A Midsummer Night's Dream

“Is all our company here?” Hoity Toity asked.  He was a stallion who lived in Canterlot, who was great in knowledge of the fine art of carpentry and theatre.  When Shining Armor took the Princess’ hoof in holy matrimony, he immediately wrote a play to be performed during their wedding night.  This evening he had gathered his acting troupe over to his home.  His troupe composed of Caramel the weaver, Carrot Cake the bellows-mender, Macintosh the tailor, Braeburn the tinker, and Soarin the joiner.

“You were best to call them generally, stallion by stallion, according to the scrip,” Caramel suggested.

Hoity Toity levitated a piece of paper over to his face and announced to his troupe, “Here is the scroll of every stallion’s name, which is though fit, through all Canterlot, to play in our interlude before the captain and the princess, on his wedding day at night.”

“First good Hoity Toity,” Caramel began, “say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow to a point.”

“Our play is, the most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisby,” Hoity Toity declared.

“A very good piece of work, I assure you,” Caramel said, “and a merry.  Now good Hoity Toity, call forth your actors by the scroll.  Masters, spread yourselves.”

“Answer as I call you,” Hoity Toity said as he cleared his throat.  “Caramel, the weaver.”

“Ready,” he said.

“You, Caramel, are set down for Pyramus.”

“What is Pyramus?” Caramel asked, “A lover or a tyrant?”

“A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love,” Hoity answered in a dramatic voice.

“That will ask some tears in the true performing of it,” Caramel proudly said.  “If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes!  I will move storms, I will condole in some measure!  Yet, my chief humor is for a tyrant.”  Caramel grabbed a nearby sheet and tied it around his neck, pretending it is a cape.  “I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.”

“The raging rocks

And shivering shocks

Shall break the locks

Of prison gates,

And Phibbus’ car

Shall shine from far

And make and mar

The foolish Fates.”

“That was lofty!” Caramel exclaimed, “Now name the rest of the players.”

“Carrot Cake, the bellows-mender.”

“Here, Hoity Toity,” Carrot Cake said.

“Carrot Cake, you must take Thisby on you,” Hoity Toity said.

“What is Thisby?” Carrot asked, “A wandering knight?”

“It is the mare that Pyramus must love.”

“Nay, let me not play a mare!” Carrot Cake pleaded, “I have a beard coming!”

“That’s all one,” Hoity said, “you shall play her in a mask.  And you may speak as small as you will.”

“An I may hide my face, let me play Thisby too,” Caramel interrupted, “I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice.  ‘Thisne, Thisne;  ‘Ah, Pyramus, lover dear!  Thy Thisby dear, and lady dear!’ “  The other stallions howled with laughter at Caramel’s antics, but Hoity Toity was quick to bring them back to order.

“No, no, you must play Pyramus.  And Carrot Cake, you Thisby.”

“Very well, proceed,” Caramel said.

“Macintosh, the tailor.”

“Here, Hoity Toity,” Macintosh said.

“Macintosh, you must play Thisby’s mother.  Braeburn, the tinker.”

“Here, Hoity Toity,” Braeburn said.

“You, Pyramus’ father.  Myself, Thisby’s father.  Soarin, the joiner - you, the lion’s part.  And I hope here is a play fitted,” a deadpan Hoity said.

“Have you the lion’s part written?” Soarin asked, “Pray you, if it be, give it to me.  I am slow of study.”

“You may do it extempore, for it nothing but roaring,” Hoity replied frivolously.

“Let me play the lion too!” Caramel blurted, “I will roar, that I will do any stallion’s heart good to hear me!”  Caramel crouched in all fours began to imitate a lion by creating ferocious growling and roaring sounds.  Caramel’s humorous lion act had all the stallion’s sides split, except for Hoity.  “I will roar, that I will make the captain say ‘Let him roar again!  Let him roar again!’ “  The actors cheered and applauded Caramel, who returned the favor by bowing.  But Hoity Toity once again had them return to order.

“An you should do it terribly!  You might fright the princess and the mares, that they would shriek!  And that were enough to hang us all!” Hoity greatly cautioned.

“That would hang us, every mother’s son,” Caramel said in a nonchalant manner.  “I grant you friends, if that you should fright the mares out of their wits, they would have no more discretion but to hang us.  But I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar as gently as a sucking dove.”  Caramel roared once again, but this time, he sound as though he were a lion cub.  This gain more laughter from the actors, even Hoity Toity managed to chuckle under his breath.

“You can play no part but Pyramus,” A stern Hoity said, “for Pyramus is a sweet-faced stallion.  A proper stallion, as one shall see in a summer’s day.  A most lovely gentlecolt-like stallion.”

“Very well, I will undertake it,” Caramel said.

“Masters, here are your parts,” Hoity said, “and I am to entreat you, request you and desire you, to con them by tomorrow night, and meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight.  There we will rehearse, for if we meet in the city, we shall be dogged with company and our devices known.  In the meantime, I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants.  I pray you fail me not.”

“We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously,” Caramel said in a laughing manner, “take pains, be perfect.  Adieu.”

“At the captain’s oak we meet,” Hoity declared.  The mechanics acting troupe dispersed into the night and into their respective homes, readying themselves to perform Hoity’s play.

****

The crickets began their evening chorus as night had fallen into the woods of Canterlot.  The bright diamonds decorated the night sky and the moon illuminated the grassy paths of the forest.  Fireflies lit up like tiny flickers of green light near the trees and bushes.  As the citizens of Canterlot were already in the dreamworld Morpheus had sent them at this hour, the nightly woodland spirits will still be up and about.

A fairy by the name of Fluttershy was wondering about through the forest, going nowhere in particular.  She found a lone tree branch and sat upon it, looking up into the night sky.  To Fluttershy, there was something about the nighttime that has a calming effect on her.  While her eyes were preoccupied on the stars above, another spirit approached the same tree branch.

This creature was a draconequus, thought to be extinct for a millennia.  The draconequus dashed toward Fluttershy to her eye-level, at which caused her to panic.  To her surprise, he bowed to her.

“How now spirit!” the draconequus exclaimed, “whither you wander?”

“Over hill, over dale,” Fluttershy began, “thorough bush, thorough brier.  Over park, over pale - thorough flood, thorough fire.  I do wander everywhere, swifter than the moon’s sphere.  I serve the fairy queen, to dew her orbs upon the green.  The cowslips tall her pensioners be, in their gold coats spots you see.”  She pointed her hoof to where small flowers with yellow petals were.  “Those be rubies, fairy favours, in those freckles live their savours.  I must go seek some dewdrops here and hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.  Farewell, thou lob of spirits - I’ll be gone.  Our queen and all our elves come here anon.”  As Fluttershy tried to depart from the draconequus, he instantly appeared in front of her appeared in front of her path.

“The king doth keep his revels here tonight,” he said, “Take heed the queen come not within his sight.  For Sombra is passing fell and wrath, because that she as her attendant hath a lovely colt, stolen from a zebra king.  And jealous Sombra would have the child knight of his train, to trace the forests wild.  But she perforce witholds the loved boy, crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy.”

“Either I mistake your shape and making quite, or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite called Discord,” Fluttershy said.  “Are you not that he the frights the maidens of the villagery?” she asked, “Skim milk, and sometimes labor in the quern and bootless make breathless housewife churn?  Mislead night wanderers, laughing at their harm?”

“Thou speak’st right,” Discord replied, “I am that merry wanderer of the night.  I jest Sombra and make him smile when I a fat and bean-fed horse beguile, neighing in likeness of a filly foal,” he said while chuckling.  “Sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, in very likeness of a roasted crab, and when she drinks, against her lips I bob and on her wither’d dewlap pour the ale,” he said as he burst out laughing at his past antics.  Fluttershy, upon listening to his misadventures, was utterly disgusted at the draconequus.  Suddenly, the two spirits heard what sounding like flapping of wings mixed with marching of hooves.  “Room, fairy!  Here comes Sombra!” Discord said dreadfully.

“And here my mistress,” Fluttershy said in a terrified voice, “would that he were gone!”

Sombra and his followers approached from the trees and bushes of the woods, while Luna and her kin flew down from the starry night.  Upon seeing each other, the two gave each other glares that would be enough to end the life of anypony.

“Ill met by moonlight, proud Luna,” Sombra said with venom in his voice.

“What, jealous Sombra?” Luna teased, “Fairies, skip hence - I have forsworn his bed and company.”  As the fairies giggled at Luna’s statement, steam blew from Sombra’s nostrils.

“Tarry, rash wanton!” Sombra spat, “Am not I thy Lord?!”

“Then I must be thy lady,” Luna answered, “but I know when thou hast stolen away from fairy land.  And in the shape of Corin sat all day, playing on pipes of corn and versing love to amorous Phillida.”  A throne made of flowers and vines materialised from the earth below, and Luna sat herself on it.  “Why art thou here?  Come from the farthest steppe of Zebrica?  But that, forsooth, the bouncing sun-princess, your buskin’d mistress and your warrior love, to Shining Armor must be wedded, and you come to give their bed joy and prosperity,” Luna mockingly said to Sombra.  She, and her fairy maidens, laughed harshly at his expense.

“How canst thou thus for shame, Luna, glance at my credit with Celestia, knowing I know thy love for Shining?!” Sombra asked in anger, with frightening shadows and fire enveloping around him, in which the maidens hid behind Luna’s throne.  “Didst thou not lead him through the glimmering night from Perigena, whom he ravished?!  And make him with fair Cadence break his faith, with Lotus and Aloe?!”

“These are the forgeries of jealousy!” Luna answered furiously, “And never, since the middle of summer’s spring, met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead, to dance our ringlets to the whistling wind!  But with thy brawls thou hast disturb’d our sport!”  Luna climbed from her throne of vines and walked straight into the face of Sombra.  “Therefore the winds, piping to us in vain, as in revenge, have suck’d up from the sea contagious fogs!  Which falling in the land have every pelting river made so proud that they overborne their continents!”  Luna held out her hoof and a shining crystal orb materialized and hovered on her palm, projecting images of the mortal and physical realm.

“The ox hath therefore stretch’d his yoke in vain, the ploughpony lost his sweat, and the green corn hath rotted ere his youth attain’d a beard!  The fold stands empty and in the drowned field, and crows are fatted with the murrion flock.  The nine stallion’s morris is fill’d up with mud, and the quaint mazes in the wanton green for lack of tread are undistinguishable!  The pony mortals want their winter here.  No night is now with hymn or carol best.  Therefore the moon, governess of floods, pale in her anger, washes all the air, that rheumatic diseases abound.  And thorough this distemperature we see the seasons alter.  And this same progeny of evils comes from our debate, from our dissension… we are parents of the original.”

“Do you amend it then,” Sombra snorted, “it lies in you.  Why should Luna cross her Sombra?  I do but beg a little zebra colt, to be my henchpony,” he demanded.

“Set your heart at rest,” Luna said irritatingly.  “The fairy land buys not the colt of me.  His mother was a votaress of my order,” Luna said softly, remembering the special times they had together.  “And, in the spiced Zebra air, by night, full often hath she gossip’d by my side, and sat with me on Poseidon's yellow sands, marking the embarked traders on the flood.  When we have laughed to see the sails conceive and grow big-bellied with the wanton wind,” she said as she began to giggle, much to Sombra’s bitter confusion.  “Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait following - her womb then rich with my young squire - would imitate, and sail upon the land to fetch me trifles, and return again, as from a voyage, rich with merchandise,” Luna said while started to laugh affectionately from the past memories of her friend.  Shortly, her laughter slowly gave way to sorrow.

“But she… being mortal, of that colt did die.  And for her sake do I rear up her colt, and for her sake I will not part from him,” Luna said with a tone of heartache.  The fairy maidens slowly surrounded her and presented to her a loving group hug.  The tender moment of quiet affection almost invoke Sombra’s stomach violently churn up this evening’s meal.

“How long within this wood intend you stay?” Sombra asked.

“Perchance till after Shining’s wedding-day,” Luna answered, “If you will patiently dance in our round and see our moonlight revels, go with us.  If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts,” she demanded.

“Give me that colt, and I will go with thee,” Sombra offered with a wicked smile.

“Not for thy fairy kingdom!  Fairies, away!  We shall chide downright, if I longer stay!”  Luna, her fairy maidens, and her flowery throne slowly faded away into the trees and bushes.  After they disappeared, Sombra angrily spat on the grass - anger overtaking his senses.

“Well, go thy way.  Thou shalt not from this grove till I torment thee for this injury,” Sombra said bitterly.  “My gentle Discord, come hither,” Sombra ordered with a low tone.  Discord hesitantly, but obediently, approached by his master’s side.  “Thou rememberest since once I sat upon a promontory, and heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath that rude sea grew civil at her song and certain stars shot madly from their spheres, to hear the sea-maid’s music?”

“I remember,” Discord said.

“That very time I saw, but thou couldst not, flying between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all armed.”  He paused for a moment and closed his eyes.  He sighed as he let the memories and feelings come to him.  “A certain aim he took at a fair vestal throned by the west, and loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow, as it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.  But I might see a young Cupid’s fiery shaft quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon, and imperial votaress passed on, in maiden meditation, fancy-free.  Yet mark’d I where the bolt Cupid fell - it fell upon a western flower.  Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound.  Maidens call it love-in-idleness.”

A deliciously wicked smile slithered across his face and he turned his attention to Discord once again.  “Fetch me that flower!  The herb I shew’d thee once - the juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid will make or stallion or mare madly dote upon the next live creature that it sees.  Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again ere the leviathan can swim a league,” he ordered.

“I’ll put a girdle round about the earth in forty minutes,” Discord replied.  With a snap of his fingers, the draconequus disappeared in a flash of light.  Sombra chuckled to himself for having created his most devious plan.

“Having once this juice, I’ll watch Luna when she is asleep, and drop the liquor of it in her eyes.  The next thing then she waking looks upon - be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull, on meddling monkey, or on busy ape - she shall pursue it with the soul of love.  And ere I take this charm from off her sight, as I can take it with another herb, I’ll make her render up her page to me.”  He laughed demonically into the starry-night, impatiently waiting for his plan to come together.  However, he silenced himself when he heard rustling bushes complete with voices.  “But who comes here?  I am invisible, and I will overhear their conference.”

Sombra ignited his dark, twisted horn and released the invisibility spell upon him and his followers.  As soon as his figure was no longer seen for detectable, the mortals to whom the mysterious voices belonged to appeared in the dark woods.  The voices belonged to two unicorns, both male and female.

“I love thee not, therefore pursue me not,” an annoyed Blueblood spoke, “Where is Time Turner and fair Twilight?  The one I’ll slay, the other slayeth me.  Thou told’st me they were stolen unto this wood.  And here am I, and wode within this wood, because I cannot meet my Twilight!  Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more!”

“You draw me, you hard-hearted adamant!” Rarity yelled.  “But yet you draw not iron, for my heart is true as steel!  Leave you your power to draw, and I shall have no power to follow you.”

“Do I entice you?  Do I speak you fair?” Blueblood asked with confusion mixed with temper.  “Or rather, do I not in plainest truth tell you, I do not, nor cannot love you?!”

“And even for that I do love you the more,” Rarity said sweetly.  She kneeled on both knees before a confused and scared Blueblood while she held her forelegs up to her chest; she also wore her best puppy-dog eyes.  “I am your spaniel, Blueblood.  The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.  Use me but as your spaniel - spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me.  Only give me leave, unworthy as I am, to follow you.”  She crawled on all fours and sensually rubbed her head against the stallion’s foreleg.  For a second, he thought he heard her whimpering like a little puppy.  “What worser place can I beg in your love - and yet a place of high respect with me - than to be used as your use dog?” she asked while licking and kissing his forehoof.

“Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit.  For I am sick when I do look on thee,” Blueblood said in utter disgust.

“And I am sick when I look not on you,” Rarity amorously whined.

“You do impeach your modesty too much, to the leave the city and commit yourself into the hands of one that loves you not.  To trust the opportunity of night and ill counsel of a desert place with the rich worth of your virginity,” Blueblood desperately reasoned.

“Your virtue is my privilege.  For that it is not night when I do see your face, therefore I think I am not in the night.  Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company, for you in my respect that are all the world,” said a lovestruck Rarity, “Then how can it be said I am alone, when all the world is here to look on me?”

“I’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes, and leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts!” a red-faced Blueblood angrily yelled.  Rarity finally stood firm on her four legs and gave him a cold stare.

“The wildest hath not such a heart as you,” Rarity rebuked.  “Run when you will, the story shall be changed:  Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase, the dove pursues the griffin, the mild hind makes speed to catch the tiger!  Bootless speed, when the cowardice pursues and valor flies!”

“I will not stay thy questions!” Blueblood infuriatingly announced, “Let me go!  Or, if thou follow me, do not believe but I shall do thee mischief in the wood!” he warned.

“Ay, in the temple, in the town, the field, you do me mischief!” Rarity yelled.  Her furious tongue could send chills to the most vile of creatures in the wood.  “Fie, Blueblood!  You wrongs do set a scandal on my sex!  We cannot fight for love, as stallions may do!  We should be wood and were not made to woo!”

Blueblood pretended he did not listened to Rarity’s complaints and kept walking hastily into the dark belly of the nightly forest-wood.  “I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell!  To die upon the hoof I love so well!”  With a single, but a hard humph, she ran into the direction her idol was going.  After the unicorns had disappeared, Sombra deactivated the invisibility spell, and he and his kin appeared once more.

“Fare thee well, nymph.  Ere he do leave this grove, thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love,” Sombra said to himself.  He chuckled under his breath at the very thought of Rarity running away from a love-crazed Blueblood.  Out of nowhere, a flash of light became visible - Discord had returned.  “Hast thou the flower there?”

“Ay, there it is,” Discord answered.  He presented the flower to his master.  Its petals were the color as Sombra remembered - purple, and with a weak, green stem.  A nasty smile crossed the dark unicorn’s face.

“I pray thee, give it to me,” Sombra said as he snatched the flower from the draconequus hand.  “I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, where oxlips and the nodding violet grows.  Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, with sweet musk-roses and with eglantine.  There sleeps Luna sometime of the night, lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight.  And there the snake throws her enamll’d skin, weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.  And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes, and her full of hateful fantasies.”

Sombra levitated the flower slowly between him and Discord.  He used his magic to take on piece of the flower off and gave it to the draconequus hands.  “Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove,” he ordered Discord, “A sweet Canterlot mare is in love with a disdainful youth.  Anoint his eyes, but do it when the next thing he espies may be the mare.  Thou shalt know the man by the Canterlot garments he hath on.  Effect it with some care, that he may prove more fond on her than she upon her love.  And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.”

“Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so,” Discord replied.  With another snap of his fingers he disappeared, performing the task his master set before him.  Sombra and his followers faded from view and from the night - into the realm of the spirit beings.