Breezies are an enigmatic species from the other side of a portal. Whether it leads to an undiscovered place in our world or even different planet is to this point in time unknown, as exploring their world is a difficult task. In this book, I, Princess Twilight Sparkle, will shed some light on the mysterious culture of the breezies, with the help of my closest friend Fluttershy.
The best place to begin is a simple description of a breezie. If you have ever heard of the tail of the tooth-fairy, it was most likely inspired by a breezie. They are very small, reaching an average of half an inch, comparable to a normal honey bee. They share most of our equine appearance, save for insectoid wings easily six times their own length and feelers on their heads. Their limbs appear elongated and strangely thin and we have a hard time telling their genders apart.
The wings of a breezie allow it to ride the wind without effort and even the slightest breeze is enough to carry them vast distances. However, they are unable to fly without it and if the wind blows in the wrong direction, a breezie is incapable of fighting against it. In fact, if a breezie is caught offguard by a sudden storm, they may be forced to rid themselves of their own wings. This act is not quite as horrifying as you might imagine however, as breezies annually lose their wings at the end of autumn and regrow them next spring. Still, ridding oneself prematurely of their ability to fly is a painful task and limits ones options greatly. Fortunately, this situation does not arise often, as a breezies feelers are the most accurate weather forecast before Pegasi sheduled weather. It is rumored that in ancient times, the great riches of neighpon largely relied on a breezies weather forecast, leading to a large boom in agricultural output.
Breezies are a fragile species, without access to any magic comparable to ours, frail bodies and limited flight, it becomes understandable that they have a hard time living in Equestria. Their own world is far from safe, yet they are better fitted to bear its challenges.
Their world is unique in that it has a very special kind of poisonous mushroom in it, which excretes spores poisonous to any species above a certain size. Equestria has made efforts to counter their effect, but so far we have only managed to make sure they do not spread to our world. In fact, the largest recorded species in their world are mice, although in our expedition, we’ve heard rumors of larger creatures which seem similar to rats. The area we have found in our expedition were largely forests and rivers, but as we had to change our own physiology to match the breezies, we have, by pony standards, only covered a very small area.
The unrivaled rulers of their world are the bees, who, with their incredible quantity of number and poisonous stings, are unbeaten by any species but their own. Luckily for the breezies, they express no interest and employ a stance best described as “don’t bother us and we won’t bother you.” Therefore, the breezies are relatively free to do whatever they want as long as they do not break the few rules the bees have set in place, the most important one being a complete prohibition to collect any pollen in their world.
Ponies noticeable about breezies are surely interested in the purpose of the pollen, but first we have to get into the society of the breezies.
Breezies are split into small clans, numbering somewhere between four and twelve dozen individuals. While oftentimes not full nomadic, breezies have a lax relationship to a place and often see no issue with changing their home to a more beneficial location, should an opportunity arise. Breezies can inhabit very different places, more to that in a later chapter about clans.
Breezies have no access to magic and so their technology would be largely material-based. If they had any. It was a surprise to me as well, but breezies live, for our standards, quite primitive lives, their tools mostly consisting of straw, remains of animals they find dead, such as chitin and bone, and wood. Never have we discovered them even using stone, which is why Fluttershy voted to call their era “the Stick Age”. They don’t even have fire and my question about flintstone merely confused them. However, they employ different strategies to make up for their lack of technology. Their diet mostly consists of berries and mushrooms, from which they carve out pieces with their chitinous tools. They do not grow their own food and only one clan kept livestock in the form of aphids, from which they milk honeydew. However, most live in a gatherer society. Sometimes, Breezies can form hunting bands. This is a huge event that usually only partakes once per year and encompasses multiple clans around the area. The event is of both practical and spiritual importance, as one mouse is often enough to feed a whole clan and a successful hunt often marks an easy winter. On top of that, hunting trophies are a mark of pride amongst the breezies and a worthy challenge to prove their own strength and devotion to their gods. If the prey has been brought down, the clans usually celebrate in a large joint festivity, strengthening their bonds and often establishing new contacts and trade.
The act of hunting a mouse is a risky and dangerous undertaking, however. The first challenge is to lure the animal out of its burrow. For this undertaking, one brave breezie would be chosen during a sacred ceremony in which its wings are removed and the body is cleaned, so the breezie won’t emit any smell. Once the preparations are finished, the breezie will sneak into a burrow, in order to obtain the essence of a female in heat. This breezie will then need to escape and act as the lure infront of a males burrow to act as lure. When the animal comes out, the breezies will swarm it, poking it from all sides with sharpened sticks. They too will have their wings removed as they are unwieldy and easily grabbed by the mouse. The finishing blow would then be delivered as the mouse is herded into a position in which a team of breezies will drop an apple directly onto the animal. Should that not work, the leading breezie will usually call for retreat, acknowledging that the hunt has failed.
As you surely noticed, this strategy is full of risk and only one out of four hunts are usually met with success. Oftentimes, a breezie is hurt as well, especially the lure, which has on more than one occasion be crushed by the mouse. Still, despite the risks, the breezies see the hunt as a test and every year, there are new volunteers, willing to take the risks.
Water is not a problem to the breezies, as their size allows them to cut into leafs and drink the secreting fluid. They try to avoid this, however, as they fear to anger the plants and so they try to bring water from the nearest river or gather dew instead.
Missing fire, breezies cannot easily leave their homes during winter, which they insulate by dragging a big pile of leafs onto it, a task which can take the entire clan several weeks, but preserves the heat during the cold season. As they cannot leave their home anyway and their large wings are uncomfortably cramped in such tight spaces, they adapted to shed their wings once snow falls, regrowing them once the melting begins.
The time buried is usually spent in games, ceremonies and prayer. We will take a closer look when we get to the chapter about their religion.
A clan is led by an elder, although the elder usually only acts as the wisest or most knowledgeable breezie or in some cases, one who they believe to be touched by the gods. They do not have anything we would call authority other than that the other clan members respect their opinions. There is no punishment to disobey the elder. In fact, no breezie truly holds authority and ranks are respected, but other than that do not carry any power in them. A breezie follows their leader because they trust that it is in their, or their clans, best interest to do, but at the same time, the elder cannot facilitate any power born of force.
Advising the elder is the Frindrö. The best translation would be “touched by the winds.” For our intents, it essentially means priest. The Frindrö conducts ceremonies, teaches young breezies, settles disputes if a third party is needed and spits wisdom everywhere he goes. This last part is a quote from our best contact, the breezie gatherer Seabreeze. As breezies believe that the Frindrö possesses divine judgement, he determines the successor for both his and the elders position.
Not every issue can be resolved by ceremony and discussion however. Sometimes breezie clans have a dispute that has no peaceful resolution. However, breezies simply cannot fight wars as we ponys know them. Breezies have busy lives and a sudden loss of helping hooves could quickly become unsustainable for either clan. For that reason, every clan has a champion standing in for their clan, who will settle every dispute in a one-on-one wrestling match. The matches themselves are non-lethal, but far from harmless nontheless. The results of these fights are seen as sacred and the final option of the losing clan is to beg for a compromise. This last option is a sacred right and is thus not directed at the elder, but the Frindö instead.
Lastly, there are gatherers, whose goal is to gather food and material. Lastly, we reach craftsbreezies, who then... well, craft things from these materials. I have personally observed the use of wood, mushroom hyphen, chitin, mouse-fur and straw.
Even as I briefly brushed over the breezie society, you surely noticed that I was unable to avoid mentioning their religion. This is more correct than you would imagine, as their religion permeates every layer of their culture. It is the lense through which we can understand their mindset. For a start, I will share with you their creation myth as it was told to me by a Frindrö
A long time ago, there were only the Jiön, the gods. These beings were perfection in its definition. With a wave of a hoof, they could create worlds and with the bob of a feeler, they could end them. The gods were satisfied, being what they were, and amused themselves with the invention of new worlds, but never staying for long until boredom took place.
It was one fateful day, when Frinjiön, the god of wind, was the last to depart from a world. He took a last look at their creation, when he noticed something peculiar.
You see, we Breezies were part of this world, but we weren’t intelligent. We had no strength, no flight, not even brains, not even clans. Back then we were worms. And while we existed, there was no place in the world for us. You see, we were fodder. Our purpose was merely to feed the other species while they grew, to be used up. Yet, one of us would not accept its fate. Blind, deaf, this one chose to flee from the mice which it was supposed to fall prey to, channeling all power to slither away.
And Frinjiön, the perfect being, the god… he saw the struggle of this pitiful being, this weakest being of all creation… and he felt something no good should ever feel. He felt inspired. This was the moment Frinjiön realized: Perfection is nothing but willing Stagnation. The worm he saw dared to deny its fate, to carve a place in the world for itself. It had grown over its own boundaries and become something more.
And that was something even the gods had never managed.
Frinjiön then swore, he would guide these beings, which he called the Breezies. He would help them as they needed, let them grow. Become more. Something greater. And one day, when the Breezies would become great enough to rival the gods, he would welcome them in the pantheon. For they may show even the gods a way to become something greater.
This myth speaks to the mindset of the breezies and is, to my knowledge, utterly unique. What I mean by that is that, if you take our religion, we worship Celestia and Luna, often seeing them as beings infinitely above us. Beings that you can meet, become friends with, but never become their equals. At least that is what these cults say, I will describe my criticism of this (as a recent ascendant) in a separate book.
Back to the point, if you possess knowledge of other religions, you will know that most of them portray the gods as something to appease, or in the worst cases, to fear. All of them see their gods as something infinitely greater than themselves and the attempt to become just like them is seen as heresy. Yet, the breezie alternative tells them to strive for just that. And not only that, but to surpass their own gods someday.
In a more practical sense, the core of their religion relies in self-improvement. Breezies believe that in strengthening themselves, they strengthen their entire species. Either by inspiration, teaching or by genetically passing some of their strength along. It is to note here that Breezies are not aware of genetics, they simply believe that the child of a strong breezie will inadvertently be a bit stronger than if the parent was weak. Further to note is that the ways to improve oneself are multi-facetted and becoming better at just about anything counts. Acquiring knowledge, inventions, training of strength, stamina, producing art or merely striving to be a good person, all of that contributes to the advance of their species.
As such, breezies are highly idealistic and often put the collective needs above their own. Arguments seldomly end in fights and Breezies do not have a word for war. The common strive to ascension unites them all on some basic level. Even their organization appears to work on a system of trust, rather than control. I could not believe my ears when I heard that no-one would watch the clans food supplies and that every breezie was simply trusted to take their own share and no more. But this system, unthinkable for us, works out for them without a problem.
The Frindrö of a clan represents their religion. Note that I said represent and not enforce. As far as I could tell, all clans I, or the breezies I asked, ever heard of, shared the same exact system of belief, making any quarrel over religious ideas unnecessary. The Frindrö leads rituals, decides disputes, takes the overall function of a teacher and channels divine power.
Yes, during my visit, I have been witness of several miracles performed by the Frindrö, but none of my studies have shown any involvement of magic. It might be something completely different instead, lending at least some merit that their god could actually be real. But I will not speculate on that further and come back to the things I witnessed for certain. For one, a Frindrös, prayers seem to have an effect on food. Specifically, preventing their spoilage. A Frindrö called Sherry Göurrse gifted me a slice of a strawberry shortly after we met. This was over nine months ago, and the slice that has since then lain in the open, only protected from insects by spells, is still perfectly fresh. Another feat I have witnessed is a sort of reinforcement spell, which made a simple stick of straw durable enough to withstand our greatest attempts to break it. In my own body I can snap it with ease, but on their size, it seemed unbreakable.
I’ve heard tales of an age-old prophet, who was able to channel a splinter of Frinjiön himself, conjuring mighty storms at will. This prophet, as the myth goes, once forced the bees to agree to a pact of non-agression. I have found no evidence to the truth of this mythos, but the capabilities of the Frindrö are numerous and we have absolutely no understanding of it yet, so the possibilities could be endless and nothing can be ruled out yet.
There is one last function of the Frindrö, and in my opinion, one of the most important. When one gains an opinion in opposition with the status quo, it is quite appealing to gather support first and speak as a group, rather than on your own. However, it is much harder to reason with a group, in which members often believe in variations of the same idea, and in many cases, for different reasons. Additionally, group mentality can lead to the perception that you are in the right, simply because you are surrounded by others believing in the same thing. All of these reasons make it close to impossible to form a consensus that appeals to all, once such a group has formed. Instead, breezies are encouraged to discuss such ideas with the Frindrö, before anyone else. This sounds like a terrible idea, the agent of a religion with the power to shoot down any opposing ideas at the source, but from my experience with several Frindrö, they seem quite open to new insights and were even willing to discuss the validity of their religion with me. (A risky move, but I had to try to judge their openness) However, we reached no conclusion and our discussion ended with him saying that both of us don’t understand the others position enough for a definitive answer.
What I did discover however, is the stu- the aspect of their culture I understand the least! Breezies dont value their history!
Okay, I need to explain this better. In my discussions with the Frindrö, I noticed that I kept hearing different versions of the same stories and I assumed it was because they dont have writing, but the answer is so much worse! Apparently, breezies see no difference between history and myths, choosing to change the details of both in order to teach facts and morals, but these teachings are based on stories, not facts, you can’t base arguments on something other than facts!
As much as I would like to continue to argue with that ridiculous idea, Fluttershy convinced me to simply move on.
Breezies have no system of currency, instead resorting to exchange deals. An important aspect here is that everything within a clan belongs to the clan first and the “owner” second. While individual breezies often get to claim something for their own, it can be used by everyone within the clan without punishment, although it is considered as rude. Since everything technically belongs to the clan, trade only happens between clans. But before I get to that, I need to talk with the only other kind of trade they have, with us.
You may ask yourself, what can a tiny stick age species produces that we would want to trade for? The adorable, but also sad answer is… nothing.
The trade is a joke.
You see, breezies receive tiny instruments from us. The demand is high, as music is a big part of their culture and a pastime activity during the boring winter season. They come to a place at the outskirts of the badland desert. For us, it is a tourist attraction, in which the richer tourists purchase tiny instruments to then trade against shiny rocks, berries and pieces of mouse pelt. I hope that you, reader, will keep this secret. The breezies would be hurt in their pride if they ever found out the only trade they have with us only exists because they are adorable.
Between clans, they trade for food, materials, information and stories. It is usually an exciting occurrence where old friends meet, children meet their parents again and lifebonds are made. Marriage with a member of another clan is far from a rarity and as such, the clans of an area usually have very tight bonds. In many cases they are literally family. This generally means that clans get along very well, that help is often given freely and that the clans seldomly try to take advantage on one another. Family is the most important bond a breezie can have.
However, their family unit is different than ours. For one, the entire clan is seen as an extended family. But even in the smaller family unit, they act differently. The parents role is less important than in Equestria. For us, they act as caretakers, providers and teachers. In a breezie clan, however, it is usually the oldest siblings task to look after their siblings. In a cross-clan marriage, it is even custom that the parents stay in the fathers clan until the oldest sibling reaches an age of merely five years, at which that child is expected to look after its siblings. The parents will at that point leave their children behind and join the mothers clan.
This treatment is seen by us as cruel, but in breezie culture, the role of parent and sibling is essentially flipped. Parents only act as teachers and adult contact person, functions the clan can easily take over as the parents leave.
I do think this treatment is cruel on the child who is suddenly tasked with so much responsibility. The breezies I spoke to think it is okay, saying “one becomes responsible when one has to, not before.” I disagree to that, and I do believe this is an example where, cultural differences or not, we have to convince them that this has to change.
With all I have told you about the primitive aspects of Breezies, you might easily develop a sense of superiority. What could this tiny stick age species without any magic have above us ponies? In one word: Words.
I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist. But their language is truly a magnificent example of verbal communication, a precision tool among a series of blunt force objects. Unfortunately I cannot teach you their language in this book as it would simply break this books limits, nor can I properly convey words to you. We simply do not have letters for sounds frequently used in their words and when I give examples, it is simply the closest approximation I managed to come up with.
Breezish has four times as many words than any other language I know of. This wealth of options to say things leads to a very precise and yet efficient sentences. Let’s face it, most of us are lazy when it comes to talking, we like to get every sentence over with using as few words as possible, that is why shortening words is a thing. A more common example is our lacking variation for the word “love”. It can stand for many things, but we only commonly use it for the case of “romantic love”. When it comes to telling your siblings or parents that we love them… We simply don’t. We do not say “I feel brotherly love for you.” Instead, we go down a notch and say “I like you”, although that is not really what we set out to communicate.
Breezish has twelve words for “love”, depending on the kind of love and its intensity. If I wanted to say “I love you, but more as an enhanced friendship rather than me wishing to pursue a relationship with you”, I can say that in two words: “Uuhet Drèughr”.
“Uuhet” is a combined word of both “I” and “you”, which as a rule is again too much to explain here. If you are interested in learning the language, Fluttershy has agreed to teach what she knows every friday night in her shed.
“Drèughr” is a single word meaning what I needed an entire messy sentence for in Equestrian. I think I have made my example, breezish is incredibly precise, so precise in fact that enhancing words like “very” don’t even belong in some breezies vocabulary. The effects of this are enormous. How many arguments have broken out because of simple misunderstandings? How many problems have arisen simply because one couldn’t find the right words to communicate their feelings and then didn’t? Breezies seldomly face such problems, because their language allows for far better expression of oneself, especially when it comes to feelings, which we have a woeful lack of words for.
There are other parts to their speech, as the use of their feelers to accentuate their emotions. I would have really liked to study that, but I faced difficulties with that. … Watching their antennae bob up and down is just too adorable and I always forgot about writing down my notes.
There is also a divide between night and day in breezie speech, with personal discussions almost exclusively taking place at night. The day, for them, is a busy time, they need to gather supplies after all. In the day, most conversations are about what to do, how to do it, practical things overall. But when the sun goes down it is a common sight to see the light of two breezies at the edge of a village. The circle of light their antennae produce is seen as the highest privacy and stepping into it is a serious offence. At night, breezies talk with their families, resolve issues or discuss with the Frindrö, mentioned in the previous chapter. The fear of waking up the others helps keep the emotions from boiling over as well. I have once participated in such a midnight talk with a breezie. I can safely say it was a magical and one of the most personal experiences I’ve ever had.
For the last chapter, I would like to give you a brief overview of some of the clans I was staying with.
At first we have the Hazelstorm clan. Despite their name, they set up their village below a Walnut tree. They use the fallen walnuts as housing. Whenever a need for another house arises, the clan joins together in pulling and pushing a walnut into the village area. Then the family is given a divine tool, basically a primitive stone drill. It is one of the very few stone tools I have observed. Once the family broke in a hole big enough for them they eat the fruit, a feast of epic proportions as far as the breezies are concerned. And in some cases, a dreaded one. Few ever desire to taste walnut again afterwards.
The Hazelstorm clan has risen to a semblance of “dominance” among the other clans because their Champion grew to enormous (for breezie standards) proportions. She has not lost a fight since then. The clan has yet to press their advantage though, since the clans of the area share friendly bonds with one another.
The Riverwisp clan is a small clan living ontop of a giant lilypad . Since it is quite cold ontop of a river, these breezies collect large stashes of hay, which they pile ontop of their leaf, creating essentially a burrow for themselves. With their position comes an unreliance on water (of course) and, due to a unique talent, to food. Their Frindrö is blessed with the ability to summon lightning strikes, as it seems. He directs this lightning into the water and the breezies simply pull out the dead fish rising to the surface. But despite two base needs covering themselves, their living situation has its own unique difficulties. The lesser evil is that the entire clan has to go come spring and cut new grass for their home. Stalk for Stalk they have to cut, and since mixing straw and humidity is a flawed idea, they have to frequently replace parts of their burrow.
The larger problem are the water spiders. These arachnids can force the entire clan to evacuate in a manner of seconds. Breezies are utterly powerless against the attack of an arachnid and therefore have to keep close watch. Attacks are far from frequent, but that makes them arguably even more dangerous as one slip in their vigilance can lead to the death of a clan member. They frequently tell horror stories of what happens to those caught. Ones that disturbed me even more since I knew they were entirely accurate.
The clan weathers these dangers with determination however, seeing their connection to the water as an integral part of themselves. Personally, I am not sure what to think of that, considering their large wings make it impossible for them to swim.
