For The Sake of a Masterpiece
“I’m just worried you might be wearing yourself out, that’s all.”
Varnished wood gleamed, slick with sweat. Fiddlesticks furrowed her brow, focusing on her violin not slipping against her moist cheek, on her bow not dropping from her hooves. She bit her lip as the tempo climbed higher.
She closed her eyes as the drops from her brow started to sting them. She couldn’t afford to lose focus now. Not again. She couldn’t afford to think about how big an opportunity this was, how consequential it was for her career. She couldn’t afford to think about the amount of eyes that would be watching her.
She couldn’t afford to think about waking up cold in the morning, hooves grasping for a warmth that had long departed from this world.
Fiddlesticks screamed, the tempo climbed higher still.
She opened her eyes in furious defiance of her body, spitting in the face of the pain. She kicked over the music stand and the pages were thrown in a violent cyclone around the room. She continued to play, and when her hooves seemed to get ever more wet she noted dispassionately that they had started to bleed.
The red intermingled with all the other fluids running over her instrument. The sweat and tears and spit, frothy flecks ejected from her maw as she roared in some desperate, primal attempt to get any catharsis.
But still, the tempo climbed.
And Fiddlesticks mustn’t have realised how long she’d been in here. She mustn’t have realised how much she was pushing herself. How much the stink of concentration, a musty saline tang, had permeated the air. Because as soon as the door swung open the cool air from outside was shocking. It reminded her she was still alive.
Fiddlesticks stopped, her concentration snapped as she stared at the door in shock. It was like someone had thrown it open as hard as they could. It had spun suddenly and furiously around its axis before smashing into the adjoining wall, a single heralding crash that seemed to silence the world.
She peered out into the hallway for a moment, seeing if she could spot something in the gloom. Her room, at the end of the corridor, had its light on. She could see her bed, illuminated like a beacon. The bed she’d once shared.
“Hello?” Fiddlesticks called out. But there was no response. No hint that there was anyone else in this big, empty house. She walked over to the door and, with a snarl, slammed it shut again. After a couple of moments glaring at it, daring it to swing open once more, Fiddlesticks turned back to the centre of the room.
There was no one there but her.
She took her bow and went from the top.
“So love, you look well,”
Fiddlesticks allowed a single grunt in response, one sole noise of acknowledgement which would hopefully kill the conversation in its cot. She stared at the kettle, waiting for the water to boil. What was that old saying about watched pots? That they’d never boil? Fiddlesticks thought the saying was stupid. She was the one in control of the water here. She was the one boiling it, and it would reach that state whether watched or not.
“Have you had any thoughts about… you know? Talking to someone?”
“I don’t need to talk to anyone,” Fiddlesticks replied curtly, “I just need to practise. I’ve only got one more week now.”
She finished making the tea and brought a cup over to her mother, who looked at her expectantly for a moment.
“Are you not having one?” her mum asked, concern clearly visible in her eyes.
“Not thirsty,”
“Please love, have a cup of tea with me.” Grey Skies said, her pleading tone not lost on Fiddlesticks, who rolled her eyes and went back over to the kettle. They didn’t speak as she filled a cup for herself. The silence felt protracted, unsettled. She was perfectly happy not to talk, but she knew that her visitor wouldn’t have shared this opinion.
After a steadying breath to restore her patience, Fiddlesticks took the cup and went back to the table. Grey Skies chewed her lip as she stirred her own tea. She looked like she wanted to say something.
No, scratch that. Fiddlesticks knew she wanted to say something. She always wanted to say something. Fiddlesticks simply stared blankly at Grey Skies and remained quiet. She hoped her mother had the good sense to keep it to herself.
“I’m just worried you’re wearing yourself out, love,” she finally blurted out, and Fiddlesticks bit the inside of her lip, looking at her mother with a sudden and hot rage.
“What exactly is the alternative? I need to do well in this one performance, okay? I can rest afterwards,” Fiddlesticks spat.
“But, don’t you think…”
“Yes? Don’t I think what? I’m not gonna finish your sentences for you mum,” Fiddlesticks demanded impatiently.
“Well… don’t you think you might be using this as a way to… Well, not deal with things? To forget about-”
“Not everything is some psychodrama, okay mum?!” Fiddlesticks said, and Grey Skies recoiled in shock at anger and venom in her daughter’s voice, “I’m allowed to carry on with my career, okay? How do you think I keep the lights on here?”
“I know that Fiddlesticks, it’s just… you’re entitled to a rest, you know? And if it’s a money issue, me and your dad could help you-”
“Don’t. Don’t even go there,” Fiddlesticks snarled, blood rushing furiously through her ears as her face grew hotter, and hotter, “I can sort this out by myself. I don’t need you and dad to start fronting my bills, alright?”
“But we don’t mind! We’d be happy to help you out sweetheart, just let us!” Grey Skies cried back, her eyes starting to mist.
“And what? It’s all about you? I don’t care whether you mind, I mind. I can look after myself, alright? The last thing I need is to depend on someone else, because all that happens is that ponies leave you. They make you depend on them, and then they leave, and I’m not doing that again, hear me?! I’m not doing that again!”
“But is that really what she’d-”
Grey Skies was cut off when the table flipped over. One minute it had been there, the next it was thrown sidewards into the kitchen worktop. Their tea stained the walls and wood splintered. Cupboard doors cracked with the force of the impact, crockery shattered.
Both of them stared at it in shock. Fiddlesticks found her mouth bobbing open soundlessly, trying to search for words that could explain. It had been between them one moment. Neither of them had thrown it, neither of them could have, could they? Not enough to cause that much damage.
Not enough…
Surely…
She looked down at her hooves, and then up to Grey Skies who was looking over at her in shock. And at once, the feeling of surprise dulled to a familiar, low irritation gnawing at the front of her mind. Fiddlesticks looked into her mother’s eyes, grinding her teeth at the expression in Grey Skies’ eyes. The mix of shock and pity and concern swimming in growing pools of tears.
“I think you should go.”
Fiddlesticks snarled, tears streaming from her bloodshot eyes. She was sick of closing them against the sweat. She wanted them open. She wouldn’t even blink. The hot, sticky air pulled all the moisture from them and her brain begged her to shut them but Fiddlesticks wouldn’t. Her throat tore against another feral scream of rage. She coughed and spat red.
And still, the tempo rose.
Her hooves worked madly, insanely, playing at speeds she would have once thought impossible. They ran slick with blood. It pooled from all the sores she’d accumulated. The blisters and the cuts and the grazes. All of them badges of the honour of trying, of truly going for it herself.
The tempo rose further, and she felt like her heart was going to stop.
Fiddlesticks kicked over her music stand. It occurred to her that she barely even looked at the sheet music these days. It was like she set it up each time just so she’d have something to lash out at. It felt good. She kicked the walls as she played.
She focused on the same spot, kicking out furiously until the wallpaper disintegrated and the plaster buckled inward. She kicked and kicked, making the hole grow, making the damage greater. And all the while she kept playing. Kept kicking.
The door flew open and Fiddlesticks ignored it. The light above her bed burned brighter than it ever had, near blinding, and Fiddlesticks ignored it. The cool air didn’t bother her. The way that everything moved by itself didn’t bother her. The way the bed seemed to scream at her to get some rest didn’t bother her. It was all just distraction. Flighty, impermanent. A sensation that would be dead soon.
Everything died, after all.
But Fiddlesticks? Fiddlesticks was alive. She was alive and shrieking with full-throated rapturous fury as the tempo climbed higher, and higher. Until her hooves were nearly a blur. Until she reached a level of complexity and proficiency that woud leave each and every one of her stupid, sophomoric peers dumstruck.
Fiddlesticks was alive and playing like she’d never played.
She slumped against the wall, bracing herself against the exhaustion. She fought it the whole way. She grinned as her hooves burned, the cuts and friction burns reopening and weeping again. It was agony. The blood mingled with the bowstrings and warped the sound of her notes. It sounded like the keening death rattle of something from another world.
She shook her head furiously, forcing herself past every physical and mental barrier because she had to play. She had to finish this piece and then go and perform it and set the world on fire. Otherwise, it would have been pointless, wouldn’t it?
The whole thing would have been pointless, for absolutely nothing. And Fiddlesticks couldn’t bear the idea that on that night, the last night, that she had been doing something pointless.
A bird struck the window, and Fiddlesticks startled. She nearly lost focus. But her mind was steel, borne from a thousand oozing wounds lighting her hooves on fire. There was nothing that could stop her now. Not one stupid bird killing itself, nor the others that followed.
A barrage of impacts rang out as all her windows were assaulted. They came relentlessly, smashing against the glass. They left smeared blood and spiderweb cracks. They were utterly without care for themselves, only focused on the single mission to get Fiddlesticks to put down that bloody violin and come and sit with me for once-
She screwed her eyes shut, only opening them when the sound of shattering glass distracted her. The bird lay motionless on her carpet, its neck twisted in an unnatural angle. Its wings were a stunning, wonderful, terrible shade of turquoise and were flecked with notes of blood.
It looked beautiful. It made her cry all over again.
The tempo grew higher as Fiddlesticks desperately looked away, anything to not have to see that bird any longer. Her eyes came to rest on the dresser nearby. Then they crept upwards, before fixing on the picture on top of it. The picture of Fiddlesticks, laughing. A carefree expression she didn’t even recognise anymore.
The two of them didn’t stare at each other, though. Fiddlesticks felt like a voyeur, peering at something she didn’t deserve. The laughing version of herself was staring at someone else. The other pony in the picture. Her face close to being swaddled by a soft chest and then her whole body wrapped in strong wings that could be so soft sometimes and if only ponies could realise she could be so soft and care so much then maybe they’d give her a chance like Fiddlesticks and find something so much more beautiful than they could possibly imagine and-
The bow slipped from her hooves. A sole microsecond of distraction enough to break the whole thing. And through her ragged, damaged throat burst such sounds of fury and agony that the birds stopped crashing into her windows.
She raised the violin aloft, and spitefully relished in the idea of destroying it. Smashing it to pieces, rending it. Obliterating the beloved instrument she’d given Fiddlesticks on their first anniversary. It would be the perfect punishment, some measure of justice. Gleefully spitting in the face that left her alone.
But then, just as the moment came, it left. And Fiddlesticks found herself awash in cold horror. She looked at the instrument. It needed a good clean to get the blood off it, but it was fine. She put it down with shaking hooves, as gently as she could manage.
Then she rushed from the room, stumbling into the kitchen. She ran the sink and immersed her head in the streams of water. It was freezing, it chilled her burning forehead and bit at her thumping heart. It washed the sweat and blood and tears away and felt like some kind of baptism. Like the shadow of an attempt at a rebirth.
Until the sound of a bird hitting the skylight window rang out.
She turned around. On the table, the picture from the other room was placed, staring her in the face. Neither of them moved for a moment.
From the counter, her radio fizzled into life. It switched from station to station, picking up only spare words from various songs and audio dramas.
“Fiddle.... sticks… you’re going… to kill your… self… need… you… to know… will always… love you… not… your fault.”
Fiddlesticks grabbed the radio and smashed it against the floor. And once the sound was finally silenced, she smashed it again. Then she smashed it more, and more, and more. She stood and stamped on it until it lost all shape and form, nothing more than a useless wrecked pile of parts. So less than the sum of itself anymore. Ruined by one single moment in time.
Fiddlesticks raised her head and screamed.
It was louder than she’d ever screamed before. Harder than she’d ever screamed before. The sound was deafening. It bounced from wall to wall and seared her ears.
Cupboards opened and glasses flew out in a furious maelstrom. They smashed into themselves, destroyed every appliance she had, shattered windows and ruined walls, rent tiles from mortar. The table, picture along with it, was thrown to the side. It couldn’t take the impact, not after the incident when her mother visited, and its legs were crudely snapped off.
When she was finished, and was silent again, she looked around at the devastation.
A cold feeling of horror dawned on her. She didn’t understand what had just happened. She didn’t understand how it could have happened. How did all the glasses move? What had happened to her picture?
But soon the feelings receded, once again, into merely a sense of disconnected determination. She didn’t have long now, the performance was tomorrow. She had to practise.
She walked through the wreckage, not caring for the way that broken shards of glass bit into her hooves, or for where her picture had gone, and made her way to her practise room.
And still, the tempo continued to rise.
“I wish you could come,” Lightning Dust said into Fiddlesticks’ neck.
The earth pony sighed, guilt biting at her.
“I know sweetheart. I really wish I could too. But, this performance is a big deal. This could be my big break, you know? I need to be perfect.”
“I was focused on being the best once too, you know?”
“Yeah but this is different, I’m not already the best like you are,” Fiddlesticks chuckled, “I promise Dusty, the second this is done I’ll come to all your flying displays. I promise.”
“I’m not bothered about that, there’ll be plenty of displays. I want you to come for you, Sticks.”
“What do you mean?” Fiddlesticks replied, pulling gently out of the embrace.
“I’m just worried you might be wearing yourself out, that’s all,” Lightning replied, chewing her bottom lip
“Don’t worry about me Dusty, I’ll be okay,” Fiddlesticks said with a smile. She went to grab her partner’s saddlebags, and then strapped them around Lightning Dust’s barrel. She then took to straightening Lightning’s mane. The whole time, Fiddlesticks got the same response as she always did. Lightning scrunched up her muzzle and said that she didn’t want to be fussed over. But Fiddlesticks could see the light red on her cheeks, the way she had to consciously keep the smile off her face.
She knew Lightning Dust loved this.
She did as well.
“You go out there and do your best, and they’ll love you,” Fiddlesticks said. She said it everytime. Then she gave the pegasus a kiss on the cheek and sent her on her way.
Then she sighed, went back into the main room, and started to practise.
And she practised for hours.
She got lost in the music.
She practised until it got dark.
She practised past midnight.
Only when a knock on the door rang out did she stop. Only when Lightning Dust’s flight team came in, all shaking and crying to a one, did Fiddlesticks stop thinking about music.
Then they told her how she’d been amazing, how she’d flown like her life depended on it. How the cloud she’d gathered for her trick had been the largest they’d ever seen. So large that, when it had gone awry, when it had bucked and shot off a single bolt of lightning, thick as a tree trunk, that not even a pegasus like Lightning Dust could handle it.
And she wouldn’t have suffered, that was what they’d said. That sort of thing was instant. And the police were still looking for her in the forest, where she, or rather her body, had gone down. But they all just wanted to tell Fiddlesticks so it could come from someone familiar.
And when she was alone, after insisting she didn’t want someone to stay with her, Fiddlesticks thought about that kiss on the cheek. And then she cried. She cried and cried, shaking and wailing. She cried until she threw up. Thick bile in the kitchen sink.
Then, Fiddlesticks picked up the violin that Lightning Dust had gotten her, and started practising again.
Fiddlesticks ignored the stares she knew she was getting.
She knew she looked rough, she hadn’t slept in days. Her mane was ragged and unkempt. Her hooves were pockmarked with scabs and scrapes. Her eyes were bloodshot and twitchy.
But, ultimately, she was here to play. She couldn’t give a shit for the lily-livered sartorial complaints, the calls to look dignified. Her art was dignified. Her art was the best it had ever been and here, in the greatest concert hall in Canterlot, it would speak more than some cuts on her hooves or the stale odour of days-old sweat ever could.
This is what it had all been leading up to, after all. From the first day she got that invite. The first day she’d started practising.
The last day.
“Fiddlesticks?” a mare with a clipboard called out, “You’re up.”
Fiddlesticks stood up and walked over, before peering out onto the stage.
It was totally empty, waiting for her to go out and dazzle the ponies in attendance. The lights were too blinding for her to see who could have been out in the audience. And even with all the talent scouts she knew would have been there tonight, she knew there wouldn’t be anyone she cared about.
Not now. Not anymore.
“Is it worth it?” she asked.
“Huh?” the stagehand replied, looking at Fiddlesticks quizzically.
“All the ponies that go out there, the ones that make it. The ones that get talked about for years… are they happy? Do they think it’s worth it?”
“I… uhm…” the stagehand replied nervously. She looked around, clearly uncomfortable with the line of questioning.
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter,” Fiddlesticks said, and walked out onto the stage.
She placed her violin case down and withdrew the instrument. Then, without introduction or ceremony, without even a single word, Fiddlesticks began to play.
She started off slow, but the tempo gained quickly in her piece. It had changed since that first night. Her first attempt had been something placid and gentle. A symphonic tale of contentment steeped in a love that was powerful enough to kill souls through its absence.
But now?
Now the tempo increased.
And so very soon she found her hooves bleeding again, their sores reopened, nerves exposed to the air and salt in the sweat dripping from her. She concentrated. She dragged the bow over the strings, raking with a ferocity that birthed a sound like knives scraping on bone.
Because art wasn’t suffering. Art was honesty. Art was the courage to reflect even an ounce of your true self out onto the audience for even just a split second. Some desperate moment of thrashing significance in the endless, collective sea of pointlessness.
Art wasn’t suffering. Fiddlestick’s art was suffering.
And on that stage, she suffered for them. She suffered because out there in that audience was every talent scout she could pray to hear her music and they were there hearing her now and Fiddlesticks didn’t care. She didn’t care about her parents out there, nor her siblings, nor her friends.
Fiddlesticks screamed as the tempo increased. It was a shrill, pained sound. Like a dying bird. Like a full grown eagle, with strong wings and keen senses, dying in the middle of the sky. Its heart exploding in its chest as all its synapses and nerves were fried in light brighter than the surface of the sun.
And even the attempt at sound was enough to reopen the wounds in her throat. The effect was quick, and punishing. She choked on it and spat it down her front.
And still, the tempo increased.
A thousand impacts rang out from all sides of the theatre. The building sounded ready to come apart. She could make out the sound of birds smashing into the doors. And finally they opened, and she could hear the storm of them, each one turquoise, as they entered the theatre. And though the lights still blinded her, still stopped her from seeing any of this, she could hear it and feel it and taste it. The metallic tang of blood that wasn’t hers as they careened into walls and shrieked their twisted death rattles.
And still, the tempo increased.
Fiddlesticks screamed again, this time full throated and impassioned, devastated and broken and guilty and grieving and punished and resplendent. It was magnificent, it was honest, it was agony. It was art.
She stamped hard enough for the boards of the stage to break, but not before her hooves were pulverised entirely. She shrieked and grabbed onto her instrument for dear life, refusing to let it slip. The curtain behind her was wretched from its moorings and took several lights with it.
They hit the stage and fizzled, before the curtain and wood and walls all ignited. The fires seared her skin and it felt like for one moment she might have been able to glimpse even the faintest shadow of what Lightning Dust might have felt in that moment as the electricity burned away every beautiful part of her until nought remained but dead, blackened flesh. So, heedless of the blood in her throat, Fiddlesticks continued to scream.
And, finally, the tempo decreased.
The crescendo came in a flurry of agonised madness. A frantic howl into a vacuum. She drew it past the point of the pain in her hooves becoming too much. Then the sheer sensory intensity simply overwhelmed everything until she couldn’t feel anything at all.
And, at that final point of numbness, Fiddlesticks’ performance finally came to a halt.
And for a moment, there was nothing but deathly quiet, until the audience broke out into rapturous applause.
“How about that folks! Please give it up for that bold and honest performance from Fiddlesticks!” called out the announcer, joining her on the stage. The audience’s applause intensified.
And Fiddlesticks stared out, the lights still too bright to see anything, as blood pooled from her mouth, staining her coat red.
For a brief moment, those bright, white lights almost looked turquoise.
Like someone she had loved, Fiddlesticks had given it her absolute best. That was a good enough reason to smile. And yet she hadn’t managed to burn herself out entirely. That was a good enough reason to cry. She was still here, still bathed in adoration and applause.
Still alone.
And Fiddlesticks felt like that was as good a curtain call as she deserved.
