Deities

by Chinchillax


The Chaotic Deity

Fluttershy watched as Coloratura arrived at the Fillydelphia Theatre early. This was Coloratura's 11th stop on her piano tour of Equestria, the five thousand seat theatre had been completely sold out for months.

This concert series was special for her in the fact that it was the first time she had ever done completely improvised concerts. It was merely her and her piano, beautifully crafting new songs and melodies from scratch in front of thousands of ponies. It was the epitome of putting her art and skill to the ultimate test.

Coloratura stepped inside and went straight toward the grand piano arranged in the center of the stage. This was going to be her instrument of power in a few hours. She envisioned each new piano, each town, each theatre she went to on these tours as telling a different story. And all of those special pieces of each place stirred in her mind and heart and transferred to the keys into new music that nopony had ever heard before.


Fluttershy, who had been watching Coloratura, smiled. Several bat-like fangs shone as she snapped her mane and chaos magic coursed through the piano.


Coloratura swung her legs over onto the piano bench, and started to play. The beautiful melody she had envisioned in her head sputtered cacophonously out.

Her eyes clenched as the grating, out-of-tune notes reached her ears.

She opened her eyes slowly, staring at the piano more deeply. She moved her right hoof over the keys and played out the first few notes of Winter Wrap Up. The first note sounded fine, but the key stuck to the keyboard for far longer than it should have. The next note was absurdly flat compared to what it should be. And several of the black keys were devastatingly higher pitched than they had any right, and that's when they worked at all.

Horrified, Coloratura placed a hoof on the first key and dragged her hoof across all eighty-eight keys, hitting each one in quick succession. The highest and lowest octaves wouldn't play at all. The rest of the keys, mostly in the middle, were a hodge-podge of actually decent, sticky, off key, and just plain disgusting.

"MELODY!" shouted Coloratura.

A spry young pegasi popped out from backstage. "Oh! Countess Coloratura! I didn't hear you come in."

"I need a new piano! Now!" fumed Coloratura, her face growing scarlet.

Melody stared at the black grand piano. "Uhh... what's wrong with it?"

"What's right with it!?" shot back Coloratura, punching several nonworking keys. "It's out of tune, so many keys stick so I would have to punch them the entire concert to do anything, and two of the pedals don't even work. How did this piano even get here?"

Melody stood stock still for a moment before regaining her composure. "Uhh... I'm sorry about that. I'll get it fixed before the concert!"

"Is there even time for that?" asked Coloratura. "Because I absolutely cannot play on this and we should cancel the concert now if we're going to have to cancel."

"WE CAN'T CANCEL!" shouted Melody, her eyes growing wide in panic before shrinking back. "I—I mean... I'll get a new piano! Or get this fixed! Or something! Very soon! Promise!"

Coloratura sighed and then went to sit in the back of the auditorium. "Let me know the second the new piano gets here. I need time to warm up."


Fluttershy rubbed her hooves together in delight.

"And what exactly are you doing?" asked Discord, appearing in front of her. His long, white longma form extruding down into basic existence.

Fluttershy shot a glance back at him, her hot pink mane frizzling and popping with various cacophonous colors every few moments. "Just having some fun."

Melody frantically called everypony she could. Flying around Fillydelphia at blazing fast speed. All she needed was a piano tuner or a new grand piano.

"I must say, this is much more low stakes than your entropy work in universe #00728," said Discord.

"It's the little things that are nice to mess up too," said Fluttershy.

"Rest assured, Fluttershy. I'm not about to let more chaos seep out of you and into this world."

"Oh, is that so?" asked Fluttershy, her mane snapping. The sole piano moving company in town was suddenly inundated with calls to move a piano far in the suburbs of the city.

"Oh, I know your game," said Discord. He snapped a claw and Melody suddenly got the bright idea to call the rock concert hall across from town to see if they had a piano.

"Really?" asked Fluttershy. A large skylight fell from the roof of the rock concert hall, splintering several keys off of their piano.

Discord frowned, and an idea popped up in Melody's head.

"Would an electronic keyboard work, Coloratura?" asked Melody frantically.

"Perhaps back in my pop days, but for a performance of this magnitude, it has to be a real piano," said Coloratura.


Fluttershy and Discord bickered back and forth against each other in this war over pianos, several musical instrument repair ponies in town suddenly becoming busy. Melody grew ever more and more desperate and eventually—to her and Coloratura's horror—a few patrons started filing in and taking seats.

Coloratura rounded on Melody. "Where is my new piano!?"

"I—I— there's nothing I can do," admitted Melody dejectedly.

"Well then, we'll need to cancel the performance."

"No! You can't! Ponies have been waiting for this for months! I've been waiting for this for months! Please play!"

"How can you expect me to play on that garbage over there!?" she said gesturing to the chaotic piano.

Discord frowned, placing one final idea in Melody's head.

"You're creative!" Melody forced herself to smile and look sincere while doing so. "This is just a new limitation for you! Just give it your all and see what happens."

Coloratura frowned and then looked back on the auditorium. It was somehow already a fifth full.

"Fine, but I'm recording this! And every musician I know will find out about how terrible it is to perform at this theatre," said Coloratura icily. "Is that really what you want?"

"Yes!" said Melody far quicker than she had wanted to.


"Oho! This is gonna be so good!" said Fluttershy, tapping her hooves together in delight.

Discord didn't say anything. They both floated together in the very center of the theatre, watching as Coloratura stepped up to the piano.

She breathed in and out... and then began to play.


She put herself in tune with the piano, embracing the chaotic cacophony it could unleash. But keeping keenly aware of the keys that did work, fiddling and playing around with them as much as she could.

It was one of the most exhausting things she had ever done. Within fifteen seconds of the performance she stood up just so she could jam harder onto the keys, enabling the back of the audience to still hear her melodies. The highest and lowest notes wouldn't even play at all, so that left her to focus on the what melodies she could create in the center of the keyboard.

An hour later, Coloratura took one last sweeping crescendo across every key that could be played and then finished the improvised song.

When she stood up, the entire theatre burst into a standing ovation.


"How—how did you manage that Fluttershy!?" asked Discord. "That was by far one of Coloratura's greatest performances ever!"

"Chaos, my love," said Fluttershy smiling. "Surprisingly enough, it allows ponies to be more creative than they would otherwise.

"Chaos..." said Discord. "It has been so long since I've thoroughly tasted it, I've forgotten why it's so important."

"So..." said Fluttershy. "You can see why it's so crucial in all this now?"

"Chaos is just one more piece of Harmony," said Discord, smiling.