The Little Curiosities

by Comma Typer

It Ain't Easy, But It's Worth It

A pony head pierces the curtain from the stage’s side. The stallion yanks his head back into the backstage. “Ready for the big speech, Mister Seabreeze?”

“Yes, I am ready. Hopefully I’ll get the last laugh before these clowns take their potshots at the world’s smallest head of state.” Sitting on a high stool, the breezie shines in his sophisticated suit and tie. That his assistants stand orders of magnitude bigger than him is a bother but only of the little sort.

After the announcer on stage formally introduces the leader of the now breezie-populated Gaothlub, it’s show time. Seabreeze glides the winds onto the lectern, paying no heed to the cameras carrying blinding flashes nor the applause which experience tells him is scripted but respectful. An audience of various creatures line the chairs: ponies (Equestrian or Earther, he cannot tell), griffons, yaks, deer, etcetera and so on and so forth ad infinitum.

On the front row sit an adorable horde of breezies: his fellow citizens, having gone from ordinary humans to frail butterflies with hooves. Nations from around the world forked out relief goods and relief efforts to make things bearable for the shrunken population: from big houses to tiny cottages inside mushrooms, tree trunks, and the crooks and nannies of attics everywhere. The result was the shell of a ghost town hiding centers of commerce if one checks the colony of fungi by the corner.

An ahem forces out of his throat; the microphone, two or three orders of magnitude bigger than him, picks it up. If it were a week after the change, many creatures would laugh at him: Did you drink a glass of helium this morning?! Truth is, he did not drink a glass of helium this morning nor in any of the mornings before. No one will laugh at his pitch-shifted voice today. Greater matters lay ahead.

“I thank you all for being here. This grand paradigm shift was a surprise to everyone even with our utmost attention paid to the pockets of magic found in Amareica. You have heard my fellow leaders speak about it, so I shall dispense with the general history and get you up to speed on how we—what Equestrians call breezies—have fared in the aftermath of this magic storm.

“It is true: We declined in our stature in more ways than one. We have grown too small for our homes and workplaces, physical fragility complicating our efforts to grasp this magic. Our cities stood still in the chaos. A great economic crash would have devastated the country were it not for the miraculous efforts of our friends in the global community and benevolent nations from our neighboring universe.

“But I will not ask you to pity us. We may be small, but we Gaothlubians, we breezies, have taken matters to our own hooves. With our can-do attitude, we’ve turned our weaknesses into strengths: for example, our electronics and computing industry. We may no longer type or code as fast as we could anymore, but our size grants us the ability to make literal cottage industries for circuits and transistors, and you have heard the tales of how we made our own keyboards and other input devices fit for our sizes. We are also lucky to have a whole new market opened to us: Many Gaothlubians are pioneers in Equestria’s modernization campaign that they may experience the benefits of twenty-first century technology.

“While some of our businesses will and have faltered—as is the case with our car manufacturers closing down—new commodities rose up, catering to the new needs of a new world. These hard times have turned many of us into industrious workers and thinkers, helping themselves and each other up as they made local weavery to expand the expressions of our culture, small arms with which to defend ourselves as we re-organize our military, and magic potions and spells that provide many quality-of-life improvements to the way we live. We may be rocked by change, but you can never say we run away from it. No! We have charged right into it!

“And what about our population? It’s true that disaster can bring out the worst in us, but I am glad to report that the inverse is much more true: that disaster can bring out the best in us. For every photo of an abandoned house or a decrepit store, there are ten more of breezies bringing in multiple families and even whole communities into their doorstep, turning the living room into a brand-new village where the values of hard work, happiness, and justice reign supreme.

“Here we are, half a year after the Change. See where we are now! Companies, countries, and so many creatures look to us for support, and our work is still cut out for us. Many counties seek full restoration and reclamation, and we receive daily assistance from Equestria’s Breezie Kingdom on these efforts.”

His tiny sigh is barely recorded. “I am human. A better term would be person. I’m a person, and a fallible one at that. As president, I’ve seen and prepared many emergency plans, but a magical mishap on this scale had never been on my mind. When I and my family transformed into breezies, I thought the end of the world was at hand: how could we recover from turning into tiny little fairy horses? Forget about popularity, ratings, debates, and policies: I was afraid. I was scared.

“But when I took the office of presidency years ago, I sacrificed myself to a greater cause: the nation, the people I was responsible to. Even when we’ve turned into storybook fantasy creatures and even when magic spread around the world to usher us into an uncertain future, I could not let personal fears get in the way of serving the people.

“I did not give up. Our people did not give up. Behold Gaothlub now: we have persevered and prospered. This is only the beginning. We will rebuild, we will thrive, and we will seek greater harmony than ever in our nation and the extra-global village of both worlds.

“So, from what so many have called the smallest head of state in the world, let me say: Thank you. Thank you all for your support through these past six months. May this new age of magic and wonder ascend beyond our wildest dreams.”

A second of silent amazement is enough time for Seabreeze to return to the backstage before the audience erupts in earsplitting applause.

“How’d it all go?” asks his stallion bodyguard, looking at him eye-to-eye.

Humble arrogance flashes through the hovering breezie president. “Could’ve gone better, don’t you think? Asking me to make a rousing speech like that is a tall order.”

“I don’t think so. You’re pretty good at public speaking.”

“You didn’t get the joke, did you?”

It does not take long for the groan of realization to kick in. “I wish I could squash you right now!”

“Assassinate me and my fairy spooks will come after you, buddy.”

The two creatures share a laugh and, later, a drink over it.

Comments

[Ninjadeadbeard]

The human-Breezies really got screwed over. Like, yes, they’re coping, but still.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Miniaturization in technology is usually a good thing. Miniaturization in the workforce less so. They're adapting, yes, but they still got hit hard. No part of the world will ever be the same after this change, but nowhere more so than Gaothlub.

“Assassinate me and my fairy spooks will come after you, buddy.”

Do not mess with the fairy ninjas. Not only will you never see them coming, you may never see them while they're assassinating you.

[justheretoreadstories]

The result was the shell of a ghost town hiding centers of commerce if one checks the colony of fungi by the corner.

That would be a sight to see.