The waiter came by with the check, and from the look on his face and the nearly-empty state of everypony’s plates Luna took the hint that she and her party should consider taking their leave of Mare Colander’s soon. She paid the bill, leaving a generous but not extraordinary tip, and then led the Thespians out onto the streets and toward a park near the palace.
“I would volunteer to tell the next story,” Trixie spoke up as they walked, “If that’s ok.”
A slight smile crossed Luna’s disguised face. “Of course Trixie,” she said, “I know you’ve been quite eager to regale us with something, and I’m eager to hear it.” Harlequin rumbled something, but refused to repeat himself when everypony glanced his way.
“Your patience will be well rewarded Prin, er, ‘Stella’,” Trixie said, shifting easily into her confident stage posture, “For Trixie will now relate to you one of the most pivotal events of her life: the day of the Ursa Major attack.”
“The old Ursa yarn?” Barnacle Salt said, “Ye must be joking Trix; we’ve all heard that before, and probably every version of it at that: you driving it out of Hoofington, you saving Ponyville from it, you helping save Ponyville…”
“You’ve heard my boastings, yes,” Trixie said dismissively, “but this story, I can assure you, is absolute historic truth. Have you ever stopped to think why I chose the Ursa Major as my crowning ‘conquest,’ out of all the monsters and dangerous beasts that live in the Everfree Forest?”
“Because it’s gigantic and nearly unstoppable?” Harlequin asked dryly.
“Yes,” Trixie admitted, rolling her eyes, “but that’s not the only reason. Now let me tell it; this is a story very close to my heart.”
While Ponyville certainly deserves its reputation as a magnet for trouble today, it was not always so, and there are other towns bordering the dark and dangerous Everfree Forest that have seen their share of wandering beasts. Hoofington is one such town that perhaps sees more than its fair share, and they’ve reacted by maintaining a corps of ponies known as the Rangers, a group of volunteers trained to wrangle and repel everything from hydras, manticores, cockatrices, and even timber wolves that come too far out of the woods. Some of the Rangers were former members of the Guard, but most of them were ordinary stallions who held other jobs between incursions. Trixie’s father was one of them.
His name was Firecracker, and I’ve been told he really lived up to that name in his youth. He made fireworks as his regular profession and often put on pyrotechnic shows that brought him a small amount of fame. As a Ranger, he was particularly brave and daring, and not afraid to introduce his fireworks to the larger monsters. The numbers vary with the telling, but at least one hydra and an Alpha timber wolf had learned not to bother Hoofington after a taking a rocket to the face. Firecracker loved to joke and embellish the stories he told, especially if his audience was children or prospective Rangers, and one of his common boasts was that he had one super-charged firework prepared and held in reserve to use against the largest and deadliest monster in the Everfree, the fabled Ursa Major. Everypony played along with him, feeling confident that the time to put that boast to the test would never come.
Unfortunately, they were wrong.
Trixie was still a foal, barely out of diapers, and just old enough to remember with clarity the early Spring night when the Ursa came. It was a full-grown Ursa Major that had come out of hibernation and found its way to Hoofington in search of food. The town had some forewarning to prepare, simply because something that big can’t be sneaky very easily, but it wasn’t quite enough and the monster arrived before we could all evacuate. Trixie’s house was near the edge of town farthest from the Forest, and so Firecracker was able to get his family to relative safety before joining the Rangers trying to repel the Ursa.
The town protectors were making a gallant effort, but the creature’s hide was tough and its determination to find food was not deterred by the weapons and tactics brought against it. The Ursa only grew angrier at the magical attacks directed at it and the attempts by pegasi to strike it with lighting from hastily-constructed clouds. Its great paws crushed houses and broke ponies, and a few pegasi were to slow to avoid being swallowed whole by its cavernous mouth. It seemed as if the best course of action would be to simply run and hope for the best, but Firecracker refused to back down. Before he joined the fray, he stopped by his workshop to collect the alleged anti-Ursa rocket. Climbing to the roof of a nearby building, he set up the launching rig and aimed the rocket to strike the monster in the eye. With expert timing, he ignited the fuse and watched as the firework flew straight and true, only for the Ursa’s head to turn at the last moment and spare its eye the worst of the explosion. The blast was everything Firecracker had claimed it would be: large, loud, colorful, and followed by the popping of several smaller explosives packed into the rocket. The Ursa’s eye wasn’t harmed, but the blast did give it pause and burns that were small by comparison to its size. For a brief moment there was hope, but then the beast let out a roar that flattened more buildings and knocked over ponies even on the far side of town. Firecracker himself was sent rolling off the roof, but managed to catch himself on a window before he fell too far.
The Ursa’s rampage continued and the Rangers began trying to retreat. As fit and fast as they were though, it was simply impossible to outpace a monster who could cover a full city block in a single stride. It seemed inevitable that all the Rangers would be killed or eaten, and even the civilians who had evacuated did not have much hope for survival. All this occurred to Firecracker’s mind, and it was a conclusion that he refused to accept. He told everypony to run, but rather than follow his own advice he returned to his workshop and loaded every pyrotechnic device he owned into a cart and hauled it toward the Ursa. It was a chilling sight, so I’m told, to see him charging that monster with absolutely fearlessness in his eyes. When he drew close enough, he broke the harness off the cart and threw the entire thing into the Ursa’s gaping mouth and sent a fire spell immediately after it. The Ursa dealt him a blow with its swinging paw a second later, but the deed was done. Cart and spell went down its gullet and the fireworks went off in what could have been the largest and most gloriously colored fireball in Equestria’s history if it could be seen. Even this didn’t seem to cause the Ursa much harm, but it was finally enough to convince it that Hoofington ponies were too much trouble to bother with. Coughing up smoke and smoldering pieces of fireworks, it turned around and walked back into the Everfree Forest, never to return.
A melancholy silence hung over the group as Trixie finished her tale. The azure showmare’s voice had remained strong and proud through the entire telling, but a faint hint of tears could be seen her eyes, held back only by great, professional effort.
“That was very brave of your dad,” Cabbage Patch finally said quietly, “but it’s sad too.”
“Indeed,” Luna said, “to lose a parent at such a young age is something I can scarcely imagine, but you have my sympathies Trixie.”
“Thank you Princess,” Trixie said, “but that wasn’t the end for him. H was in a coma for nearly a month and never regained the use of his back legs, but he managed to hold on for a few more years. In that time he taught he as much as he could about pyrotechnic magic, which I of course make full use of in my performances. For better or for worse, that Ursa attack will always have a profound impact on who I am.”