Chapter 3
The Great and Powerful Tristan was talented in many different fields.
Many days spent on the wild trails between smaller villages had toughened him up and made a fighter of him. Tristan instantly knew he was outmatched when it came to an Ursa Major, but every skirmish with a timberwolf, every showdown with a doombunny and the incident that shall not be named in the Salamander Lands had helped to deaden the panic response that most ponies had when faced with a threat. Before he had finished gulping, he had his saddlebags on, carrying a few odds and ends such as a bottle.
By the time he had finished gulping, he was already out the door of his carriage, horn casting again to grab two of the three fillies, the orange one and the yellow one. Names failed him at the moment, but he grabbed the white one, the unicorn filly, by the scruff of her neck. Unicorns had some innate magical resistance to the magic of other unicorns, and unicorn foals would sometimes have their resistance act up. Tristan didn’t want to chance that resistance kicking in and dropping her, so he picked her up with his teeth instead.
The Great and Powerful Tristan could add sprinter onto his list of talents after the mad dash he made. He winced as he heard the sound of splintering wood behind him, just knowing that it was his wagon that had become the Ursa Major’s first casualty.
Within the first few seconds, Tristan reassessed where he was going, and decided to stay on course. He was galloping from the edge of Ponyville’s urban core to its outskirts, and the steady thumps of the Ursa Major that never got too far away was proof enough he was at least leading the Ursa away from Ponyville.
Coming into an open clearing, Tristan decided he couldn’t run much longer, his nose incapable of circulating air through his lungs quickly enough with his mouth otherwise preoccupied. Coming to a halt, he dropped all three of the fillies in a pile, before turning around to verify that yes, the Ursa Major was indeed coming their way.
“Buck!” He shouted, “Where in the Princesses’ name did an Ursa bucking Major come from?”
“It followed us into town,” Apple Bloom confessed, deathly aware that they would get into trouble. Her conscience wouldn’t allow her to leave that information out, however, in the event it would be crucial to getting the star bear out of town.
“We went into the Everfree, and accidentally came across it,” said Scootaloo, watching her short life fly by her eyes as the blue ursine got closer.
Tristan spun around, a look of shock on his face. “You brought that thing into town? Are you bu-“ He choked on his words as he stopped himself from saying something he might regret for the second time that day. He had been wrong, they weren’t fillies; they were already full grown mares with no thoughts for their actions. Deep breath, no time, he had to think.
“We’re really, really sorry,” Sweetie Belle said, biting her lips. “But you beat one before, right? You can beat it again!”
“The last time I fought one I was well rested! I didn’t do a performance that day already!” The lie slid off his lips far too easily. It terrified Tristan how easily he could come up with excuses even in a situation like this. No, they were still fillies, he felt a duty to protect them, even if it meant making himself the Ursa’s target. “Run into town, warn everypony else about the Ursa. I’ll lure it back into the Everfree!”
“Bu-“
“GO!”
He winced, unsure if the looks of fear on their faces were of him or of the Ursa Major, but all three quickly moved. Now to make sure the Ursa Major stayed focused on him. Turning around, he saw the Ursa had paused as it looked between the running targets and the stationary one. It was currently eyeing up the unicorn filly, who Tristan now remembered was named Sweetie Belle. Well, he wouldn’t let that Ursa Major think about anything other than the Great and Powerful Tristan.
“Hey, Ursa!” Tristan yelled, using magic to grab its attention. The Ursa turned back to look at him. Using his magic, he quickly grabbed a chunk of dirt, and threw it right at the Ursa’s eye.
The giant creature from the Everfree was almost quick enough to block the dirt, getting a paw up to deflect the rounded ball of earth. The ensuing scream, high-pitched enough to send shivers through Tristan’s spine was enough to tell him a little bit had gotten through. As the Ursa Major brought one paw up to its eye, the remaining visible eye honed in on Tristan, the red iris something Tristan was sure would haunt his dreams forevermore, if he survived.
The Ursa charged.
Tristan summoned up all his courage, waiting. He had emboldened the beast, tickled the sleeping dragon, but he didn’t know how cunning the star bear might truly be. It could be of an intellectual capacity sufficient enough to see through his scheme. So he waited. And waited.
The Ursa was near.
Now! His horn aglow with his pink aura and gathered magic waiting to be unleashed, his eyes and brains cooperated like they never had before to track where the Ursa’s paw was about to land, and then his magic tore through the ground, gouging out a deep trench in the earth. A deep trench to ponies, that was. To the Ursa Major, it would have been a piffling wound in the skin of Mother Gaea, but it was just large enough that when its front paw landed in the trench, the giant Ursa tripped.
As the Ursa’s forward momentum caught up with the rest of its body, sending it forward for a landing, Tristan had an idea of what a real Eternal Night might have been like. All the light of the world was gone, shadowed out by the Ursa Major as it was about to fall on Tristan.
Tristan cast again, teleporting several hundred yards further back. Despite how exerted he was already, from his initial dash, then gouging a trench followed up by teleporting, he still had the energy to jump. Tristan counted his lucky stars when he did, because he missed the worst of the massive tremors that quaked out from the Ursa Major’s landing point, only feeling the aftershocks as his hooves touched the Earth again. Even that was sufficient to rattle him, and he stumbled, tripping over.
Vaguely, Tristan recalled something from school about a square cube rule, and how it made the old Zebra proverb ‘The bigger they are, the harder they fall’ actually true according to science. The blue-furred unicorn really hoped the Ursa Major wouldn’t be getting up from this, but Tristan had a feeling he wouldn’t be that lucky. Looking over in the distance, he saw he wasn’t. The Ursa Major had already spotted where he had teleported to, and was getting up. To his fortune, it appeared to be struggling, the fall having disorientated the Ursa more than it had him. Now he just had to get up quicker than the Ursa itself. He wasn’t sure he could win that battle.
“What in Tartarus is going on here?!”
That voice was familiar, and not in a good way. Looking up, he saw the blue pegasus from his show earlier in the day hovering around. He remembered her name, Rainbow Dash, all too clearly from when the librarian had told him it. And she did not look happy.
“What the hay, an Ursa Major? What’s it doing here?!” She hollered, recognising it from the light display at the show earlier that day, before she caught a sight of Tristan. “You! What the buck are you doing here?!”
“Trying to lead it away from town,” He shouted back, pulling himself up, cursing that he had to waste precious breath answering this stupid mare. “Get away from here before you get hurt!”
“No way!” Rainbow Dash had no idea what was going on. She had been taking a nap in a tree after a quick bite to eat at Sugarcube Corner, where the burst of flavours from her berry pie had finally washed away the last of the spicy rainbow essence. Rainbow Dash had just been having a good dream, only for it to be interrupted and for her to be knocked off the branch by tremors. Flying up high, she had swooped around, following the source of the miniature earthquakes, and finally honing in on the big blue thing that definitely didn't belong in Ponyville.
“Y-you,” Tristan almost stumbled at that moment. His temper flared up, nearly exploding with the intensity of a supernova, but the immediate threat of an Ursa Major held his tongue at the last second. Despite that, the rage that passed through him choked his trachea off, denying him vital oxygen for a crucial few seconds. Somehow, he found himself back on his hooves again, and he quickly poured over his options, before his eyes wandered back to the pegasus.
The blue-furred pegasus, with a rainbow mane.
It wouldn’t bring the Ursa Major down, but it would definitely keep its attention on Tristan and away from the town.
“Rainbow Dash!” Tristan yelled, catching her attention, “Bring a storm cloud!”
The confusion was obvious on her face. “Huh? Why?”
“JUST DO IT!” He shouted. When she wavered, not certain which way to go, he added, “I HAVE A PLAN TO GET HIM AWAY FROM HERE BUT I NEED A STORM CLOUD!”
That did the trick, as resolution passed over her face, and she flew off, putting up an impressive speed Tristan had seen few pegasus do. If she got what he needed, he might even apologise to her for earlier.
Tristan turned back to the Ursa Major, which had finally found traction with its paws. Red eyes met violet, and Tristan realised that there was a primal intelligence in there that was above most predators. The Ursa Major was calculating, and Tristan knew there was no chance he would be able to pull off the same trick as before. It was a bittersweet plus that the Ursa would have to slow down to avoid being caught in that same trap: even a slow pace for the Ursa would eventually catch up with a quick stallion.
Tristan ran, and the Ursa started to move after him.
Silently, he thanked his luck that he was a travelling showpony and not one who stayed in the same city all the time. The countless number of leagues he had walked from village to village, pulling a heavy wagon behind him, had given the unicorn the physique of an Earth pony. Between that and the treacherous dirt trails he had navigated, Tristan was able to keep his footing even under the tremors generated by the Ursa’s movement, while continuing to run. If he had never walked anywhere, he would have probably died after that initial burst of sprint, with no stamina left.
He was beginning to reach the Everfree Forest. Once more, Tristan tried to justify his misfortune. The trampled trees that were littered across the landscape indicated he was on the right path to luring the Ursa back to its home, away from Ponyville. If the Ursa was as smart as he thought it was, however, it might decide those same trampled trees may make good ammunition for target practice. Zig-zagging, he darted in and around the trees and branches, finding precious purchase in the few unscatched patches of grass.
Then Tristan paused, and turned around. The Ursa had stopped making noise and vibrations. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be good.
“Well buck me,” He swore.
The Ursa had stopped and it was half-turned around, facing the direction it had come from: the direction of Ponyville. The showpony panicked. He wasn’t the saintliest stallion at heart, but there was no way he was letting innocent ponies get trampled underfoot by a rampaging Ursa Major. Casting his horn again, he did the only thing he could think of.
The giant blue star-bear paused, then it brought a paw up to its face. Its eyes began to water, drops the size of Tristan’s head gathering at its tear ducts, and it started trembling slightly. Even from a decent distance, Tristan could hear the Ursa take several rapid breaths as he continued to tickle one of the Ursa Major’s most sensitive spots.
The Ursa Major sneezed. Tristan was quick to get a shield up, just before hot liquid pelted the shield. Tristan felt like he was on his last legs. The legends about the Ursa Majors stated that they were formed from the very stars themselves. The bear’s magical resistance to a mundane activity such as tickling its nose had proven like a steel wall stopping a feather, and so Tristan had been forced to overpower his spell. Still, he may have been almost out of magical energy, but he would not tolerate bear snot getting on him!
Yet, now he felt he needed a miracle…
“Somepony order a storm cloud?!”
“One miracle, check,” He mumbled as he looked skywards. The pegasus, Rainbow Dash, was hauling a large storm cloud behind her, far larger than he was even hoping for.
“Whaddya need it for?” Rainbow Dash yelled, staying well out of range of the Ursa Major’s vertical range. Even if the bear thought to throw something at her, she had room enough to fly out of the way. Fortunately, the great beast of the Everfree seemed distracted, scratching its nose of all things. Was that what she had heard earlier? Somehow, the image of a creature several stories long doing such a mundane thing as sneezing didn’t process, and for once Rainbow Dash felt she could have rightfully been called a bird-brain.
“I need you to set it off on its shoulder or front arm!” Tristan hollered, rapidly switching his view between the pegasus and the bear every couple of seconds, leaving himself disoriented. “Then get out of here before it decides to attack you, and warn the rest of the village in case this doesn’t work!”
“You have a plan?” She shouted, her throat beginning to get a little hoarse.
“YES!” Came the reply.
Rainbow Dash would have nonchalantly shrugged, but the situation was a little too urgent and serious for her to do such here. The bear hadn’t seem to notice her presence yet even with their yelling, but she would stay cautious regardless. Dragging the storm cloud over just a little bit more, staying several hundred hoof lengths above the Ursa, she called upon the birthright she had been given, the innate Pegasus talent of depth perception between the heavens above and the earth below.
She stomped twice, and then she was off and away.
To any Earth pony or unicorn, the lightning strike would have resulted in serious wounds, and possibly outright death for a foal. To the Ursa Major, who towered over all but the greatest palaces, the oldest dragons and the largest mountains, it was a trifling sting. It was still enough to incite the Ursa to its greatest bellow yet, the roar it let out enough to rattle Tristan’s teeth even several hundred hoof lengths away.
It turned to face Tristan, and he knew his plan had partially worked. The lightning strike was also enough to make the Ursa bleed, a weird mixture of red blood common to most animals and a glittery plasma that reinforced the legend of the star beast being made from actual stars. It was a tiny wound, barely noticeable, but it was still there. Tristan wouldn’t be surprised if he was the first living pony in centuries to see an Ursa bleed, but he had a sinking feeling he wouldn’t be alive long enough to regale others with his experience. Slowly, sweat streaming down his face, he concentrated his magic again. Pain lanced through his horn from magical exhaustion, almost as bad as the time he accidentally kicked over a red bullet ant hill, but he kept casting.
The bottle Tristan had retrieved from his cart flew through the air, and the rainbow essence he had extracted earlier soaked the Ursa’s wound.
He immediately put his hooves over his ears, just in time. Tristan had thought the Ursa’s earlier rage was incredible, but that was nothing to this tantrum. Even through his solid hooves, he still heard its scream, higher-pitched than anything else, and it terrified him like no nightmare could. The shockwave from the Ursa dropping over onto the ground was enough to knock him over again.
Tristan had earlier thought about throwing the rainbow essence in the Ursa Major’s eye, before dismissing the idea as being too cruel. Now he was glad he hadn’t. If he had, he wasn’t sure there would be anything left of him to bury. As a colt, he had once accidentally spilled the juice from jalepeno peppers in a cut on his hoof, and the agony had stunned him for several seconds. Rainbow essence was not technically a spice, but as an odd delicacy for some, it had been given a rating on the Starrlion scale. Rainbow essence had a hundred times the tear-inducing power of jalapeno peppers. If a few drops to the tongue had made Rainbow Dash go red in the face within seconds, he could only imagine what it would do applied to a wound.
Lifting his head off the ground to look up, he gulped. His plan had worked. The fury present in the Ursa Major’s eye was directed at him, and this time it wouldn’t decide to deviate to return to Ponyville.
“Buckbuckbuckbuckbuck-“ Tristan shouted, as he teleported a few hoof-steps back to dodge the size of his wagon. A sensation not unlike brain freeze from drinking a hayshake too quickly set in, the pain writ large tenfold, but his muscles had received their latest injection of epinephrine. He was off again, following the trail that had been trampled earlier by the Ursa leaving the forest.
He hopped, dipped, zig-zagged, and let out the occasional gallop across more open areas as the Ursa continued to close in on him, crunching trees by the dozen under its mass. Tristan could all too easily hear his own bones snapping like that. Just the thought made him queasy, but he continued to run. Time was meaningless when he was the prey.
It could have been a moment. It could have been a minute. It could have been an hour, or even a lifetime, with the Eternal Night having come, but at last he saw something that gave him hope.
Tristan came to a stop. Before him was a cavern entrance, carved into one of the many outcrops of rock that dotted the landscape in this section of Equestria. He could feel the pure, ethereal magic seeping from the cave. Even as his body was on fire, the arcane energy was like the blessed winter storm, reenergising him. No wonder the Ursa Major had made its nest here.
The showpony turned to face the Ursa Major. Predator and prey looked each other, eye to eye. In that moment, Tristan felt he understood the Ursa Major’s very being, he was the Ursa Major in all its majesty, made up of all the stars of the world.
Tristan would die here, but he would leave the stage in a blaze of glory, outshining even the galaxies and nebulae themselves. Death would be the Last Act of the Great and Powerful.
“I’m ready, Ursa,” He declared, his body feeling lighter and lighter. No longer was the Earth able to maintain its tyrannical grip over him: he would end up in the night sky, where he belonged. The winds howled.
The Ursa let out one final roar.
Tristan closed his eyes.
“Say hellooooo to your friendly neighborhood Rainbow Dash!”
He opened his eyes.
“What in the-“ Tristan broke off as he saw the sight overhead. Rainbow Dash had returned, but this time she had outdone herself. Whereas the storm cloud before was a baby cumulus cloud, this was a cumulonimbus, the empress of clouds. Grey was no longer its dominant colour, a few patches of slate here and there surrendering to a near-uniform black. Its mass was large enough that the outer edges of the cloud slowly rotated, the potential energy in the centre enough to excite the perimeter.
To Tristan, it was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen. Even if he would have to surrender part of the spotlight to the pegasus mare, legends would be spoken of this night.
Rainbow Dash stomped on the cloud. All the electrical energy stored in the great front came together, and pulsed out in a single fraction of a fraction of a second.
The world shook, and all was white.
It felt like an interminable time before his eyesight began to recover, but Tristan was certain it was more like a few minutes. After the searing pain had passed and his eyes were only screaming bloody murder, he had clued in that he was, in fact, still alive. From there, his internal clock kicked in, and he urged his other senses to compensate until the seat of his optic nerves could recover.
The feeling of warm wind at the back was still there, slowly refilling him with vitality-giving magic, a font of power if one ignored its massive denizen. The smell of burning fur was all-present, and only non-vital organs shutting down in response to his fight-or-flight response kept Tristan’s stomach from protesting. To his front, he could hear the loud breathing of the Ursa Major, an irregular frenzy that sounded more like an angry, aggrieved beast than one in its death throes. Even as panic set back in, Tristan was glad. The Ursa may have nearly trampled over Ponyville, but it had been led there by ponies. Such a noble beast, with metaphor and poetry mixed in with myth and an apparent strong dash of truth resulting in a concoction that sang to Tristan’s own sense of romance, should not die like that.
“H-H-HEEEELP!”
Tristan’s eyes snapped open. His eyelids resisted, like steel gates that would not be pushed, but he forced them up. When he would be ignorant of life soon enough, what point was there to avoiding a little bit extra pain?
“No,” He whispered.
The Ursa Major might still have been recovering, but Tristan could see that it had finally made its first brilliant maneuver of the night, as it had somehow snatched Rainbow Dash out of the air. The Ursa itself seemed ignorant of this fact. Even as it had stumbled onto its knees again, smoke wafting from a large section on its back where the thunder had struck it, the star bear was rubbing its eyes with its paws. In one of its paws the tomboyish spitfire who could was turning red, tears visibly streaming down her head even from this distance.
Tristan would go down, but he would not allow the Ursa Major to take any other than himself down with it.
The Great and Powerful Tristan had hoped the last spell he ever cast would be something big, worthy of his title. Perhaps it would be a spell of purification to compete with the artifacts of creation that had supposedly redeemed Nightmare Moon. Possibly, it would be a summons of hellfire to chase away a long-forgotten enemy that attempted to conquer Equestria. Maybe the Princesses might even be incapacitated, and he would die on one of their twin thrones in Canterlot, keeping the sun and moon rising and falling, the spells doable by a unicorn but so magically exhausting they would die within days.
His senses were numb. They were literally numb, the pain that had racked him earlier now washing over like a light breeze, barely noticeable. They were figuratively numb, not appreciating the sense of irony over what his last two spells would be. The first, to create four tiny, condensed orbs of magic, each of which plugged up one of the ears of the two equines present. The second, a shrill shriek, one that made him clench his teeth even through the earplugs.
The Ursa wailed again, its paws moving away from its eyes to its ears, but Tristan’s last gambit had succeeded. Most ponies were not as well-traveled as Tristan himself. Most ponies would never realise that while many creatures with hands or claws could clench them into tight fists, those same bundles of nerves would relax into an open palm when the person was stunned. Freedom from the Ursa’s grip was all the excuse Rainbow Dash needed to fly away from the bear.
The eyes of pegasus and unicorn met again, and they understood one another in that instant. The comparison was more than skin-deep with their blue colourations. Each was a braggart, prone to take things too far. Each would step up to the plate and offer up their well-being to save the lives of others, come what may.
An apology, and a thank-you, from each to the other. One was accepting death, so that the other may live.
A sorrowful goodbye, sorry that she hadn’t gotten to know him better.
And then Rainbow Dash was gone.
The Ursa had seen none of this, recovering first from its temporary blindness, and then from the wailing cacophony of discordant pitches Tristan had set up, unsure exactly where in the noise frequency the Ursa Major was most vulnerable to, and then compromising by trying every range on the audio spectrum. The Ursa Major was not the basis of many a legend for nothing, however, and it had recovered.
Rainbow Dash had left, the Ursa Major never really having acknowledged her existence. For it, blue and silver were the new red in its rage. Tristan saw all of this, and he welcomed it.
“My name is Tristan. I am the Greatest, the most Powerful equine to ever Live,” He proclaimed.
The Ursa rumbled, almost as if it agreed with him. Tristan decided it did.
It grabbed a tree, and snapped it in half. Sap poured out, coating a paw. Momentarily diverting its attention, the Ursa cleaned off as much sap from its fur as possible, tossing the sticky clump of sap behind it, the ball of fluid quickly disappearing into the night sky.
This wasn’t what he had expected of the night when he had gone to gaze at the moon, but this hadn’t been it. Ponies said your life would flash by your eyes when death approached. Tristan sidestepped it by closing his eyes. What was the nature of a dream? Or was life itself the epitome of a dream, ephemeral in the reality that was the state of non-existence? He would never get to discuss it with Princess Luna.
Huh. That was a lullaby he hadn’t heard in a long time. His mother had occasionally whistled it to him as a colt to lull him to sleep. He heard a yawn, but couldn’t feel his mouth opening gaping wide to let one out. He was tired.
Tristan gave in, letting the end of the illusion come to pass.
Ba-thump.
Ba-thump.
Waketh up, mine little pony. Thy end approaches only if thou alloweth it.
...
What doth thou mean, an eternal dream? What nonsense! Thou hath much more to liveth for!
Heaven’s veil closed.
Tristan woke up.
“Blargh!”
An exquisite pain washed over Tristan like his body was a canvas. The artist who had found Tristan had delighted in him, painting him in rich flavours of agony.
“Quiet!”
His eyes focused, and purple moved into his vision.
“I think the Ursa scared away all the monsters, so we should be safe for the time being, but we should really get out of the Everfree before they come back.
Tristan’s mind was beginning to reassert itself over his body, and he picked out more details, narrowing the shade of purple down to something cliché like lavender. Seeing the horn and the mane stripes of alternating purple and pink, his eyes widened as the voice resonated with his memories: this was Twilight Sparkle, the Canterlot-raised librarian with a dragon.
“You can move, right? You’re showing all the signs of magical exhaustion, I already took a risk treating your wounds with magic, I don’t want to use magic to lift you if I don’t have to.”
He was a mixed pot of sentiments, his brain desperately trying to process them into words. His tongue felt drier than it have ever been before, yet the taste of copper was obvious. Tristan struggled to get his jaw to open. He thought he knew now what Mareacles had felt like, struggling to complete her Twelve Labours.
“I’m sorry.”
Twilight eyed him carefully, and he let out a curse as he felt a sting through the embrace of pain on his forehead. “Well, at least you can talk,” She said, applying a thin strip of gauze to a nasty cut. “I’m glad I remembered to bring my first aid kit. Stay! I want to get moving right away, and I can’t do it if you don’t let me get the worst of your wounds. You're lucky I spotted Rainbow Dash chasing after the Ursa with a storm cloud, and then spotted you just before the Ursa was about to kill you. If it wasn't for that, I would have stayed in Ponyville and helped the emergency night watch.”
Tristan relaxed. In, out, in, out, he counted his breaths to get into a rhythm, but his heart took off as Twilight started to stitch something right above his left ear. When Tristan felt he was over the worst of it, he asked, “What happened to the Ursa Major?”
“I put it to sleep,” She answered, her magic levitating several swabs of cotton, some of which were stained red and brown already, the others reeking of antiseptic. “I played a lullaby. It seemed enraged enough that it was resisting, but then I laced it with a hypnosis spell before moving it back inside. Normally that shouldn’t have worked, but the arcane winds from the cavern gave me enough magic. I never realised there were magical wells in the Everfree! No wonder the Ursa chose to make its cave here. Why, I bet it hibernates here specifically to survive through the winter, they’re not like normal bears, they actually need ambient magic while they’re sleeping too, and, er…” Twilight trailed off, letting out a nervous giggle as she realised she had been rambling.
Tristan ignored her when he realised she was going off-topic. A part of him was angry that he had been upstaged in his grand finale. The larger part was just happy he was still alive. He was a star made flesh, and the weakness of any flesh-bodied organism was that it would always want to live. It just meant Tristan could continue to travel and put on shows, which had filled him with happiness and given true meaning to his life.
But first…grunting, he pulled himself up. He wobbled, feeling lightheaded, but stood his ground and stayed on his hooves. Tristan’s frogs attempted to usurp him, but he brushed the coup d’etat aside with little effort.
“Let’s go,” Tristan said, finding his bearings as he placed one hoof after another. Twilight watched him carefully, ready to grab him if he stumbled, but nodded her assent, falling in line beside him.
The two walked through the forest, Twilight occasionally sending out a magical derivation of supersonic echoes to detect any nearby monsters. Her earlier theory that the Ursa had scared the smaller critters away had held and then some, as nothing had crossed paths with them on the return to Ponyville.
“So…what exactly happened?” Twilight asked. “I was woken up by loud tremors, then when I came outside I saw the Ursa in the distance. Its cave was tens of thousands of hoof lengths into the forest, what could possibly have brought it out all the way to Ponyville?”
Tristan winced, as a memory of three fillies came to mind. “Can you keep a secret?” He asked, and then winced again at how suspicious that sounded.
Twilight followed it up with a tongue lashing, “I most certainly can, but if you think I’m going to keep something secret about a giant bear nearly coming into Ponyville, you have another thing coming!”
Well, Tristan supposed he deserved that. His head hurt, and he found himself tripping over words. “There was was, er, was a pony who brought it into town, by accident,” He slowed down before he revealed too much. “That pony is still a foal, and I think that pony didn’t really think about the consequences.”
The other unicorn sighed, “The Cutie Mark Crusaders, I gather?”
Tristan stared. Even keeping to a gender-neutral pronoun to pretend there was just one pony involved, she had still figured it right away. “How did you-“ He shut his mouth, but knew the secret was good as exposed.
Twilight clicked her tongue, “Of all the fillies and colts in town, those three come up with the most outlandish and outrageous ideas, and actually go through with them. That, and I saw the three of them slinking around before I came out here. They must have felt guilty, because they confessed to me right away. They didn't tell me you had lead it back out of town, however. That was just luck that I followed Rainbow Dash and found you.”
Ah. The pain briefly lifted, as warmth flooded his chilled heart. So those three had survived after all, and none the worse for wear outside of fright. Still…”What will happen to them?” He asked. “I feel a little guilty…I think I did give them the idea for it, after all.”
“Yes, you and your whole claim earlier about defeating an Ursa Major!” said Twilight.
“Hey!” Tristan said, even his indignant protest costing him dearly with a sharp jab of pain to the ribs, “It’s not just a claim! Even tired from my performance earlier and with absolutely no prep time, I still managed to lure this one all the way out to its cave without anypony else taking an injury. Although, your friend Rainbow Dash showed up a couple of times and helped,” He added. “She nearly got killed in the process, but I think she managed to get away without really getting hurt.”
Twilight Sparkle had to think that over, as they continued their slow trotting pace to civilisation. The Great and Powerful Tristan infuriated her. In all her life, she had split things into black and white, good and evil fairly easily. Nightmare Moon had been just the tail end of this perspective on the world before her struggles on understanding friendship had required Twilight to view morality through a new lens, but Nightmare Moon had been a powerful tail end. There was nothing truly good about the Nightmare itself, with the good part of Princess Luna buried underneath deeply. That the Princess and the Nightmare were such polar opposites was undeniable, and Twilight could safely slot one in the evil pool and one in the good.
This stallion was different. Tristan appeared courteous, to a fault, but had appeared to casually disregard her for her gender earlier. He was playfully mischievous, tempered by a mean streak. He was loud, arrogant and a braggart, yet when a giant bear came into town, he had apparently put himself in the line of fire to get it away before anypony else could be hurt. From the defiant stance he had taken up at the last, Tristan had expected to die. Twilight had certainly never seen anypony else magically exhaust themselves as much as Tristan had that night.
The trail she had followed spoke of their battle. A magically-gouged trench, followed by a crater where the Ursa had presumably tripped and then fallen down. A splatter of rainbow-coloured liquid mixed in with a steaming, oozing pile of red blood and glittering star-like plasma. Countless trees littering the ground, and at the end of it all stood a single pony, resolute against the Pony of the End herself.
It frustrated her, and yet she felt giddy. Friendship was like an insidiously difficult puzzle, constantly changing on you, never quite solvable but the solution always within reach. She didn’t understand how she could be friends with ponies with such variable personalities, but she enjoyed it. She could make friends with this enigma of a nomadic pony, if only she could utter two words.
“I’m sorry,” Twilight said, and she meant those two slippery words. Tristan looked over at her, slightly dazed still. For his benefit, Twilight clarified, “For earlier today. I shouldn’t have thrown you out. I was upset over what you did to Rainbow Dash, but I overreacted. For all you’ve done tonight, I’d even let you stay over hours.” Twilight halted, as she realised that such an honour might not be that important to other ponies. She silently cursed her social awkwardness.
Tristan took it in stride as he continued cantering along, Twilight matching his slow pace. “I shouldn't have insulted you either. I'll accept your apology if you accept mine."
"It's a deal," Twilight replied.
"As for staying over hours, I might have to take you up on that offer. The Ursa destroyed my wagon after all, so I have nowhere else to stay tonight," Tristan said.
Twilight couldn’t help it. She giggled, and then she felt mortified that she was laughing at another pony’s misfortune. Despite that, her giggling continued, only getting stronger the more she tried to clamp down on it.
To her surprise, Tristan joined in with a deep laugh that came from the belly up, even as his eyes tightened shut, shedding tears. “Hehe, it hurts to laugh, and yet I’m laughing still. This sensation is so ticklish, it’s funny.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Twilight agreed, laughing along with him. She didn't know why, but she enjoyed the sound of his laugh, even through the occasional sob of pain. It was alluring.
The two unicorns refrained from talking for the next few minutes. The wind. As the lights of Ponyville got brighter and brighter, Twilight decided there was no point in holding off on it, as unpleasant as it may be, “Hey, Tristan?”
“Yes?”
“You stated that this was the second Ursa Major you fought off, correct?” Twilight asked.
The blue unicorn frowned. “Yeeees,” Tristan slowly said, unsure of where this was going. "The first time was in the village of Hoofington." Even then, the words felt like ash in his mouth.
“Then why didn’t you know that that wasn’t an Ursa Major, but just a baby, an Ursa Minor?”
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I hate to break this to you, but "Trixie and The Illusions" was most likely a reference to an old eighties cartoon called "Jem and The Holograms".
Trixie has cast the greatest spell ever known to pony kind. Getting a bunch of people over the internet to think she's greater than she really is. I'm guilty too.
Anyway, great use of Tristan's talents to get through this whole night with only exhaustion to show anything for it. Nice that Rainbow Dash got to get in on the action as well.
Now for the fallout to begin...
I think to myself, Oh well, it looks like the story is at it's end. Then I spy the ¨Incomplete¨ tag, and rejoice.
Duh duh duuuum!
Caught in his own web of lies!
Silly Tristan. And once again brains and finesse overshadow sheer brawn.
Ah. I was wondering if you had made an actual parent show up instead. Shows there are some constants to every Trixie arrival fic.
Now that that's done, we go to the rest of the night and the following day.
I admit I don't see a terribly large amount of canon Trixie in Tristan - as you say, he's based a lot more on fanon Trixie, including competence and heart of gold - but this was one of the best, most cunning fight scenes I've read in a fanfiction in months. You really sold the idea that Tristan is operating on quick wits and clever tricks, not brute force. And you definitely sell the Ursa as something vastly more powerful than a mere oversized bear. You could have called it a dragon and I would have believed it, from the classical awesomeness of the scene.
Okay, so that, was, EPIC!!!
Absolutely amazing! You left off the previous chapter with a cliffhanger, and boy did you deliver in a big way! The battle though the forest was fantastically written! I know you had some reservations about this being stylistically different from other chapters, but I think you nailed it! I loved having mainly Tristan's perspective and his thoughts as it got worse and worse. There are not enough words to say how much I enjoyed this.
I now feel the need to go back to Chapter 9 of my own story (Attack Underground) and make sure my ursa battle measures at least close to the amazingness that I just read. Well done all around!
Wait, THAT was the reason she threw him out? Well THAT was a delayed reaction