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Dear Diary,

Every creature, every race, in our world is special in some way. Unique in themselves and their culture. Some have endured great hardships and grown bitter and un-trusting. Others have endured the same, and grown together for it. Some live in ideal climates and view the world as a benevolent provider. Some live where the weather is harsh and uncontrolled, and view it as an adversary. Its not something you think about very often, but our environment says a lot about the creatures we become.

Ponies are one of the only species I know of that have three distinctly unique subgroups within them that all view the world in a different way. Equestria is not the same land to a Pegasus pony as it is to an Earth pony. But we share it. We’ve learned, over time, to get along. And about two years ago, give or take, we discovered there was a whole new world out there we were already in, and we’ve been learning to get along with that, too.
Whether or not Kelpies are actually a subsidy of the Pony race is still up for debate, but they’re the only other creature I know of to possess genuine cutiemarks, and we’ve always considered that to be a pony-exclusive feature. Even deer, who do possess fairly unique patterns on their flanks, don’t have them with the degree of clarity and distinct featuring we do. But cutie marks have been seen on kelpies that match our own, suggesting that whatever great pool those talents are pulled from is shared betwixt the two of us. As far as many ponies are concerned, that makes them long lost siblings. I, for one, am glad to have them back. As Kelantis turned for the open ocean to re-join the city of Kelopolis, many kelpies stayed behind, and many Equestrian ships followed it. Two thousand years of separation was long enough, I think. There’s no closing the door now.

Integration is going to take time. We ponies value trust, to an almost ignorant degree. We trust our Princesses to keep us safe, we trust our land to provide for us, and most importantly, we trust each other. The earth ponies and unicorns trust the pegasus ponies to move the weather around to keep the land watered. The unicorns and pegasus ponies trust the earth ponies to provide the food we all need. We all trust the unicorns to combat those foes outside the grasp of those of us without magic, and provide the services only magic can facilitate. We depend on one another as extensions of ourselves, and we’re rather used to it at this point.

Kelpies don’t do that.

‘Shouponi Benthis Dumoi’, Windswept once explained to me. Its inscribed on the royal crest of Kelantis and is etched, abbreviated as ‘shoo be doo’, on their currency.

'Trust the Sea’.

But the sea is not a thing to be trusted. It shelters and protects, and it crushes and destroys. It rages and storms and it is calm and placid and it provides no reason, warning or explanation for any of it. And they call it home. 'Shouponi’, or 'trust’, is the same word they use for 'be suspicious of’. To a kelpie, the very definition of trust is one that guarantees eventual betrayal. But they trust anyway, because they have to. That’s life. They just don’t trust the way that we do. They do it over their shoulder, with one fin behind their back. I think, in a way, that tiny little difference is going to be the biggest hurdle our two people have to overcome.

It might also be why our Princess and theirs have been at odds for so long.

Kelpies all possess a sort of magic that more closely matches Earth pony magic than anything else. Most pony magic (unicorns specifically) tends to be utilitarian in nature. If a unicorn knows a spell, they can perform it with reliable results again and again. But Earth ponies perform their magic through the land and their tools, following ancient traditions to draw the ground’s native power up from below, and recycle it back into itself up top. its like a cycle that earth ponies facilitate, and that movement of energy helps fuel growth, among other things.

Kelpies do much the same thing, but with the ocean. From what was explained to me, the ocean is not a static thing like the land is. it has fluctuating, unpredictable emotion, and physical drive. It has wants and needs and a peculiar sort of intelligence, and it cant be shaped and forced in the same way the land can. It has to be negotiated with. It has to be approached on its terms. In a way, it has to be convinced, or deceived, or coerced, or even begged, to perform. That mentality of use through manipulation has permeated the kelpie culture, and its one more thing we have to figure out how to live with. With kelpies, nothing is ever given for free. Tide rolls in, tide rolls out, that’s the way the ocean works. Its different than how we think.

When you look at all the things they hold in polar opposite to what we hold, its worth questioning if our coexistence is going to work at all. There are a lot of ponies out there who are nervous about the whole thing. I guess I cant say I blame them, really. But I think refusing to trust a kelpie just because it doesn’t view trust in the same way we do is setting a precedent for a bad situation. Because they DO trust. they just…trust like kelpies.

A long time ago, we learned that valuing something less because it isn’t the same way we do it was a recipe for disaster. Its a difficult lesson, and its been a long time since we’ve had to learn it again. But we’ve done it before.

I choose to believe we can do it again.

Upvotes at import: 7 | Stars at import: 5
Posted previously at: 2016-01-20T20:28:37 | Posted previously by: kleptomage