes, my blonde hair, and an elaborate dress of plant fibers and flowers. It went down below my knees and was tight around the waist before loosening up around the shoulders.
I then rose out of the ground and in front of the ponies. They looked at me with a mix of confusion, excitement, and worry. I gave them a reassuring smile and saw them ease up slightly but still nobody spoke, so I began for them. “I am Maria Forthshadow, the goddess of the nature, pleased to meet you my loyal children.” They looked at me some with wide smiles and others with disbelieving glares.
“There’s no way you’re the goddess Forthshadow, she’s just an old legend. Our ancestors found it when they were founding Equestrian and it was in a royal archive after being stolen from us and sold off. Where was the goddess when they were around huh.” I looked towards the lime pony. She had a scroll on her butt and a pink mane. Waking up a god was an interesting endeavor, it required that a large group truly believed in its existence and enough access magic to power the god enough to wake them up.
“Where did your people live before this. Was there a difference in the magic there?” I inquired; the pony looked a bit annoyed at my simple response. The ponies were quite expressive and reading their emotions was incredibly easy, I didn’t even need to use my powers.
"We lived in the mountains not far off from the griffins. Magic is a lot less plentiful and harder to use over there.”
“That explains it then. I have been dormant for the past 13 million years. The reason your ancestors could not summon me is because of the lack of magic. To wake up a god you must not only believe in me but there must be enough magic around to power one enough to even wake us up.” I saw the ponies looks of disbelief fade and I knew they all believed me when I felt some more of my power return to me.
“allow me to help you rebuild my children.” I used my powers to level the mountain. Taking the mountain top off I turned it into rubble which I then turned into houses for more than triple the group’s population. They lacked doors and windows though so I used my powers to turn the trees into doors and windows. I turned to look at the shell shocked ponies and felt my power increase once again but all the ponies I saved already believed I existed. I felt a presence somewhere in the forest but when I began searching for it the feeling disappeared. The soldiers might have had a lookout stationed but I trusted that they would not be a threat for a little while.
“This is your new home my little ponies.” I gave a wide smile. They smiled back at me and thanked me as they entered their new homes. Several asked for beds, kitchens, and other essentials Which I created for them using metals, woods, and cloth. Yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that letting that presence escape would come back to haunt me later.
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The solider flew as fast as he could through the forest and back towards Canterlot. His comrades, his friends, had just be slaughtered by an extremely powerful entity. It leveled the mountain and reformed natural resources with ease. Simply by waving her hand, powers that reminded him of Discord. A few months ago the elements of harmony had successfully put the creature down, trapping the being in stone and now another one had come to take its place. He ran through the halls of the castle, garnering weird looks from the staff but he could not be bothered. He barged into the throne room and yelled out to princess Luna. Luna was a large black alicorn with larger wings than a Pegasus and a larger horn than a unicorn, with a moon cutie mark. She looked at him with annoyance but that quickly changed.
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Luna had been alive for over 1000 years, she was responsible for moving the moon and her sister moved the sun but hearing the guard’s story filled her with terror. She teleported herself to her sister Celestia’s room.
“You must wake up at once sister.” She shouted in her royal voice. Her sister, a large white alicorn and a sun cutie mark, quickly sat up and gave her sister an annoyed look.
“A being of the same kind as discord has been spotted to the forest to the west. The last solider of that platoon Mr. Candycane came back. He was the only survivor. He was being the lookout while the soldiers attempted to apprehend the thieves, they stole an ancient scroll with the tale of Maria Forthshadow. We only took it because of the dangerous unknown magic that is stored within it and now the magic being inside has awoken.” Her sister’s annoyed looked quickly change to one of worry.
“Luna, send a letter to the elements of harmony at once. We mustn’t let her return to her full power, human gods are powerful, they feed on the belief that beings have in them.” Luna simply nodded and quickly began to write. This entity needed to be stopped, considering the power she has displayed the ponies she has already believe in her. I pray we will not need to use force against our own but it may just be inevitable. She let out a sigh as her message was teleported to its intended recipient.
Interesting start.
This is good. I am watching
Liking for the cover art poem.
If this story is one of the first ones you have created (let's say, among the first 10) I will believe what you have written, it really is not bad because you have laid the foundations of the story quite well... the thing is the context captured, it feels generic and a little bland, the death of the extras did not feel shocking nor was there any emotion felt, be it pity or satisfaction, And the typical situation of "we have to stop it before it does more damage" is quite recurring, not bad, but someone who has been on the site for a while (say, a year?) would not enjoy it at all. The good point of this prologue or chapter one is how the protagonist was invoked, Through a group of thieves who discovered their existence, which promotes another point in the story, were they a large group? Or did they break into the castle in the discord debacle? Or even more! They are a cult that has been around for a while and they finally managed to bring back the human goddess!
The only thing that could make you enjoy this story (apart from good character development) is how you grow in writing it, giving well-executed situations filled with emotion.
Pd: I want to think that this is constructive criticism and not a comment throwing hate at your story, I am also a writer, and I have read the first stories I created(and it doesn't end) and I tell you, they are quite embarrassing, But there's no shame in admitting that.
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Rereading this you are correct about my shortcomings but i was wondering what super common tropes bring my story down into the generic category. I havent read many mlp fanfics sorry.
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I already listed many of them in my previous comment, but I suppose the main ones are:
Only giving the name and a brief description as the cover background for the protagonist, which makes him flat and you cannot sympathize with him until later chapters.
Saying that your protagonist is the purest person the previous god has ever known to inherit his powers, instead, You could say that he or she, among all the people who have passed through there, had higher values than everyone else, either because of how young he or she was or because he or she was always that way, And these values could be the elements of harmony, you know, kindness, generosity, laughter, loyalty and honesty, not magic because humans don't have magic
Another generic point is that Celestia and Luna consider your protagonist as someone who is a bad person or something, Instead of trying to reach a neutral diplomatic discussion by trying to verify your intentions, Which would make our protagonist understand that he does not have to only use force on those who are against him, as it could have been in his past with his (You know, humans are bloody beings in war)
I think my last point, and the emptiest, that I mentioned before, was the death of the guard, for me you could do it since it makes the reader understand that your protagonist, When he was still a god (goddess) to humans, he had to sacrifice the lives of his enemies for the good of his people, even though they might have people waiting for them in their homes (Imagine, it is an unreal situation that could irremediably damage the relationship with the ponies, but let's say that that guard was Twilight's older brother, Shining Armor, It would be shocking, but he can't die at the beginning of the story because he is an important figure for this story) I went off on a tangent, but the general thing is that there were no dialogues on his part, where he begged and mentioned other sentimental figures of this one so that we feel sorry for him, And let it weigh on the goddess's conscience, since after her millennia-long rest, for her she has not changed one bit in how she treats her enemies, What I'm trying to say, it's a necessary evil, but no emotion was felt from it because of how simple it was.
I hope this helps you a lot to guide you with your story, so that it takes the form you like it to be, and that it is not forgotten among the thousands that exist on these platforms.
great story so far i hope the main 6 get along with her because i am sick of when celestia wants twilight and the rest to take care of somone they try to do it and get the buts handed to them