And Trixie, supine in the hospital bed, asked Starlight: "Why'd you kiss The Great and Powerful Trixie to stop the curse?"
"Heh, heh," Starlight dissembled.
"Wouldn't a hoof have served the same purpose?"
"Wouldn't have wanted you getting hoof and mouth disease, would we...?" Starlight joked.
"Of course, of course," Trixie nodded. "But you kissed Trixie during both the crown incident and the diadem disaster."
"They were similar situations."
"The Great and Powerful Trixie will grant that certain crowns may be considered diadems...."
"I might have been joking about the hoof and mouth disease--" Starlight continued.
Trixie's eyes grew wide. "You wanted The Great and Powerful Trixie to catch hoof and mouth disease?"
"No, no, no," Starlight shook her head.
"You didn't think it was a risk? But it must be! Now, The Great and Powerful Trixie considers it with dread!"
"No, no, no." Starlight shook her head some more.
"Then why not a hoof? Your explanation is poor."
"About that... I am, was in--" Starlight blushed, struggling for appropriate words to relate her true feelings of--; Trixie, not noticing, gave her a slightly-annoyed-friendly-not-friendly shove.
"--shove?" Starlight frowned. "That's not it. But," she recovered, coyly smiling. "It rhymes... I know you like creative couplets. Yes! This works! At the time... and now- ow. I was in lo--" she winced, looking to her shoulder, which pulsed with pain. Her coat had been scraped when she'd been shoved, against a sharp bed angle. It was streaked with blood.
Starlight shook off the pain and opened her mouth to resume; however, seeing Starlight's confusion, but not the bleeding, The Great and Powerful Trixie took a shocked intake of breath, realizing Starlight had wanted to say something rhyming with shove and that Trixie must help her friend complete the creative couplet, which was a sneaky, yet clever way for Starlight to avoid personally admitting to an embarrassing fact. Could it be that Starlight had been in-- "You were in mud!" Trixie concluded. "Your well-manicured hooves had been covered in mud!"
Starlight, speechless, placed a hoof on her face, a hoof covered with its medical glove.