Author: Chris Cook
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Based on characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer created by Joss Whedon and his talented minionators, and A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare.

The Wood.

[Enter FAITH and Fyarl JONATHAN, Fairies attending; BUFFY behind, unseen.]

Faith: Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy,
And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,
And kiss thy armoured ears, my gentle joy.

Jonathan: Where's Eve?

Eve: Ready.

Jonathan: Scratch my head, Eve. - Where's lady Violet?

Violet: Ready.

Jonathan: Violet, good lady, get your weapons in your hand and hunt me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good lady, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, lady; and good lady, have a care the honey-bag break not; I would be loath to have you over-flown with honey.

[Violet pulls a face when Jonathan is not looking, and stomps off.]

Faith: Wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

Jonathan: I have a reasonable good ear in music; let us have the tongs and the bones.

Faith: Or say, sweet love, what thou desir'st to eat.

Jonathan: Truly... the bones of mortals and lesser demons would not go astray. Methinks I have a great desire to rampage about destroying the world of men. Odd that I should think so.

Faith: Sleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.
Fairies, be gone, and be all ways away.
So doth the woodbine the sweet honeysuckle
Gently entwist, - the female ivy so
Enrings the barky fingers of the elm.
O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee!

[They sleep. Buffy advances. Enter DAWN.]

Buffy: Welcome, good Dawn. Seest thou this sweet sight?
Her dotage not I do begin to pity.
For, meeting her of late behind the wood,
Seeking sweet savours for this hateful fool,
I did upbraid her, and fall out with her;
For she his carapaced temples then had rounded
With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers;
And that same dew, which sometime on the buds
Was wont to smell like round and orient pearle,
Stood now within the pretty flow'rets' eyes,
Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.
When I had, at my pleasure, taunted her,
And she, in mild terms, begg'd my patience,
I then did ask of her her beloved stake;
Which straight she gave to me, and her fairy sent
To bear it to my bower in fairy-land.
And now I have Mr Pointy, yet I feel no joy
In this victory of mine. I will undo
This hateful imperfection of her eyes.
And, gentle Dawn, take this transformed skin
From off the form of this Athenian swain;
That he awaking when the other do,
May all to Athens back again repair,
And think no more of this night's accidents
But as the fierce vexation of a dream.
But first I will release my fairy queen.
Be as thou wast wont to be;
[Touching her eyes with an herb.]
See as thou wast wont to see;
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower
Hath such force and blessed power.
Now, my Faith; wake you, my sweet regent.

Faith: My Buffy! What visions have I seen!
Methought I was enamour'd of a demon.

Buffy: There lies your love.

Faith: How came these things to pass?
O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

Buffy: Silence awhile. - Dawn, take off this creature's mask.
Faith, music call; and strike more dead
Than common sleep, of all these five, the sense.

Faith: Music, ho! Music; such as charmeth sleep.

Dawn: Now, when thou wak'st, with thine own fool's eyes peep.

Buffy: Come, my queen, take hands with me,
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.
Now thou and I are new in amity,
And will to-morrow midnight solemnly
Dance in Duke Giles' house triumphantly,
And bless it to all fair posterity;
There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be
Wedded, with Giles, all in jollity.

Dawn: Fairy queen, attend and mark;
I do hear the morning lark.

Buffy: Then, my regent, in silence sad,
Trip we after the night's shade;
We the globe can compass soon,
Swifter than the wand'ring moon.

Faith: Come, my lady; and in our flight,
Tell me how it came this night
That I sleeping here was found,
With these mortals on the ground.

Buffy: I fear if I tell too much I'll get my butt kicked.

Faith: As if you'd have it any other way.

[Exeunt. Horns sound. Enter GILES, JENNY, IRA and Attendants.]

Giles: Go, one of you, find out the forester; -
For now our observation is perform'd;
And since we have the vaward of the day,
My love shall hear the music of the hounds, -
Uncouple in the western valley; go; -
Despatch, I say, and find the forester. -
We will, fair queen, up to the mountain's top,
And mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.
[Jenny pointedly ignores.]
My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flew'd, so sanded; and their heads are hung -
[Jenny spurs her horse and rides off to the wood's edge.]
- Indeed.

[More horns sound. Giles is called over to the wood's edge, where Ira has found something covered in a drift of leaves.]

Giles: What nymphs are these?

Ira: My lord, this is my daughter Willow asleep;
And this Tara;
[He looks elsewhere.]
This Xander is;
This Anya, old D'Hoffryn's Anya;
I wonder of their being here together.

Giles: No doubt, they rose up early to observe
The rite of May; and, hearing our intent,
Came here in grace of our solemnity, -
But speak, Ira; is not this the day
That Willow should give answer of her choice?

Ira: It is, my lord.

Giles: Go, bid the huntsmen wake them.

[Horns and shouts. Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya awake and start up.]

Giles: Good-morrow, friends. Saint Valentine is past;
Begin these wood-birds but to couple now?

Tara: P-pardon, my lord.
[To Willow.]
Where are my clothes?

Giles: I pray you all, stand up.

[There is a hurried putting-on of shirts and skirts, except for Anya who doesn't bother.]

Xander: Ahn!

Anya: What? Oh, all right.

[She steals Xander's shirt and puts it on.]

Giles: I know you two are rival enemies;
How comes this gentle concord in the world,
That hatred is so far from jealousy
To sleep mere metres apart, and fear no enmity?

Tara: My lord, I shall reply amazedly,
Half 'sleep, half waking; but as yet, I swear,
I cannot truly say how I came here;
But, as I think, - for truly would I speak -
And now I do bethink me, so it is, -
I came with Willow hither; our intent
Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be
Without the peril of Athenian law.

Ira: Enough, enough, my lord; you have enough;
I beg the law, the law upon her head. -
They would have stol'n away, they would, Xander,
Thereby to have defeated you and me;
You of your wife, and me of my consent, -
Of my consent that she should be your wife.

Giles: Ira, do shut up.

Xander: My lord, fair Anya told me of their stealth,
Of this their purpose hither to this wood;
And I in fury hither follow's them,
Fair Anya in fancy following me.
But, my good lord, I wot not by what power, -
But by some power it is, - my love to Willow
Melted as doth the snow - seems to me now
As the remembrances of an idle gawd
Which in my childhood I did dote upon;
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Anya. To her, my lord,
Was I betroth'd ere I saw Willow;
But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food;
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now do I wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.

Giles: Fair lovers, you are fortunately met;
Of this discourse we more will hear anon, -
Ira, I will overbear your will;
[Jenny perks up.]
For in the temple, by and by with us,
These couples shall eternally be knit.
And, for the morning now is something worn,
Our purpos'd hunting shall be set aside, -
Away with us to Athens three and three,
We'll hold a feast in great solemnity. -
Come, Jenny.

[Jenny and Giles kiss, and ride off together. Ira follows, annoyed.]

Xander: These things seem small and undistinguishable,
Like far-off mountains turned into clouds.

Willow: Methinks I see these things with parted eye,
When everything seems doable.

Anya: So methinks;
And I have found Xander like a jewel.
Mine own, as I had dream'd.

Xander: It seems to me
That yet we sleep, we dream. - Do you not think
The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

Willow: Yea, and my father.

Anya: And Miss Calendar.

Tara: And he did bid us follow to the temple.

Xander: Why, then, we are awake; let's follow him then.

[Exeunt. As they go out, JONATHAN awakes.]

Jonathan: When my cue comes, call me, and I will answer; - my next is, Most fair Angel. - Heigh-ho! - Larry Blaisdell! Devon, the lead singer! Michael the Wicca guy? Scott? God's my life, stolen hence, and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream - past the wit of man to say what dream it was. - Man is but a creature if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was - there is no man can tell what. But man is a parched fool, if he will offer to say what methought I was. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen; man's hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, not his heart to report what my dream was. I will go to Larry Blaisdell to write a ballad of this dream, that Devon may sing it, perhaps before the duke; it shall be called... Jonathan's Dream, because an unassuming title befits it best.

[Exit.]