I went through every last room in the house searching for Rose, and I came back with nothing to show for it.

In a blind rage, I made my way right out of the front door towards Sweet Apple Acres, trotting through the orchard. I was looking for Applejack, and when I found her, I stopped right in my tracks. “Applejack, when was the last time you talked to Rose?”

“Ah, fuck!” She yelped and turned around to face me. “Cross! You’re back– what tha' hay is the matter with y’all?! Ah just saw her yesterday, what’s wrong?”

I growled and stamped a hoof into the earth with all of my force, ruining the grass, knocking dirt a few centimeters, and feeling a jolt straight up my foreleg and into my side. I closed my eyes for a second, and waited until I was breathing calmly. Needless to say, I was still an idiot, and that still seriously hurt. “She’s gone. She’s not at the house, I checked every room. All I could find was a scroll that said ‘find me’, and it definitely wasn’t in her hoofwriting...”

Concerned, really concerned, Applejack stared at me in disbelief. “That can’t be.. Are y’all tellin' me you think somepony might’ve foalnapped her!” She was starting to get angry, too.

“Look, I’m trying to hope that’s not the case, but... I don’t know, I just don’t. There was a feather left, too, but it’s huge.”

Applejack took a breath while I had been speaking, and calmed herself down to a collective state of mind. “Alright, what color is it?”

I lowered my head. “It’s midnight blue.. Do me a favor? Go get it for me, and bring it to the library. I’ll meet you there.”

Applejack, without having to hear another word out of Cross’s muzzle, nodded and took off.

My blood was still boiling, but my head felt light and my chest was heavy. Despite this, I galloped at a steady pace to the Library.

A few ponies watched me with concern as I moved past them, but I didn’t even give them so much as a glance. Spike was sitting on the edge of the tree’s porch, looking annoyed. As I grew closer to him in my approach, I slowed down. The young drake batted an eye at me, and I returned the gaze, followed by a nod, before making my way into the library.

“Twilight!” I called out, and she appeared at the top of the staircase.

“Cross, what’s wrong?” She focused on my face, finding the look that shone in my eyes to be rather pained and dreadful.

I took one glance up at her, and looked away. There had been so many problems back to back that I was starting to regret coming and adding one more to her list. “Twilight, Rose is gone. Applejack is on her way, we need to talk.”

Twilight came down the staircase and stopped at the bottom of it. When I looked up to meet her gaze, she was just staring with a frown, clearly running thoughts through her mind. I assumed she didn’t have anything to say. Probably that was wrong, and the real problem was that she just couldn’t find the right words to express what she was thinking- until her focus shifted to my flank, and she approached me. “Cross, since when did the color change on your cutiemark?”

“It what?!” I swiveled to try and look at my flank, that normally would have been a black and white rose, laid over a black and white feather.

She sighed and lead me over to a mirror. “There, see?”

My eyes widened and I began to shake my head slowly. “No, no, no... Why? Is, is Rose already gone?”

Twilight turned to me, concerned. “Cross, why would the feather have changed, and not the rose? Surely there’s a reason the rose is still so bland. What I’m more interested in, is the fact that you have a color-changing cutiemark.”

“You think I’m not?” I stared at her with emotions beginning to rise. “Why is it changing with events? Aren’t I supposed to have a cutiemark based on my purpose? I thought it represented Rose’s brother, not.. not that wretched feather!” At this remark, Twilight took a step back.

“Wretched? Cross, is there something you’re not telling me?” She asked, and as if the goddesses heard her question, Applejack burst into the room.

She trotted over to Twilight, and didn’t even look at me. “Twilight, who do you think this belongs ta'?”

Twilight had to do a double take. “My guess would be Luna, but.. There’s no way, she had to be in Canterlot while we were gone!”

“Are you saying that Luna might be responsible? Excuse me?!” I looked between the two mares, dumbfounded. “Why would she want Rose?”

Applejack adjusted her stetson and let out a sigh. “Do ya' think I should round up the girls?”

Twilight shook her head in response. “I don’t see what the elements of harmony would have anything to do with this, it’s a whole different kind of problem, Applejack.”

The orange mare rolled her eyes. “No, Twilight! I meant ta' go after this Princess and settle this like adults! She took a pregnant mare!”

I shook my head and stepped back. “That still doesn’t explain why she would want Rose-”

Twilight started pacing back and forth.

“Welp, here she goes...” Applejack muttered.

“Do you think she found out?” Twilight asked after stopping and pointing a hoof to me, rather than accusingly it was more as a way of saying ‘give me your input’.

My head turned to the side for a second in thought, and Aj looked at Twilight. “What would Rose bein' preggers have anything to do with-”

I stepped forward towards Twilight. “How could she have? Do you think I had a nightmare about it, or maybe Rose?”

Twilight shrugged, “Anything is possible...”

A few flashes of memory hit me like a brick, one after the other. A bright moon shined over two ponies talking at Ponyville’s town square, and one of the silhouettes started talking about what a bad life he had left behind.

“Twilight.. She’s known since we met. That full moon, at Town Hall!”

Twilight looked betrayed, and suddenly upset. “Why would she do that? To get back at you? After all you did for the search in the Crystal Empire.. Why would she even go after your family instead of you? Better yet, why didn’t she contact me!”

Applejack stood between us, and looked from one of us to the other while we racked our brains.

“Maybe she thought you would just rat her out to Celestia? Fuck, I don’t know Twilight..” I scratched my head in thought.

“Do y’all think the mail on Cross’s porch might have a clue?” Applejack guessed, trying to be helpful.

Twilight and I looked at each other, then to Applejack. A consensus was made upon eye contact, and we left the library.

Rose,

I’ve been in a hard spot as of late. I’m in jail,
arrested for running a business without any
permit, certification, license or degree.
Obviously I’m in Baltimare, where I said I was
going to be, if you don’t remember. I hate to
ask, but I need you to tell Cross not to come
and bail me out. Just tell him to go back to
where the fire burned bright and the alcohol
was plenty. He’ll know what that means.

I promise you that I will be alright.
Your loving brother, Shadow Steel

“Shadow? His name is Shadow?”
I paced back and forth at the end of my dining room table, leaving a light tap against the wooden floor with each hoof-step.

Applejack stared at me blankly from the other side of the table, and Twilight, standing at her side, seemed to be at a loss.

“Cross?” Applejack waited for a look to be returned to her, before she continued: “Tell me why I ain’t surprised?”

The tapping of my hooves seized as I came to a halt and for a moment everything fell silent. Without looking at either of the two mares across from me, I took a seat and rested my cannons over my muzzle, successfully blocking my eyes.

I thought that I could feel their eyes on me. Twilight’s pretty dark-purple gaze, and the sympathetic, yet hard stare of AJ’s emerald green glance.
However, my senses were wrong, and they had deceived my thoughts; for when I felt a hoof land around my haunches, my whole body shivered.

“Rose’ll be comin' home, Cross.” Applejack sounded a little upset, but she was doing her best to try and comfort me.

I could hear Twilight’s hooves just barely resonate on the wood as she went around the table. Her wing brushed my side as she leaned over to hug me with a forearm. “I’ll help you through this, Cross... I promised that I would stand by you.”

My chest felt heavy. “I can’t ask you to do that, Twi.. You have responsibilities of your own, and there are other ponies who need you right now more than I do.”

“Then buck it, ah’ll do it!” Applejack said confidently, and patted my back.

“If that’s what you really want, I’d love to have you at my side. Just.. Not until after I get Steel. I’ll need somepony I can trust, for sure, but it’s too risky to let you come with me to get that lunkhead out of jail.”

The realization that Applejack was still unaware of the bank job in Manehattan made me immediately question my decision. I lifted my head and looked to my left at Twilight with pleading eyes. “I think that we need to talk.. Applejack still doesn’t know, and I’m blaming myself enough as is.”

The orange mare’s hoof slipped off my back and she stepped away from me. “Ah don’t know what, exactly?”

Twilight looked up from my eyes and to her friend. “You might want to sit down, Applejack...”

For a few minutes, Aj sat and listened to me talk. On multiple occasions, she was visibly annoyed and angry. She didn’t agree on anything I had done in the past, up until I explained that the bank heist was, in a way, my only escape. It was then, that Applejack seemed to understand a bit better. I didn’t get into talking about what recently happened with the Crystal Empire at first, but Twilight had insisted upon it. “If Applejack is going to consider helping, you should let her know about it. We don’t know where he (Dwight) went, and if you happen to stumble into him?”

I looked up at Twilight with an unsure expression. “In detail, Twilight are you sure?”

The eyes that stared back down at me were bold, and filled with an utmost certainty that left no room for debate.
“The couple from the west– think about their son, and tell me it’s not worth going over.”

For a moment, I felt as though I shouldn’t have needed to ask. It was obvious that this was important, but I suppose it was just too much for me to think about laying on yet another innocent mare. All of that death, and for what? Money? That sick fuck, Dwight, probably wasn’t doing it for anything but satisfaction.

“His bloodlust is unquenchable...” I said, directing my attention to Applejack.

After a long discussion between the three of us about the events that befell Twilight and I these past two weeks, Applejack was finally convinced. She agreed to help me, despite the fact that running into Dwight was a very real possibility.

“Now I have one more problem to tackle. I just need to get all the way to the outskirts of Manehattan, and then I have to go see Steel in Baltimare.”

“An' afterwards y’all come back here to get me, then we leave ta' get Rose back?” Applejack added.

“Precisely.” I gave a firm nod, and stood up from the table with a stretch.

Twilight yawned, and Applejack glanced out of a window. “It’s pretty late, ah reckon tomorrow you’ll be on yer' way to Manehattan?”

A yawn made its way out of my muzzle instead of a legitimate response, causing Twilight to giggle before she gave me a tight hug and left. It was clear that she wished she could help out more, but we knew that there were other things Twilight needed to tend to.

“Ah won’t mind stayin' with ya' tonight, if it’d help make y’all feel safer than being alone.” Applejack made the kind offer to stay, but I politely declined, and went up to bed. Without Rose sharing it with me, the room just felt empty. So to make myself feel better, I added an entry into my journal.

I’m finally home and my side still hurts a bit, but I miss you Rose. We’ll see each other soon and I won’t settle for anything other than your safe return, this much I can promise.

I went to sleep after returning everything to the bedside table, passing out the second my head had touched the pillow.

Little wails filled the room and I stirred in the bed.

“Cross, it’s your turn..” Rose said groggily, laying across from him.

I groaned and slid out of the bedsheet covers, trotting over to a crib at the side of the room. “Shh, shh, daddy’s here.” I cooed, picking up a small foal, completely silhouetted in the darkness of the room.

Once the little figure calmed in the crook of my forearm, I made my way back into the bed, still clutching my foal. “See, I’m not so bad at this, Rose.”

Her body shifted, as if rolling over to face my direction. “Not like it matters..”

“What?”

“You left me alone.”

Upset, I turned to look at Rose, and she was gone... And when I looked down, in my arms was an empty swaddled blanket.

“Hmm..” A voice sounded from the foot of the bed, “It seems as though you aren’t heartless.”

My eyes, upon looking up, were met with Luna’s mocking smile... Though the emotion conveyed in her own eyes, was pitiful, like sadness.

“Cross, get up. Y’all are having a nightmare, sugarcube, get up!”

Upon immediately waking from Applejack shaking me, I stared at her for a second, laying in a puddle of sweat that left my mane drenched.

“Y’all alright, sugarcube?”

She looked at me with a deeply concerned face and I lunged forward, embracing her tightly while sobbing into her blonde mane.

Neither of us said anything for a good five minutes. Something about her embrace was soothing. I didn’t want to accept what I had seen in my head moments before, and Applejack’s whispers of reassurance helped me to slowly pull away.

“Would ya' like to talk about it?” She whispered, her green eyes reflecting from the moonlight that seeped in through the window.

With a sniffle, I wiped my eyes and brushed my mane back– slicking it down with my own sweat in one swipe of my hoof. “Luna.. She’s playing mind games with me.”

The immediate feeling of what it was like to be holding my own foal broke me once more, making me close my eyes tightly in anger to avoid the welling up of more tears. “I had a moment– she let me feel like a father, only to yank it all away from me..!”

Applejack had already embraced me, and was letting me cry into her chest.

“There, there, sugarcube.. Everything’s gonna be alright.”

It took a few minutes, but once I finally got it out of my system, I asked Applejack what she was still doing here.

“I know ya' didn’t want me here, but..” She blushed, a light flush spreading across her cheeks. “Ah guess I was just worried for y’all, an' didn’t want to admit it. Y’all are family, and we need to stick together, Cross.”

With a small smile I nodded and hugged her once more, but quickly pulled away and apologized. “I should probably get a shower, huh?”

Applejack shrugged and chuckled. “Yer' just a sweaty stallion.. between us, most mares don’t mind. We just like to make y’all think we do— now go get a shower, so you can get back to sleep.”

Embarrassed, I got out of the bed and ignored her as I made my way towards the bathroom door. “There’s a uh, guest room down the hall that you can bunk in.”

“If ya' need to talk,” She paused and spoke over her shoulder, “I wouldn’t mind being woke up.”

I smiled a little bit, and wiped my still damp cheeks with a hoof. “I’ll keep that in mind.. Thank you, cousin-in-law.”

Applejack laughed from the doorway as she let her mane down, and closed the door. “Yep! Welcome to the family, Outlaw.”

Author's Note

"The only advice anybody can give is, if you wanna be a writer, keep writing. And read all you can, read everything."

– Stan "The Man" Lee

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