The Devil Went Down to Ponyville
Fiddle Made Of Gold
Fiddlesticks was playing her instrument while Ponyville burned, not that she realized right away. Sure, the sky was pink and the distant rain looked like mud, but you get strange weather sometimes. And the corn fields looked like the floor after a rodeo show, but that wasn't even half as interesting as corn smut, and it doesn't make nearly as good a quesadilla.
The bunnies was running around on deer-legs. How about that, huh? Maybe them stuffy Canterlot scientists were right about evolution after all. A Dragonequus sat on an upside down windmill hovering mid-air, and torturing a fiddle? Now THAT can't stand, she could barely hear herself play over the catty noise!
She put put her violin back into its case --an old beaten up number with more travel stickers on it than warts on a frog-- and went out of her shack to talk some reason into this monster who obviously didn't care about decency or good music.
The checkered road in front of her was a bit puzzling, she had to admit, much too post-modern for her taste. Did nopony do decent country-style architecture any-more? And it was slippery too! After more than one embarrassing pratfall, she finally got the hang of moving on these newfangled streets; big sweeping motions like you're ice-skating.
The dragonequus towered above her, looking like a chainsaw accident in a zoological garden. And while the wings of the barn he was sitting on obscured most of the view from the ground, there was no questioning that he was holding the violin completely wrong, 'cus this sort of sound does NOT come fro ma healthy violin, even in the hooves of the worst amateur.
His tail was the only part of his body close to the ground, and Fiddlesticks pulled on it until it got the beasts attention.
“You rang?” the creature droned and sure enough the sounds of bells was heard from nowhere.
Fiddlesticks nodded. “Now, ah am not the sort of girl who makes a fuzz, 'cause mah mother told me to be kind to strangers. However, nopony gets to go 'round an' butcher a perfectly fine musical instrument on mah watch, y'hear?”
The creature raised one eyebrow, the large one, as if to say “seriously?” Then he laughed, waves practically rippled trough that over-long neck of his. Fiddlesticks just looked on as he rolled around on the concrete foundation, until finally he sent his neck down and placed his large, grinning snout just a few inches away from her. Fiddlestick responded to the smug smile with an unyielding pokerface.
“Oh, you are entertaining!” he exclaimed. “You're not even the size of my largest bunny slippers, and you presume to tell me how to play my violin? That's just too much!”
“Ah don't see what size hasta do with it,” Fiddlesticks said trough a narrow mouth. “If you can't play fer crap, it don't matter if yer the size o' a mountain, donnit?”
Had the dragonequus not been immortal, she could've killed him right then and there, by him simply laughing to death. He tapped his one hoof against the foundation repeatedly as he gasped for breath.
“Mercy! Mercy! I don't think I can take much more of this, you are just TOO funny! I'm Discord, lord of chaos! Who's to say I won't just crush you and play an out-of-tune requiem for your funeral?” Fiddlesticks snout quivered, it looked like her confidence was leaving her but was actually the beginnings of a smirk.
“'cus ah know yer type,” Fiddlesticks replied. “You take ponies questionin' their talents as a challenge, so ah will make you one...”
“go on...”
“Now, imma fiddleplayer too, and ah dare say, much better than you. If you can't fiddle a tune better than mine, you leave this town never to show yer ugly face again...” Oh dear, apparently this 'Discord' could giggle like a little scoolgirl, a sight more disturbing than the monster itself, making even Fiddlestick loose some of her composure.
“Wonderful, wonderful!” he crooned, “...and if you loose, you join me and help me wreck havoc to this town, deal?”
Fiddlesticks swallowed. “If ah loose,” she said. “Ah will play one last tune on mah ol' fiddle and join you, but ah won't loose!”
Discords eyes, normally large and asymmetrical, narrowed into thin slits and a soft glow lined the edges.
“Then bring it on!” he demanded.
A crowd was forming around them. Curious onlookers, many of which had suffered rather horrible fates. Some where clearly on the edge of insanity, fidgeting nervously and jumping at any provocation, others just looked beaten down and haggard. And yet others looked grey, like their souls had simply gone up an left.
The sudden spotlight took her off-guard, but she took great pains not to let it show. This wasn't exactly an ideal crowd, the twenty or so weary eyes that trailed them reminded her more of the broken crowd at a late-night roadhouse café more than anything else. But then again, she had brought more than one dingy midnight bar back to life in her time, she could handle this.
Fiddlesticks produced her fiddle from its case and placed the smooth wood under her chin. Without further ado, she tapped out the rhythm to a slow waltz and began to play.
This was a melody her mother had thought her, during those long and dreadfully boring practice sessions. It was written by a great composer a hundred years ago and every not had to be played correctly. If even one came out flat you where Doin'. It' Wrong, and would have to start over. She had played it until she knew every note by heart and the slightest squeak from her violin came out exactly as the composer intended.
And the crowd... remained haggard. Remained broken, confused and one solid shove away from insanity. Some of them even checked their hourglasses, what an insult. She bottled up her rage at the lukewarm reception as Discord shot her yet another hearty belly-laugh from up above. He clapped his hands, eagerly and sarcastically, and shouted:
“Bravo, bravissimo! Fantastique! Such a wonderful example of order. But I told you, I'm Discord, the lord of CHAOS, and this is MY town now, your order isn't welcome here anymore.”
And with that he flipped his own fiddle upside down and put the bow UNDER the strings, with a grin that revealed that he knew full well how much it would piss her off to see. Then he began to play, and it sounded a little something like this:
WeeeEEEAaaaAAAOOOoaoOUOH-WyYYYyyyYYYyyy!
And the crowd followed long with the songs droning motions, dancing a sluggish kind of ballet around Fiddlesticks like a choreographed zombie horde. She tried desperately to cover her ears with her hooves, but the sound seemed to saw into her skull. The slow waves of ponies kept going 'round and 'round until her head was was spinning counter-clockwise along with them and she just plain gave up.
“Stop! Please fer the love of what's holy, please stop!” Seasickness was already hitting her, but Thankfully, the creature untangled the bow from the strings at her pleas and the crowd stopped dead in its track.
“So you give up, then?” he asked. “And admit I won, fair and square?”
“If it'll make you shut up, yeah!” she blurted out.
“So be it!” Discord snapped the talons of his clawed arm and fiddlesticks began to change. Her coat turned from yellow to pink and her hair began to swirl. Lastly, all the little orderly structures in her mind just snapped apart as her head filled up with white noise. She forgot even her name and began to drift around in circles, gibbering to herself.
Disord didn't really have much for her to do, he definitely seemed like the type who worked best alone so mostly she'd drift around aimlessly and spread a little mild chaos wherever she went. Shooting rubber chickens out of crossbows, putting pants on ponies just to give them a wedgie, that sort of thing. And all the while, a notion kept burning in the back of her head, something she said she'd do but never got the chance to.
She wasn't the only pony on Discords side, sadly enough. While most ponies where simply too scared to do anything other than hide, some where opportunistic enough to try and get on Discords good side. It generally didn't work out well for those, it was becoming clear that Discord didn't want disciples.
Minions, sure, ponies like herself that he could play around with like dolls when regular ponies just proved too noisy, but not an arrangement that really benefited the pony in question. At the end of the day, Discord had a small army of ponies with spirals in their eyes, just like herself, playing along with his little games.
“Discy?” she asked Discord one day when he was sitting on his throne, sipping a glass of chocolate milk until the milk was all that was left.
“What is it, Screwball?”
“Do you remember that I said I'd do something before your turned me into me? Was that something I ever got to do?” Discord thought about it for a bit.
“Oh dear, you're right. You DID say you where going to play one last song before I turned you and you never got to, where are my manners?” He snapped his fingers again and she was back to normal.
“Thanks for reminding me,” he said as she looked at her coat in disbelief and felt her hair. “I could use a little music to celebrate my successful takeover of Ponyville, make it a good one.”
So, which song should she choose? What's going to the last thing her ears gets to hear before she lost her mind once and for all and went full-tilt loco. All the songs her mother thaught her ran trough her mind. 'Hairs on a G-string', 'Marcia moderato', 'Romance for Violin and Piano', all written by classical masters a long time ago, products of unparalleled genius. All of them were achingly beautiful... but none of them was good enough.
No matter how many times she played those, she'd always feel her mothers stern gaze. No, if she was going out, she was going out 100% HER way, what song spoke to her the way 'Hairs' evidently spoke to her mother? What song could make a teenage pony leave for Neighsville with nothing but a violin case on her back and hope in her heart?
A little voice whispiered to her in her head: Don't you remember, don't you know? Don't you remember... A smile travelled across her face, she knew exactky what she'd play. She took up her violin and but the bow to the strings while Discord leaned forward with a manure-eating grin on his face and she began:
Cotton-eyed Joe, Cotton-eyed Joe?
What did make you treat me so?
I'd 'a' been married a-many year ago
If it had n't a-been for Cotton-eyed Joe!
At this sound, the army of whirly-eyed ponies began to spontaneously dance. At first she thought it was Discord's doing, an impromptu linedance seemed to be just his style, but when she heard him going “What are you doing? Stop that!” she knew she had somehow broken trough his spells. Fiddlesticks hid a sly grin under the brim of her hat as she announced:
“A'right, how 'bout we change tha tempo a bit for an' ol'fashioned square-dance, let's start dancin' an' have some fun, momma's in th'house o' the risin' sun...”
The ponies divided themselves into couples and went off to arrange squares. One gray pegasus grabbed Discord himself! How did a mare who can barely see straight grab a hold of a dragonequus several times larger than herself without him resisting her grip? Such is the magic of music.
“bow to yer partner, bow to yer corner...” Fiddlesticks announced while she switched the tempo up.
The dance began and the ponies all followed he instructions like she was a general at a battlefield. Jumping, twirling and do-si-do-ing all the way trough. And no matter how hard Discord tried, she just couldn't wrestle out of the grip of her partner.
“Let me go, you dumb blonde!” he shouted, “...and stop dancing, I never told anypony to dance!”
“All jump up and ne'er come down, Swing yer pretty girl round and round!” Fiddlesticks announced and the pegasus swung Discord...vertically right into the ground. Discord emerged from the dragonequus-shaped hole looking like an accordion, only to be swept up by another partner for more abuse.
“Stop playing!” he shouted to Fiddlesticks, who responded trough clenched teeth.
“Stop? Ah have only just gotten started, ah can play until everypony falls down an' dies if ah want to, when the sun go down an' the moon goes out, ah will STILL be playin'...”
“Oh, this is getting annoying,” Discord lamented during yet another do-si-so. “I got terror I could reign and chaos to inflict... fine, you win! It was fun while it lasted.”
And with that, fiddlesticks took the bow away from the string and the ponies stopped dead in their tracks. She eyed Discord suspiciously, but for once he seemed intent on keeping his word. He approached her holding the instrument from before with an out-of-place expression of dignity on his face.
“Here, take my fiddle, my clumsy talons are obviously not fit for such a subtle instrument, but you might find better use for it,” he said.
“Thank you kindly... took yer sweet time, tough” she said, sounding far from impressed.
“If you don't mind me asking, for future reference, how did you manage to break trough my power?” discord said while eyeing her intently. Fiddlesticks got somethink dark in her eyes as she replied:
“Ah knew you couldn't take mah soul 'cus ah already sold it to the pony at the crossroads. Ah just wanted to make mah momma proud...”
“So Luna had a finger in the game somehow? I figured,” Discord mused, and with that he disappeared to cause terror elsewhere, but at least he was no longer her problem.
Fiddlesticks studied the violin with a hint of disappointment. She prolly should've expected this, but its body was made out of a yellow metal that made it sound like absolute crap. It was pretty and shiny tough, she figured the pawn shop would probably be interested in taking a look at it.
THE END
Author's Note
Allrighty, this story is basically a combination of three musical legends. Let's start with the most obvious, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", with its classic "deal with the devil" motif. Interesting to note is that the roles are changed, with Fiddlesticks as the challenger and Discord as the challenged.
Then we got the part where Fiddlesticks is threatening to make everypony dance themselves to death, which is a motif common in scandinavian folklore, most noteably in the song "Horgalåten where a fiddler who is obviously the devil makes a group of dancers dance until they die. It doesn't always have to be the devil in this role, but we'll get back to that.
Third, while none other than the great Paganini is supposed to have sold his soul to the devil for musical talent, the one who did it at the crossroads was our old pal Robert Johnson, a chapter in musical mythmaking in and of himself. I ngermanic and scandinavian mythology, there's a creature called the nix who lives in the water and lures people down by playing a violin. If you know how, you can make the Nix teach you to play like a master, but it comes at a prize, what usually happens when the nix comes to collect is that you'll find yourself unable to stop playing, and your dancers unable to stop dancing, and you'll keep playing until everyone involved dies of exhaution. From this we can learn that nordic mythology does not fuck around.
