Moonsoon is dead.
Monsoon died in his sleep a year ago.
He was the love of my life. He… he gave me a son. He was my best friend and my most trusted confidante.
I… is it cliche to say that he was the love of my life? Because it was true! He supported me, but he wasn’t a sycophant. He rebuked me, but always respected me. I could tell him anything and he wouldn’t share my secrets, and he would confide in me!
I sometimes wake up, thinking he’s in bed with me, but then I realize he’s not there.
Typhon reminds me of him so much. He’s a kelpie, I see that, but his smile, his curiosity… those are all Monsoon’s. And yet he’s doomed to eat sentient beings.
I will turn my son into a seapony, no matter what it takes.
Some of my deep pony advisors have suggested an idea to me in order to break the deadlock between the kelpies and Aquestria.
In certain areas of the ocean, sometimes close to the shallows, sometimes in the depths, there are massive creatures.
The Dragon Turtles, six hundred meter creatures with turtle shells and armored heads like a dragon.
Leviathans, massive monsters that can grow up to a kilometer long. They are extremely fast, with ram-like heads and thick hides.
These are but two of the creatures that come to mind, and they come to mind because they… while powerful, have been domesticated before, as prize animals of course, not as war beasts.
But they can be trained.
My newly appointed Beast Master has some excellent news. He’s managed to capture some baby dragon turtles and leviathans. The training will take a few years, but once they are ready… we can supplement the war effort with these beasts.
It’s just as well, the Kelpies have launched a raid on one of our forts and managed to capture it. They looted it for weaponry and equipment, then fled, leaving nothing, not even corpses.
With the tactical field so stacked against us, we need to regain the strategic momentum. We need these beasts in the war.
The first dragon turtles and leviathans have been trained and deployed against the kelpies.
Kelpies are’t particularly emotional, but needless to say, I quite revelled at how the beasts ripped through the kelpie ranks and disrupted their formations. They did attempt to swarm the beasts from different sides in surprisingly effective tactics, but the accompanying seapony and deep pony battalions ensured that their attempts wouldn’t be successful.
I do wonder how they were able to adapt to such large animals. Mayhap the kelpies hunt dragon turtles and leviathans in their spare time? No matter. Hunting a dragon turtle, or leviathan is one thing, but monsters such as kelpies shouldn’t be able to train such beasts. It was difficult enough for my beastmasters to figure out how to train the leviathans and dragon turtles.
The kelpies have responded to our dragon turtles with a combination of guerrilla tactics and force. They’re employing a large mobile strike force, led personally by Empress Tethys that will hit us at our weakpoints. Once we deploy our leviathans there, they retreat their strike force, whilst smaller bands of kelpie warriors raid continue to raid and apply pressure where the leviathans are not.
It’s a very crafty response. It wouldn’t have worked a hundred years ago, we had legions of sea pony and deep pony soldiers then, but for an inexplicable reason, even as I press my generals to train more troops, they say that they have difficulty conscripting sea and deep ponies of the requisite age.
That’s not possible, we are no longer in the heyday of our Empire, but if I know my seaponies and deep ponies, they want to reproduce and continue their bloodlines. The war has been long, and destructive, but many communities still remain intact. I will investigate my generals and see what they must be hiding from me.