“This is unacceptable,” said King Aspen, speaking to his captain of the guard, “It has been a week now since we lost a group of our harvesters, and we still no trace of them has been found.”

The deer king of Thicket, also known as “The Heart of the Forest”, leaned back as he reflected over the matter at hand. Roughly seven days ago, a small group of does were sent into the wilds of the Everfree Forest to retrieve what would be the last harvest of the season. It was supposed to be a simple and routine gathering of fruits and vegetation for the upcoming change of season, but by that night everyone in the city noticed they weren’t returning. A search party was sent immediately upon notice, but all that was found was some damaged trees, smashed fruit pulp, and heavy hoofprints that were certainly not made from any beast of the forest.

Ever since, groups had been sent to scout around for the missing females, but they would either come back with nothing, or on one occasion not at all. Which was exactly what this meeting with his guard captain was about.

“Blackthorn, I’ve kept you in the city in case this was an attack against us, but now I have no choice but to send you to look for our missing citizens. Not only can I not put anyone else at risk, but the season is about to change and it will be dangerous for anyone untrained to go out of Thicket’s borders.”

Winter was scheduled as the following week, with the ponies so meticulous about the changing of the seasons. While the Everfree had some immunity to the manipulation of its weather, if the rest of Equestria was in a state of winter, it would be as well.

“I understand, King Aspen.” said Blackthorn. He was just as concerned as his lord about the missing does, and while his duty to protect the city was important, so too was finding it’s lost citizens and bringing them back home. “I will get two of my finest soldiers and begin the hunt now; wherever they are, I will bring them back.”

“I’m counting on you,” replied Aspen, “Bring them, and yourselves, back safely.” Blackthorn gave Aspen a small salute before walking out of the throne room as quickly as royal decorum would allow.

Within the hour, Blackthorn was heading for the city gate, followed by two does under his command, one named White Rose and another named Birch, both higher ranking officers of Thicket’s guard force.

While it was not something a guard captain should do, Blackthorn occasionally thought on the feminine features of his two companions. Birch was a modestly attractive brown deer with short trimmed hair whose skills were mainly in tracking. She was fairly slender, like most deer, but had a firm muscle tone that was the results of her work as a guard. Not really Blackthorn’s type, not that he was looking for a mate when he put his duty to Thicket above all else, but not a doe he would refuse to share a bed with. Due to her perhaps being the best tracker Thicket had, she had already been sent out before and knew where the trail went cold.

White Rose on the other hand was a very attractive albino doe. She had flowing, neck length hair that was only a shade darker than her fur. She also had some nicely curved hips, and her bust was a size bigger than Birch’s. Not that Blackthorn had been comparing the females, but this was just something a male takes notice of when around women consistently. The reason for her coming along was that she was more accustomed to colder climates than most others, which the forest was rapidly changing into. Seeing that it might be a few days till they returned, she seemed the best choice to bring along.

They were all traveling sparsely, carrying a few days worth of dried food rations, their armor, and their weapons. Their equipment was made of a smoothed and polished wood material made from oak that had been treated with the deer’s plant-based alchemical potions to make it as strong as steel, but half as heavy. The last thing they carried on their person was a vial of another such potion, one each, which could be used to grow plants quickly if need be.

The trio entered the forest, their task the only thing on their minds, and made their way to where Birch last tracked the does. “So any idea what we are up against?” Blackthorn asked, expecting a fight based on the reports.

“Not exactly,” Birch replied, “The tracks are certainly not from the ponies, so we can’t blame them for this invasion of our lands or the disappearance of our people. The closest thing I could tell is that it was some sort of bovine species.”

“So, yak, maybe?” White said aloud, curious how a group of yaks could infiltrate Equestria to get into Everfree unnoticed. Deer were to some lengths xenophobic, but news throughout Equestria did get to them, though often not vice versa.

“Could be yaks or minotaur,” Blackthorn added, “But both are crude, barbaric creatures who would have a hard time traveling the forest undetected.”

“Whatever it is, we will deal with them.” Birch said, determined to finally track down her quarry. How either brutish race could avoid her detection for so long was an insult to her abilities, one the female soldier would rectify.

After about an hour’s walk, they all arrived at a small clearing in the forest, a place the deer had cultivated in order to grow food, using what was perhaps the best soil Everfree had to offer. However, it didn’t stop here. This place had long since been plundered and destroyed, and the missing deer taken away. Birch directed her compatriots out of the ruined garden, to the trail she had found before.

“We’re gonna have to go a bit deeper into the forest,” she said, pushing away some brush, “The trail goes on for a while, and then goes cold. Be careful though, there is a… bit… of…”

“Is something wrong?” Blackthorn asked, seeing that the doe had become distracted.

“It can’t be…” she replied, releasing the foliage in her hand, stepping a foot away from where she stood. “Look here, a hoof print.”

“Well, yes. There were hood prints all over the garden.” White Rose said, but understood that if Birch was curious about something like this, there had to be more to it than meets the eye.

“Yes, but this one is fresh…” Birch said, able to tell from her training the difference between new and old tracks, “And it’s heading… away from the garden.” She went ahead, following the tracks a bit to see where they lead, “The intruders must have come back to see if they missed anything. Then they headed… Those bastards, those tracks from before were going in an entirely different direction. They were able to cover their tracks and lead us astray.”

“Clever for a bunch of brutes,” Blackthorn said, curious as to how they could have tricked an experienced tracker like Birch. It wasn’t impossible, but one would have to know what to look out for in order to pull off such a feat, and neither of the bovine species they assumed were responsible for this had the kind of subtlety to do it, “But it seems like they weren’t able to pull it off twice. Now we know where to go. Good work, Birch.”

Blackthorn went to the tracks, checking to see which direction they went. He had a pretty good knowledge of Everfree’s layout, thus had a good idea where they were heading.

“They look to be heading towards a cave not far from here.” he said assuredly, “A manticore den, but with their strength, they probably could have run them off. Perhaps they’ve taken up shelter there.”

“Then that’s the way we’re heading,” said White.

Birch stepped forward, keeping an eye on every detail of their surroundings, “Follow me. The path might still veer away, and now that we have a good trail we need to find there creatures as soon as possible.”

The other two deer agreed, but as they traveled, they found that the trail was incredibly easy to follow. Where the first one was expertly made to throw them off the trail, this one was so careless that it actually got easier to track as it went along, leading them to the manticore cave as Blackthorn had expected. The stag didn’t know whether to condemn or thank the laziness of whoever made this, as they showed no care over what plants they trampled under hoof, but without it they might not have been able to find the lost deer.

As the three got close to their destination, they started to hear the sounds of life. Loud, crude voices talking amongst one another, laughing loudly, almost announcing their presence to every creature in the forest. The deer noticed it yards away from where the intruders were, and were able to sneak in closer under cover of their boisterous noise.

“There they are,” Blackthorn whispered as he finally caught sight of the bovine creatures. Large, muscular bulls whose body mass was over two times that of an adult deer. “Minotaur, as we expected.”

“But what are they doing?” Birch asked, curiously watching the barely clothed bovine creatures, each wearing light leather armoring that left large portions of their flesh exposed. They had built a campsite in the forest by clearing the area around the cave of trees, seemingly overnight, else such a disturbance in the forest would have been noticed much sooner.

The trio moved in closer, allowing them a better look at the encampment. The first thing they noticed was that the minotaur were not alone, as several deer were with them, all does, doing what looked to be enforced chores around the campsite, as their arms and legs were shackled together at the wrists and ankles, respectively.

“There are the deer that went missing.” said White, giving a knee jerk comment at the sight of them.

“No… These ones are different.” Blackthorn said, having a better position to see the minotaur’s captives.

While they were deer, they weren’t any that Blackthorn recognized from Thicket. There features were different, parts of them being less sleek in spots than his species, and each being covered in strange markings that looked like some sort of tribal tattoos on their exposed skin, the captive deer practically naked, save for their chains, a collar around their necks, and lengthy open shawls that barely covered their bodies from the chill in the air.

“I’ve heard that there were deer outside of the Everfree, but I’ve never seen one before.” Birch said. None of the others had either, as deer xenophobia extended to others of their kind to some degree, with each sticking to their own kind in their own nations.

Curious though, the Thicket deer took a moment to watch the interactions of these new cervids. They watched as they went about their slave tasks, which at the moment seemed to be making food for their masters. One was at a large pot, stirring a stew being cooked at a low flame, while others filled up bowl after bowl to deliver to the minotaur, who would practically chug the contents before sending their server back to get more.

The minotaur didn’t just use the does to bring them food and cook though, as a few were kept close to the bunch of bovines to serve as entertainment. Not with song or dance, but their bodies, as the large brutes freely touched them as they pleased. Hands would disappear under the sheets of cloth the deer wore, completely unhindered by it as they groped whatever part of their slaves that pleased them.

“How barbaric,” White Rose commented, watching one minotaur grab a doe by the face, fingers and thumb gripping her cheeks, and forcing a deep kiss upon her.

She could see the tongue of the male, long and thick, push past his prisoner’s lips, and even cause a bit of her throat to bulge out before vanishing behind her collar. It was both vile and insulting to the doe, showing that these creatures only saw the females here less as people, and more as things for their comfort and amusement.

“If this is how they are treating those deer, that has to be what they intend for those they captured, too.” Blackthorn said aloud, putting the facts together to form a full picture.

These bovine came here to enslave some of the citizens of Thicket, put them to work so their lives could be easier, and violate the females in this humiliating fashion. The thought passed the stag’s mind that it could even go beyond mere touching, as the minotaur were eyeing the unfamiliar does as they passed in ways that could only be called perverse, and many of them had rather sizable swells in the crotch of their pants and loincloths they were wearing. The only thing that dissuaded this idea was that there was no way that Blackthorn could imagine that would allow for creatures as small as a deer to be… used in such a way, as he could tell that the minotaur's sex organs were massive, as their pants did little to hide the bulges within them.

Still, it was clear that these deer were being exploited and abused, and seeing that happen to one of their kind, though not from their kingdom, was a great insult to the Thicket deer. They wanted to attack the minotaur on the spot, but each knew that wasn’t what they should do. While not entirely impossible for them to defeat these large, muscular creatures, outnumbered ten to three as they were, it would be foolish to not get others.

As much as he hated to leave, Blackthorn knew what he had to do. “We have to go get the others so we can…”

“‘So you can’ what?!” a bellowing voice called out from the cave, cutting off Blackthorn’s sentence, as well as causing all sound in the encampment to come to a halt. Almost as if choreographed, every head belonging to a deer turned to the direction of the cave entrance, including the ones belonging to the three hiding in the foliage beyond the clearing.

What they all saw was the owner of the roaring voice, a minotaur that was much larger than the others. While the other bulls were muscular, seemingly by nature, this one had a body like chiseled stone. His form was near physical peak for his species, his biceps alone looking like they could crush rocks between them.

“Hey!” he called out again, looking right in the direction of where the three were hiding. “I’m talking to the three of you! Or did ya think that I didn’t know you were here?!”

The three Thicket deer were shocked. They had done nothing to reveal themselves. No sounds were made, they were sure they didn’t trip some trap, and yet the one who found them out was the one furthest away from where they were, inside a cave no less, where they shouldn’t have had a chance to see them. If it were any other species, magic would have been an answer to this, but minotaur were not known to possess magic of any sort.

“Blackthorn, we have to go.” said Birch, realizing that they now lacked the one edge they had over the minotaur that could have allowed them to beat them had they faced them in combat.

“I know,” the stag replied, “Let’s-”

“Trying to crawl away, are ya?!” the giant minotaur called out again, stepping even closer to where Blackthorn and his subordinates were. “You can go ahead and run, but if you do, you’ll never see the deer we’ve captured ever again! By the time you get to that pitiful city of yours and get back, we’ll be long gone!”

Blackthorn questioned if that was even possible - that a troop of minotaur could pack up, leave the forest, taking a couple dozen deer with them in tow, and somehow get through Equestria proper with their kidnapped prizes. Normally he would say this was a bluff, but looking at the evidence before him, these creatures did manage to get this deep into Equestria already carrying several enslaved deer with them. He didn’t know how they could have done that, but it couldn’t be taken for granted that this minotaur’s words were not as empty as Blackthorn would hope.

“Change of plan,” he said, “I need you both to get back to Thicket as quickly as possible. I’ll stay here and keep them occupied for as long as I can. If I get beat, then I can at least try to see which way they go. If they take me with them, I’ll leave you clues to where we're heading.”

“I don’t like this plan.” White Rose said, knowing that it would be impossible for them to gather the guard of Thicket in short enough time to help Blackthorn. He was intending to sacrifice himself, his health at least, in order to ensure that they could eventually save the captives.

“You don’t have to like it,” Blackthorn replied, keeping and eye on the presumed leader of this band of bovine, “But you have to follow it. Now go.”

Not giving the does any more time to think about it, Blackthorn stepped out of his hiding place and into the clearing.

“Fine, I’m no coward.” Blackthorn said in bravado, his nerves tensing up as the minotaur around him got to their hooves, while that large one still made his way straight for him. His mere mass creating tremors by simply walking, while a shadow big enough to cast the stag before him into darkness was created just by standing half a yard away.

Back in the brush, White Rose sent a fist into the dirt beneath her. “Damn it,” she said, understanding that this had gone beyond her control, and so to not ruin what Blackthorn was doing, she would have to obey his orders. “Come. We have to go.”

The two does got to their hooves and turned to sprint back to Thicket, darting off into the forest as quickly as their bodies would allow. They had nothing else on their minds, save for the thought of getting back before Blackthorn was seriously harmed, as unlikely as that was. Their respect and dedication to their captain was unmatched, to some degree being more than they had to the king himself, so they made every effort to complete what he commanded of them.

It was perhaps because of this that neither deer noticed when a massive arm jutted out from behind a tree, smacking both of the does in the muzzle, eyes, and forehead as if they had run face first into a stone wall. The bodies of the two flown into the air as their heads stayed in place, everything below the neck caught in the momentum. Soon they were hitting the ground hard, landing on their backs as gravity reclaimed them.

“So Titanius was right,” said a minotaur as he stepped out into view, covered in mud and leaves. “Just wait here and two doe bitches right to me.”

The minotaur’s words were lost on Birch and White Rose, who were reeling on the ground from the pain they were experiencing. Their armor, sturdy and resistant as it was, did little to help soften the impact of the fall they both took, or stop the sheer agony that was going through their skulls.

The minotaur watched as the two women at his hooves as they grasped the parts of their faces that had impacted with his arm, comparing their features with one another. “Shame I was told to only bring one of you back. You’d both do good to keep me company tonight. Orders are orders though.” The minotaur stepped over the brown deer’s body, placing himself right at her middle. “But don’t you worry. I’ll make sure you and I have some fun once this is all over.”

Birch groaned at his words, but was able to pull her hands away from her eyes as the mountain of finely cultivated beef lifted a leg up, hovering his hoof over her stomach for a mere moment before dropping it down onto her vulnerable stomach.

“Sweet dreams, bitch.” he smugly said to the doe as her breath was removed forcibly from her lungs. She coughed and sputtered as she did her best to breathe deep, but it was as if her body was rejecting oxygen altogether, exhaling it as quick as she could inhale while taking the barest amount of it in the process. Within seconds, she blacked out, and only in this state did her body accept the very act of breathing.

“Birch, no!” White Rose stumbled to get to her hooves as quickly as possible, dazed as she was.

The minotaur watched, amused at her struggle, until she nearly found her footing. At that point, he literally took things into his own hands as he grabbed the albino deer by the head, fingers clutching her cranium while his palm covered her eyes.

“Settle down,” the minotaur mocked, “I think you’ve had enough for one day.”

White wasn’t about to just give up, and instinctively, she reached for the sword at her hip. With a single motion, she was able to retrieve it from its scabbard, but just as it unsheathed, the minotaur used his free hand to smack the sword out of her grasp, receiving a cut in the process, but sending the sharpened blade of steel wood a yard away from its owner.

“I’m warning you, doe,” The minotaur said, now a bit angry that he had been hurt by the deer’s actions, “Settle down, or I’m gonna hurt you.”

“Like that matters to a vile creature like you!” White Rose, disarmed, dazed, and all but defeated, resorted to scratching at and sending her fists into the bulky arm that held her, the training she underwent as a guard escaping her in this desperate time.

The minotaur didn’t release, though he wasn’t impervious to her attempts. As feeble as her attacks against him were, he did have to stifle himself from making pained noises as her nails dug into his skin. “I’m warning you one last time. Stop!”

The deer did no such thing, and even started to kick in her panic, her long, slender cervid legs easily reaching their mark. Just as before, it did no real damage to the minotaur save for cause him some light pain, but her resistance had finally took its toll on the bovine.

Fed up with her aggressive actions, the bull finally yelled, “Ok, you asked for it!”

The minotaur shook White Rose around a bit to disorient the deer, then as quickly as he could, he released her head and took hold of her arms at the shoulders. With his inherent bovine strength combines with the doe’s comparatively light weight, he was able to lift her right off her hooves, as if she were practically weightless.

“Put me down!” White Rose yelled at the minotaur once her world stopped spinning.

The minotaur, of course, paid her demand no heed, and instead pulled the female into a close embrace, hugging her against his pectorals in a manner that pinned White Rose’s arms between his body and hers.

“One last chance. Settle down or I’ll-!”

White Rose did the only thing she could do in such a position, and cut the bull’s sentence short by delivering a headbutt right into the minotaur’s face, slamming her helmet right into his nose.

The minotaur was stunned, taking a moment to register what White Rose had done. It took a drop of blood to dribble out of his nostril to understand what had happened, and when the bull felt the wetness dribble down to his upper lip, he became furious. Without any more words, he flexed every muscle in his arms, squeezing the doe he held as tightly as possible.

From White’s perspective, the minotaur was starting to crush her between his rock-hard chest and solid biceps. The pressure she felt was immense, a ring of force getting ever smaller around her every second. She tried to struggle, tried to scream, but her movements were too restricted, and her yells were limited to just loud grunts and yelps as she felt herself become more and more compressed. It got to a point where she thought the minotaur was so enraged that he was trying to kill her, squeeze the life out of her for her defiance. How she would come to wish that was the case.

With the last ounce of strength she had, White Rose squirmed in desperation, until the minotaur tossed her up a little higher in his hold. She was now face to face with the bull, arms still pinned as his own were placed at the dead center of her spine. The doe stared the minotaur right in the eye, him coldly staring right back at her, just before the moment that sealed her fate.

A split second was all it took, and the minotaur who hadn’t even been remotely close to using his full strength doubled the power of already his vicelike hold. White’s senses exploded on the spot, every part of her becoming overloaded as her spine curved backwards much further than she had thought possible. A loud, internal “crack” filled her ears, resonating through her body, accompanied by an intense pain like none other she had ever felt before. Her sight flashed into pure light, her surroundings vanishing into a void of white. Her tongue and nasal passage begun to tingle, being filled with a copperish, yet unrecognizable taste and smell.

In this moment, the doe let out a mixture of a scream and a yelp, loud, yet short, and so filled with undefinable emotions that it could only be a reaction to this new, overwhelming sensation she felt. As quickly as it all hit her though, so too did it vanish. The intense, world-shattering pain was gone in an instance, though still echoed in her now frightened and panicked mind.

“There we go,” the minotaur said calmly, no longer having a reason to be frustrated with the doe. As far as he was concerned, she had been pacified. “I should have knocked you both out like Titanius said. Would have saved a lot of trouble.”

White Rose tried to tell off the minotaur, show him that what he did had not broken her, but she found quickly that the bull had done just that. All that she could get out of her lips were soft groans, her lips and tongue having a hard time moving for her. In fact, her entire body was not responding to her thoughts.

“I bet you’re wondering about why you can’t move,” the minotaur said, repositioning the doe into his hands, holding her up by her armpits as he effortlessly lifted her limp body as if it were a doll. “A little trick we learned to disable rowdy females. Put enough pressure on their spines, and you’ll dislocate a vertebra or two. Sends a shock right through ya, and makes it so ya can’t move until they’re put back in place.”

The albino doe’s eyes widened, one of the few things she could still move freely, as her breathing rapidly picked up pace. Now she was truly frightened, being completely defenseless to anything the bovine wished to do to her, and not knowing how long he would keep her like this or what he would do to her in this state.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head,” he said, tossing the paralyzed doe’s body over his shoulder, “We’ll get ya fixed up back at the camp. Wouldn’t be right if ya didn’t feel what I’m about to do to ya.”

The minotaur laughed at his future plans for the deer, which terrified White even more. He was going to torture her in some way, and make sure that she would feel every second of it. No doubt they would restrain her beforehand, make her unable to fight back as they continued breaking her down physically and mentally. She had never been put into a position like this before, and her mind raced with nightmarish imagery of what they could do to her.

“Hmmm…” the minotaur hummed as his laughter ended, “What’s this?”

White Rose couldn’t feel it, but she watched as her body was moved about slightly.

“Oh my, looks like you enjoyed that hug. You got sex juices flowing right down your legs.”

While White Rose couldn’t see it, the minotaur was looking right at a clear, sticky fluid that connected his fingers together with a string made of the substance. There was no doubt what it was.

“Climaxed from the pain, did ya?” the minotaur said, making his way back to the camp. “Wouldn’t be the first pain slut we ever had. Well… maybe I just forced it out of ya. It’s something I guess we’ll have to test.”

White Rose moaned as he confirmed her fears, this time able to make it much more audible than before. The time she would spend in the hands of these barbarians was sure to be miserable. However, she noticed that the bull had completely forgotten about Birch, leaving her behind. Hope was not lost yet, so long as she was able to slip away and get back to Thicket.

Back at the minotaur encampment, Blackthorn readied his sword as the whole herd of bull men made their way over to him. Unaware as to what he had sent his subordinates into, he was ready to go along with the plan.

“Come at me, you beasts.” he said, knowing that he had no chance to win this fight.

One on one, he might stand a chance to win, but by his count there were eleven in total, and his agility and skill could only compensate for so much when up against these mountains of muscles. He wasn’t about to surrender though, both for his own pride and in order to give White Rose and Birch some distance.

“Boy,” the large minotaur leader said, standing in front of his men, “I know that this fight is going to happen, one way or another, but you and I both know you don’t have a chance. Sure, you’ll get in a hit or two, but you’re going to be sorry after.”

“Is there a point to this?” Blackthorn said, taking a few steps back to keep the minotaur just out of sword length. He was stalling, trying to assess the best approach to this battle, futile as it was.

“I suppose not,” the large minotaur said, “But remember these moments well, for they are your last moments of freedom.”

As expected, the minotaur planned to capture him and turn him into a slave. “You can try to enslave me, but you’ll never get away with wha-”

The minotaur made his move, jutting himself towards the buck, arm extended to grab Blackthorn. The stag’s reflexes were impeccable though, and he easily moved out of the way of the incoming hand, finding an opening in the minotaur’s stance where he could land his blade. A quick thrust was all it took to send the sharp end of the sword into the minotaur’s leg.

“GRAH!”

The minotaur cried out in pain, and for a second there was a smile on Blackthorn’s face. That smile faded quickly though, as right before he was able to retrieve his weapon, the minotaur grabbed the buck by his sword arm. Blackthorn was expecting him to flinch or recoil from the pain, but the bull powered through it without hesitation, giving Blackthorn no time to get away.

“Ouch, you alright Titanius?” one of the other minotaur asked, coming to his side.

“Yeah, that looks pretty deep.” said another.

“It’s hurting to stand at the moment,” he replied, holding tightly to Blackthorn’s arm as the deer tried again and again to pull away, “Hope this doesn’t give me a limp. Could you guys maybe…”

“Right, we’re on it.”

The remaining minotaur surrounded Blackthorn, a few grabbing his arms while Titanius sat on the ground. Stunningly, those strange does he had seen earlier were running to him with what looked to be bandages and medicine for the large bovine. Not only was it surprising to see them rushing to his aid, but so quickly too. It was almost like they were anticipating it.

“You really shouldn’t have done that.” said a new minotaur, stepping in front of Blackthorn with a readied fist. “Cause now this is gonna get a whole lot harder for you.”

The next thing Blackthorn knew, the fist was launched right into his face, followed by a moment of blunt pain, and then darkness.

Author's Note

Just a little something I whipped up for "Deer Domination December", a project me and Scylla the Kelpie have been working on every december for the past few years. This story will be a little 4 parter featuring the Everfree deer from the IDW comics, having them in an encounter with the minotaur featured in EqTS, whom when not helping Schorl keep her club in check, are active slavers in the world of ponies. Hoping to also use this as a means to give a little detail to how they function as a tribe, but I'll have to see if I can fit that all in. I released two chapters at first, so we still have two chapters to go to see how in depth we can get with them. Hope you all enjoy.