Entry 197
Today we had the largest execution of kelpie collaborators to date. Nearly a hundred seaponies and deep ponies were publicly executed in Aquamaris for collaborating with kelpies. And that was after the last execution of fifty only two months ago.
I don’t like executing my own subjects, but while in the past, many traitors have renounced their sudden sympathies for kelpies, the traitors now are a different breed. They’re thoroughly insane, supporting kelpies because they think I’m a tyrant.
Maybe I am, but they want to end the war so badly they believe that the kelpies actually can find a cure for their condition. They cannot. I’ve tried as had the brightest minds of Aquestria and we’ve attempted far more drastic and wicked experiments than the kelpies could ever attempt. The problem with the kelpies is not physical, it’s a purely magical one and tied to their very creation. Don’t they think that I want my son Typhon to live among them?
I fed him some of the traitors that wanted his mother dead. They were drugged so as not to struggle and that made me feel better. Let them believe what they will when they’re eaten by the beings they want to protect.
Entry 198
The executions aren’t working. The crowds for them have continued to dwindle and despite the rationale, the fear, the enforcement measures I’ve introduced, dissent is greater than ever. I’ve lost contact with many of the settlements on the periphery of Aquestria. Many of these were hardest hit by the pollution from the surface world.
I understand their frustration, but the surface world is… not safe. If the prophecies are true, Nightmare Moon is returning soon. Aquestria cannot reveal itself to the surface world lest risk her mad attention. That and the peace that has so long gripped the surface world seems to be ending. There are… whispers from the few scouts I have on the surface. Of ponies and changelings in discord, of pony and griffon tensions. We best remain out of that mess.
Entry 199
Typhon wants to know more about what’s going on outside the palace walls. He says he’s been hearing things about how bad it is.
I… I do need to start to teach him how to rule. He is a kelpie, but they can disguise themselves. I’ll have to let him go out with a few trusted advisors. He does need to know what we are facing, and how dangerous everything has become.
I’ve lost contact with many of the towns and cities on the outer edges of Aquamaris. Some battalions of seaponies and deep ponies are even deserting to the kelpies. Maybe they just don’t want to be eaten first.
It’s a good thing that the surface world in general hasn’t heard of the conflict below the waves. I’ve heard some seaponies that the kelpies have recruited trying to make for Venecia to draw that fake Celestia’s attention. Thank the Creator that we managed to intercept them and kill them before they’ve done so.
Entry 200
Typhon and I… we’re arguing, Let’s go with that.
Over the past year, as he’s been learning how to rule, how things are he keeps questioning why things have to be this way.
“Mother, why do we have to fight the kelpies?”
“Mom, why do we have to conscript so many seaponies and deep ponies?”
“Mother, why do we need to kill these collaborators so… brutally?”
“Mother, why do we have to be so cruel?”
Because if we don’t we’ll lose. We are already losing the war and if we let up Aquestria will crumble. Does my son think that just because he’s a kelpie, Tethys won’t force him to submit to her? He might still be alive but he’d be forced to submit to someone made by the Old Gods.
It always comes back to these questions, and always to why we are fighting this war. We are fighting this war for no other reason than to preserve our species and the seas.
The thing is, though, I can’t figure out how to answer him when he tells me that this war is killing our species.