"It's a pleasure to meet you," says the blue. "I'm Prince Shiresk, here on behalf of my mother Princess Amnoi to welcome you to Shi Alassei and Amenta."

"It's a pleasure to be here!" she replies, entirely truthfully.

"I'm Puna, motu goddess of spring, change, and travel, here on behalf of my pantheon. One of the leaders of the nearest motu settlement should be arriving soon, to aid me in representing my people." 

His hair is so pretty up close! "Your hair is really pretty! I've never seen anyone with blue hair before; it doesn't happen in any of Corth's species!"

"- thank you. What does it mean exactly to be a motu goddess, or to be a goddess of those things?"

"I'm a motu goddess because the motu worship me, rather than humans or dwarves or elves or...a bunch of other species."

She has to think about the other part.

"The things I'm goddess of are...the things I like, and the things I'm better at than the other gods in my pantheon, and the things motu pray to me about. And those three lists are mostly the same, because that's how pantheons work. We're good at the things we like, and people pray to us for the things we're good at." 

"What are the other gods... of?"

"Well, I can't remember how the elven or dwarven gods are organized, but in my pantheon there's a god for each season, and then Huringa who's the god of balance," she begins.

"I'm spring, of course, and then for summer there's my brother Raumati. He's the god of war and light and metalwork and a bunch of things like that. Next is autumn, that's my mother Kotinga. She's goddess of tradition, family, harvest, motherhood, community..." Puna ticks each domain off on her fingers as she mentions it.

"Last is my father Hotoke, god of winter. He covers history, memory, sleep, death, and preservation."

She seems to be finished, then remembers, "Oh, I forgot to explain Huringa properly! Huringa is the in-between god, they're sort of what you'd get if you took the average of the rest of us. They look after the cycle of years and the passage of the seasons, and they're god of prophecy too. So...that's my family," she concludes, beaming. 

"...motherhood is in autumn for, ah, motu?"

"No, most babies are born in spring. If they were born in autumn, they'd barely have any time to grow up before winter!" she explains.

"All of us do things all year round," she continues. "We're just specially in charge of our season as well. Like, it's not spring right now, but I'm the one who came to look at the portal because it's a new thing that goes someplace, and I'm the god who's in charge of new things and going places."

"Change and travel. I see," says Shiresk. "In addition to parents do you have - grandparents -? Where did Huringa come from?"

"Nnnot really?" Puna tilts her head sideways. 

"Kotinga and Hotoke came from the elemental forces of Order and Chaos mixing together, and then they made me and Raumati, and then Huringa formed the same way my parents did from the perfect balance of Order and Chaos right in the centre. So they're sort of my parents' little sibling? But we're definitely family, anyway." All of this may or may not have been said in one breath. 

"What about your family? What are they like?"

"- well, my mother is Princess Amnoi, the monarch of Shi Alassei, which is this country, and my father is Tahan Apma, who's from Tapa, another country that we have a close relationship with. I have two brothers and two sisters; I'm the youngest. I have a wife and two daughters, and nine nieces and nephews."

"That sounds nice! I sometimes wish I had a sister," Puna says cheerily.

"Why are you the one who came to meet me?"

"Ah, my mother's very busy so I volunteered to come ahead and not keep you waiting."

"That was very nice of you!"

She looks over to the portal, where the head-woman of Otara has arrived.

"I think you should meet a representative of my motu - other than me, that is. I'm just their god, not one of their rulers." Heading back towards the motu, she beckons Prince Shiresk to follow her. 

"What's the material difference -?"

"I don't tell them what to do, or interfere in their daily lives," she explains. 

"We only step in for big things, or when we're asked to help. Today is both!"

They reach the portal, and Puna darts through to fetch the motu chieftess. It takes a bit of coaxing, but she manages to persuade the woman to follow her through the portal to meet the Amentan prince.

The head-woman looks like she weighs easily twice as much as Puna, and has to bend her head to fit her headdress through the opening. She is wearing robes that leave her breasts exposed, and one of her nipples is pierced with a gold ring. 

The prince has no comment on the tiny alien's state of dress. He dips his head politely. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Prince Shiresk of Shi Alassei."

Puna repeats this for the head-woman's benefit. Like everything she says, it's perfectly understandable by everyone present, regardless of what language they speak. 

"Would you like me to grant you the temporary ability to speak and understand all languages, so you can speak to the prince directly?" she adds. "It seems easier than having me translate everything."

The chieftess agrees, and receives the temporary blessing. 

"I am Wikolia Hauata Turei, chieftess of Otara. It is an honour." 

She looks Shiresk up and down, as if gauging whether she could jump that high, then bows slightly. 

"An honor to meet you as well. How does that work?" he asks.

"The translation? It's magic. I haven't done anything to you," Puna clarifies, "just to Chieftess Wikolia. I cast a spell on her that lets her understand and be understood by anyone who speaks any language at all, for the next while."

She pauses. "Actually, I'm not sure how it's doing it. I'm not an expert in magical theory, but it can't be that the magic knows all the languages and translates them the way a person would, because until today there was no contact at all between Corth and Amenta, so it would have no way to learn Amentan languages. Maybe it works by intended meaning..." She trails off, lost in thought.

"Sorry! Back to diplomacy! That's probably more detail than you wanted."

"If it doesn't have any side effects..."

She blinks.

"Why would it have side effects? Anyway, I can do it for you as well if you want, but it won't last the rest of the day unless I renew it, and there's not much difference between one of you having it and both of you."

"We don't have anything like it here - translation is done by machines which do know the languages - so I wasn't sure," he explains. "Either way is fine with me, thank you."

"I proooobably shouldn't get into the habit of doing magic I don't need to do," she says regretfully. 

"So, um, what should be the next step here?"