Decisions Decisions

Five years had passed, since Anon had made his fateful decision, and he couldn’t be happier. Having steeled his resolve and informed his friends of his choice, things had worked out surprisingly smoothly. Not a single one of his companions had abandoned him, taking his selection in stride. As time passed and the various students graduated, he kept in contact with everybody; it wasn’t that difficult either, considering most of them lived in or near Ponyville. Hell, Twilight had even decided to free Cozy Glow, although she was placed in the newly minted Friendship Gulag near the Crystal Empire.

Won over by her physical might and to the point attitude, Yona had been the obvious courtship choice for Anon. Upon hearing his decision she’d been thrilled, leading to a night of debauchery that literally rocked the foundations of the School of Friendship. The pair were inseparable for months on end, until the unthinkable happened. Shortly before graduation, the runtish yak left her human paramour for another.

Resentful and heartbroken, after the breakup, Anon was an inconsolable mess. His work suffered, his mood darkened considerably, and everycreature who knew him realized that something had broken in the man. Despite their best efforts, doing what they could to cheer him up or lighten his mood, nothing worked. Eventually, against Twilight’s wishes, he resigned and moved on.

Anon knew there was only one glimmer of hope, one possibility to fill the shaggy hole left in his sundered heart, so that’s what he sought out. Selling his meager belongings and setting out with a rucksack of his clothes, he hopped aboard a train to the Crystal Empire. The ride to the northern lands was long, but what followed was far more taxing.

After arriving at the land of crystalline equines, he continued his journey on foot. Out of the metropolis and into the frozen wastelands he trudged, single-mindedly stomping his way further away from everything he used to call home. With his lover gone, having traded him in for some painfully pedestrian pale pistachio pastel pony named Sandbar, he forsook his old life and everything in it.

For weeks he journeyed, slogging through snow, sleet, and driving winds. Finally, on the cusp of starvation, he reached his destination. Cresting a hill, he spied a series of small yurts in a valley below. Stopping for a moment and digging into his bag, he retrieved one of his most cherished possessions.

Boldly approaching the small settlement, with the horned helm atop his head, he made his grand entrance. Though he’d expected to get a decently warm reception, things had gone far, far better than he could have hoped. After receiving a steaming bowl of hearty stew, he was brought before none other than Prince Rutherford.

The regal bovid was more than sympathetic with the man, somberly nodding at Anon’s recounted tale of heartache and sorrow. Much to the man’s surprise, he was offered a furnished yurt, job, and all the yakly comforts his cloven hoofed brethren could afford. Pleased with the chance for a new beginning, he leapt at the opportunity.

Taking to his position like a sasquatch to snow, Anon poured his heart and soul into contributing for his herd. Days turned to weeks, weeks to months, and before he knew it, nearly half a decade had marched by. Unlike his tenure at the School of Friendship, his time with the Yaks changed him in body and mind.

The manual labor, harsh conditions, and gruff company molded him into a mountain of a man. Extraordinarily lean and positively covered with muscle, his physique wound up being not unlike the barbarians of old. Beyond his chiseled aesthetic, he’d gradually climbed the ranks among his quadrupedal kin.

After many years, Anon was granted his own splinter tribe of yaks to look after. As the bovid equivalent to a duke or baron, his position came with several benefits. Not only was his tent substantially larger than most and furnished with all sorts of finery, but he’d also accumulated a small harem of dri. Yes, the job of ruling over a small herd of ox had rewards, but it wasn’t all glitz and glamor.

Besides periodically having to supervise the nomadic movements of his people, he also had to defend them against the occasional raid from diamond dogs, the odd Maulwurf, and even a Winterzilla on one fateful night. It wasn’t long after founding his clan that he’d accumulated a number of scars and small trophies, though they weren’t his true prize - no, that title went to his progeny.

The young yaks he sired were unlike any the north-lands had ever seen; strong, extraordinarily cunning, and astonishingly healthy, each and every one was a testament to their species. Although he hadn’t planned on raising a family under such circumstances, Anon was an exceptional father. Stern but fair, loving, and protective of his young, he set an example of parenting few ox ever knew.

In time, word spread among Anon’s people of his exploits - of how the strange yak who walked on two legs was somehow destined to lead them to a bright new era. Regardless of the name he’d made for himself, he would have never anticipated that he’d be chosen as Prince Rutherford’s successor. It was with great grace and humility that he accepted the offer, being crowned as the high chief of the illustrious yak empire.

The last he’d heard of his long lost love, Yona, she’d settled down with her earth pony paramour and taken a job at the Carousel Boutique. As he’d aged, the pain of losing her dulled, though he didn’t think the scar in his heart would ever fully heal. He never reached back to her, not once, content to leave her to her own devices - besides, he had plenty to keep him occupied.

Between his technological know-how, experience as a leader, and diplomatic skills involving nearly every sapient species on the planet, he saw the legends to fruition. Yaks eventually came to be one of the dominant powers in all of Equestria, standing shoulder to shoulder with their distant equine kin. Songs were sung in his name, chronicling his adventures and herculean struggles against eldritch monsters, scheming villains, and vile seductresses; but those are stories for another time…