Bigger Little Brother

Something was different about Dusk Shine.

Was it the manestyle? No. It was about as messy as ever, except for the spots where Mom had attacked it with a pair of scissors last week. Was he wearing something new? Was he not wearing something that he normally did?

Nope. Dusk was wearing around the same thing he always did—which was to say, nothing at all. Pretty standard pony fare, then.

Huh.

Shining Armor frowned, watching his brother trot up to Mom and give her a hug. There was definitely something...off about him.

“Morning, BBBFF.” Dusk trotted up to the table, his mane bouncing around his ears. He had that dorky little grin on his face, the one that he always had when he found the answer to one of his homework problems.

Huh. His voice sounded a little different—lower, maybe. Then again, Dusk was still just fifteen. Still coming out of puberty, so that might make sense. Could that be all? He still felt a bit uneasy, but was more than willing to write the whole thing off as a case of pre-coffee weirdness. He knew he should’ve never let Dad get him hooked on the stuff.

Shining grinned back and nodded to his brother. “Morning to you too, Dusk. How’s it going?”

“Pretty well. I woke up feeling great this morning.”

“Oh, Shiny? Could you come help me with these dishes?”

“Sure, Mom.” Shining and Dusk exchanged a look. Both stallions rolled their eyes. Then, Shining slipped out of his chair, his hooves clip-clopping against the tiled floor. It was only then that he realized what was different about Dusk.

There were two constants in Shining Armor’s life. One: Dusk Shine was smarter than him; and two: Dusk Shine was shorter than him. Sure, Dusk might have helped him out in some of his harder math classes, but Shining had always been there to protect him whenever an overzealous classmate decided to pick on the “easy target.”

Sure, Dusk probably knew enough spells to protect himself if need be, but Shining had always viewed shields as more than just his particular branch of magic. He was his little brother’s shield—his protector, his watcher, his inspiration. He’d always been, and always would be, the bigger brother.

Until today.

Shining blinked. Usually, the top of Dusk’s head just about came up to his muzzle. Today, though, he found himself meeting Dusk’s gaze eye-to-eye. On pure reflex, he glanced down—was Dusk standing on something? Was he bowing his legs? But no; it looked like Dusk was just about as tall as he was. Their hooves were even the same size. Shining had always had big hooves—and had been somewhat proud of them, even, given how Cadance loved to tease him about “stallions with big hooves”—but now it looked like Dusk’s had grown to match.

How had this happened? Shining kept staring at Dusk’s chest. He searched his memory, trying to find whether Dusk had been getting any taller lately. But no—he’d just told him good night yesterday, and he’d been the same height he’d always been. But not this morning.

How?

“Shiny!” Mom sounded a little bit annoyed. “Come on! I’ve got to finish these up so I can get to work!”

“Coming, Mom!”

As Shining turned to go, Dusk caught him on the shoulder. “Hey, Shining?” he asked. His voice might have been a bit deeper, but it contained the same dorky inflection that Dusk had always had. He was eyeing Shining’s plate of food hungrily—Shining had only had time to finish half of it, and there was still a bit of omelette, and two pieces of toast there. “You gonna finish that? I’m feeling really hungry today.”

“Uh.” Shining’s eyes flickered back to Mom, who was glaring at him from the sink. “Sure. Whatever.”

“Thanks!” Dusk beamed at him. Shining just smirked, though somewhat awkwardly, and trotted over to the sink.

“Hey, Mom?” He turned to her as he started to lift the first stack of dishes. “Does Dusk look a little bit...bigger to you, today?”

“Oh, you noticed too?” Instantly, all traces of irritation had vanished from her voice. Her face lit up, and there was a bounce in her voice as she continued. “Little Dusk’s finally having his growth spurt—why, he looks down on me now! Goodness knows he’s had to wait long enough.”

“Heh.” Shining nodded. That must be it. Just a normal growth spurt. “Definitely.”

“Oh, it’s just so wonderful. Now I’ve got three big, strong stallions in the family!”

Wonderful. Right. As Shining Armor started to wipe off the plates, he turned his mother’s words over in his head. Growth spurt. Sure.

But whose were definitely not supposed to happen overnight—at least, not by much. Then again, Dusk had always been a little bit weird. Take a colt with awesome magical power, pair him up with an alicorn princess, and you’d always have a recipe for a bit of an odd life. Maybe it was just “a Dusk thing.”

Still…

He looks down on me, now, Mom had said. A shiver went down Shining’s spine. If Dusk got any bigger…

But no. That couldn’t happen. He might not be the bigger brother anymore, but he was still the older one. Dusk had to be done growing. This was just a fluke. And besides, Shining decided, maybe he’d grow to prefer looking his brother in the eye.

It was around lunchtime that Shining decided that he’d definitely preferred looking down at Dusk.

It wasn’t just that he’d passed Dusk two or three times in the halls now, and had had to jerk his gaze up by a few inches when he realized he’d been staring right at Dusk’s chest. It wasn’t just that Dusk seemed bigger in a way that was more than just physical—he now stood a little bit straighter, a little bit taller, with the barest hint of a smirk playing across his face. He hadn’t even been sure that Dusk could smirk.

The problem was his friends—or, as Shining was now mentally calling them, his former friends.

“Wowzers.” Poindexter blinked past Shining’s shoulder. “You sure that’s your brother, Shining?”

Shining groaned as Poindexter leaned over to take a sip from one of the school cafeteria’s crappy milk cartons. “Yes,” he said, only a little bitterly. “I’ve only told you three times already.”

“Dude, c’mon.” 8-bit leaned back on the back legs of his chair. “Colts don’t just grow, like, four or five inches overnight. You sure he didn’t mess up some kind of magic spell or something?”

“Maybe he’s been growing,” Gaffer said. He twirled a pencil beside his head, his magic flickering around it. “Maybe we just didn’t notice.”

“Dude, we just went to Shiny’s house last weekend,” 8-bit said. “We saw Dusk.”

“For about five seconds. And then he ducked into his room to study, like he always does. Did you tape-measure him or something while you were there?”

8-bit actually had the gall to look thoughtful about that. “Y’know,” he said, scratching his muzzle, “I do wonder how much he’s actually grown.”

“Can we stop talking about how tall my little brother is?” Shining cut in. “Seriously. Guys. I don’t even understand why you care.”

8-bit grinned at him. It was absolutely insufferable. “Why’s that, Shiny? Especially ‘cuz it sounds like you care quite a lot.”

“Shiny?” Shining said. “You trying to be Cadance now?”

“Well,” 8-bit said. “Maybe she’ll go for the bigger stallion, if y’know what I mean.”

Shining actually lunged at him. Gaffer held him back, but 8-bit was laughing too hard to care. “Just messin’ with you, dude,” he said. “Don’t take it seriously.”

“Don’t take what seriously?”

“Cadance!” Shining and Gaffer straightened up real quick. He whirled and put on his best innocent grin. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty well.” Cadance smiled up at him. “What’re you guys talking about?”

Before Shining could say “nothing,” Poindexter blurted, “His brother.”

“His—oh, Dusk?” Cadance blinked up at Shining. “I did notice he looked a bit taller today.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Shining scratched the back of his head and quashed the urge to throttle Poindexter. “Uh, Mom just says he’s getting his growth spurt.”

“Neat,” Cadance said. “And has he been using the weight room? Looks like he’s looking to follow in your hoofsteps.”

Shining glanced down at his chest reflexively. He’d been using the school gym somewhat regularly ever since he’d decided at the end of last year that he wanted to join the Royal Guard, and had filled out a good amount, at least compared to how reedy he'd been before. He glanced back over to Dusk. Sure enough, Dusk wasn’t just taller than yesterday. He was thicker, too—he hadn’t grown like a weed; he’d filled out. His foreleg was even just a little bit less brawny than Shining’s.

“Sorry?” Shining said. He did so through gritted teeth.

“Well, it looks like he wants to join the Guard too.” Cadance chuckled and poked his chest with a hoof. “Either that, or he wants to join the hoofball team once Buck graduates. You didn’t tell me he’d been working out.”

“He...hasn’t.” Shining swallowed. His mouth suddenly felt very dry.

“Huh. Weird.” Before he could react, Cadance sprang forward and planted a kiss on his cheek. When she pulled back, the smile on her face could have lit up any dark room. “I’ll see you at Frozen Treats after school?”

“Oh—yeah!” Shining grinned at her. It was only a little forced. “Sure. I’ll meet you in the courtyard?”

“You got it, general.” Cadance snapped off a quick salute, then burst out giggling. As she turned to go, she gave him a quick wave, then disappeared into the crowd.

Shining watched her go. Then:

“So,” 8-bit said. “Shining. What do you think—”

“Not another word,” Shining bit out. 8-bit wisely shut up.

The next day, Shining realized that Dusk was taller than him.

It wasn’t some kind of huge moment of revelation. It wasn’t even obvious—there was no moment when Dusk walked up to him, smirked, and said, “Hah! You’re short.”

Instead, when they were walking home from school, Shining merely noticed that anytime he turned to talk to Dusk, he was looking up, not across.

“—and can you believe it? Professor Neigh actually thought that the answer was two pi. Well, I actually checked the textbook, and according to chapter three—”

“Hey, Dusk?”

Dusk stopped blinking. They kept walking, though. Shining had to move a little bit faster to keep up; Dusk wasn’t that much taller than him now, but his strides were still a bit longer, a bit easier than his.

“What’s up, Shining?” Dusk glanced over—down—at him, blinking innocently. His tousled mane fell over his forehead like the eternal mop that it was, except now Shining wasn’t able to see the top. He could actually see the underside of Dusk’s horn, now, and it looked a good half-inch longer than his own.

Shining took a moment to consider his next words. “Are you...feeling okay? Like, not sick or anything?”

Dusk gave him a funny look. His heavier footfalls padded noticeably on the Canterlot street, clop-clopping at a slightly louder volume than Shining’s. “Sick? Why would I be sick? Have I been sweating a lot or something?”

“No, no.” Though, Shining privately noted, Dusk’s scent had been a lot stronger than usual. Shaking that thought off—why was he noticing how his brother smelled, of all ponies?—he continued with, “I just thought—well, you’ve been going through a lot of changes lately, and I wanted to make sure that you weren’t, y’know, in pain or anything.”

Dusk digested that for a moment. “Pain?” he finally asked. “Why would I be in pain? I feel great.”

“Sure, sure,” Shining said quickly. He’d misstepped. The curiosity in Dusk’s voice was something he really didn’t want to address right now. “Forget I even asked.”

Dusk was frowning. “You’re talking about this growth spurt, right? Why would that be a bad thing? Mom said that it’s normal for a stallion my age.”

“Yes,” Shining said, “technically. But—I mean, five inches in three days? That’s not exactly healthy, is it?”

“Why not?” Dusk stood up a little straighter. With a start, Shining noticed that his “little” brother’s chest actually puffed up a little bigger, a little wider than his own. “I told you, it feels great. Being bigger feels great.”

A shiver went down Shining’s spine. “Like I said,” he said. “Forget I asked.”

“I don’t know, B.B.B.F.F.” Dusk stopped abruptly; Shining jerked to a stop a foot or two ahead of him. “Or should I say, L.B.B.F.F.?”

Shining’s spine tingled again. “Uh. Sorry?”

Dusk was grinning. He wasn’t smirking—Dusk didn’t smirk; he was too nice for that—but the grin on his muzzle stretched from ear to ear. “Little brother, best friend forever.”

Shining almost choked. “I don’t think you can change that so easily.”

“Maybe not,” Dusk said. He shrugged. “But if growing is so easy...why not?” He shot Shining another grin. This one was mutual—Shining felt like he could smile back this time, albeit a bit awkwardly.

Dusk abruptly punched Shining in the shoulder. It was a friendly motion, one that they’d shared a thousand times. But with Dusk’s new strength, Shining actually felt himself wince at the force of Dusk’s hoof. Dusk didn’t seem to notice. “Want to race home?” he asked.

“We haven’t done that in years,” Shining said.

“So?” Dusk rolled his neck; Shining winced again when he heard his brother’s joints popping. “It’ll be more fun than walking.”

“I...guess?” Shining glanced up at Dusk and saw something new behind his brother’s eyes. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it sent his stomach fluttering like a butterfly.

“Great! On your marks”—Dusk leaned forward, angling his body straight down the street—”get set, go!”

Shining barely managed to get off in time. Dusk was laughing all the way, and even Shining was able to smile by the halfway point, though he was breathing hard.

Shining had always won their races, for as far back as he could remember. Thankfully, he won this one too—though Dusk was just a second or two behind him. Shining was breathing hard; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d run that fast. Meanwhile, Dusk looked barely winded.

At least, Shining assured himself as he unlocked the front door, Dusk chattering eagerly behind him, his brother wasn’t likely to get any bigger. Shining himself was already on the tall end for a stallion, and Dusk was just an inch or so above that. Freakish sudden growth spurts or not, he’d more likely than not taper off here. Shining decided he could live with that.

And yet...somehow, Shining felt that when Dusk followed him inside, he had to look a little bit further up to meet his brother’s eyes. Crane his neck a little bit further back.

But it’d only been a few minutes. He couldn’t have grown bigger in that time—it was impossible. Should be impossible.

Wasn’t it?

By the end of the week, Shining had to revise his initial hypothesis.

It wasn’t, as it turned out, impossible for Dusk to keep growing. If anything, it was exactly the opposite.

If he’d shot up like a weed over the first forty-eight hours, Dusk's growth spurt seemed set on outdoing itself over the next few days. Each morning, Shining found himself having to crane his neck back a bit more to meet Dusk’s eyes; each night, he found Dusk looking down a little bit further on him, having grown even more throughout the day.

By the end of the second day of his growth spurt, Dusk had been an estimated two inches taller than Shining. By the end of the third day, he was four inches taller. By the fourth day, he was a half-foot taller—within twenty-four hours of that, he’d shot up another five inches, making his full growth spurt come out to an incredible fifteen inches of height! And by the looks of it, he was nowhere near done.

Shining had always thought of himself as a tall stallion. Coming out to around 5’11” at the bottom of his horn, he’d always been taller than almost all of his classmates. The average size for a unicorn stallion was 5’6”—slightly taller than a pegasus’ 5’5”, and a good bit shorter than the average earth pony’s 5’9”. Being in the top-tier, heightwise, had propelled Shining through most of adolescence, even if he had been a bit awkward and lanky for the first few years.

Once he’d decided to sign up for the Guard, though, his workout sessions had paid off. He’d filled out, his chest widening and his forelegs thickening a good bit. Even Cadance had made a few lewd remarks on the improvement of his flank. Once he’d gotten through blushing and stammering in response, Shining had been forced to admit that she was right. He was a bigger stallion than he’d been: stronger, more confident. And when he’d started out as a big stallion in the first place, every improvement just let him puff out his chest a little bit more. Take that Buck, he’d thought to himself more than once, thinking of his former bully with no small amount of relish.

But Dusk made all that look insignificant. Princess Celestia was the tallest pony in the land—on top of a whole pile of other alicorn benefits—and even she “only” stood at a height of 6’5”. Dusk had reached that size that on his fourth day of growing, and had passed her after a single night’s sleep! Shining’s brother was actually taller—bigger—than the Princess! An alicorn! His teacher!

And that wasn’t the only place he’d been growing. Every day, Dusk’s breaths seemed to fill his chest a little bit more; every morning, his legs and haunches were a little thicker, his whole body seeming to revel in its new and impending size. And with so much size to feed, it needed a lot of fuel. Picking over Shining’s leftovers had stopped being worthwhile on Dusk’s third day of growth—by the fourth morning, he was complaining of hunger even after Mom had cooked him two breakfasts. By the fifth, it seemed that Dusk’s daily caloric intake was high enough to clear out the fridge every day. If not for his royal student’s stipend and Mom and Dad’s tenure, Shining might have been worried that Dusk’s stomach would empty the entire family’s wallets.

Dusk was almost seven feet tall. Absolutely nopony even came close to him now. Even the tallest earth pony stallion at the Academy, an exchange student from Fillydelphia, only came up to his shoulder! It was insane!

Shining had quickly been forced to deal with the new reality: His brother was bigger than him—no; huger than him—and was only going to get more so. Yet he couldn’t quell the quiver of inadequacy in his gut, the shiver going down his spine as he saw Dusk reach new, greater heights each day, overturning years of a physically enforced status quo. For all his life, Shining had been the bigger brother. And now, he...wasn’t.

Now, when Dusk passed him in the hallway, or when the two of them were walking home from school—the market—anywhere—everyone’s eyes went to Dusk first, and Shining second, if at all. Shining had been proud when Dusk had been accepted as Princess Celestia’s personal student. He hadn’t minded one bit when ponies had started to ask him about his “genius brother.” He’d been overjoyed—the proudest big brother in the world.

But now, Dusk was all but larger than life. Shining couldn’t help but feel small next to him, and in more ways than just one. Everything about Dusk was big: His brain, his appetite, his strength—even his magic. More than one time, Shining would come down to the kitchen to find the whole room fizzling with magical potential energy, and Dusk sitting down (or standing, now that he was too big to sit in most of their chairs), eating, having just used a simple levitation spell to make himself a sandwich out of everything he’d managed to scrounge out of the vegetable drawer. There was just too much of him—too much power, too much strength, too much size.

And too much volume, too. Shining blushed to remember it. He knew, intellectually, that Dusk was a male adolescent. He also knew what kind of urges tended to come along with that time of life—goodness knew that he’d dealt with them enough of them himself, and had only started to “enjoy” them with Cadance whenever her roommate was out of the house. He and Dusk had even talked about healthy habits and good sources of, ah, inspiration more than once.

But the moment Shining Armor had walked past Dusk’s closed bedroom the previous night, he’d known that something had fundamentally changed. He could hear Dusk’s grunts, the steady thump-thump of what could only be hips smacking against a mattress, echoing past the doorframe. They weren’t even that loud, not intentionally. They were just big—just like him.

Blushing madly, Shining had managed to pull himself away and back to his own room (where he may or may not have found himself engaged in a similar activity an hour or so later), but he found his mind stuck on the scene he’d overheard, like a broken record. Dusk’s grunts had been more sensual, more involved than anything Shining had ever felt. The slaps of his body against the mattress had been louder than anything Shining could make intentionally, and he had little doubt that, given enough time, Dusk’s thrusts would be shaking more than just his own mattress.

Shining had gotten up sometime around two in the morning, drowsy, grumpy, and thirsty as hell. After relieving himself and levitating a glass of water upstairs, he’d trekked back down the hall to his bedroom—only to hear the same sounds coming out of Dusk’s room again. It’d been five hours—there was no way he was still going. And yet Shining could still hear him, loud and clear: his grunts and thumps, if anything, sounded even louder, even heavier, than when they had earlier. And when the last thump had finally sounded, Dusk’s ensuing moan had gone on for a good thirty seconds. Thirty seconds!

The moment his own door closed behind him, Shining realized that he was panting. At first glance, he thought it was obvious why—he’d just eavesdropped on his younger brother in the middle of what was obviously a very, ah, personal activity. But that wasn’t the real reason. The second he flopped back into bed, he found a very long, very stiff friend of his poking up over his belly and throbbing expectantly.

Shining wasn’t just tall in one place—even Cadance had commented on his size at one point ,rather gleefully. But as he bit his lip and got to work—there was absolutely no ignoring it; even though he’d gotten off earlier, he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be able to sleep otherwise—he felt a sinking curiosity about Dusk’s true—or, rather, new—size. The rest of him was huge. How big would he be...down there?

Shining had to bite down harder to stop himself from moaning aloud. As it was, his arousal came out as a very muffled, very turned-on grunt, that thankfully—he hoped—didn’t penetrate the walls. The whole time, seemingly against his will, he found his mind dominated by thoughts of Dusk: of how big he was, of how big he was getting, and how big he might eventually be. The thought of how much that bed had been shaking, of just how long that moan had been, soon sent him over the edge.

Tired, sticky, and more than a little bit sore, Shining had little trouble finally falling back asleep. This time, though, he found his waking thoughts soon turning into dreams. Where his dreams earlier had been about Cadance and a game of Ogres and Oubliettes, his new dreams drifted through visions of his “little” brother: Dusk, big, and getting bigger.

They were good dreams.