“No! Daddy, please don’t go!” cried the young breezie.
“Son, you know I have to,” his father replied, his voice firm but gentle. “It is my duty, as it was my father’s duty before me.” The breezie warrior knelt to look his son in the eye. “And it shall be your duty, too, once I have passed beyond,” he continued gravely, “for we are a family of pollen raiders, and we must not fail, for all of breezie-kind depends on us.”
“I don’t understand,” the young breezie choked out between sobs. “Why do you have to do something so dangerous?”
The warrior chewed at his lip and looked up at his wife standing in the doorway just behind his crying son. Her face was tight with worry, but she gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod. The warrior sighed, letting tension flow out of him
“Very well, son. I shall tell you why I – why we – must travel so far to gather pollen,” the warrior said. “I shall tell you of the doom of our kind.”
OOO
“Back in the distant past, there was a great breezie sorcerer who was plagued by terrible allergies. No matter what magic he tried, he could not cure himself of his allergies even after decades of research, and in desperation he cast a spell that he did not fully understand. This spell, which the sorcerer called the Rubric of Klor Trih Pohlonn, spread throughout all of Breeziland rendering all plants incapable of producing pollen. Gardens died. Crops failed. Entire forests were endangered, the trees unable to make new saplings. Even new plants brought into Breeziland from other realms immediately fell under the Rubric, for the spell had not just been cast on the plants but on Breeziland itself.
“Horrified by what he had done, the sorcerer dedicated all his remaining years – and his now quite surprisingly good health – to finding a way to reverse the Rubric of Klor Trih Pohlonn. Although he was unable to undo the spell, he discovered that the Rubric did not destroy all pollen as he had thought; it simply caused plants to stop making it. If the breezies could collect pollen from other realms they could pollinate the plants themselves and Breeziland would be saved.
“But in order to do that, it had to be the right kind of pollen. Brave explorers searched through hundreds of other realms, but in the end only one realm had the pollen Breeziland needed. It was a horrible place, a land of bloodthirsty giants and extreme weather, nothing like our peaceful Breeziland, and the pollen we needed was far from the portal back home. So it was that only the most skilled and valiant of breezie warriors could hope to travel through this ‘Equestria’ and come back alive with the pollen we needed. Only the most stalwart and dependable of breezies could be trusted to stay true to their mission in the face of such overwhelming adversity. Only the greatest of us would be able to accomplish this mighty task.”
OOO
His tale done, the warrior stood, looking down proudly at his son, the breezie who would follow in his wake.
“Our ancestors were among those chosen to travel to Equestria for the first time and pry the pollen we so desperately need from that harsh and unforgiving realm,” he declared, “and our family has had the honour of carrying on that tradition in the many generations since then.” The warrior turned his gaze to the horizon, where the sun was setting over the mountains that bounded Breeziland. “It is an honour to be amongst those brave few who…”
“But Dad,” his son interrupted, “didn’t you say Miss Twirly was going too?”
“W-what?” stammered the warrior before quickly recovering his train of thought. “Yes. Yes, she, too, is amongst the brave few who…”
“She doesn’t seem all that brave to me.”
“What?” This was not how the warrior had envisioned this conversation going.
“She doesn’t seem all that brave to me,” his son repeated.
“Weeellll… maybe not, but she has been selected to gather pollen, so…” the warrior began somewhat lamely, but his attempt to regain control of the discussion went ignored.
“Just the other day, I saw her freak out and start screaming when she found an aphid in her garden,” his son said.
“Ah, well, you see, screaming is an excellent way to intimidate an opponent, so…”
“She was screaming stuff like ‘please, please don’t kill me, Mister Aphid’ and ‘I’m too pretty and fragile to die like this.’”
“Ah. Yes. I see.” The warrior thought hard for a moment. “Well, it was quite a large aphid, so…”
“Dad, let’s face it,” his son interrupted again. “The only reason pollen raids are so dangerous is because most breezies are wimps.”
The warrior went very quiet. “You’ve been hanging around with Seabreeze again, haven’t you, son?”
“This isn’t about who I hang out with, Dad!” protested his son.
“You know your mother and I don’t like you spending time with him. He’s a bad influence,” the warrior said sternly. “And wait a second – what the heck happened to all the crying and blubbering you were doing before?”
His son shrugged. “I got over it.”
“Got over…?!” the warrior spluttered. “I’m getting ready to go out there and risk my life for a couple of buckets of pollen, and you’re ‘over it’? Have you not heard the stories about the rabbits?”
“I’ve heard about the rabbits, Dad. They don’t sound that scary to me.”
“They don’t sound…?! What?!”
“Big, fluffy creatures with giant ears and cute twitchy noses? They really don’t sound all that scary, Dad.”
“Wha… But…! They’ve got huge teeth! I nearly soiled myself when I first saw one up close!” the warrior shouted. His son looked at him like he was a rather pitiful little stray flea rather than a seasoned veteran raider. “Well… Fine!” blustered the warrior as he angrily jammed his mushroom helmet onto his head. “I’m going to go maybe get myself killed on an epic quest through an impossibly hostile alien realm, and then you’ll be telling all your friends about how cool your old dad was!”
“Sure, Dad,” said his son in a tone recognisable to parents everywhere.
“Do try not to get blown into any bushes, dear,” said his wife from her spot in the doorway. “I know how much you dislike bushes.”
“Not helping!” the warrior shouted as he stomped off towards the sunset.
-FIN-