Hauling Across Equestria and Beyond: The Haul to Yakyakistan

“I make enough to handle both of us. You don’t need to find a new job immediately.” Gold Standard suggested, trotting alongside Brave Storm.

“I know you can, but I’m not comfortable with you doing so.” Brave Storm huffed. “I’ve already heard enough gossip in Canterlot parts that I’m only dating you for your money.”

“You didn’t even know who I was!” he argued. “Besides, why do you care what others think? Especially Canterlot folk.”

“You’re Canterlot folk.” The mare reminded, halting suddenly. Gold Standard had a look on his face that looked like he thought he was in trouble. Brave Storm kissed his cheek to let him know he wasn’t. “I… I know I shouldn’t worry about what other ponies think. It still makes me feel bad when I hear it.”

“That’s-” Gold Standard started to argue again, but quieted himself. He frowned as he mulled a few things over. “No, that’s… fair.”

“Besides, with the Merchant’s Guild opening, now’s the perfect time to get on board.” Brave Storm shifted the conversation away, not willing to get into the deeper talk that’s required to unpack both of their emotions in public.

“I never took you as the merchant type.” 

“I’m not. But the merchant types need someone to haul their goods. Especially as we keep making headway into rediscovering Equestria and beyond.”

“Same job as before, just more pay.” Gold Standard nodded approvingly. “Smart. But would this make you happy?”

“Being a Knight makes me happy. Being in the Merchant’s Guild will pay my bills.”

The stallion pressed his forehead against his marefriend’s, a task that had gotten a little harder with the growth of Brave Storm’s crystal horns. “Good luck.”

 

“No.” bluntly said a yak to Brave Storm’s request to join the Merchant’s Guild. The yak’s shaggy hair was braided out of her eyes.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Brave Storm was more shocked than anything. She’d been asking around for where she could offer her service to the guild and kept being pointed to the Yakyakistani branch. Apparently, it had been hard for them to get labor because of their location up a steep mountain, but now Brave Storm wondered how many of them were just turning away their workforce.

“I say no because I mean no! What does pony get not?” the yak stomped her hoof at the pony. She was clearly already frustrated with the situation without struggling with the language barrier between them. Brave Storm was honestly surprised that enough Equestrian survived during Yakyakistan’s isolation for them to even be attempting this conversation.

“I thought you needed haulers. This is exactly what I did before.” Brave Storm tried to bite down her own frustrations, but she’d been going between members of the guild all day. “I have experience. I won a gold medal for hauling the most weight during a competition- see?”

“Pah!” the yak threw her wrist at Brave Storm’s medal. “Just pretty thing. Show not you can do real work.”

“But I have done real work. I pulled carts for my last job. It’s why I won.”

“You won because no yaks compete.”

“I won because I earned it! I’d win first place just the same if any yak competed against me.” Brave Storm should have felt mad, but she felt challenged. Confident, perhaps overly so. 

The yak snorted so heavily that Brave Storm felt the hot air hit her from several feet away. The yak turned and consorted with a few other yaks. They grumbled and argued with each other in their own language before coming to an agreement. The yak turned back to Brave Storm.

“Pony insist? Pony can try. She join these yak.” the yak gestures to the group. On closer inspection, Brave Storm could see that they looked a little more dressed for work than the yak she was talking to. “But you cry not when it goes bad. You be compensated regardless. Yaks take not free labor. You make it all the way to Yakyakistan and back, you get full pay and join Guild.”

“Thank you for the opportunity.” Brave Storm sighed, relieved that she finally made progress.

“This hasn’t been that bad so far.” Brave Storm said to a yak that she’s been chatting up during her journey. They were able to catch a chain ride to the Crystal Empire and had been climbing their way through a well-traveled mountain impasse to reach Yakyakistan. As the mountains got colder, cold even for Brave Storm, the yaks had given her a blanket. It kept her warm, but it also kept a comfortable line of protection between her and her harness.

“Ha! Brave have seen nothing.” the yak, Kalden, laughed. He was a black-flecked white yak that was a little older than her. Brave Storm had watched as the yaks who struggled to breathe at the base of the mountain begin to breathe more easily as they climbed altitude. They drew deep breaths and exhaled harshly, their hot breath visible in the cold air.

“Does it get colder?”

“Get more cold, yes. We have more blanket for that. There less…” Kalden failed to find the Equestrian word he wanted and settled for another, “air. Easy for yak to breathe, easy not for pony.”

Brave Storm had heard of that before. The higher up, the less oxygen there was. It’s why the pegasus who lived in Cloudsdale had larger lungs and hearts than the earth ponies living in the valleys. And part of why Star Atlas could go places Brave Storm couldn’t, even if he had learned how to get his sister in the air with him.

 

Brave Storm’s hooves slipped in the snow and she fell face-first. Normally she would have been able to catch herself, but it was too much effort. The mountain became steeper and she was using muscles she didn’t even know she had to compensate. They screamed and burned, begging for rest. But she just couldn’t give them the oxygen they needed to ease, the air felt as though it thinned faster than when she visited before. 

The yaks trudged on, but Kalden stayed with her. His hot breath precipitated on her face as he pushed Brave Storm back to her feet. He stopped her from walking forward. She was too dizzy to protest.

“Follow,” he instructed before taking a deep breath. Brave Storm followed, feeling her lungs fill. And then he took another gulp of air. Brave Storm frowned and he nodded for her to do the same. She forced more air into her lungs, feeling them expand. He held, and so did she. Finally, when he exhaled, he pushed all of the air out at once and Brave Storm did the same. Immediately, he breathed in again and repeated the cycle.

After a few cycles of this, Brave Storm felt herself adjusting to breathing like this without thinking about it. Her dizziness didn’t go away, but it cleared up enough for the wobble to leave her legs. She was good to continue. Kalden taught her how to pull better. He used some Yakyakistani words that she didn’t know but figured out the meaning of. Brave Storm released a few screams and grunts of pain as weak muscles were pulled to their limit. Every time she wanted to quit and declare the yak in Equestria right, Kalden pushed her to keep going. Finally, on the horizon through the stirring snow, Brave Storm could see the statues of yak warriors that flanked the gates of Yakyakistan.