Behind every figure of greatness, there is somepony in the background who must remain in the shadows, and perhaps none more so than in the case of Cantiolanus’s wife, Virgilia. Her characterization in the narrative is perhaps one of the play’s weaker points, as she is rarely acknowledged even by the characters themselves and can only watch as her husband is banished from the land. While it may be easy to say that the two have never had the most loving relationship, let us take heed of the consequences for a little while before judging the situation. The best way to do this is to look at what could have been, something that is largely discouraged in the literary field but regardless an interesting way to gain perspective on a perplexing dilemma.
The routine would always be the same for the couple: they would have their slight moments of togetherness along with their son and Cantiolanus’s mother, who lived with them. But in times of war, families are so easily driven away when one of the members is called away to do their duty to the land. As the wife of somepony whose special talent itself was within the spheres of warfare, Virgilia had to be used to this schism by now, this schism that could arise at any moment. It became an unfortunate second nature for the couple, who could very well have been romantic at one time or another before the infamous Roaman wars began to start up once more and before separation became a part of the territory of life.
It is impossible to fully assume the paths that literary characters might once have taken, but imagine with me for a slight moment what could have resulted if even the worst of tragedies had a shimmer of happiness, if there really could have been a way to bring these two who had been so far apart closer together, if it were really possible to have a passionate love between two ponies with jobs that took them in opposite directions.
And may these thoughts become wishes to protect our two modern heroes from sharing that fate…
****
After the school bell rang on yet another successful day of teaching, Cheerilee swept her head side to side to make sure nopony was looking and stealthily pulled two equally dingy-looking, dog-eared books from one of her desk drawers. As she didn’t have a special somepony yet and lived alone, she always took this short amount of time to stay in the classroom and read, usually from some work of classic literature. Though she enjoyed being an elementary teacher just fine, the truth was that she had held this job for a much shorter amount of time than most ponies thought—only about six years, last she remembered. When she was first working on her teaching degree in Canterlot, she had been assigned to work as a student teacher in a high school language arts classroom, and when the teacher that trained her retired, she’d taken over the position. She thought she’d stay at that school forever, but when she found that teaching in Canterlot meant having to face rich parents complaining about her being honest and giving their slacker children low grades, she figured it wasn’t the place for her. Unfortunately, all the high school English positions in Ponyville had been filled by the time she got there, leaving her with the elementary schoolhouse.
As much as she preferred this job, she found that she’d been reading more and more of these classic works over the past several months, likely because doing so filled the void she felt over not getting to teach the complex novels that she used to. At the moment, her main priority book-wise was to finish all of Saddlespeare’s plays. She’d read eleven so far and as she glanced at the smaller paperback on the table—Twelfth Evening—she couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the coincidence. Twelfth evening, twelfth play. It was the type of joke only she would laugh at. But the other, thicker book to her right also tempted her. It wasn’t Saddlespeare, that’s for sure. But it was still one of her favorites.
Airy June, read the title in exquisite black script. She’d already read it at least three times, not counting when she had to teach it for her old class. When she thought about it, if somepony were to ask her what her favorite book was and if she only had about a minute to answer, she’d probably decide on this one. She couldn’t deny that it had significant literary merit—chock full of similes, imagery, and symbolism much like others in language arts curriculums. However, even she couldn’t deny that a lot of what attracted her to it was its love story. After attending a school so terrible and disease-ridden that Cheerilee often felt tempted to bring it up when her own students complained about their studies, the heroine becomes a live-in governess to a wealthy family and falls in love with her student’s guardian, the master of the manor. Despite being nothing more than a plain, albeit spirited, pony, she manages to win over an enviable stallion, even in the face of trouble.
It may have been a difficult-to-read, inaccessible classic for some, but for Cheerilee, it was not only a shining example of literature, but just the right amount of wish fulfillment for your average, love-struck single mare.
She was still trying to decide between the two when she noticed a knock at the door. She quickly hid the books before answering, not wanting anypony else to know how much enjoyment she got from reading Celestian romance novels.
Little did she know upon opening the door that what lay outside was even worse.
“Rochester!” she spoke in surprise, hoping she wasn’t blushing too much. “What brings you here at this time of day?”
All she got was a blank stare in response.
“Um…who’s Rochester?” Big Mac asked. “I don’t know anypony named that.”
“Rochester? What does Rochester have to do with anything? Please tell me I didn’t call you that by mistake.”
“Eeyup.”
Cheerilee facehooved at her complete romantic failure. Thankfully, Big Mac didn’t seem to figure out that Rochester was, in fact, the fictitious love interest character from Airy June that she’d always compared him to in her daydreams, but she still silently cursed herself for letting these thoughts out. She may have been a mare, but she always wondered if she suddenly turned into a filly when she thought about love. It seemed as though she just lost all her maturity when she did so, meaning that incidents like this were not as uncommon as she would’ve liked them to be.
“Um, can we please start this conversation over?” she questioned nervously. “Just forget I ever said anything, okay?”
“Eeyup.”
“So…uh…Apple Bloom’s already left with her friends,” Cheerilee whispered. “If that’s the case, then why could you possibly be here right now?”
“Well, I needed your help with something, honestly,” he replied. “I would’ve asked Twilight, but it’s kind of an embarrassing favor and I really don’t know her all that well…not as well as you, anyways.”
“I bet I know just what your problem is, then,” she answered eagerly, having been through this situation enough times with other students’ relatives that she could instantly detect its signs. “And there’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed about.”
“Well, that certainly takes a load off my yoke,” Big Mac answered. “Metaphorically, of course. The literal yoke is still there like always.” In spite of the nonchalance he was trying to assert, a few nervous chuckles still escaped his lips.
“Really, don’t worry a thing about it. Education has changed quite a bit throughout the years, and we teachers are always trying to give our students the best experience. Sometimes that means getting rid of the old methods and experimenting a little, especially when it comes to math. So if you really want to help Apple Bloom with her fractions, I’ll be hosting a little night seminar in a few days so parents can learn the new calculations we use in class.”
“Thanks for the offer, but if math was my problem right now, I wouldn’t be quite as worried as I am. If it was, I could just get a book on how to solve the new calculations and learn it quickly. On the other hoof…it’s not quite as easy to find a book that helps you read another book.”
To say Cheerilee had been bowled over by this revelation was, to say the least, an understatement. She had always prided herself on being able to tell what ponies’ problems were at the drop of a hat; such was part and parcel of her profession. But such mistakes were normal, or at least, so she told herself to keep from going off the edge of embarrassment at the moment. If Big Mac needed help with something else, no matter how enigmatic as it might be, it could be just another step in the process she’d been enacting for years to get him to see her as more than his sister’s teacher. And certainly, losing her composure would only leave him to move on to somepony else who could do the same task. So, with a few deep breaths, she began to convince herself to continue the conversation.
“What can I help you with, if it’s not the sort of typical problem family members come to me for?”
“See, this mare I like really likes this book—well, play, actually—and was about to return it to Twilight,” Big Mac began. “So I figured I’d check it out to impress her, maybe give us something to talk about that won’t leave me nervous every time I see her.”
“Yeah? I didn’t know you were into a mare who likes books. That’s something to know.”
“How so?”
“Well, I guess it’s just surprising for me to hear,” Cheerilee confessed. “I mean, I always thought that you were looking for a mare who could help on the farm—not that you don’t have to be smart to do so, of course. I just thought you didn’t pay attention to anypony in Ponyville because you weren’t really attracted to any of them.”
“I guess that used to be the case, but now, I really don’t know. I mean, I feel like this is finally my big opportunity to get to be more than a friend with her, and she’s such a great mare, but…then I saw the book. It’s…kind of by an author I never really understood in high school?”
“I’m sure she’d love you even if you tried to read it and weren’t able to understand it all on your first try. Most are like that if they aren’t used to a particular writing style, and if she’s as smart as you say she is…maybe she’d help you, you know.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know how experienced you are with teaching Saddlespeare, seeing as you mainly work with foals,” Big Mac answered. “But I can always go talk to somepony else about it. Besides, it’s not even a very well-known play of his in the first place, or at least, so Twilight told me. She says she’s read it, but I don’t know if you have and I’d hate to have you try to teach something you’ve never even read yourself. I’d imagine that’d be rather difficult for a teacher to do without adequate preparation. Plus, I don’t want to take up too much of your time, so…”
Without any other warnings, Big Macintosh trotted out the door and was about to move back onto the street to get back home. Apple Bloom would probably notice if he ended up back at the farm after she’d been home for hours and suspect something was up, and the longer he could keep this whole embarrassing debacle secret, the better. Admitting that he’d been out to get help with reading this book for his crush would only provoke his tightly-knit family to ask who that special somepony was, and even though the Trixie incident had been quite a while ago, he still couldn’t predict how Applejack would respond or even if she still held resent towards the blue unicorn. He could go back to the castle-library tomorrow and ask Twilight; at least if Applejack caught him with one of her best friends, it wouldn’t be quite so awkward as seeking out his little sister’s teacher for something that didn’t even concern her in the first place.
“Hang on,” Cheerilee spoke, bounding outside the schoolhouse to catch him and quickly interrupting his thought process. “I taught some classes on Saddlespeare when I was in Canterlot years ago, and even though I didn’t cover the more obscure ones, I did read some of them in college. Which one do you have?”
“Let me get it out so you can see,” he replied, grabbing the pocket-sized book out from under the back end of his yolk, where he tended to keep very small items in place of a saddlebag. “Honestly, it’s got a really long name and I really don’t want to end up butchering it in front of somepony who may have studied it. You know, as a respectful measure and all.”
The pink earth pony took one look at the cover and her eyes widened to apple bins. The book was familiar—too familiar, in fact. How many other mares in town could’ve had an appreciation for Saddlespeare, much less for something as rarely-performed as Cantiolanus? Just seeing it made her feel as if tiny hoofsteps were trampling her from the inside, not only for the memories, but also for the implications this entire conversation had been leading her to.
“As a matter of fact,” she responded, trying her best to keep her cool, “I have read this one. It’s actually a favorite of mine as well. That’s quite a coincidence when you think about it.”
“It really is,” Big Mac answered. “So does that mean you’ll be able to have time to reread this with me?”
“Of course. I don’t have too much grading to do, as most of the foals in my class are working on their Equestria-wide exams they have to do next week. And I don’t have anything planned after class tomorrow, so would that work for you?”
“Eeyup. Do I have to read any of it before then?”
“No, we’ll start with the basics before you even get into the play itself. Lots of ponies have trouble getting into Saddlespeare because his language is so different from other things they’ve read, so a beginner plunging too quickly into the text isn’t quite the best idea. Unfortunately, that’s what a lot of schools tend to do, but I’ll definitely make sure I can be a better help to you than your teachers were.”
At that, the two parted, going in separate directions across the same road, but with Big Mac feeling that things had almost gone a bit too smoothly with her. Normally, wouldn’t a teacher be a bit more opposed to the idea of helping ponies with their love lives? He swiftly put these emotions to the side for the moment, his mind completely focusing on what tomorrow would bring, but he would find later that they would never leave his head quite so easily.
At the same time, Cheerilee strode through the road with a demeanor true to her name, looking back to the two books she had taken out of the schoolhouse, now knowing which one she would read. Saddlespeare could wait for another time, especially with her now being scouted to teach it. Even if it was just for one pony, it was for the one she valued most, so she determinedly promised on that street not to fail. After all, it’s not like she could.
Looking to Airy June, she felt several steps closer to fulfilling her dream of winning love as her favorite romance heroine did. The signs were all present today, the nerves between both of them, the sudden forwardness that Big Mac displayed at confessing he had a crush.
But perhaps nothing else struck her like the one clue he gave: that the one he loved was also a fan of Saddlespeare, of Cantiolanus. Like Trixie, unbeknownst to her, but more importantly to the moment, like herself.