An ancient and obscure legend tells of a great warrior who led the residents of Roam to conquer untold amounts of territory for their great empire. But all was not well in the land: the villagers were beginning to find that the powers that be were hiking the prices of food, and, while they appreciated their kingdom’s power over others, they began to resent the added bureaucracy and decided to revolt. But whenever the soldier, Cantiolanus, was sent out to handle the striking citizens, he was blunt and cruel to them, making it clear that they were nothing to him and that, no matter how hard they tried, they would not obtain what they wished for. The higher he moved up the societal ladder, the more and more he closed himself off from those below him. Still, he was admired for his military prowess, until the unthinkable occurred.

As Cantiolanus grew in power, his presence began to threaten all those patricians who feared that he would someday eclipse them in rank, and after a particularly large victory, they discovered that the people were urging him to join the highest senate of the land. For two of the current senators, who resorted to every sort of flattery to keep the citizens satisfied with them, it was the final straw. Through all sorts of shady methods, they provoked Cantiolanus to reveal his dark side for the entire city to see. No matter how hard his family and friends tried to stop it, his former admirers thirsted to tear down what they had helped to build up. The verdict: lifelong banishment from Roam, the only home he’d ever known. He desperately ran to his former military rival, begging him to take him into his kingdom. But not even that decision lasted long, as the enemy took the chance to finally kill Cantiolanus, hoping for nothing more than for Cantiolanus’s legacy to fade into oblivion.

For the most part, it has, but several thousand years after the story was said to have occurred, an ambitious playwright, William Saddlespeare, found the legend and sought to immortalize it through his art. It might not have gone as he would have hoped—when the playwright died, many of his plays would be performed far more often than this one. But a few discerning scholars stumble upon it, and it is through them that the legend continues to survive.

Though the play is said to be cold and unemotional by some critics, in this case, one could say that it actually helped to bring two ponies together…

As Big Macintosh waited for Mr. and Mrs. Cake to give him the okay to leave Sugarcube Corner, he couldn’t help but look behind him in absolute dread. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy being in the company of the two bakers, but when he was called over to provide Zap Apples for their new cupcake flavor, he couldn’t help but overhear that somepony already had an interest in buying some and was about to order cases and cases of them. With such a large purchase, one would assume that said customer would have to have some sort of business or at least some excuse to order hundreds upon hundreds of cupcakes. And when Big Mac found out who it was, his worst fears were confirmed. All of them were going straight to the theatre where Trixie was taking up a temporary residence in Ponyville. Apparently, magicians are rather fond of baked goods made from supernatural qualities.

It wasn’t that he was afraid of seeing Trixie because of all the ruckus she’d caused with the Alicorn Amulet. Coming from a ridiculously large family, Big Macintosh absolutely had enough experience in the “forgiving and forgetting” field. Even if her mannerisms could get a bit annoying at times, he didn’t mind being around her. After all, she’d certainly changed her behavior a lot since then, and slowly, everypony was beginning to get accustomed to her. Or perhaps too accustomed in the red earth pony’s case. Sure, Trixie was great and powerful, but also beautiful. Funny on occasion. So melodramatic in some cases that he actually realized that some issues were nothing to be so laid-back about. Still working on that overconfidence issue, but at least she knew not to be hard on herself. Actually a lot more approachable than she would seem to be, assuming he didn’t start tensing up. One of the, it seemed to him, increasingly few mares who didn’t seem to throw themselves on him at a moment’s notice.

Though looking back on it, he somewhat wished she would. Why is it that in life, those you love the most are sometimes the ones that least realize it? It was a question that he frequently pondered. He certainly knew about Cheerilee’s fondness for him, but…it wasn’t so much that he hated her as it was that he hated that she focused so much attention on one stallion. Big Mac knew that the real reason she wasn’t already married was because she’d been single-mindedly focused on him since his littlest sister, Apple Bloom, was just a foal. It felt as though he was the one keeping her from happiness because of that. Therefore, pretending to like her romantically would only further trap her in her infatuation. The sooner she got over it, the sooner she would be free. It’d be hard on her for sure, but she’d realize eventually that he was only doing it out of friendship. Because of all these factors, Cheerilee was simply out of the equation.

Because it’d just be insensitive to court her while thinking of Trixie.

In one of those awkward “speak of the devil and they shall appear” moments, the blue unicorn ran straight out the Sugarcube Corner backroom, picking up the cupcake order with her magic and gently placing a book on top of them. Big Mac didn’t much focus on why she even had a book with her considering the fact that he didn’t even know she was there in the first place. He assumed she was playing with the foals. After she decided to experiment with puppetry, she’d found that the twins took a liking to her as well and was actually pretty nice to them, often coming around to play with them.

“Please tell me either that clock’s fast or you forgot to set it to Celestial Savings Time,” Trixie muttered to the Cakes. “If that’s the case, then that’s the worst scare I’ve had in a really long—“

“Actually, that clock happens to be running early,” Carrot Cake innocently interrupted, not realizing the gravity of the situation. “Why are you asking?”

Becoming increasingly frantic, the normally composed magician began to bounce around on her hooves and groan, “The show, the show, how could I have forgotten about the show?! I spent so much time worrying about the new concessions that I didn’t even think about possibly running late! Who knows what ponies will say about me if I keep them waiting? And as if things aren’t bad enough, I really needed to stop at the library to drop off a book on the way there and now I’m going to be even later and—“

Before he could realize what he was saying, Big Macintosh answered, “Um, I can take it back for you if you’d like.” He wasn’t quite sure how this would end up, but it seemed to work, as Trixie placed it in his saddlebag with a smile.

“This means a lot, you know,” she admitted, having calmed down somewhat. “This is one of my absolute favorite plays, and I’d hate to keep somepony else from reading it. One of these days, I really ought to buy it, considering I have enough bits to, but for some odd reason, I just really like this copy. Back when I was having trouble settling and all, I read it for the first time and it just really spoke to me. The tragic hero in it…I realized that that could have been me. The more I read it, the more it somehow helped me through, because I realized that if I kept being that type of pony…I’d be the one sent away from here, or from any city, really. So even though it’s not read very often in schools, I’d really appreciate it if someone else decided to pick it up. It’d feel like…somepony really gets me, for once. If they read about that character…maybe they’d be able to put themselves in my situation, you know? If books transport readers to different places…why can’t they help them understand what it’s like to have people turn on you?”

Guilt suddenly began to flash through him as Trixie left in a rush. He’d never realized that she could be so sensitive about that. Her exterior didn’t seem like the type to dwell on what other ponies thought of her, and it almost felt like he’d just seen a completely different side to her. Why couldn’t he have just had the courage to tell her that he didn’t see her that way, that he would never turn on her? While he admitted that she had been kind of a jerk the first time she’d come to Ponyville…was it right to reject her like that simply for embellishing her stories. Sure, his sister was the Element of Honesty, but who among them hadn’t done the exact same thing sometime or another? If you cast a stone at someone, someone else will just give another reason to do the same to you, and stones can bruise even the strongest of ponies. Even when your job is to entertain others, if you do one thing wrong, they can tear you down just as easily as they brought you up.

Big Macintosh looked back to the book, thinking that perhaps if all it took to assure Trixie that she had someone for her was to read words on a page, why not decide to do it? On an impulse, he ran straight for Twilight’s library, returned the book and, without thinking, checked it out himself. By the time he was through with all of that, he suddenly noticed that he hadn’t even bothered to look at the cover or even its title. He’d looked over it so suddenly that he didn’t even think of doing so. Now, when he saw the gold etching across the old hardcover, he realized the futility of his mission.

It was Saddlespeare. Saddlespeare, for Celestia’s sake, also known as his high school nemesis. School wasn’t as hard for Big Macintosh as it was for some, but whenever the class started reading Saddlespeare, he dreaded it as much as an entire tree’s worth of apples hitting his head while trying to applebuck. He couldn’t make heads or tails of the reading, even though he somehow was able to read texts from other historical periods with nowhere near the trouble he had with these plays. He’d always searched the school library like crazy for those study booklets that were supposed to help students understand the text, but the teachers discouraged them for using. Looking back on it, he did have a pretty shoddy teacher the grade students were supposed to be taught how to read this stuff. Right when he was about to lose hope, he had a sudden epiphany at the word “teacher”.

I may not be able to do it on my own, but who says I have to? Who says it’s too late to learn?

Love can overcome anything, after all, even Saddlespeare.