//------------------------------//
// Entry 127: Dilemma #2 
// Story: Samudra's Journal 
// by vren55 
//------------------------------//

Tethys and I… we met, with all of our guards, and she proposed a solution to our mutual problem. 

She explained kelpies are not going to be cured immediately, and they are looking into it. However, Tethys also recognized that they need to eat and eating seaponies would not only be terrible for Aquestrian relations, but make the seaponies and deep ponies who had joined Tethys uncomfortable.

She thus proposed that the kelpies be allowed to hunt surface-worlders.

I… I balked at this idea at first. Step aside from my duty? Allow creatures of the Old God to feast on the Great Creator’s surface-worlders? 

But as terrible an idea as this is, it helps solve both our problems. The kelpies - at least according to our current estimates - don’t number enough to kill all the surface worlders. Why, if they hide in the rivers and lakes and ambush small groups or individuals, they can easily feed themselves and have little to no impact on the population. Tethys has also said that due to the fact they have no idea how long they will need to develop a cure, they would limit their population growth as best as they could. 

And if everything turns out as Tethys says it does, there will be an Aquestria with kelpies in it, but where kelpies don’t eat my sea ponies and deep ponies. Besides, they can live anywhere and some of the kelpies I have met actually prefer the dark depths of the abysses and trenches. As this is the least valuable territory in Aquestria, we can let them live there with little change to our territorial boundaries.

But… what if Tethys isn’t telling the truth? She hasn’t outright lied to me, but I know she isn’t telling me everything. She hasn’t admitted to working for the Old Ones, which I know she is. There also has to be some kind of downside to this plan, aside from well, the obvious in which the kelpies are going to need to feed on the surface worlders for an indefinite amount of time.

Then… there’s the surface worlders. It’s… it’s my duty to guard the depths so that those in the seas and on land won’t be threatened by Primal Gods like Yoth’Atal. If I let the kelpies attack them, that would be an ultimate dereliction of my duties. How can I knowingly subject the surface world to attacks by these monsters and sleep well?
Is this… this dilemma… some nefarious plot by the Old Ones to turn me against my duty? Or … or is this just a very real proposal with pros and cons that is being put forth to me?

I don’t know which possibility is worse.