Tail-buns.

They were the delight and the bane of every colt in school.

Caisson’s mind quickly flashed through all the ones he’d seen over the last half-year. A filly would fix the bottom of her tail up to her dock with an elastic and then scallop-fold the middle one over another until she met the desired length of her bun, capping her masterpiece off and keeping it all in place with a scrunchie or a bow or a clip. Most of the time the chosen length was little more than a hoof-length.

It left nothing to the imagination.

Of course, the fashion had come in from the big cities, and was quickly derided by many of the older folk as ‘a sign of the moral degradation of Equestrian society’. Just as quickly, as young ponies are wont to do in youthful rebellion, the young fillies in town had flocked to the style.

It was one thing to get a glance of a filly’s private bits when her tail moved, or you were seeing them at a weird angle or whatever. She likely didn’t even know you’d seen anything, let alone meant for you to see her.

But all the time?

And the full thing, too? It was almost as dramatic as some of the pictures he’d seen in Hay Bale’s Playcolt magazines. Not quite a full flag and flash, but nearly as revealing. A pony could see the whole thing at once, even their tailholes - and not even a peek of skin covered by a stray tail hair.

There was something about the fact that the fillies wanted you to see their bits that made everycolt’s heart race.

Add to that the fact his filly classmates were now constantly exposed and it meant that he’d seen some extremely revealing moments. For instance, a girl with a tail-bun couldn’t clamp down (as it could if she was wearing her tail normally) when she had an involuntary flash of pink.

During the school’s health-ed classes, he and his colt-buddies had always laughed at Nurse Redheart when she’d explained that fillies would experience ‘involuntary external genital display’ as often (if not more), than colts. She’d been met with blank stares until she’d gone on to use the laypony’s terms: hard-ons and winking.

The colts had all scoffed and balked at the assertion. One had even muttered ‘horseapples’ loud enough to catch a stern look from Principal Cheerilee, you only had to take a stroll through the hallways at lunch to see at least a half-dozen colts awkwardly bending their knees, hoping to lower their barrels enough to conceal that they were rigid against their bellies. Two-dozen if you went around counting stallions who had only dropped (but everypony knew that didn’t count).

But the fillies in class had unanimously agreed, protesting against the boys’ doubt. ‘Just because you don’t have Supermare x-ray vision to see through our tails doesn’t mean it ain’t happenin’ fellas.’ Still, despite their protests and Redheart’s confirmation, everycolt had remained skeptical.

Until tail-buns.

Putting aside whether or not Caisson thought seeing a mare’s bits was arousing, seeing a filly’s lips tense, pull up and part — before flashing a bulging pink nub of a beacon out, along with a hint of her velvet depths was hot. The tail-bun trend had only been around for the last two months of his junior year, but he’d ended up seeing nearly every one of his class-fillies’ buttons at one point or another. He’d never thought they could vary so much in shape and size — though he supposed it made sense considering their homolog did as well.

Nearly every time he walked down the hall, he’d catch at least one pink-blip out of the corner of his eye, though the filly in question would quickly look away from him with an embarrassed blush when he tried to meet her eye.

Caisson always figured they were probably looking to hook one of the smaller, slenderer colts.

The ideal filly-form had been the prime source of conversation around the colts’ cafeteria table for weeks at the end of the last school year, every lunch they’d compared differences between their classmates of the fairer sex in great detail. Generally, discussion stuck to the external bits though: it was a rare session when another farmcolt would describe what one of the filly’s hidden-pearls looked like, though most of the other colts would thump him on the back and congratulate him for doing so. Whenever that happened, Caisson would glance over at the smaller, slender, fashionable ‘popular’ colts at the table — they always seemed to keep silent about the gallery of flashes they were surely receiving: so he would too.

But despite their excitement and delight, it was also the bane of colts at Ponyville High.

Erections.

Erections for miles. As far as the eye could see.

Completely unavoidable.

There wasn’t a colt in school that Caisson hadn’t seen every inch of. And, of course, he was sure the fillies’ table at the cafeteria had its own contrasting and comparing discussions.

It was particularly bad for Caisson - thanks to his bulk, the tried-and-true method of crouching in the knees to at least drop out of an easy sight-line was completely useless. Hay, some of the smaller fillies were basically eye-level with his underbelly! He’d gotten through the remainder of the semester by always staying seated, or laying at rest - keeping himself hidden under a table, behind his forelegs or under his barrel. If he was moving from class to class or along those pink-flash-minefield hallways, he’d quickly break into a trot or even a gallop if he felt himself drop.

He’d nearly made it through to the summer break as the school’s last ‘undisclosed’ colt, until the incident.

Remembering that made Caisson wobble on his hooves.

“Did I strap it too tight?” Cookie’s concerned voice snapped his ears forward. She’d paused just as she was finishing up his forward harness. “Is it cutting into that sore spot? Mom said to use the fourth belt-hole; should I put it in the fifth?”

“N-no, that’s fine, it’s not that.” Sheesh, why am I so spacey today? He brought his eyes back down to his little sister and smiled. “That’s weird about not being able to wear a bun though — didn’t think Mom really cared about the fashion. At least, she always seemed to poke fun at the old-timers who were getting so screwed-tight about it.”

“She doesn’t care about the tail-bun. She’s fine with me wearing one.” Cookie grunted, tying off the remaining working-ends of the now buckled collar-straps into neat belt-hitches so they wouldn’t bounce around annoyingly. “She won’t let Posey wear one, obviously, but now that I’m in high school I’m allowed.”

“Oh. So why didn’t you?”

Cookie took a step back from him again, that weird look of embarrassment washing over her and her un-bunned tail tucking tight against her rump again. Embarrassment quickly gave way to an indignant set of sharp eyes.

“That’s — that’s none of your business!” She snapped, ears folding against her head.

“Wha? S-sorry.” Caisson shrugged. He’d never understand mares.

“Dummy.”

“Anyway, sorry your first day was so crummy.” Caisson rolled his shoulders, judging how well his sister had attached the collar and shoulder straps. Everything moved like a second skin on his body: not chafing or rubbing, snug but not tight, supportive but not restrictive. She’d done a good job.

“It wasn’t all bad.” Cookie admitted, nodding at her own hoofiwork, impressed with how she’d gotten things in place. She moved toward Caisson’s rump. “I got to learn some new things about my famous big brother for instance.”

Caisson stiffened. Did she find out about that incident?

“Rear-harness now? Or middle?” Cookie asked, already making her way to his tail.

Author's Note

Seems like big brother has some secrets... wonder what Cookie means by famous big brother?