Shall You Seek The Conquest
Sounds of fighting and skittish, dog-like yelps echoing through the underground tunnels startled the human chained inside the master bedroom. Asher sluggishly pulled against his restraints, a pair of silver-lined magical cuffs that fed off his energy. Changeling enchanted craftsmanship or so his bitch of a mistress gloated when she found a way to keep her favorite worker docile.
Around him, the brown walls shuddered. Flaking sheets of fresh dirt over the wide den room the alpha Diamond Dog called hers. He hoped she was out there, getting her ass kicked by whoever decided to invade her home.
Asher took a big breath, the stench of the room a sobering element of piss and sweat and sex.
Just like real dogs, Mistress Bitch's room was covered in her pussy musk and urine. A souring and lime-like aroma that used to make his eyes water until he manned up and started breathing only from his mouth. Why couldn't be sent to a world where the people only had animal ears and none of the animistic quirks like spraying their territory? Asher wasn't even spared from getting his weekly dose from the bitch, happy to hump her juices all over his body until she was satisfied.
The other bed warmers, the real bed warmers, stared glossy-eyed at him.
Some were weaker dogs from lower packs. Otherwise known as offerings. The others, ponies who were too pretty to be working in her mines. Otherwise known as slaves. He wasn’t sure what the fuck was their problem. Dead-eyed. Dicks eternally hard and ready for action. They just gave up. Happy to be that bitch’s toys when she got into the mood. They wore the same collars he did. Black with silver and a loop in the front for leashes. More shit she bought off the changeling traders. So maybe that was why they didn’t feel the need to run for it?
But then again, fuck these guys.
They ratted him out when he tried to escape the last time.
The fighting increased in volume. Somewhere beyond the two steel doors, far too close for his comfort, he heard the bodies of the sentries posted outside the bitch’s quarters going thump. A limp, definitely not getting back up again, thump. Howls and war-cries followed and Asher decided that he wasn’t going to stick around for whoever came through those doors.
Asher heaved with all his might, forcing the rusty wheel and pulley to the left of the bed to move. ‘Happy thoughts. Think happy thoughts,’ he chanted in his head, hoping that his fucking cuffs wouldn’t react to his escape.
He had a vague idea about how they worked.
Good boys got light weight on their wrists. Bad boys got to take a dirt nap on the floor. But there was no way in hell that there wasn’t something bad about him wanting to see the sun for the first time in two months. And Asher hoped he only lost two months to this madness. Teleported to this weird place because he had the misfortune to be mucking around the old sewer tunnel out back in Holden County. Then snapped up by the two-legged furry freaks when he nearly drowned their holy spring.
Asher didn’t know who was making all the noise, fighting against Mistress Bitch’s pack but this was going to be his only chance. It had to be a stronger dog pack. One who knew what he could do. The bitch was a sly old dog, careful to hide him away once she was certain of his unique abilities. She whispered into his ear every night, reminding him of the other places he’d could be. Most Diamond Dogs liked quantity over quality. They wouldn’t hesitate to break him like they did every new slave they brought into their mines.
But she was an artiste.
Misunderstood by all of her kind.
Coarse raw stones did not interest her. Refined and carefully cultivated gems, those were the ones worthy of her time. She allowed him to keep his spirit, if only to make sure every gem she forced out of him would sparkle with that glorious hope. The hope that one day, today, he will escape!
The chain creaked, slowly allowing him to roll off the bedspread and onto the floor. Bits and pieces of unfinished gem shards stabbed into his knees and bare feet. He hissed in pain, forcing himself to keep moving. Asher got onto his feet and looped several feet of the chain around his arms. Tugging them along, he limped to the bitch’s private closet and looked for the switch that had to be- Aha! Asher threw all of his weight to the side, forcing the false wall to buckle and give in.
"Where are you going?" One of the bed warmers said, his voice hoarse and hard to hear.
Asher didn’t bother to look back, he was more concerned with disconnecting the chain from his cuffs.
"She told us to watch you. You are being punished for bad behavior. Get back on the bed."
Mistress Bitch kept all of her weird slave equipment in her closet. It had to be one of these things that she had on the shelves. Asher tried all the keys. They were too small for the padlocks on his wrists. Then there were these glowing orbs she had in a glass box. Stolen Equestria property, she once bragged to him. Asher gave them a glance and left them alone.
"The mistress said-"
Asher sucked in a breath. Fuck, there was no easy way out of these chains. "I imagine the big old bitch says a lot of things," he muttered. "That doesn’t mean you have to listen to them when she isn’t around."
The human threw himself against the opposite wall. The hidden door swung open with a loud clap against the darker stone below. Cold air swept by him, the chill a welcome surprise to the disgusting heat and stench of the master bedroom.
"The mistress always knows," they all said, droning in that unsettling brainwashed unison.
"That’s because you bastards always tell her. Think for once! I’d offer you all freedom but you poor freaks wouldn’t know how to deal with it. I don’t know if you all under some spell or if you like being her fuck toys." Asher cracked a smile. "All I have to say is that big dog pussy isn’t my fetish if you get what I’m saying."
Chains or no chains, Asher made a run for it. Freedom was calling his name.
Luna wrinkled her nose at all she saw in the slaver's underground. Greatly displeased by the lack of challenge these mutts had given her and her guard force. In as few words that she could spare to even think about, besides her self-loathing, self-hatred, self-inflicted misery, the alicorn had never felt as such a relic of the past as of this moment.
Here she was, dressed in light battle regalia with her ever faithful war-spear hanging off her side. In preparation in battling beasts preferring a claw-and-bite style of fighting, she'd picked an armor that would heavily protect her front.
This armor also had the unfortunately tendency to have her resemble a fetching wench in bikini strap-lets.
Not to mention, this was all of Celestia's fault. Her dear sister who allowed cherished war uniforms to fall into the hooves of fashion culture and brothels. Honestly, Luna couldn't tell how fashion designers and madams of a sexual institute were hardly different. Both professions were quick to pervert all that was sacred for the sake of a quick bit.
Her pitch-black breastplate jutted out from her front like a pair of misplaced even-shaped udders from a cow. Then the straps that weaved around her body seemed to enhance her physic. Along her lower body, she wore the second half of the armor that took to her slender thighs. Protecting her privates and well-received rump from any hidden attacks should they occur. Her battle regalia at the end of a raid or dungeon crawl would always be soiled by the blood of her enemies.
But in these new times, it seemed to be well-suited to be soiled by a different kind of liquid.
Luna hoped that liquid would be the bloody tears from her guard, someone who'd be stupid enough to comment on her wardrobe. The mares and stallions in the employed guard force didn't bother to be discreet with their ogling of her body. She imagined had her sister had done the same, they'd keep their snouts to the ground and claim blindness to not risk offending her. They stared and leered and undressed with their eyes but had the decency to keep any discussion from around the alicorn.
Perhaps the glint of her iron-headed war-spear kept their wagging tongues still.
A thousand years ago, Equestria often was besieged on all side by great and terrible foes. Not merely sole threats like Tyrek or Discord but by other peoples. Fledgling nations just like their own. Dragon covens. Gryphon enclaves. Crystal traitors. Beasts of cloven hooves and bovine alike. All wanted the fertile land Equestria called it own and all the spoils it contained, the peace and the people.
Upon war and war, skirmish and skirmish, it was rather disheartening to see the result of Celestia's hoof-work while she was sentenced to the moon so clearly. The worthy adversaries of long time passed were gone. Vanquished by only a quill and a bit of paper shuffling. It sickened her stomach to see not what could have been but what was and never will be again... The present, no, the future that was promised, peace and tranquility and a happy ending, was highly overrated.
The dark alicorn surveyed the poorly constructed tunnels, her figure skulking around these children that she had to babysit. Guards they might have been named in Equestria but they were only foals under her eyes. All for permission to go along on this raid.
“Today is different,” so said Celestia, “Things are different.”
If you asked Luna, things were idle. They were extremely and unforgivable incompetently idle. The loss of a great foe meant the loss of a greater need for strength. It served Equestria right. No wonder they were weak against any and all old enemies.
She could hardly contain her scoffing of everything in her path.
The bolt-holes were ridiculous. For what reason, would there need to be bolt-holes if you built a fort next to a river? Wouldn't there only be death by drowning for the poor soul that chose to escape by that method? Then the captors themselves. Spirits knows how long they've been living together but they couldn't manage a single drop of teamwork to save their hides. Oh how they wasted their time! Shouting at each other and trying to run off with their stolen labor.
It's as if they wanted to be caught.
Their ancestors, the industrious Dogs of the Diamond would be turning over in their graves if they saw what their pups called a den. And there they were. The woeful and ill-prepared inheritors of the earth. Gathered in the center of their mud-hole hovel with her guards hauling them up and out to face justice. They would spent time in a facility and think about their crimes. Luna thought it was a terrible waste of resources that Celestia got rid of their old, 'eye for an eye, a slave for a slave' policy but she accepted it begrudgingly.
The kidnapped creatures were slowly escorted out in pairs, pony officers encouraging them with “Yes, you are safe now.” and “No, it wasn't a dream.” The scene was somewhat droll to her. Yes, she had enjoyed in saving folk in her youth. Even still. But she had expected to work up a sweat doing so. Celestia was right. Today was different. She could save more ponies in paperwork than on the battlefield. Cadence did so. Twilight was performing wonders as a newly crowned Princess.
Yet Luna was not ready to put down her spear just yet.
Luna parted from her company, content to pass through the tunnels and teleporting any trinket back to her personal chambers for inspection later. This particular pack of Diamond Dog slavers were a bit different from the usual. Their oddness of behavior was what sparkled Luna's interest in the first place.
They spooked easily. Too easily. Fleeing their current headquarters and dropping the bulk of their slaves at any whiff of the royal guard being onto their actual location. Most dogs were greedy. They would not dare leave any of what they claimed behind. Their loyalty to their things is what led them into being captured far quickly and often than any rogue dragon with a hoard. And yet, they left behind goods and slaves in earnest. Perhaps even more strangely, this pack somehow managed to re-earn the funds they must have lost in less than a week.
It was a mystery she had been interested in solving but after such a poor performance, she didn't care. Luna wandered into the master chamber. Again, very much unimpressed. The bed was nothing but stone and hay and gaudy sheets. The desk to the side, full of maps and designs of gems not worth her time.
Luna pursed her lips, one eyebrow raised at another bolt-hole built into the side of a closet. Again, stupidity.
On one side of the closet, sex aids lined the shelves. On the other, certain death. With the passage being open, the alicorn had no doubt of there being another mutt who was in the motions of escaping to a quick watery grave. She hoped they were good swimmers, sending a slight prayer that they might wash up on the riverbed for later capture.
Luna turned her attention to the sex aids, perusing them for a token to take home. Dildos and other penetrative toys with studs along the length and other notches didn't catch her fancy. There were numerous collars that lined the shelves, all resonating with faint traces of Changeling mischief. There had been a increase in illegal obedience collar as of late. Luna teleported several back to the castle. They'd do well as evidence in court and as tools to help some of the mind-addled freed persons into regaining some mental clarity.
Then a glass box full of shining orb-shaped yellow gem stones demanded her attention. They glittered and gleamed of their own accord, their light unnatural in the dim and dark room. Luna felt entranced, her hoof trembling, no, rising to open the box. A delirious feeling overcame her and she opened the glass box, her hoof swooping into to claim what was hers. The gem stones gathered around her hoof, transforming into a golden bracelet dabbled in green, glowing runes.
Luna admired her new... whatever it was. It was pretty and shiny and all hers.
The alicorn considered her tour of the hovel complete and turned to leave... But the wheel and the pulley placed to the left ripped out of the ground and slid into the bolt-hole.
Luna stuck her head inside of the passage and was greeted by a curious sounding scream. Her new and delightful bracelet, glittering green, tugged her along with unfathomable force to find the source of that sound.
