The day began as it always began: Muddily.

Lucky Clover strained against the plow that had been attached to him. The harness was needlessly heavy and actually bolted around his shoulders, ensuring that no one but his mistress would be able to take it off. His hands, too, were tied to it, stretched out across a crude wooden yoke. A metal bit in his mouth was strung tight to either side, preventing him from looking too far in any direction. His hooves slipped on the dew-covered soil, straining to find purchase. Although the day had just begun, his back and neck were painfully stiff. But still he trudged on, dragging his heavy burden through the ground behind him, as was only fitting for someone of his class.

The field seemed to stretch on forever, as it had the day before, and the day before that, and the month before that. All told, Lucky had been plowing fields for four months, moving from one to the next without a break in between. He worked mornings, afternoons, and, if Mistress Applejack had "forgotten" to untie him, nights as well. The work was slow; while he wasn't a small stallion, he wasn't a large one either, and his staggering pace before a tool too big for him meant that he would never finish before the next harvest was complete and the first half of his work would have to be done again. Was this fair? Undoubtedly not. But this was the nature of life under Mistress Applejack, who had always taken a particular dislike to him, perhaps because he was one of the few stallions under her direct care who still steadfastly wore a black collar.

The collar was both a sore point and a point of pride for Lucky. He hated having to wear it; by design it was too heavy and just slightly too tight, worsening his struggle with the harness with every step. More painful, though, was what it represented: A black collar marked him as guilty of the cardinal sin of lusting after females.

It wasn't as though he'd had much luck with mares before the Reign. In his old life he'd been Ponyville's resident food critic, supplementing his communal farm work with weekly articles for the town paper. He was generally liked, though some were naturally suspicious of him, and he was mostly content to fade into the background haze of society. He'd dated occasionally; who hadn't? In a town where mares outnumbered stallions by a noticeable margin, it wasn't uncommon for a particularly handsome specimen to court three or four dates at once. Not that Lucky was a particularly handsome specimen. A professional interest in food had given him a paunchiness that he'd never had the motivation to work off, and a well-practiced half-cocked smile couldn't hide the plainness written into his genetics. On top of that, the mares of Ponyville were hard to please, varying between the flighty, girlish ones eternally dreaming of that one grand romantic gesture, and the frighteningly down-to-earth farm girls who were all too eager to settle down and start pumping out babies. True to his name, Lucky had occasionally had some successes, but had never made any true connections. This was fine, though. It was just the way things were.

That had been a year ago, or maybe a little less. And then the caribou arrived.

The Reign hadn't begun in a way anyone would have suspected. They hadn't come as conquerors, or enslavers, or as a threat of any kind. They came as refugees, a group of a hundred or so half-starved females who washed up on Equestria's shores, begging for mercy. In a collection of tales of daring exploits, they explained that they had escaped from the tyranny of their icy homeland, a place ruled by a wicked king who treated all females as slaves. They had been beaten and broken, with their antlers cut and their bodies degraded into mere sex objects, existing only for the pleasures of males. It was only thanks to the bravery of their leader, Queen Glacia, that so many had escaped their grasp - but so many more had had to be left behind.

Nopony could believe it at first, that such terrible cruelty could exist. But as the caribou traveled from town to town, showing off their wounds and telling their stories, there could be no doubt that what they said was the truth. Each one of them had a story, each more horrifying than the last, of how they had been raped, abused, and turned into little more than pets for their unspeakably cruel masters. They had been forced to choose between having their bodies broken or their minds, and instead of uniting against the males who controlled them, they were encouraged to hate and fear those who had chosen differently. They described being force-fed nothing but semen for days on end, being trussed up and passed around at orgies while the men used them as furniture, the nightmarish harvesting machines that raped and tortured their users while they worked. For their whole lives none of them had ever known kindness, warmth or compassion, except from the mercy of Queen Glacia, the lone caribou mare (cows, they were called) who had had the courage to escape and unite them all against their oppressors.

There were none who heard these stories who were not affected by them. As one, ponies from coast to coast embraced these survivors and swore that such cruelty would never grace the shores of Equestria. The caribou were grateful, but wherever they went, they left one final, lasting warning: The curse of the icy king was spreading. Wherever his touch fell, males, even ones who had lived in harmony with females all their lives, would betray the females of their homelands and force caribou law onto them. On their travels they had seen a hunting party enslave an island of horses near their coast; they had watched the men cry out as the women were rounded up, stripped, and tied in presenting postures across the length of a rocky beach. But then the caribou had stepped back, and their leader had spread his arms welcomingly, and he told them that they were granted absolute dominion over the flesh of their women as long as they submitted to caribou rule. The horsemen did not even hesitate. They ran to the women of their home, beloved friends and sisters and wives, and raped them like animals until none of their victims had even the strength to scream. Beware your men, the refugees concluded, locking eyes with every mare they saw. Because if they are granted even the promise of power, they will betray you and make you their slaves.

What followed was a period of unease. For days after the caribou left every husband and boyfriend found himself denying dark thoughts at every turn, reassuring every mare he knew that the idea of rape held absolutely no appeal to him. But over time, this faded. Queen Glacia was made an honorary Princess of Equestria and taken into Celestia and Luna's counsel, and in a joint speech about Equestria's inspirational love and trust between mares and stallions, the fears of the nation were put to rest. Or so, for a time, it seemed.

The changes over the next few months were subtle, only noticeable on quiet reflection. For Lucky Clover, life went on mostly unchanged, following the same schedule of work and occasional socializing. But every so often, when they thought he wasn't looking, Lucky would catch mares giving him strange, furtive glances out of the corners of their eyes. Even after the time of unease had passed, these strange looks continued; whether they were strangers who'd never given him a second glance on the street or ponies whom he'd worked beside for years, the women in his life suddenly seemed strangely aware of him, like he was no longer just another person but a strange other that had wandered into their midst. These looks mostly worried him, though he thought, though he couldn't be sure, that he once caught a mare staring at him and licking her lips.

The other change, which took longer to manifest, was that Lucky started to get laid. A lot. He couldn't say exactly where it began. In the same way as those surrounding him, since hearing the caribou's stories he found himself strangely more aware of the bodies of the mares he spoke to. Flashes of cleavage and midriff caught his eye with strange ease; he wasn't sure if he'd never noticed them before, or if skin-baring clothes were suddenly in fashion. Everywhere he looked he saw toned bodies and flirting smiles, tits straining against tight clothes and tails swishing teasingly in front of tight asses. Apparently, this revelation was all it took. Where once he'd struggled to get a third date, suddenly it seemed that he was taking mares home after a second or even a first night out. It never lasted, but it didn't need to; picking up mares was easy. Lucky's confidence skyrocketed. He started working out again, allowing himself more and more fantasies. Life was on the up and up.

The atmosphere at the office changed. Without meaning to, Lucky caught himself staring at his editor's ass whenever she walked past his desk. By the third day she started to notice, and by the end of the week he was exploring it much more thoroughly on the floor of her office. When the girl who delivered their paper supplies showed up, he casually mentioned that she looked cute in her uniform. One date later, he had the opportunity to use the line that she looked even better out of it. When chatting with the mare at the flower stall outside at lunch, as he had most days for the past three years, he found himself drawn to staring at her plump, grinning lips, red-flecked from snacking on roses. Not minutes later, those lips were wrapped around his cock in a dark alley. He hadn't even had to ask. It just seemed on the table that sex was always on his mind, and virtually any mare he came across was more than happy to oblige him. Thank Celestia for the caribou, Lucky thought, blowing his load down Roseluck's moist, quivering throat.

And so life went on, hotter and stickier than usual. By the end of three months Lucky had slept with nearly half the unmarried staff of the Ponyville Daily, while the other half, so gossip told, was hanging on to Four Sides, his only male coworker. And amidst this atmosphere of lust and communal banging, certain rumours which would normally have dominated the newsroom - of the disappearances in the Crystal Empire, the whispers of male lawmakers fleeing Canterlot in a panic, the hours-long one-on-one meetings between Queen Glacia and the other four Princesses - all slipped quietly under the radar.

No one saw the news coming. No one could have fathomed what was going on until Princess Cadance came forward and made her speech. "Shining Armour beats me," she said. She stood teary-eyed at a podium in Canterlot, addressing a crowd of hundreds of nobles. She looked drawn and sunken, her ceremonial robe thrown back to reveal the bruises and burns on her arms. Queen Glacia stood behind her, resting a broad hand comfortingly on her shoulder. "Every night, he ties me down and rapes me. It's been this way ever since my wedding night. During the day he says he loves me, but at night he hits me, he calls me names... he makes me feel like I'm nothing but a whore to him. I've been using magic to hide my injuries. I thought that as long as I could pretend... everything would be okay. When I got pregnant, I thought that he would treat me more gently. But he didn't. He kept raping me, harder and harder. Until one night, he abused me so hard... I had a miscarriage. He killed my baby." She shook and screamed. "He killed my baby!"

Thanks to a convenient placement of desks at the news office, Lucky was able to get glimpses of which articles were released to the public in the days after the news broke and which ones the editor or the mayor quietly took out of circulation. Twilight Sparkle's public condemnation of her brother made the front page. Shining Armour's public denial of any wrongdoing never made it past the editor's desk. Furious editorials with lots of capital letters were fed to the reading audience day after day; reports of corruption and unusual behavior among the Crystal Guards were not. And once again, the looks that Lucky found himself receiving changed, just slightly.

The story of Shining Armour's execution was well publicized. The former captain was brought to Canterlot in chains, beaten and bruised from the harshness of his journey. Yet all the while, he never stopped proclaiming his innocence. "You were the one who told me to tie you up," he said to Cadance in front of the court, trying to lock eyes with her. She refused to meet his gaze. "I never did anything to you that you didn't ask me to. I even asked you if you were sure this was what you wanted. You told me to be rough with you. You begged me." His eyes brimmed with tears. "Why didn't you tell me you were pregnant?"

But when Queen Glacia stood between them, his tune changed. "You bitch!" he screamed at her, composure gone. "You lying bitch, you poisoned her! You poisoned her against me! Let me talk to her! She begged me to do it, you bitch! She begged me!"

Queen Glacia approached him, her arms folded. By all accounts, she was an imposing sight: thick-coated and wide-muzzled, covered in unsightly scars and muscles, easily as tall as Celestia if you counted her antlers. "I was once told that I was begging for it," she growled, her accent thick and blood-curdling. Then with two kicks of her powerful hooves, she ended Shining Armour's life: one to knock him flat on his back, the other to crush his skull against the tiles. That was the moment when the Reign began. It would just be a long time before anyone admitted it.

The specifics of the next two months were lost in gossip and hearsay. Queen Glacia was cleared of any wrongdoing, and her closeness with the four pony princesses only grew. There were tales of more stallions being accused of rape, some in relationships that had gone on for years, and more public executions. Suspicion crept in around everyone. Suddenly, it seemed rare to see a smile on a mare's face, at least when a stallion was in the room. Sensing the way the wind was blowing, Lucky decided to give up dating for a while, at least until this mistrust blew over. Other stallions were starting to complain about their mares going frigid in bed, and he'd seen more than one female coworker turn up at the paper office in last night's makeup and tears. For reasons no one fully understood, autumn fell early that year.

Roseluck still took him into the alley behind her stall every day at lunch. They barely needed to exchange words any more; as soon as he appeared she would stand up and trot back into the shadows, calling him after her with a swish of her tail. By the time he followed her she would already be waiting on her knees. Over time her movements became more jerky, and then more diminished, until it felt more like he was simply fucking her face than her doing anything to him. As if to compensate, she started hitching up her shirt to show her breasts and wearing thicker and sluttier makeup, leaving red smears around Lucky's cock.

She didn't smile often. Lucky began to contemplate telling her that they didn't need to do this any more, but every time he tried to broach the subject she immediately dropped back to her knees for a second round. And, well, one simply doesn't say no to a mare licking desperately at your crotch. It was during one of these double sessions that, in a not well thought out act of conscience, Lucky tried to pull out to avoid coming down her throat, instead accidentally blowing his load across her face. Roseluck instantly burst into tears and ran out of the alley, uncovered breasts bouncing and cum dripping from her nose. The next day her friend Daisy covered her shift, shooting Lucky looks of intense hatred. He never got an opportunity to meet her there again to apologize, because that afternoon Lucky lost his job.

The editor called him and Four Sides into her office. She wasn't alone; practically a small army of mares was standing behind her with their arms folded. "It's not because of anything you've done," she said, fidgeting uncomfortably in her chair. "We... I just feel that your continued presence is creating a tense work environment for everyone here. It would probably be for the best if the two of you just left quietly."

"That's insane," Lucky protested. "Sides and I have worked here for years. You can't just let us go without notice." He reached across the desk. "Quill, you know we're good guys. If we're causing a disturbance, I can work from home, and we could just meet privately once or twice a w-"

She leaped back and upright like his touch was poison. Her cheeks were flushed and her tail was raised and quivering. "Get out," she said. "I don't want to see you hanging around this building any more. Just get out!" she shrieked over his protests, pointing a firm finger towards the door.

Lucky kept grumbling as he packed up his desk. "This isn't fair," he muttered. "It's illegal. We haven't done anything wrong. It's not right."

"Let it go, man." Four Sides patted his arm. "I don't know about you, but I've fucked half the mares in that room. I should have been let go weeks ago. Let them have their way for now. They'll realize they miss us soon."

That was the end of that. Unemployment wasn't an issue; it was always the rule in Ponyville that there was work to be found out in the fields. It couldn't escape notice that there were a lot more stallions jockeying for positions on the farms, though. Lucky's food column was replaced with a female "sex specialist" named Tender Buttons who spent her first article condemning stallions in the workplace. If he'd still been at the office, Lucky would have complained. Lucky for her there were only mares there now.

The incidence of rape was on the rise. This wasn't just speculation. On the way home one evening Lucky came across a stallion trying to tear the clothes off a teenager in a dark street. With one swift punch to the back the stranger fled; the young mare shakingly pulled aside her ripped leggings and offered to repay him with her pussy. Well, he couldn't say no to that. Incidents such as these caught the eye of the public on a regular basis, and they definitely caught the eye of Tender Buttons, who week after week demanded justice.

By Celestia's decree (in which she gave thanks to the input of Queen Glacia) a committee was formed, appointing a group of six Masters and Mistresses to each town and city to ensure the safe and fair treatment of all citizens, male or female. Promises were made that all complaints would be listened to, and any fears or disturbances would be put to rest. Of course, it was only natural that in Ponyville all six members of the Equality Committee should be female; they were the Elements of Harmony, most trusted of all ponies to bring peace. And in Manehattan, all the male members of the existing Ethics Board had independently resigned in the weeks prior, so naturally they ended up with all Mistresses as well. And in Cloudsdale, well, no stallion had won an elected position there in close to a century. In fact, from coast to coast, no one had actually heard of there being a Master on any Equality Committee, but of course there was no census and everyone knew that the members were chosen fairly. There was no reason to complain.

In fact, initially everything went extremely well. The mandatory hiring of more female guards was universally agreed to be a good idea. The revamping of the sexual education system was long overdue. Mares were encouraged to form friendship groups and stick together at all times, which generally increased happiness and safety. (No mention was made of stallions, as "I've never heard a stallion complain about being alone.") Public spaces were made safer, friendlier, and more accessible to all. What Lucky did find reason to complain about was the collars.

"Don't think of it as an accusation," Twilight Sparkle said. She sat in Lucky's front room with a cup of tea, casually attired except for her crown. He'd heard reports of her and her friends going door to door, but was only now finding out why. She and Applejack were the only ones who walked alone, which made sense; no stallion would dare touch a mare who could kill them with her bare hands or horn. Her dragon Spike sat on the floor beside her and thumbed through a comic book, his own white collar proudly displayed around his throat.

"Well, it sure feels like an accusation," Lucky grumbled. "Why don't you just call me a rapist to my face?" The collar he turned over and over in his hands was black, stiff and starched and faintly buzzing. He suspected that it was enchanted.

"Lucky, no one is calling anyone a rapist," Twilight Sparkle said. He suspected that she'd been giving this speech a lot, and had it down to a science. "It's just a matter of public safety. Everyone knows that not all stallions are rapists, and it would be crazy to say that they are, but if you look at the numbers, you have to admit that the vast majority of rapists are stallions. Statistically, any stallion you meet might be a rapist, and for most mares there's no way of telling until it's too late. All we're trying to do is slowly, by process of elimination, let mares know who they can feel safe to be around."

"I don't see what the big deal is," Spike added without looking up. "Even Mr. Cake's wearing one. If you're not a bad guy, what's the problem?"

"It's a problem because if I put this on, every mare I meet is going to start looking at me like I'm a potential rapist," Lucky snapped.

A look of something approaching fury flashed across Princess Twilight's face, but she bit her tongue and held it in. "If it helps," she said instead, "I'm not supposed to tell you this, but I know some mares who like the idea of the black ribbons. They say it'll make it a lot easier to approach stallions if they know they'll be interested and aren't gay or asexual. Maybe if you think of it as a 'healthy sexual appetite' ribbon, it'll make it easier. You might even start to feel proud of it."

"Maybe." Lucky turned it over in his hands again. It didn't feel like a ribbon. He couldn't think of any other word for it than collar. "I guess I still just don't understand why this is necessary."

Princess Twilight looked away. "Of course you don't," she said quietly. "You're a stallion. You can't possibly understand." She brightened up and smiled at him again. "This program's seen a lot of success in the Crystal Empire already. With just one small reminder, sexual assaults are down to almost nothing, and there haven't been any complaints about stallions being treated differently. If it's the black one that worries you, I can test to see if you qualify for another color. But for that I would have to scan your memories for sexual experience and urges, and I would need your permission for that."

He definitely wasn't going to let that happen, since within seconds of her walking in he'd had a fantasy about kissing and sliding his cock between those small, perky breasts of hers, so he relented and closed the collar around his neck. It sealed itself with a hiss unlike any magic he'd ever heard. "It's a little tight," he noted, tugging at the edge of it. "Do I need to take it off when I shower?"

"You don't take it off at all. It's sealed with caribou runic magic. Only a mare can unfasten it." Twilight stood up. "Thank you for your time. If you have any comments about the program you can write to the committee, or my door is always open."

Lucky stood as well. "One question before you go," he said as she moved away. "Will there be a program like this for mares as well? It would make me feel a lot more comfortable about this."

Twilight paused in front of the door. "We'll see," she said guardedly. Then she and Spike left.

Ten minutes later, there was an outraged roar from somewhere nearby, swiftly cut off. Lucky and several others ran into the street to see Princess Twilight emerge from Crafty Crate's house with the massive stallion being dragged behind her in a magic bubble. "What happened?" Lucky's neighbor Rays asked, echoing everyone's thoughts.

Twilight Sparkle bit her lip thoughtfully. "I don't understand," she said, mostly to herself. "Everyone I scan tests out purple."

Lucky never got to see firsthand how the collars worked out. When he arrived at his usual place at Sweet Apple Acres the next day, he and the other farmhands were met by Mistress Applejack as well as one of Ponyville's resident caribou. Many of the caribou had taken on Equestrian names after they landed, or what they believed were Equestrian names; this particular cow, who was more or less their representative in Ponyville, was known as Symmetry. It was perhaps meant to be ironic. Her left antler had been carved down to a rounded stump, leaving her head perpetually lopsided, and her face was misshapen from too many beatings.

From the neck down, however, she was a thing of absolute beauty. Caribou had a fondness for flowing, revealing clothes (some because they still feared punishment if they tried to cover up, but most because they found Equestria's climate unbearably hot) and Symmetry was no exception. Her white robes barely covered up a chocolate brown hourglass figure that flowed and jiggled with the slightest movement, a body that had worked night and day to sculpt itself into the perfect fuck toy for males. She stood unflinching under the gazes of the two dozen stallions who stood before her, the hunger in their eyes evident with or without their black collars. She folded her arms defiantly in front of her, lifting up her breasts a little. It was hard to know if it was intentional.

Applejack cleared her throat, tying to get all eyes back on her. "'Fraid there's been a change of plans," she said. "Y'all are being redistributed around Ponyville. There've been a lot of stallions changing jobs lately-"

"Getting replaced by mares, more like!" a stallion yelled from the back, to a low grumble of agreement.

Applejack ignored him. "-and it's gettin' harder to find places for y'all. Until the situation changes, each of you'll be gettin' a chit tellin' you where you'll be workin'."

This was met by a grumble of inverse tone to the previous grumble. "But I've been doing this same job for six years!" one stallion complained.

"This ain't about any one of us," Applejack said. "It's about workin' as a team. From now on, you're not workin' for me, you're workin' for all of Ponyville. I ain't your boss any more. We all are."

A mare, the only one in the group, raised her hand. "Um... does this apply to me as well?"

Applejack checked her clipboard. "Um... no. You're free to work wherever you like."

No more grumbles, just cries of outrage. "How is that fair?" one stallion yelled, speaking for everyone. "If this is a team effort, why does she get to do whatever she wants?"

Symmetry spat. "Because your mares can work together without needing to be organized like cattle."

Absolute silence met this. Applejack broke it with a sigh. "Look, I don't make the rules," she said. "But we all have to do our part. Sugarcube, what's your name?"

The mare smiled bravely. "Lemon Cake."

"And what were you hopin' to do?"

"Well..." She looked around nervously. "I've always wanted to try my hand at pulling carts. I know it's usually the stallions who do that, but it looks so relaxing, and-"

"Oh, come on!" the stallion from before yelled. "She can't do that! She's a mare!"

The crowd parted. Applejack glared daggers at the stallion who'd spoken. "Care to rephrase that, partner?"

"I mean-"

"'Cause it sounded like you just said that it was you, not me, who gets to decide who can and can not do such and such job based on whether you got shriveled meatballs hangin' between your legs."

"It's because-"

"You know what we do to stallions like that round here, partner?"

"I said- LOOK AT HER!" the stallion exploded angrily, pointing. "It's not because she's a mare, it's because she's LITERALLY HALF MY SIZE. No mare's ever been able to do my job. You think that's going to change just because this prissy little bitch wants to..."

Applejack was already walking toward him. He stammered to a halt as she put her clipboard under her arm and rolled up her sleeve. "I swear, I didn't mean to say that, it just slipped out-"

He wasn't finished when she slugged him across the jaw. He dropped like a sack of potatoes and lay still, either unconscious or wisely doing a good job of faking it. Applejack snorted. She took Lemon Cake, who was now shaking, by the arm. "Don't let him bother you none, sugar. We'll get you kitted out and see how it works out. Symmetry, pass these chits out, alright?" She handed the caribou her clipboard on her way out to the field, not without another dirty look at the stallions behind her. "And if any of these give you any trouble, just give a yell and I'll come runnin'."

A line was formed, which, as Symmetry was still leaning to read, proceeded slowly. The stallion on the ground was left where he was. Lucky waited in line patiently; there didn't seem to be anything else he could do. He wasn't anticipating trouble, but he kept an eye on the nearest path to the exit, just in case. For some reason, being surrounded by fellow black collar stallions was unnerving him. The mumbled remarks of the stallion behind him weren't helping.

"Fuck, that bitch needs a good lay."

Lucky kept his eyes forward. Don't want to start trouble, he told himself, then became almost panicked in the repetition of it. The grumblings continued. "She's fucking tense. Isn't right. Needs a hard ride to mellow her out. Fucking cocktease. She wouldn't be such a bitch to work for if she took a cock once in a while instead of just talking about them."

Another voice, slightly further back, joined in. "I know, right? Can you believe all the Mistresses are single? We're living in a town of prime real estate."

"Fuck, really? That explains a lot. They're making us wear these fucking collars because they're all completely cock-starved."

"I hear Mistress Twilight Sparkle's a virgin."

"Not for long, I hope. Fuck, I hope she starts wearing those caribou robes. They're catching on."

"I saw Mistress Rarity modeling one at her show last night. Almost totally see-through."

"Sweet. See, this is why I don't get what the caribou are complaining about. The cows are constantly talking about how they hate fucking, but they're walking around all the time looking like that. No one dresses like that who doesn't want it."

"I think I'll try talking to her when she's done here. Maybe she sings a different tune when she's alone."

"Yeah man, go for it. You'll have to take her from behind though, right?"

"Obviously."

"My man. Hey, you know the real reason she's called Symmetry?"

"It's not her horns?"

"No. Listen, her owner used to-"

The desire to turn around and copy Applejack was tempered by curiosity just long enough for the issue to resolve itself. They took a step closer, Symmetry's ears twitched, and the chatterboxes shut up.

A minute later, they were at the front of the line. "Lucky Clover," Lucky said, keeping his eyes level and maintaining a respectful distance. Symmetry nodded vacantly and gave him his chit, which he wordlessly accepted and moved away. He looked it over. He'd been chosen for "general work" at the Carousel Boutique, which was unexpected, but not necessarily bad. Learning some needlework would probably be more interesting than picking apples. (Plus, he grudgingly admitted, seeing Rarity trying on a caribou robe did sound pretty hot.) He almost started walking again when the line at the bottom caught his eye. "Wait. Accommodations provided?"

"Hm?" Symmetry looked up at him. "Oh, ya. You will live there now. All taken care of."

More stallions checked and double-checked their forms. "I can't live there," one protested. "Who'll feed my cat?"

"I can't move my family!" complained another.

"All taken care of." Symmetry waved them along. "Shoo shoo. Go make work."

So Lucky set off on the last free walk of his life. When he looked back on this, he tried to recall the taste of the air, the smell of foods, the happy sights and sounds that he passed. But it was futile; he'd spent the entire trip fussing with his collar. When he arrived at the Carousel Boutique, there was no hesitation, no feeling that he was crossing a great threshold in his life. He just walked up to the door and knocked.

So began his new life. It was there that he got his first taste of what had truly become of the world, there that he learned what it was to be used, abused, and ultimately abandoned, left mostly forgotten in what had swiftly become his own personal hell. And when he was finally transferred back to the farm more than three months later, when he emerged blinking into the light of the new world for the first time, he finally understood how much and how fast Equestria had changed.

Any recollection stopped there, by force if necessary. Regardless of how much he liked to distract himself from the muscle-straining monotony of his new day job, that particular period of his life was one that he was trying to erase. The only good thing about his time in the Boutique, he reckoned, was that it had kept him indoors during the winter months. Those who'd had their way and stayed at the farm hadn't been so lucky.

Well... one of two good things. But he wasn't sure whether to count the other. Thinking about her was another kind of ache that he wasn't sure how to classify.

If he'd been granted the luxury of a mirror, Lucky would have hardly recognized himself - not that that was necessarily a bad thing. Sure, his grey coat didn't exactly shine any more, and his mane had grown long while his tail had been cropped hideously short, but months of labor far harder than he had been built for had burned his body into the best shape of his life. Any body fat had been drained into much-needed energy during the first few weeks, leaving a solid, toned torso behind. His shoulders and legs had thickened, while his hands and forearms, which he seldom had any use for, had remained soft and lean. Aside from his heavy harness and collar, all that he was permitted to wear was a tight black thong that left nothing to the imagination, outlining his ample package against his body. While he could never match the ruggedness of those naturally built this way, his labors had made him as tough and strong as his body type was prepared to get, and that, at least, he could take some comfort in. Plus, although he had no means of confirming this for himself, he had been reliably informed that he had a fantastic ass.

"You have a fantastic ass," Caramel informed him.

Lucky rolled his eyes upward and kept pulling. Caramel strolled leisurely behind him. He was a red collar, a gay stallion with no interest in mares, with a special gold star attached to his indicating that he'd been openly gay before the Reign and hadn't had to be converted. As a Mistress, Applejack had more than her share of red collar workers, as they were generally considered safer and easier to work with than the potentially deadly blacks. Gold star reds had a lot of privileges that most stallions could only dream of, like sleeping in actual beds, eating cooked meals with their owners, and not being treated with hatred and suspicion by everyone they met. He had also, mercifully, been granted the luxury of a full set of red boxer shorts.

Caramel wasn't a unique case, but it was easy to wish he was one. He'd been Lucky's "partner" for the past three months of his four-month plowing spree, rising much later in the day and leisurely planting seeds in the freshly tilled dirt, all the while watching Lucky and no doubt thinking about planting his seeds. "I mean look at that," he continued, putting too much inflection on all his words. "Round, toned, perfectly moving, all the while looking like you're sculpted out of butter. It looks like I could sink into that and break rocks on it. You must be proud of that couple of handfuls. What is your secret? Is it the harness? You know, sometimes I wish I was where you are. Kidding!"

Lucky just kept moving. Trussed up as he was, he couldn't exactly shut his partner up, and doing so definitely wouldn't end well for him. He couldn't remember Caramel being this camp before the Reign. "Shut up," he grunted carefully around the bit in his mouth.

"I'm just saying, every minute that ass isn't being enjoyed is a minute all the progress of Equestria is going to waste."

He could hear Caramel getting closer. "Still straight, Caramel."

"You're sure? Completely? All that training hasn't paid off?" The red collar leaped onto the plow, snapping them both to a halt. His hot breath tickled Lucky's ear. "Wouldn't you prefer if I was the one doing some plowing for a change?"

"Get off!" Lucky shook wildly and lurched forward, managing to unsettle Caramel. "I'm more trouble than I'm worth and you know it."

Caramel backed off, sulking. "Oh, you'll come around eventually," he said, masking disappointment. "Everyone does, these days. I just want you to know you're too fine to be wasted." He turned and waved to the edge of the field. "Hey, ladies! Can we get an ow ow for that ass?"

"Ow ow!" a cluster of mares nearby cheered back. Lucky had been ignoring them, as well. The "relaxation spots" along the edges of the fields were ostensibly exactly that, but the mares who occupied the benches and beach chairs weren't subtle about ogling the heavy workers at all hours of the day. He'd even caught some of them masturbating while gaping at him, or undressing and toying with themselves to try to get a reaction from him. This was the main reason he'd learned to tune them out. The thong he wore meant that any sign of arousal would be instantly visible, as well as making it painfully tight. The constant rubbing of the silky material, pleasurable but preventing him from growing any larger, was almost as bad as being pelted by jeers and rotten fruits from mares as he desperately tried to think unsexy thoughts to make his semi soften again.

If he'd been on his own, the work might have been almost bearable. But Caramel was constantly there, with his eyes constantly fixed on him, constantly reminding him of how vulnerable he was. It was only luck that he'd landed a gold star; a regular red collar would have raped him by the end of the first week. But one of these days he would slip and break something, or fall face-first and be too tired to get back up, or Caramel would simply get bored of waiting... and for all his gesturing, he knew what would happen to him if he tried to fight back.

The tense monotony of this particular day was broken when a familiar voice washed over from the relaxation spot. "Alright ladies, git. You're creepin' out Apple Bloom."

A chorus of giggles cleared off from the spot, and two sets of footsteps came closer. Lucky carefully kept up his pace until Caramel yanked on the back of his harness, drawing them to a halt again. He tried to keep his eyes forward - he knew he wasn't supposed to stare - but curiosity took him; he'd never seen Apple Bloom since before the Reign. Subtly, straining against the bit, he twisted his torso and looked to the side.

To his profound relief, Apple Bloom looked normal. She was still only around ten or eleven and was staring back at him with nothing but childlike curiosity, none of the fear or lust that older mares looked at him with. She was still wearing the same old shirt and overalls, with the same pink bow propped up on her head. Looking at her, he could forget just for a moment that the Reign had ever happened. But it wouldn't be long before her body would start changing, and she'd get swept up in all of this as well. He wondered what kind of education the fillies her age were receiving. He didn't dare think about how their former male classmates were being treated.

Applejack was another story.

"Caramel, you're comin' with us," she said, standing jauntily with her hip cocked out. "My sister and I need massages." This was not the same Applejack who'd decked a stallion twice her size on the day the Reign began. The only article of clothing she'd kept from that period was her hat. Her top could barely be called that; she wore a caribou-inspired band of silk that wrapped around her torso, pressing her bountiful breasts against her body and not covering much more than her nipples. Her mane was unbraided and fell long against her back, and her unshorn tail nearly touched the ground. What had once been practical jeans had been ripped up into booty shorts, a truncheon dangling from the belt loops and something even worse bulging in the other pocket. This last article of clothing strained against the mounds it contained, threatening to rip even further. Lucky silently egged it on.

It seemed traitorous to even consider the thought, but the Reign had not been easy for Applejack. Reportedly, in the early days of the Reign she'd been one of the easiest Mistresses to work for, as no matter what orders came from on high she still believed in equal and honest work. But she wasn't working with her usual friends and relatives any more; she'd spent her time trying to order around grouchy, uncooperative black collar stallions who would rather leer at her than pitch in and help. When she was frustrated she used to vent by kicking trees, but whenever Symmetry caught her doing farm work she'd immediately order a new shipment of stallions to help, as "You must be understaffed if you must lower yourself to doing filthy grunt work." It was one of these transfers that had gotten Lucky taken out of the Carousel Boutique, which, while it had seemed like a blessing at the time, meant that he'd been the one who'd borne most of the brunt of Applejack's downfall.

Week by week, the sympathy had drained out of Applejack. A farm girl who was now no longer allowed to do her own chores, she spent most of her time doing paperwork or wandering restlessly, lashing out at anyone who wasn't fully pulling their weight - and Celestia help them if that stallion also happened to be a black collar. Every time she left for a meeting with Symmetry or the Equality Committee, she came back a little bit angrier and a little bit quicker to whip out her truncheon. Just for the sake of getting herself out of the house, she'd found ways of creating inefficient and unnecessary work that would need supervising - such as, for instance, assigning a single stallion of only average size to plow the entirety of Sweet Apple Acres all by himself.

But despite her efforts, the time inevitably came when Applejack had to spend most of her day sitting down. And oh, did it show. In part due to her inactivity as well as the caribou diet craze that was sweeping Equestria (supplemented, of course, by delicious, nutritious apples) Applejack had put on weight, filling out in all the right places. She'd gone up a full cup size in the first month of Lucky's tenure while her stomach had remained toned, if soft. But by far the biggest change was her ass. An already ample butt had ballooned under the sudden daily weight of her body into two bouncing flesh pillows that were the envy of the entire farm. Applejack was less glad of it; her aching back and the jiggle of her body with every step was just another reminder of what the Reign had taken from her. And so her temper had grown shorter and her ass had grown larger, and there wasn't a straight stallion on the farm who hadn't spent his nights dreaming about riding that booty every which way.

In short, Lucky had heard of an apple bottom, but this was ridiculous.

"Quit starin' at my hiney!" Applejack shrieked. Lucky blinked himself back to reality; as usual, he hadn't even realized he'd been staring, and he didn't realize the danger quickly enough to move out of the way. The truncheon cracked into the side of his head, knocking him sideways and cutting the corner of his mouth as the bit ripped into him. He tried to straighten up but was forced onto a knee as another blow caught him across the back of the head, then another across his back, raining down with sharp cracks until he sank down into the mud and lay still. Stings turned into dull aches; the weapon was made to inflict more pain than damage. A glob of spit landed in the middle of his back. "Disgustin'," Applejack grunted. "Sooner you up an' convert, the better. C'mon, Cara- Apple Bloom, don't touch him. He can get up on his own."

"Um..." Apple Bloom's voice came from nearby. Lucky kept his head down, waiting for the ache to pass. "Applejack?" the filly said. "Weren't that a little... mean?"

A pause. "What d'ya mean?"

"I mean... he was just lookin' atcha. He weren't hurtin' no one. Why'd ya have to go an' hit him like that?"

"Apple Bloom..." Applejack knelt down in front of her sister, muddying her knees. If Lucky had tried to pull himself upright, his trussed-out hand might have been able to brush against her glorious ass. He wisely kept down. "I know you're too little to really understand right now- hush, you are. But this is something you've gotta learn." She ran a long fingernail down the middle of Lucky's back. "Why do you think we keep the black collars locked up like this? Why do they need three mare guards for every one of them?"

"'Cause..." Apple Bloom scratched her head. "'Cause they're bigger than us?"

"Bigger and meaner and stupider. An' if they ever got out, you can be sure they wouldn't be as kind to us as we are to them. This one might try to tell you he's a gentlecolt, he might talk fancy and he might look pretty, but if it were you or me who was in his place, he'd do things to us that... nah, I don't wanna give you nightmares."

"I know 'bout the birds and the bees, Applejack. I've been watchin' the pigs ruttin' and givin' birth since I was old enough to start feedin' them."

"And I ain't even talkin' about that. Do you know how the caribou do their farmin' in their homeland?" A rustle as the filly shook her head. "They strap their cows up in great big harnesses, just like this. But the back's covered in whips so the cow gets cut with every step. They cover her in little clamps that shock her if she don't move. Her bit goes all the way down her throat so she can't breathe, and they put a carrot in her hoo-ha and another in her bunghole, and if either of 'em falls out, she's gotta get down on her knees and eat it up right in front of everyone. An' that's just what happens if she's done absolutely nothin' wrong."

It was hard to see Apple Bloom's reaction, but Lucky could hear her voice shake. "But... why? Why would anypony do somethin' like that?"

"'Cause that's how stallions are. No matter how big and tough they are, they don't feel strong 'less they're makin' somepony smaller than them hurt. So don't go feelin' sorry for these big fellas, no matter how much they hurt. 'Cause if we don't do all we can to keep them in line, they'll do ten times worse to you." She paused, looking at an expression that Lucky could only guess at. "Oh, fine. Caramel, help him up. Then hurry on. We're late."

She stepped away, and Lucky heard Caramel step over him. Slender arms wrapped under his own. "Easy, big guy," Caramel whispered. He pulled him up, just enough that Lucky could get one knee up and push himself the rest of the way. With his arms stretched to the sides, he'd learned to get good at this months ago. Then, there it was - Caramel's stiffening dick grinding between his ass cheeks. "How about we give those ladies a show when I come back, honey?" he whispered, nuzzling Lucky's neck.

"Fuck off!" Lucky grunted, shrugging him away.

"Humph." Caramel stepped back, looked around, and then lowered his voice and let out a loud whisper towards Applejack's retreating back. "Gonna rape you and your sister someday, apple bitch."

Applejack stopped dead, and her ears pricked up. Before Lucky could protest she turned around and charged at him with a scream, planting a kick into his stomach that not only sent him skidding on his back across the field, but flipped the plow he was attached to onto its side. A second stomp knocked the wind out of him again, and all he could do was pathetically curl up as more kicks and punches hammered him from all sides. All the while Applejack screeched, Caramel snickered, and Apple Bloom watched in silence. The beating only stopped when Lucky finally opened his mouth to croak with pain, which Applejack took as an opportunity to gag him with a fistful of mud. "I have had it up to here with you," Applejack hissed as he choked and spat. "One more outburst outta you and you're goin' upstream. What'll it be for you? White collar? Or purple?"

That was no contest. Objectively, that was no contest at all. But even when he'd regained his breath, all Lucky could do was stammer, unable to defend himself or answer the question at all. "That's what I thought." Applejack spat again and stalked off, Caramel trailing smugly behind.

Once he felt there was no more danger of a surprise attack, Lucky strained hard and sat up. He stretched as much as he could and sighed heavily, wincing at the pain. Comet Tail would fix him up a little when he went in for lunch (if he got lunch today) but there was little that the unicorn could do for anything more than skin deep. Given the pain in his chest, it felt like he might have bruised a rib. Getting the plow back upright would be a challenge. It was strange to think that these days, a challenge like that was really the least of his worries.

It was only when he started to rise that he noticed Apple Bloom still standing there, staring. He immediately froze. She kept looking, not right at him, but - he followed her gaze, mortification growing - down at his mudstained crotch. His dick pouch had gotten shifted during the beating, and one of his testicles was hanging halfway out of it. Instinctively he tried to cover up, only for his arms to once again strain uselessly against his harness.

He froze a second time when Apple Bloom moved. She crept closer, a curious and (oh fuck no) almost lustful look crossing her gaze, slowly reaching out towards him. He wanted to close his legs, he wanted to swat her hand away, but sheer terror kept him still. If he denied her, if he laid a hand on her in any way, Applejack would have his head.

Oh please, no. Oh please, Celestia, no. He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed, trying to derail the train of thought that was rapidly screaming towards him. Making out with Caramel. Baseball. Mayor Mare in a clown costume. He felt her fingers brush against his exposed testicle, those soft, delicate fingers, more gentle than anyone had been with him in months. No! She's ten! He tried to quell the shiver rushing through his entire body, repeating his unsexy cycle more and more quickly. Please, Celestia, even after all that I've done, all that I've been forced to do, not this. Don't turn me into this. Not this!

The touching stopped. He cracked one eye open. Apple Bloom bit her lip, glancing back and forth between his face and his crotch, playfully smiling at him. Then she wound back and punched him in the balls, screaming with laughter when he cried out and doubled over in agony. "Faggot!" she yelled, kicked his shin, and then ran off after Applejack.

Bright stars exploded in front of Lucky Clover's eyes. Well, got my wish, he concluded. Then he fell face-first in the mud and lay there in sweet oblivion.

Author's Note

This story is pretty awful. It exists to correct a balance in the universe. It's not written with any fetish in mind; mostly it's just a satire.
Terminology? Dude, I don't write anthro, I don't fucking know.
Sorry if this one had too many women. It's mostly hot guys from here on out.