A Midsummer Night's Dream

King Sombra sat on his throne in his dark lair deep in the forest, waiting for Discord to return from the task he set for him. “I wonder if Luna be awaked,” he said to himself. “Then, what it was that next came in her eye,” he said with an evil chuckle, “which she must dote on in extremity.”

As he was thinking about the unfortunate soul who was the center of Luna’s affections, Discord magically appeared before him, laughing like somepony who lost their mind. Sombra sat up from his throne, anxious to hear of his servant’s progress. “Here comes my messenger!” he exclaimed. “How now, mad spirit? What night-rule now about this haunted grove?”

Discord laughed so hard that he couldn’t get the words out. Finally, he contained his amusement, then said, “My mistress… with a monster is in love!”

Sombra cocked an eyebrow, but nonetheless was interested in had happened. Discord, desperately trying to hold his laughter, recounted how a group of bumbling workponies from Canterlot gathered together near Luna’s throne to rehearse for a play for Shining’s wedding. The one named Caramel amused him the most out of all of them. When Discord finished his story, Sombra couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“This falls out better than I could devise!” he said. In the middle of his laughter he remembered something. “But hast thou yet latched the Canterlotian’s eyes with the love juice, as I bid thee do?”

        “I took him sleeping - that is finished too,” Discord answered. “And the Canterlot mare by his side, that, when she waked, of force she must be eyed.”

Sombra and Discord continued to laugh at themselves until they heard voices coming from the trees. The voices sounded like a male and female bickering with each other, the female angrier than the male.

        “Stand close,” Sombra said to Discord, “It’s the same pony.” Sombra and Discord hid behind the branches of the trees to witness the scene. The ponies arrived, however, Discord scratched his head. There was a white unicorn with the purple mare, instead of the brown stallion he saw before. “This is the mare, but not this stallion,” he said confusingly.

The ponies were under the tree Discord and Sombra were hiding, but were unaware of their existence. By listening to them, Discord learned that their names were Blueblood and Twilight.

        “Oh, why rebuke you him that loves you so?” Blueblood asked frustratingly. “Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe!”

“Now I but chide, but I should use thee worse - for thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse!” Twilight answered. She brought her face close to Blueblood’s and glared at him enough to make him shrink a little. “If thou hast slain Time Turner in his sleep, being o’er hooves in blood, plunge in the deep and kill me too!” Her horn glowed, as though she might try to injure the stallion with her magic out of spite. “The sun was not so true unto the day as he to me! Would he have stolen away from sleeping Twilight? It cannot be but thou hast murdered him! So should a murderer look, so dead, so grim!”

        “So should the murdered look, and so should I!” Blueblood spat. “Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty! Yet you, the murderer, look as bright, as clear, as yonder Celestia in her glimmering sphere!”

        “What’s this to my Time Turner?” she asked angrily. Twilight aimed her horn at him, but after a few moments she let her guard down. She slumped on the ground and hid her face behind her hooves, weeping. “Blueblood, wilt thou give him me?” she begged.

        “... I had rather give his carcass to my hounds,” he said coldly.

        Never in her had Twilight met a cold-hearted pony like Blueblood. Something inside of her snapped, and Twilight stood upright on the grass, giving the stallion the most dreadful death glare she could give to anypony.

        “Out, dog!” she screamed. “Thou drivest me past the bounds of maiden’s patience!” Intimidated by her anger, Blueblood backed up into the tree behind him, being cornered by a rage-filled Twilight. “Hast thou slain him then?” she yelled. “Henceforth be never numbered among ponies! Oh, once tell true, tell true even for my sake - durst thou have looked upon him being awake, and hast thou killed him sleeping? O brave touch!” she said mockingly. “Could not a worm, an adder, do so much?”

        “You spend your passion on a misprised mood,” Blueblood said, trying to calm her down. “I am not guilty of Time Turner’s blood. Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.”

Twilight was silent, the anger still boiling within her. After calming herself down she said in a low voice, “I pray thee, tell me then that he is well.”

        “An if I could, what should I get therefore?” he asked.

        “... A privilege of never to me more. And from thy hated presence part I so. See me no more, whether he be dead or no.” With nothing else left to say, Twilight’s horn glowed, and she disappeared to parts unknown in a flash of purple light.

Now Blueblood was alone, and lost in the dark woods. His former fiance departed from him, and for the first time in his life he felt a troubling sensation in his soul. He laid on the ground underneath the tree, then was soon fast asleep.

        Discord and Sombra emerged from the trees as the debacle had passed, however, all was not well with the fairy king. “What hast thou done?” he asked accusingly. “Thou hast mistaken quite, and laid the love juice on some true love’s sight! Of thy misprision must perforce ensue some true love turned, and not false turned true!”

        “Then fate o’errules that,” Discord said, shrugging his shoulders. “One pony holding troth, a million fail, confounding oath on oath.”

        With his dark magic, Sombra grabbed the trickster by the neck and brought him close to his own face. “About the wood go swifter than the wind,” he ordered, “and Rarity of Canterlot look thou find! All fancy-sick she is and pale of cheer! With sighs of love, that costs the fresh blood dear! By some illusion see thou bring her here! I’ll charm his eyes against she do appear!”

        Sombra released Discord from his mighty grip. “I go, I go,” he stammered, “swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow!” He jumped from the tree branch and vanished in a flash of light. Sombra hovered over Blueblood’s head, squeezing drops of the love juice in his eyes. “Flower of this purple dye, hit with Cupid’s archery, sink in apple of his eye. When his love he doth espy, let her shine gloriously as Celestia in the sky. When thou wakest, if she be by, beg of her for remedy.”

        Discord materialized above Sombra’s head, causing him to be frightened to the point of almost awakening Blueblood. “Captain of our fairy band, Rarity is here at hand! And the youth, mistook by me, pleading for a lover’s fee!”

        With the love juice on Blueblood’s eyes, and the two ponies at close proximity, Sombra figured it was good time to hide on top of the trees again. “The noise they make will cause Blueblood to awake,” he said.

“Then will two at once woo one,” Discord commented. The two squabbling ponies stopped running under Sombra’s tree. This time there was a white unicorn mare with the brown stallion Discord saw before.

        The stallion, whom Discord learned his name was Time Turner, knelt before the mare and held her hoof into his. “Why should you think that I should woo in scorn?” he asked. “Scorn and derision never come in tears. Look when I vow, I weep; and vows so born, in their nativity all truth appears.”

        The mare, whose name was Rarity, snatched her hoof away in disgust. “You do advance your cunning more and more!” she said in a scornful tone. “These vows are Twilight’s. Will you give her over? Your vows to her and me, put in two scales, will even weigh, and both as light as tales!”

        “I had no judgement when to her I swore.”

        “Nor none, in my mind, now you give her over.”

        “Blueblood loves her, and he loves not you.”

        Rarity and Time Turner heard something near the tree. It sounded like a pony emerging from a long nap. She took a closer look at who it was, and to her horror it was Prince Blueblood. But when he found her standing over him, there was something different in his eyes, one that Rarity did not like. He smiled like a dumb schoolcolt, and approached Rarity with hearts in his eyes.

        “O Rarity - goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!” he sang, causing her to back away. “To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne? O, let me kiss this princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!”

        “O spite!” she rebuke. “I see all are bent to set against me for your merriment! Can you not hate me, as I know you do, but you must join in souls to mock me too?” Rarity glared at both of them, and yelled, “You both are rivals, and love Twilight, and now both rivals, to mock Rarity!” She placed her hooves over her eyes and began to weep.

        “You are unkind, Blueblood, be not so,” Time Turner pleaded. “In Twilight’s love I yield you up to my part, and your’s of Rarity to me bequeath, whom I do love, and will do till my death.”

        “Never did mockers waste more idle words!” Rarity yelled.

        “Time, keep thy Twilight,” Blueblood said, “I will none. If ever I loved her, all that love is gone. My heart to her but as guestwise sojourned, and now to Rarity is it home returned, there to remain.”

        The three ponies turned their heads when the bushes became restless. Blueblood coward behind Rarity, fearing what would be behind the bushes. A lavender hoof poked through the leaves, then a unicorn crawled out. Everypony was relieved it was Twilight, but only for a brief moment. She shook the leaves out of her mane, then her eyes gleamed when she spotted Time Turner.

        “Thou art not by mine eye, Time, found,” she said as she embraced him. “Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound! But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?”

        “Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?” Time said.

        Twilight gazed at him as though she had misheard him. “What love could press Time from my side?”

        “Time’s love, that would not let him bide - fair Rarity, who more engilds the night than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.”

        Twilight put her hooves on Turner’s cheeks, not knowing what to make of this situation. “You speak not as you think. It cannot be.”

        “Lo, she is one of this confederacy!” Rarity yelled. “Now I perceive they have conjoined all three to fashion this false sport in spite of me!” Twilight let go of Turner, only to have a look of shock at Rarity’s words of accusation. “Is all the counsel that we two have shared - the sisters’ vows, the hours that we spent when we have chid the hasty-hoofed time for parting us - O, is all forgot?”

        “I scorn you not,” Twilight said. “It seems that you scorn me.”

        Rarity pointed her forearm at Twilight, then snorted like an angry bull. “Have you not set Turner, as in scorn, to follow me and praise my eyes and face? And made your other love, Blueblood, who even but now did spurn me with his hoof, to me goddess, nymph, divine, and rare?”

        “I understand not what you mean by this,” Twilight said.

        “Ay, do!” Rarity said. “Persever, counterfeit sad looks, make mouths upon me when I turn my back, wink at each other, hold the sweet jest up! This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled!”

        Time Turner embraced Rarity, stroking her cheeks. “Stay, gentle Rarity,” he said, “hear my excuse - my love, my life, my soul, fair Rarity!”

        “Sweet, do not scorn her so,” Twilight pleaded to Time.

        Blueblood pushed Rarity out of his way, facing his rival. “If she cannot entreat, I can compel,” he said.

        “Thou canst compel no more than she entreat,” Time said. “Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.” He then pushed Blueblood out his way, kneeling before Rarity. “Rarity, I love thee, by my life I do! I swear by that which I will lose for thee, to prove him false that says I love thee not!”

        “I say I love thee more than he can do,” Blueblood said, kneeling next to Turner.

        Twilight latched herself onto her lover. “Time, whereto tends all this?” she cried.

        “Away with you!”

        As Time Turner tried to break free from Twilight’s grip, Blueblood taunted the both of them. After a moment of struggling, Turner managed to slip out of her grip, spouting even more insults.

        “Why are you grown so rude? What change is this, sweet love?”

        “Thy love?” Turner asked mockingly. “Out, loathed med’cine! O hated potion, hence!” He turned back to Blueblood and told him he is ready to fight him for Rarity’s love.

        “I would I had your bond, for I perceive a weak bond holds you. I’ll not trust your word,” he responded.

        “What, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?” Turner asked. “Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so!”

        “What, can you do me greater harm than hate?” Twilight asked shockingly. “Am not I Twilight? Are you not Time Turner? I am as fair now as I was erewhile. Since night you loved me, yet since night you left me.” She began to let the tears flow from her eyes to the ground. “Why, then you left me - in earnest, shall I say?”

        “Ay, by me life!” he answered proudly. “And never did desire to see thee more! Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt. Be certain, nothing truer. ‘Tis no jest that I do hate thee and love Rarity.”

        Twilight slowly turned her head to Rarity, ready to set her very soul on fire. “You juggler! You cankerblossom! You thief of love! What, have you come by night and stolen my love’s heart from him?”

        “Have you no modesty, no maiden shame, no touch of bashfulness?” Rarity retorted. “What, will you tear impatient answers from my gentle tongue? Fie, fie! You counterfeit, you puppet, you!”

        “Puppet? Why, so!” Twilight flailed herself at Rarity, but luckily she was restrained by Time Turner. Rarity sought refuge behind Prince Blueblood as Twilight tried to release herself from Turner’s grip.

        “I pray you, though you mock me, gentlecolts, let her not hurt me,” Rarity pleaded. “I was never curst. I have no gift at all in shrewishness. I am a right maid for my cowardice. Let her not strike me. You perhaps think, because she is something lower than myself, that I can match her.”

        “Lower? Hark again!” Twilight screamed.

        “Good Twilight, do not be so bitter with me. I evermore did love you. Did ever ever keep your counsels, never wronged you - saved that, in love unto Blueblood, I told him of your stealth unto this wood. He followed you, for love I followed him. But he hath chid me hence and threatened me to strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too.”

        Twilight ceased struggling, but the urge to strangle Rarity was still alive inside her. “And now, so you will let me quiet go, to Canterlot will I bear my folly back and follow you no further,” Rarity said, her head hung in shame. “Let me go. You see how simple and how fond I am.”

        “Why, get you gone!” Twilight spat. “Who is it that hinders you?”

        “A foolish heart, that I leave here behind.”

        “What, with Turner?”

        “With Blueblood.”

        “Be not afraid, she shall not harm thee, Rarity,” Turner said.

        “O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd,” Rarity said. “She was a vixen when she went to school. And though she be but little, she is fierce.”

        Twilight could not stand being called “little” by anypony, especially from somepony who used to be her best friend. Her purple skin was turning red with fury, and was about to launch herself at Rarity, but yet again Turner had come stop her advances, unfortunately casting more insults at her.

        “You are too officious in her behalf that scorns your services,” Blueblood said. “Let her alone. Speak not of Rarity, take not her part. For, if thou dost intend never so little show of love to her, thou shalt aby it.”

        “Now she holds me not,” Turner said, letting go of Twilight. He marched forward until his glaring eyes were close to Blueblood’s. “Now follow, if thou darest, to try whose right, of thine or mine, is most in Rarity.”

        “Follow?” Blueblood said. “Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl.” The two stallions wandered off deep into the forest, leaving the mares on their own, determined to settle this dispute once and for all.

        Twilight and Rarity stared down at each other, the two of them not uttering a word for one full minute. “You, mistress, all this coil is long of you,” Twilight finally said. “Nay, go not back.”

        “I will not trust you,” said Rarity, “nor longer stay in your curst company. Your arms than mine are quicker for a fray. My legs are longer, though, to run away.”

        With speed to match that of Hermes, Rarity managed to escape Twilight’s fury. She ran until Twilight could no longer hear her galloping hooves. Twilight’s face soften, but a lone tear flowed down her cheek. Her horn glowed, purple magic surrounding her body.

        “... I am amazed and know not what to say.”

        In a burst of magic she disappeared.

        Sombra and Discord reappeared after hiding from the ponies. Needless to say, this has been the most distressful night of the fairy king’s life. He wrapped his hooves around Discord’s neck and shook his head back and forth. “This is thy negligence!” he roared. “Still thou mistak’st, or else commit thy knaveries willfully!”

        “Believe me, king of shadows,” Discord pleaded, “I mistook. Did not you tell me I should know the pony by the Canterlot garments he had on? And so far blameless proves my enterprise.”

        Sombra nearly began to throttle him, but kept his boiling temper in check. However, dragged him by his collar and brought Discord’s face close to his. Now the fairy king had a new task for him - he is to make the forest so dark and foggy that the stallions will be lost in the woods. Discord will taunt Turner in Blueblood’s voice, then egg Blueblood in Turner’s voice, so they can get away from each other until they’re exhausted and fall asleep. Sombra gave Discord a new flower and placed it in his palms.

        “Then crush this herb into Turner’s eye, whose liquor hath virtuous property to take from thence all error with his might and make his eyeballs roll with wonted sight. When they next wake, all this derision shall seem a dream and fruitless vision, and back to Canterlot shall the lovers wend with league whose date till death shall never end. While I in this affair do thee employ, I’ll to my queen and beg her zebra colt. And then I will her charmed eye release from monster’s view, and all things shall be at peace.”

        “My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,” Discord said. “For night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast, and yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger, at whose approach ghosts, wandering here and there, troop home to churchyards.”

        “But we are spirits of another sort,” said Sombra. “I with the morning’s love have oft made sport. But notwithstanding - haste, make no delay! We may effect this business yet ere day!”

        With that, Sombra vanished in a dark flash of magic. Discord hovered between the trees and spread his arms, making the night pitch black. He made enough fog to make one’s vision blurry, all while singing:

Up and down, up and down,

I will lead them up and down.

I am feared in field and town.

Goblin, lead them up and down.

        When all was done, he heard a voice nearby. “Here comes one,” he said. Discord hid in the fog unseen, then watched as Time Turner was running in circles.

        “Where art thou, proud Blueblood?” he yelled, “Speak thou now!”

        “Here villain,” Discord said, mimicking Blueblood in a silly voice, “drawn and ready. Where art thou?”

        “I will be with thee straight!”

        “Follow me, then, to plainer ground!”

        Discord laughed under his breath as he watched Turner wander helplessly around the fog-covered forest in search for his rival. He spotted Prince Blueblood on the other side, also blindly running about.

        “Turner! Speak again!” he yelled. “Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled? Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?”

        “Thou coward, art thou bragging to the stars,” Discord said, mimicking Turner in a much sillier voice than before, “telling the bushes that thou lookest for wars and wilt not come?”

        “Art thou there?”

        “Follow my voice. We’ll try no stallionhood here,” Discord responded. He laughed while Blueblood tried to find his opponent in the fog. After leading him in circles, he returned his attention to Time Turner. He walked under a large oak tree, out of breath.

        “He goes before me and still dares me on,” Turner said. “When I come where he calls, then he is gone.” He sat under the tree, feeling drowsy, eyelids heavy. “The villain is much light-hoofed than I. I followed fast, but faster he did fly, that fallen am I in dark even way, and here will rest me.” He laid himself down on the grass, slowing closing his eyes. “Come, thou gentle day,” he yawned, “for if but once thou show me thy gray light… I’ll find Blueblood… and revenge this spite.”

        After Turner had fallen asleep, it was time for Discord to lead Blueblood under the same tree. “Ho, ho, ho,” he called out from the fog, “Coward! Why com’st thou not?”

        “Abide me, if thou dar’st!” Blueblood answered. “For well I wot thou runn’st before me, shifting every place, and dar’st not stand nor look me in the face! Where art thou now?”

        “Come hither! I am here!”

        Blueblood followed Discord’s voice, which led him into the tree Turner was sleeping under, but Discord had to make sure the two were not together. The unicorn stopped on the other side, out of breath from running.

        “Nay, then, thou mock’st me. “Thou shalt buy this dear, if ever I thy face by daylight see!” He laid his back on the tree bark as he felt the energy escaping from him. “Now, go thy way. Faintness constraineth me to measure out my length on this cold bed.” He yawned, his eyelids growing heavier. “By day’s approach… look to be visited.”

        The two stallions were finally asleep on opposite sides of the tree. Discord heard another voice coming from the forest, this time more feminine. Rarity ran to the large oak tree, out of breath just as the stallions.

        “O weary night, O long and tedious night!” she cried. “Abate thy hours! Shine comforts from the east, that I may back to Canterlot by daylight from these that my poor company detest! And sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow’s eye, steal me away from mine own company.”

        Rarity’s legs became weak, and she fell on the ground like a stone, fast asleep afterward. Everything was going as planned, but Discord frowned. “Yet but three? Come one more. Two of both kinds makes up four.”

        And wouldn’t he know it, he heard a fourth voice. The fourth was feminine like the mare, although her voice was filled with sorrow and tears. “Here she comes, curst and sad,” he said. “Cupid is a knavish lad, thus to make poor females mad.”

        Discord hid on top of the tree and watched Twilight approach the tree with tears flowing down her cheeks. “Never so weary, never so in woe,” she said. “Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers, I can no further crawl, no further go.” Her legs were working against her, so she lay flat on her stomach on the grass. “My legs can keep no pace with my desires. Here will I rest me till the break of day. Heavens shield Turner, if they mean a fray.”

        The four lovers were all sleeping under the tree, and it was time for phase of the plan to begin. He floated circled the tree, all while chanting:

On the ground

Sleep sound.

I’ll apply

To your eye,

Gentle lover, remedy.

        He released the flower Sombra had given him and squeezed some drops into Turner’s eyes.

When thou wak’st,

Thou tak’st

True delight

In the sight

Of thy former lady’s eye.

And the country proverb known,

That every stallion should take his own,

In your waking shall be shown.

Jack shall have Jill,

Naught shall go ill,

The stallion shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.

        The task was completed, and Discord disappeared into the night. Hopefully by morning things will be back normal.