The last few steps along the dusty road were always the easiest… and the hardest.

Easiest, because there was always something comforting about trotting the final few steps home. Hardest, because that meant that the physical toil of farmwork that was every son’s duty was about to begin in earnest… often continuing right to the last gleaming ray of Celestia’s sunlight before it dipped over the western foothills.

The large, jet-black earth pony colt sighed to himself as he reached the gate of Harvest Acres, his family’s farm, inherited through his mother’s side and about as famous and important of an agricultural site as Sweet Apple Acres to the town of Ponyville.

Big Caisson shook his fetlocks clean of the light coating of gravel-dust he’d accumulated along the last half-mile or so of their access road. His mother, Golden Harvest, had been wondering about whether to finally lay paving-stones along the route, not so much for the dust or the look of it, but more to make sure that the wagons wouldn’t get stuck into the ruts that tended to build up, particularly through the rainy weather seasons.

But then he’d gotten his growth spurt.

Mom had quickly changed her mind as to whether he’d have enough power to slog a wagon-train full of produce to market on even the ruttiest of roads. And since there were always a million things to do on a farm, if the family could deprioritize something as laborious as quarrying and laying the thousands of flagstones needed to pave the road, the good ol’-fashioned ponypower solution had quickly won out.

Caisson blew out a frustrated blast of air through his nostrils as he kicked the gate closed behind him, shaking the last of the dust off of his rear-left fetlock as he did so. He hadn’t had the annoyingly hairy fetlocks last season and had begged to go get them trimmed. But his father, Written Script had talked him out of it, assuring him that ‘fillies around this town liked a stallion with big hooves.’

What did he know anyway, as a unicorn he never had to deal with the things! Caisson grumbled internally, shaking his head and heading toward the barn. Fillies had probably flocked all over dad when he was in high school!

In Caisson’s experience, girls had always seemed to prefer the slenderer, sleeker, magic-using unicorns to be their friends through kindergarten, middle-school and right up to the current year. Pretty much every time he saw a magazine in the general store from Manehattan or Las Pegasus, it featured some movie-star stallion that was so scrawny his limbs would break like twigs on the first tug of a single-furrow plow.

Today had been the first day of his final year in high school. His senior year. His last chance to maybe actually bag a fillyfriend before being consigned to the daily work of helping with the farm — after which he’d be consigned to only even have a chance at seeing a member of the fairer sex on market days.

He moaned inwardly as he pushed open the barn door and headed toward his harness-peg, where he’d hung up his gear from the previous day’s work. His one hope was that some of the other stallions would have gone through a similar growth spurt to the one he’d gone through the previous spring, shooting up from lanky coltish-teens to massive young stallions. It had been a crazy few months — he’d always been a bit bigger than his classmates, but for those rainy spring-tillage sessions it had seemed like every day he had to adjust his gear for his increasing size. Breastcollar, belly-band, breeching strap. Each and every session he was having to fish out the leather-punch from the toolbox to accommodate his expanding chest, muscles and bones. It had gotten to a point where Golden Harvest had just kept the punch on a lanyard that she’d hung on the same peg as his gear, to save time for all the constant adjustments it would need.

And he’d had to do most of his work without the use of a good, solid yoke too!

Caisson yearned for the use of a well-fitted yoke... maybe a custom-made one from a skilled craftspony - which would mean shelling out and ordering one from a catalogue. Something shaped out of a solid iron frame, cushioned with quality leather-lining, stuffed with wool. He sighed, remembering the one he’d been able to use when he was younger, a classic piece of gear that he’d shared with his mother as they’d passed each other on the size chart. It was a dream to pull with that thing, so soft and well-worked in, putting all the force right on his shoulders. For years now, he’d had to make do with some jerry-rigged shoulder strap breast collar instead. It chafed way worse and he’d complained, but his mom had simply frowned and shaken her head. There was no way that she was going to spend a few hundred bits on a quality, well-fit, full-collar that he would grow out of in less than a week.

Caisson growled at the memory while walking up to his peg, still devoid of said full-collar.

Though his growth rate had mercifully slowed, Mom would only giggle and hum that he still had a good chunk of growing left. She seemed convinced that he’d taken after his uncle Mammoth’s genes, who was renowned for being unable to get through a doorway even while on all four hooves!

Screw uncle Mammoth and his genes.

He wished he could leave all the giant size, all the big nicknames, and all the growing pains and awkwardness that went with it to rot in the field. It was hard enough to talk with a filly at school when you didn’t look like you were a fully-grown stallion who’d been held back! He preferred when he was called ‘Little Caisson’ as a foal, or at least ‘Caisson’ in middle-school! Now he was saddled forever with ‘Big Caisson’. At least most of his friends and family called him BC for short.

A merciful truncation.

But there had been no mercy from the Goddesses at school today. He’d eagerly looked amongst the various teens of his class-year, hoping to see a few other stallions who’d shot up over the summer break. Surely at least one of them had surpassed him as the biggest stallion? Perhaps one of the members of the hoofball team - they always had so much time to focus on weight-training and workouts after all, not just farming and field-work.

But of course, there had been no such luck for him. Sure, a few colts had sprung up a bit. But if anything, the gap between him and the next biggest senior, a star linebacker, had increased over the hot summer months.

It just wasn’t fair.

Caisson harumphed, then his eyes took in the pile of tackle that was his harness. Of course, he’d left it in a messy tangle at the end of the evening harvesting session the night prior. He always left it in an unsorted pile of straps and buckles. Cursing his past-self, he began to sort through the harness, stealing envious glances at the gear belonging to his two sisters on the other pegs, neatly hanging and awaiting them to return from school.

Just how did these damn straps manage to tangle and bind up just from being dropped on the ground? He groaned internally, trying to trace one of his belly-band straps back to its attachment point. It must be Discord’s magic at work.

He knew he was the only one to blame. It was so easy at the end of a long evening of late-summer work to throw everything off and rush in for a shower, inhale a late supper, then jump into bed – falling asleep mid-jump to eke out every moment of wonderful rest before waking to the cock’s crow the next morning to get a few hours of harvesting in before school. His mother used to scold him for not taking care of his harness, carefully putting everything back in its proper place for him… but as he’d grown older she’d finally decided to leave him on his own and deal with the consequences. Even now she’d still chide him for not taking a little extra time as his younger sisters did.

“Moooooom!?” Caisson bellowed out toward the field as he got the last of his straps out of their dastardly Gordinian knot and began to slip into his harness. He felt the collar-straps slip onto his shoulders, biting into an abrasion that had already begun to form from the previous day’s work. “Can you come cinch me in? I’m about ready to go, now!”

Golden Harvest was always so good at getting everything set just right for him; she’d even spot things like the welt as she strapped him in, adjusting his harness to prevent any such sore spots from turning into permanent strap scars by carefully modifying the seating of the straps or using little pads of wool to provide temporary cushioning.

He grinned at a memory that sprung to his mind, thinking of how adept his mother was at strapping him up. Around the cafeteria table at school, strapping up and whether having a mare or stallion ‘gear-buddy’ was preferable or not had somehow become the topic of conversation. Caisson had quickly proclaimed that his mother was the best in the business at getting him set for a hard day’s work.

That had ruffled some feathers and sparked some horns.

Some of his non-farming buddies at school had reacted with wide-eyed astonishment at hearing that his mother strapped him in. Having your mom so close to your rod and tackle with her snout? Her hooves putting on a crupper dock and having to slide a band along your belly? The questions abounded — ‘Does she ever brush against your sheath?’ ‘Has she ever had to move your sack to set things?’ ‘Does that mean she might accidentally touch your tailhole?’ ‘Dude, have you ever dropped in front of her?’

The answer to all those questions was: yes.

Thankfully, there were enough other farm-colts at the cafeteria table to assist him in providing the eye-rolling responses to the wild imaginations of those towns-colts who had likely never donned a harness in their life.

It was just the way of the world on the farm, things had to get done and that meant hooves and mouths needed to cinch and buckle in places that agriculturally-ignorant ponyfolk might think was more lurid than it really was. He’d never understood what the big deal was anyway, it wasn’t like everypony’s mom hadn’t seen their junk while growing up anyway. He’d never forgotten how a fellow farmhoof classmate had gotten all those tittering spoiled colts to shut up by reminding them all about the first time their mothers had removed their ‘beans’ and taught them to properly wash the inside of their sheaths, their ‘skin-turtlenecks’ in the bath.

That was a task that all mothers did (it would be weird for your dad to do that). After a few moments where every colt around that lunch table had awkwardly remembered their own incidents, everypony’s mouths seemed to shut up.

It just wasn’t that big a deal to have your Mom or your Dad or your buddy strap you up. Every farmpony knew that. Sure, sometimes your little-guy decided to drop-in for a quick appearance, but that didn’t mean anything — just part and parcel of living in a society that had no problem letting it all hang out. Heck, walking around the high school halls in the spring season you’d see more sausage than at the butcher shop the day after the pigs had been taken in.

Hitching up just wasn’t sexual, and that was that. Caisson said as much.

Most of the farm-colts had nodded with him in agreement. Only his friend, Hay Bale, had hesitated at his pronouncement. ‘M-maybe, b-but if a cute filly is getting a little friendly with you while helping you strap up, it certainly could get exciting, kinda?’

Immediately the poor colt had been barraged with questions and excited prodding for him to spill the beans. Everycolt around the table assumed that he’d managed to score with some farm-filly based on his nervous reaction. He’d shaken his head wildly, denying all accusations, just saying that maybe it could be exciting — he wasn’t saying he’d actually gotten to ‘wet his wick’ while slipping into his harness.

With the way his beet-red face shone, nopony believed a word of what he said.

It wasn’t until later that day, on the way home from school that Hay had admitted the truth to Caisson privately. He had made that first perilous leap on the journey to adulthood; his bedpost now had a single notch on it. Although Hay figured that the notch beloned on the inside of his quarter strap instead. Harnessing up with a female-partner had led to a sweaty and confusing tumble in a dark corner of a hayloft.

He refused to tell Caisson just who the filly was, though.

That piqued Caisson’s curiosity. Hay Bale’s family plot was a small one; they had never taken on a farmhand for help, even during bumper-crop seasons. He couldn’t think of any situation in which his friend would have had occasion to get a mare or filly from off-farm to be helping him into a harness, except maybe if he had worn one into town and then taken it off there. That didn’t seem likely though: he was almost never the member of his family who took things to market.

But the alternative was hard to imagine... Hay Bale’s mother had passed away from a particularly horrifying case of Swamp Fever shortly after he was born (she was now a carefully tended tree in their southern field), which left only his older sister as a potential candidate.

Caisson shook one of the loose straps out from under his collar, blowing a snort of air from his nostrils as he briefly returned to the present, before returning to his curious musings.

But doing that? With your sister?

It wasn’t unheard of, especially through the spring seasons in a farming town. Cousins certainly, but even brothers and sisters. He’d heard enough stories, rumors from uncles and aunts visiting during reunions, or from old-timers around Sugarcube Corner when it got busy in the midmorning. ‘No big deal’, they’d say… A mare or filly going in estrus, stallions in rut… scratches needed to be scratched, so long as both parties were careful about protection.

But none of the younger folk he’d hung out with seemed to be OK with the subject, not that it was a common topic of conversation. For his own part, he couldn’t possibly see either of his sisters like… that.

Caisson’s youngest sibling certainly didn’t enter his radar. His baby-sister Posey, hadn’t even gotten her cutie mark yet (Caisson suspected the brat would get a rat-related one for all the snitching she liked to do). She was a complete momma’s foal, and though she could be fun to play with, he always had to be careful not to accidentally step on her (the tips of her ears barely made it to his breastbone height), lest she run off and tell on him to Golden Harvest.

The older of his two siblings, Cookie Pop, was at least within the realm of possibility, being four years the senior of their annoying baby-sister. But she had only just graduated from junior-high: she probably still thought of colts as icky little creatures. That would soon change, Cookie was becoming a looker that would soon turn colts’ and stallions’ heads alike.

Not that he looked at her like that!

Sure, she was a looker. Even as her brother he could admit as much. But that was as far as he would go! He’d gotten the odd glimpse under the tail, of course. It was inevitable, especially around somepony you spent so much time with... the odd swat of a fly of your flank in the field at an inopportune time… heck, sometimes a pony would quickly relieve their bladder mid-pasture row. But to think of those marebits sexually?

He chewed his lip in consternation - that wasn’t right, was it? He was sure most of his friends would frown on the idea.

Perhaps it was a generational thing? Something that made sense in the olden days, but would die out as folk continued to move toward a more modernized future, filled with magic and the industrial advances they all kept hearing about.

Caisson shook his head and grumbled at himself for daydreaming once again.

“Mom?” Caisson bellowed out again toward the field, growing more confused by the moment as to why she hadn’t responded.

Usually, she was pretty timely about meeting up with him to start strapping him in — rain or shine the walk from Ponyville High School was only about fifteen minutes away, unlike the junior schoolhouse, which was on the other side of town. The standard routine was that she’d help him strap up, then his two sisters would help each other when they arrived about twenty minutes later: not a minute to be wasted during the afternoon harvesting season.

The farm always ran like clockwork. He hadn’t seen his sisters harness up in years: usually, he was well into his work by the time they trotted out onto the fields.

“Everything ok, Mom!?” Caisson yelled again, starting to make his way toward the barn door, worrying that something might have happened to her. He always got this sense in his gut before something momentous happened to him, a sort of sixth-sense that some said all earth-ponies had at least some ability to tap into. Was she hurt? What if one of the wagons had tipped over on her!?

“MOM!” He took a stride toward the field, panic rising.

At the same moment, the road-facing barn door creaked open, and his sister Cookie Pop strode in, a look of frustrated annoyance on her face.

“Why are you raising bloody Discord, BC? You know she said she was going to work the south field this afternoon — she can’t hear you.”

Author's Note

Oh boy, time to get strapped in!