Under the Rule of Yaks

Rarity kicked open the door and stepped briskly into her office. It was formerly her pickup room, where she would hold special orders for pickup or delivery. Her show floor had become the waiting room, the dressing room, a punishment room, and her kitchen was now a cell block. She’d managed to keep her bedroom and studio, and she still made clothing, but it was of a different design, these days.

She was wearing one of them, now. Around her chest, she wore a leather corset with lace embellishments. Her thighs were coated with short leather chaps that ended at her knees, transitioning to fishnet pantyhose. Her tail was bound up tight, as she had to keep it functional in order to keep it at all, though her mane was kept shorter than she would like.

“My sincerest apologies, captain,” she bowed as she took her seat across the desk from the yak that had been waiting. “I had a very uncooperative bitch that refused to eat her dinner, and I had to practically force it down her throat. If you would like to spank her for wasting your precious and valuable time, I can schedule that in for you?”

The yak shook his head. “No need. You do a good job. Actions speak for themselves.”

Rarity bowed her head. “You flatter me, captain! To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

The captain leaned back in his chair. “Pony bitch says her dream was always to be a performer. Doing nice thing for her: making her performer.”

Rarity smiled. Any pony would be able to see that the smile was not genuine. Yaks, however, had a harder time telling the difference. “Why, that sounds like a swell idea for a gift! Whatever did she do to deserve this?”

“She’s bad at blowjobs. She has to be good at something, right?”

“Indeed, indeed,” nodded Rarity. “You want me to design an outfit for her to wear for her performance, I take it? Or you’d like me to personally train her to be a better dancer? Singer?” She pursed her lips. “What kind of performance is it, exactly?”

The yak shrugged. “You’d know better than me how ponies perform.”

Rarity furrowed her brow. “I suppose I do. If this, ahem, pony bitch of yours is not displaying any performing arts talents, in particular, then I suppose I shall have to teach her something. If you wish to come back with more information, I can try my best…”

“She displays no skills.”

Rarity just nodded. Either this yak was lying, uninformed, or uncultured, or the pony he was talking about was either unskilled in performing arts or poorly articulate. In any case, she wasn’t being given a lot of information to work with, and what she had was unhelpful. Still, if she was to keep her cushy position, she’d need to do something.

“I suppose that, were I to teach them a skill, the easiest one to make look good on accident is dancing. Even if they’re terrible, a good partner can fix that. Will a suggestive dance suit your needs, captain?”

“Dancing works. Make it fun for watchers.”

“Oh, I will certainly try. When did you need it ready?”

“Two days.”

“I will have it ready. I will need her to be brought by tomorrow at the latest, as we will need time to rehearse any moves that may be complicated.”

“No. She has to work tomorrow.”

Rarity bit her lips. Two days was already short notice to teach somepony with four left hooves how to dance, and she still had to put it all together. If she could only spend one day teaching them the steps, and having the partner keep them in motion, that would be something, at least. Not being able to teach them meant she had to make the dance even simpler. Something even an idiot couldn’t mess up.

“I will do what I can… Will that be all, captain?”

Rarity was seething as she watched the operators fit the scaffolds into place. The act she had designed was simple, easy, and relied mostly on the set dressings. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her performer, nor had she even been told who the partner was so she could instruct them on how to make the moves look good. This was turning into a disaster, and nothing was more infuriating than having her plans turn to disasters. When somepony else made her plans fail, it made it look like she had failed. And if she had to live in this festering hellscape, the only joy she had was her image of perfection.

As her hoof was raising to stamp down, she heard a soft, squeaky voice behind her. “Rarity?”

Rarity turned and looked at the cloaked filly behind her and grunted in frustration. “Not right now, Sweetie Belle. I’m really in a bad mood right now.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it…”

Rarity sighed and placed a hoof against her forehead. “It’s not your fault, it’s just… I set all of this up according to the schedule I was given, I made it work as best I could with what little I had to work with, and two ponies that were supposed to perform didn’t show up! The show goes on in two minutes! How am I supposed to lead them through the choreography of a fifteen-minute routine in less than two minutes?!” She roared out in frustration.

“A-actually, they’re both here…”

Rarity furrowed her brow, then her eyes went wide. “Sweetie Belle! You’re not…?!”

Sweetie Belle removed her cape. She was wearing the very outfit Rarity had designed and prepared for this performance. It didn’t fit as well as she would like, which meant that the measurements she’d been given were wrong, but she was less upset about the outfit not sitting snugly against her skin than she was about the pony wearing the outfit.

She growled silently, then took a deep breath. “At least you’re here, now. Where’s your partner? She still has to change into her outfit and go over the steps.”

Sweetie swallowed hard. “You’re my partner,” she mumbled.

Rarity blinked absently. “Did you say that… I... am to be your dance partner?”

Sweetie Belle nodded.

“How did this happen?!” shrieked Rarity.

Sweetie Belle lowered her head. This was her fault, too. Her master had asked her who she loved the most. He was holding her by the back of the head in front of all the other slaves, trying to force her to pick a partner, but she had panicked. “I want my sister!” she’d half-shouted, half-whimpered. What she really wanted was to be saved and protected, as anypony would. Instead, all she’d managed to do was rope her sister into sharing her punishment.

Of course, she couldn’t say this to Rarity. She was already angry enough with her. To know that Sweetie Belle had been the cause of her misfortune would damage their already difficult relationship.

“No matter,” sighed Rarity. “I’ll have to make it work.” She slipped into the outfit and used her emergency sewing kit’s safety pins to fix Sweetie Belle’s outfit to look barely better. It wasn’t a good fix, but it would keep everything in the proper place.

As the announcer called their names, “Deep Breath and Rarity,” Rarity ushered Sweetie Belle to walk beside her.

“Wave to the crowd,” she whispered at her. “Big smile. Fake it if you have to but make it look like you’re happy to see such a big turnout.”

Sweetie Belle waved and smiled, but she couldn’t keep herself from shaking. She didn’t want to dance in front of all of these yaks. She wouldn’t want to dance in front of this many ponies, and they would probably be nicer.

“You’re going to follow my instructions, okay?” continued Rarity. “Do as I say to do, when I say to do it, and we’ll both come out of this smelling like a rose.”

“We will?”

“Well, no… We’ll smell like dog piss and yak shit, but if you follow my instructions to the letter, we’ll be better off. Just trust your big sister, okay?”

Sweetie Belle nodded. She would always trust in Rarity.

They reached the center of the arena, and Rarity nodded to the organiser to start the music as she pulled Sweetie Belle close to her. “It starts with a waltz. Can you waltz?”

Sweetie Belle shook her head.

“Put your hooves on top of mine.”

Sweetie Belle hopped up as the music started. The ground was covered in yak shit, having been carted in by Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo this very morning. It was fresh, and it was still mostly wet, and as Rarity’s hooves slid around, they made slurping noises. Every time she removed a hoof from the ground, the gap where it was would fill with air, and then close itself, spitting out the foul odour that would permeate the air around them.

This was not a very strong effect, as far as the crowd was concerned. They couldn’t smell it from this distance, but they could probably see it creeping up her legs. Rarity had mostly put this in as a warm-up, to set some nice, easy stretches for her dancers, just in case they hadn’t had time to prepare, and they hadn’t.

“Okay, I’m going to swing you, now. Hold your hooves close to your chest.”

Rarity pushed Sweetie Belle away, then pulled her back, moving her shoulders in just such a way to keep Sweetie Belle just above the mire. That is, if she’d managed to keep her hooves tucked into her chest. The forces generated by the swinging motion were more than Sweetie Belle could resist, and on the swing back up, her mane was caught in the slurry, and as she came upright, her mane flipped forward, and she sprayed Rarity’s face with a light smattering of yak shit.

“I’m sorry!” she whimpered. “I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine,” seethed Rarity. “Just hold on a bit tighter this time.”

Without any further warning, Sweetie Belle was dipped again. Because of the suddenness, she wasn’t ready, and her back was saturated in the stuff, but she pulled her hooves rigid as she came up, and it all stayed right where it was.

“Tango, now. Hold tight to me.”

Sweetie Belle did as she was told as Rarity held her by the waist and advanced forward through the slurry in long, striding steps.

“Spin twice, grab hold again.”

Sweetie Belle did as she was told. As Rarity took several short steps back, she looked up at Rarity’s face. She was already planning out her next several moves, her eyes darting around at the scaffold that she’d taken the time to set up.

“There’s a bar with red tape behind me. See it?”

Sweetie Belle nodded, but noting that her sister had her eyes elsewhere, added to that an “uh-huh.”

“I’m going to turn us around and then drop you. Run over to it, swing outwards in time with the music, then come back to the center. Three, two, one…”

Rarity practically tossed Sweetie Belle, but she was lined up and ready to move as soon as she landed. She ‘d been partially rotated, so as to be heading the right direction, more or less. There was a slight divergence, but it was easy enough to correct.

As Sweetie Belle turned and started to come back, she saw Rarity flourishing on the pole. She could tell by her facial expression that she wasn’t happy, but the vigorous and measured movements made it look like she had trained long and hard for this. She was a natural when she put in the effort.

As they started to come back towards each other, Sweetie Belle slipped in a particularly wet patch and slid on her face towards Rarity. Rarity, having known the path was slippery, had been counting on the impact, cushioned by their legs bending, to cause the two to stop. In fact, the original plan was not to collide, but to glance off each other and cause the duo to spin in place. With Sweetie Belle skidding, the point of impact did almost the same thing, halting the forward momentum of her back legs. Her front half stayed in motion, curving that motion downward into the ground.

When Rarity picked her face up, it was covered in yak shit. The entire front of her body, from her horn to her chest, was absolutely coated. She snorted, and a chunk flew out of her nose. The crowd was in an absolute uproar. The cheering almost drowned out the music.

“I’m sorry,” whimpered Sweetie Belle again.

“It’s expected,” spat Rarity. “Tango again.”

The two pressed their shit-soaked chests together with a wet splat and started stepping together towards the direction they needed to go next. Rarity knew the way.

As they wove through the poles and the paces grew quicker with the tempo of the music, they started to slip more and more often. Rarity had designed it as such. The yaks wanted to see them fall, and she had every indication that the dancers would be bad. Having them slip and fall and have to stand back up again would entertain the yaks, and it would keep any ponies watching from inherently presuming that the two being forced to do this were bad at dancing.

The flaw in planning it this way was that everyone, Rarity included, had failed to take into account that Rarity was a fairly skilled dancer, and Sweetie Belle was able to understand her perfectly. So it took a bit more time for them to fall a second time.

Rarity landed on her back. She was knocked breathless, and for most ponies this would have been achieved by the impact. But Rarity was breathless for another reason.

“My… My hair…”

Sweetie Belle did her best to help Rarity up, but slipped. It caused the crowd to howl with laughter, but it sparked Rarity’s protective side. Hearing Sweetie Belle scream in discomfort was enough to remind her that there was something more important than her mane.

She leapt to her hooves and pulled Sweetie Belle up with her. The tempo had changed while they were down, and they were already supposed to be sliding. “Just hold onto my hooves,” Rarity instructed as she started thrusting her way around the arena.

This section was meant to resemble ice skating or roller skating. They were sliding around, with Rarity able to keep Sweetie Belle mostly upright while being splattered with her wake. Rarity was more direct, now, as she was already quite messy and in need of cleaning, as soon as possible. She was angry, for certain, but Sweetie Belle could tell that it was the smoldering, calm sort of anger that was raging on the inside, rather than the bombastic, explosive anger that would cause outbursts.

They started to swirl inward, spinning as they went, culminating in faster spins at the center. From the stands above, this looked like two turds stuck together, just refusing to be flushed down the toilet. This was absolutely intentional, as Rarity did not expect the yaks to grasp any humour more complicated than this. To her credit, the announcer caught the joke and stepped over the music, playing a flushing noise that made the yaks absolutely howl.

Rarity could hear the song coming to a crescendo. The finale was coming soon.

“Okay, Sweetie Belle. I’m going to lift you up and spin you around. Close your eyes, close your throat, open your mouth, stick out your tongue. Your hooves are out to the side, like you just jumped out of a birthday cake. Ready?”

Sweetie Belle nodded, but the explanation took so long that Rarity couldn’t warn her about the timing. She was a bit late in doing the movements, and she forgot to close her throat. So when the first Diamond dog on the scaffold let loose his stream into her face, the splatter that went into her mouth went into her windpipe, rather than down her throat. She didn’t so much swallow it as much as breathe it in, and that caused her to cough.

Rarity was already rotating in place, though, and with every diamond dog they turned to, a new stream of piss began raining down on Sweetie Belle’s face. She was still coughing, trying to catch her breath through her nose, but all she was managing to do was splash hot dog piss on Rarity’s face.

Sixteen diamond dogs, each in turn, released their urine at their allotted time. As nasty as they could be, they were halfway decent at following directions. If they were more pleasant to be around, then Rarity would have considered keeping one as a pet, but she wasn’t allowed to own slaves, just to train them, and these boys had all done their job beautifully.

Of course, the amount of fluid they had consumed was a variable that she’d been unable to control, nor the speed at which their bladder emptied. They all made it through the initial spray, and the first synchronised fan, but two of them had dropped off by the return trip, and three more petered out when it was time to start the final flourish. By the time the veritable fountain of piss routine was finished, along with the song, only one was still going, and he had only a pitiful little dribble.

The yaks all cheered, fully entertained by the ending. It was unlike anything in classical yak theatre, making it a novelty, and at the same time, it appealed to their brutish and disgusting tastes.

On some level, it might even appeal to ponies of culture that may have been watching. Ponyville didn’t have many high-class citizens, but that wasn’t necessary. The citizens were sophisticated enough that they could see the intricacies of the movements, had they cared to look. Rarity knew some of them were. There were a good few that would have loved to see her covered in yak shit for tossing her chapeau in with the yaks, her reasons be damned.

Such ponies of culture were leagues ahead of the diamond dogs. As soon as they were done peeing on the two, they started moving toward the ladders on either side. They were unlikely to have ever heard the term “curtain call,” let alone know what it meant. Even if both parameters were true, why would they want to stick around?

A few steps in, the last one to finish yelped and yanked his paw up. The noise made everyone look up at him, watching as he launched himself off the scaffolding and fell to the ground. Rarity moved to catch him, not because she cared about him, specifically, but because she didn’t want any injuries on her equipment, as she could potentially be held liable. There was also the fact that she didn’t want to see him injured, but again, that would apply to everyone.

She didn’t quite make it, and he hit the ground. Luckily, he landed in a pile of nice, soft mud that cushioned his fall.

Except, it wasn’t mud.

A sharp splash of yak shit sprayed across Rarity’s face. Her face that had, seconds before, been washed somewhat clean in a shower of diamond dog piss.

Things turned worse as she helped him up. He’d stepped in a gap in the scaffolding, one of his toes had caught, and it had broken as he was falling off. He had indeed been injured on her equipment. The question now was, had he been injured due to a flaw in the design, a flaw in the construction, or his own negligence? And she wasn’t allowed to check into any of that.

She returned to Sweetie Belle and escorted her out of the arena. She seemed mad.

“I’m sorry,” said Sweetie Belle again.

Rarity stopped, turned around to look at Sweetie Belle, then scraped most of the yak shit off of her face, flinging it to the ground. “Sweetie Belle?”

Sweetie Belle looked up at her sister, with her head hung low. “Y-yeah?”

“Tell your owner that you’re good at singing.”