"Hey Cotton!" The filly didn't even look up as she walked past, "Cotton?"

Not even an ear twitch to show she'd heard. He picked up his pace and trotted until he was level with the white pegasus, it was then he saw her eyes were completely unfocused, she wasn't looking at anything as she walked, something was really bugging her.

He nudged her gently with his wing, "Hey? Cotton?" That got her attention.

"Huh? Rumble?" She blinked her pale lavender eyes at him, "What is it?"

Even under the effects of filly eyes, he managed to "What's eating you? You didn't even hear me just now."

"Oh." She looked down again, "Nothing. I just... kinda have a lot on my mind."

"Tests?" He tried to sympathise.

"If only..."

The were interrupted by the common phenomenon of what he'd come to call Keen's Fanclub. Two fillies charged past them, a third knocked Rumble away from Cotton as she dodged between them, and it wasn't until he'd got his balance back before he saw a fourth had clipped Cotton Cloudy's saddle bag so hard it'd swung around and hit her in the side of the head.

"Hey!" He yelled after them, "Watch where you're going!"

As usual, they ignored him. The four girls were galloping to catch up to the tall, bipedal creature ahead of them, who was reading a book as he walked.

Keen Eye was a creature called a Human, he'd wound up in Ponyville when he was no older than a foal and they'd needed to find a place for him to stay until he could be sent back. At the time, Princess Twilight had been confident that she could return him to wherever it was he'd appeared from, but the more she tried, the more she found that she plain just didn't know where he'd come from in the first place. Since he was so young, he didn't either.

The mare that took him in was Merry May, a caring pegasus with a foal of her own. By the time the Princess had come to the conclusion she couldn't send him back, the mother had already gotten quite attached to Keen and had volunteered to keep him and raise him as her own. Which was probably lucky for Rumble, because that meant Keen's new sister was Cotton Cloudy, the one filly Keen couldn't pull into his herd of giggling fillies.

That was fourteen years ago.

By the Princess' best guess, Keen was a year older than himself and Cotton, and he'd just grown and grown and grown. At seventeen he was now a little more than twice as tall as the average stallion, not as strong as them in proportion, but easily able to keep up with the same jobs and sports. He was also faster than most ponies in a sprint, since his two legs could get him to full speed faster than a pony with four, and his hands made him great at things that unicorns could do too.

Cotton had told him once that for a while Keen had tried to be like everypony else, walk on four legs, pick things up the same way, do everything like a pony. It was Princess Twilight that had taught him how his body was different and how he should walk, even came up with ideas for things he could do with his hands that he'd never thought of before.

Right now, if it weren't for Cotton walking next to him, Rumble would have been intensely jealous of her older brother.

"So-ooo? You think maybe this weekend?" Apple Bloom, with the country accent and the big eyes and the big heart, was prancing just a little and trying to keep Keen's attention,

"No way, you said this weekend would be with me!" Scootaloo, lean and athletic, already practicing to follow in Rainbow Dash's hoofsteps, pushed herself into Apple Blooms place in protest,

"Girls, don't fight about it, we could always, you know, share?" Sweetie Belle, with the perfect mane and the perfect coat, and the perfect voice and the perfect eyes, always trying to keep her friends reigned in. She blushed for some reason and the other two giggled and blushed too.

"But what about me?" Noi, the charming and slightly ditzy one of the group piped up, like a foal that wanted more sweets.

"And me!" Aura, the last filly of his little cavalcade, a sweet, caring filly with a usually shy personality, demanded of the group.

"I'm heading home." Keen Eye looked at the horizon, "Scoots, I'll see you Saturday." He seemed so... aloof, that was the word, like he didn't really care about any of those girls.

With a chorus of 'aww's and 'don't go's and even a triumphant 'see? I told'ja.' from Scootaloo, he moved ahead of them and they quickly dispersed in different directions, muttering to each other.

The whole time the two had been watching, Cotton hadn't said a word, or even changed expression, I don't think. But now she looked down again, like her hooves were suddenly really interesting.

"Say." She said to the pathway, "You wanna go to the park?"

He was about to ask why, but Cotton leveled a pair of the most needy eyes at him. Like she was desperate for somepony to talk to. There was always something hypnotic about girls' eyes, and he had no way to say no.

"Alright." He agreed.

* * *

"He used to be shy, you know?" Cotton broke the silence between them after nearly twenty minutes.

"Yeah." Rumble agreed, remembering the tiny human arriving in their class back when they were all little.

"But something's happened to him, something when he got taller." She sighed.

She didn't say anything more for a while, and Rumble didn't want to interrupt her thoughts. Even if they were talking about Keen, just walking in the park with Cotton was enough to keep him in good spirits. He gestured to a bench ahead, and she nodded, so they made their way there to sit down.

Her eyes wandered vaguely over the grass and trees and other ponies of the park, eventually fixing on the little fountain the bench faced and it was another minute before she spoke.

"It was back when he brought home his first fillyfriend."

"You mean... what's her name? Piña Colada?"

"Her. Yeah." Cotton sighed, "I didn't like her, she just seemed interested in having a strange coltfriend. One day they'd been in his room and I heard her laughing. Like, really mean laughing. So I went to see what was going on, and she comes out of his room. She's still laughing, sneering, y'know? And poor Keen's just sitting on his bed looking at the floor like she's torn out his heart. She says 'Maybe I'll come back when you've grown up down there too.' and Keen looks like he's taken a punch in the tummy."

Rumble had to swallow the smile at Cotton still using 'tummy', but he thought he understood. Being called small was a real insult for a colt, and small 'down there' was mean for any guy. She'd even laughed at him! "Not cool." He muttered, and Cotton nodded.

"It was the holidays, so nopony noticed, but Keen shut himself in his room for weeks after that. I barely saw him. Then one day he's not there at all, and nopony's seen him or knows where he went. When he came back he was... different. He looked like he knew what he had to do. He looked... well, like he does all the time now. Colder, distant, watching everypony."

She sighed again and Rumble couldn't stop himself from edging closer, trying to show he was there for her, wanting to... comfort her.

"He brought Piña home again only a few days later, and the next day she was... well... like those other girls around him. I didn't know what had happened, but she didn't just like him, she acted like she needed him. But Keen ignored her after that. He just got cold all the time. Pretty soon, Piña stopped coming around, I saw her a few times after that and she's been okay, but she won't talk to me about anything."

"So what do you think he did?"

"I know what he did. And I can't really blame him. It's just... if he hadn't, he might have found somepony who didn't care about that and might be his special somepony because of him, not because of how he looked."

"Then what was it?"

"He went to somepony who made his... you know... bigger. Even bigger than a normal stallion's." She didn't look at him.

"Oh..." was all Rumble could say to that.

"Anyway, now you know why all our friends hang around him like that." The expression on Cotton's face, her tone of voice, showed how little she thought of them for that.

"Because he's got a-"

"Every friend I've brought home for a sleepover, a little later she's come back to see Keen, not me, and every time after that too. He just does... something, I don't know what, and they get like that." Her confusion and frustration was rising. "And that's not the worst of it."

This last one was... she glared at nothing like she was seeing something that made her incredibly angry.

Rumble tried to calm things down, "But it can't be all that bad, right? He's not shy anymore, and he's grown up, he showed Piña that she was wrong, and now he's the most popular colt at school." The positive tone sounded forced, even to himself.

"And he's not the brother I grew up with anymore."

Well, that one stopped him in his tracks.

"Rumble," She turned to him with those big eyes that kept messing with his brain, "Keen scares me sometimes. He looks at me and... it's like I'm one of those other girls. Like he's thinking about me that way."

He didn't know what to say to that one, either. And now she was looking at him with those same pleading eyes that got him to come here with her today, he knew she was going to ask him something, but it was Cotton, he'd probably do anything for her.

"I'd like... I'd like it if you were my coltfriend, Rumble, that way Keen would stop looking at me that way."

In his mind there was nothing but a humming blank. Cotton Cloudy just asked me to be her coltfriend. Cotton Cloudy just asked me to be her coltfriend. Cotton Cloudy just asked me to be her coltfriend. Cotton Cloudy just asked me to be her coltfriend. CottonCloudyjustaskedmetobehercoltfriend!

She was withering now, he hadn't answered her yet! Oh Celestia! "I..." He swallowed and tried again, "I'd like that. Too. I'd like to be your coltfriend. I... yes." He didn't care, words, who cared about them. Cotton Cloudy had just asked him to be her coltfriend and he'd said yes. That was all that mattered.

"Oh thank you Rumble!" She leaned forward and pecked a little kiss on his cheek, "Thank you!" And she jumped off the bench, trotting away with a spring in her step. "I'll see you at school tomorrow!"

He sat there, watching her go, with one hoof raised in a dazed wave and a goofy smile on his face. When she finally turned a corner out of sight he let that hoof rest on his cheek where she'd kissed him.

* * *

"I'm home!" She called, shutting the door behind her. Nopony answered her. "Mom? I'm home!"

Trotting up the stairs to her room, figuring that her mom must be out at the market, she heard a door open and shut behind her. Keen's door.

"Oh, welcome home honey." Mom.

Merry May, mom, a pegasus with her long purple mane and light green coat that made Cotton think of fresh grass and flowers, looked like she'd been rolling in a field. Her mane was mussed, her coat rubbed in different directions and her tail was pressed down.

"Hi mom." Cotton didn't want to look, but had to, she offered her mother a smile that she didn't really feel.

"You're a little later than usual, Keen told me you were going on a date."

She blushed, "Not a date, but I do have a coltfriend now."

"Oh sweetie, that's so good for you." Her mother smelled of musk and of Keen. "I'll just be taking a shower, and then I'll be getting dinner for us. It won't be more than half an hour, okay? Be down in time."

"Sure, mom." She offered another smile, hoping it would get her out of this awkwardness.

Unfortunately it did, because her mother turned and headed down the stairs. It was unfortunate because Cotton couldn't divert her eyes in time, and once they noticed, her slow, creeping horror meant she couldn't look away.

Her mother's tail was held down, but it didn't matter. The coat around her haunches was matted, slicked with moisture. She was walking carefully, and every step made her tail twitch. Then she went down the stairs and Cotton watched as the tail didn't cover enough any more. There was a slow drool of milky liquid leaking down her mother's thighs.

The sight froze her for just too long because the next moment Keen's door opened again.

Keen Eye looked down at her from his towering height. His eyes cold, his lips thin, but he wasn't looking at her in the way that scared her, this was just regular, cold Keen. He usually wore clothes, ones that Miss Rarity made for him, because unlike other stallions he couldn't hide his... stallion parts. So outside the house he usually wore shorts or trousers, but like most ponies, he preferred not to wear anything at home.

And with much the same horror as she'd watched her mother's soaking rear end walk down the stairs, her eyes were drawn to his stallionhood that was hanging more or less at eye level in front of her. It was slick too, shining in the afternoon light. Flaccid and dangling over the top of his large balls, it didn't look anything like a pony stallion's thing, it looked as different from one of those as the rest of him did from a pony. But where just last year a cute little thing had hung a little past his sack, now it was a bare, glistening length of meat as long as from her hoof to her elbow and half as thick.

The mushroom-like head dripped a drop of something clear onto the floor. Her nose was full of the scent of Keen, and her mother, and sweat and pheremones.

"So, you've finally got yourself a coltfriend, Socks?" He always called her 'socks' since learning that 'cotton socks' were real pieces of clothing, it was childish, but it was now the only reminder that this was her older brother, who'd teased her and laughed with her, played together with her, as children.

"Yes. His name is Rumble." She tore her eyes away and made to go to her room.

"We'd like to meet him sometime." His voice was even, dry, but not devoid of emotion like it was around his fillyfriends.

"I... I'll bring him for dinner soon." She knew teasing should follow, it wouldn't, instead Keen would stand there in his doorway, naked, and looking at her with his cold eyes. She didn't want to turn and see him again, so she quickly slipped into her room.

Author's Note

And here it begins. Another little play into the HiE line. I've had Keen Eye as a character for a while now, but after that disaster with my last fiction, I needed to redesign my sweet, innocent human into something a little... harder.

That, and I really wanted to play with the faux-incest line, but this time from a darker side. I think I'm going to enjoy this.