> Escape Artistry
>  by Casketbase77
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Disappearing Act
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Even after seven full years spent living in Ponyville, Starlight still couldn’t get over the size of its one and only hospital. She trotted out from the third floor dentistry room and looked around, still tasting fluoride flecks as she wondered where the stairwell to the ground floor was. She was alert enough to teleport outside (her simple teeth cleaning session hadn't needed any knockout gas), but the heart clinic was fairly close to the building’s entrance. A poof and a flash near those inpatients would be unkind at best and deadly at worst. Seemed Starlight was in for some aimless hallway exploration.

Starlight passed several small clinics as she trotted, most of which she’d never been in. The Glimmer clan had surprisingly healthy genes, and Starlight herself had never talked to a doctor outside of a routine wellness checkup. She sympathized with ponies who were less lucky though.

Fluttershy, a biology teacher and coworker, had taken an emergency sick leave a few months back. Caught some pathogen or other from a random rescue animal. Starlight sent a get well card (Sunburst’s idea, not hers), but Starlight herself didn’t visit personally. The thought of doing so felt… rude.

Like most unicorns, Starlight was brought up to believe that sickness was embarrassing for the afflicted. Demeaning, even. As such, she’d left Fluttershy alone to recover amid polite professionals, not overly concerned friends. Besides, Starlight’s schedule was packed with substitute teacher duties in the absence of not just Fluttershy, but several other staffers who’d gotten spooked by the affair and taken days off for checkups. 

Thankfully, things were mostly resolved now and the faculty was almost at full strength again. The only staffer still dragging their hooves to come back to work was Trixie. She’d been absent and radio silent for nearly a month now, to the delight of most other teachers and the growing annoyance of Starlight. Leave it to Trixie of all ponies to drag out a paid sabbatical as long as possible.

Dwelling on her alleged best friend’s laziness made Starlight’s freshly polished teeth grind. She trotted passed the hair loss  center, a corner office with a line of lethargic stallions stretching out the door. Several self-conscious studs looked away from the passing pretty mare in embarrassment, and Starlight did her courteous best to keep her gaze off their scalps and on the doors down the hall. In her periphery, somepony in line shrunk further away than the rest. Somepony shorter and more feminine shaped than the others.

Chuffing at how nosy and disobedient her senses were, Starlight picked up her pace to round the next bend. Then she stopped, staring dumbfounded at the familiar lobby of the dentist’s office. She’d walked in a circle and somehow missed the stairs.

“By Faust,” she groaned as she massaged her temple with a forehoof. “Maybe I oughta schedule an eye appointment on my way out.”

Nose too for that matter, because the moment Starlight stepped out from her sterile smelling checkup, a phantom cocktail of familiar scents had been tickling her muzzle. Dyed smoke, glitter glue, and fabric softener.  She couldn’t place them, but blamed her meandering on some buried animal instinct that compelled her to follow the source. Starlight grunted in frustration. She was a smart mare. A civilized mare. If her primal drives were going to con her, they could at least have some noble goal in mind.

The hallway’s silence was broken behind Starlight by the retching, putrid noise of somepony projectile vomiting onto the tiles. Several stallion  voices reacted.

“By Faust!”

“Ew!”

“Step back, no telling what her problem is!”

Starlight didn’t know what she expected rushing back to the line outside the hair loss clinic. Not what she got, that was for sure.

Trixie Lulamoon was wrapped in her cloak and hat, laying on her side next to a piddly puddle of throw up. Two clusters of balding stallions stood apart from her on either side. Some looked concerned, others confused,  but most were just disgusted.

Hoofbeats pounded across the hall, and before Starlight registered their source as herself, she was crouched near her semi-conscious friend. She rubbed Trixie’s back tenderly, but balked at the bony body hidden under thick cape fabric. Trixie’s sunken eyes swiveled upward. When they saw Starlight, their owner pulled at an everpresent hat, trying to hide an almost maneless head. Trixie took several shallow breaths like she was trying to say something, but Starlight simply shushed and held her close. Both remained where they were until an alerted orderly poked out of the hair clinic, saw the sorry scene, and phoned the chemo lab. 

Why yes, there was indeed a female inpatient who was on break between treatments right now. Why? Had she snuck off to another ward for some reason?





Over the next few hours, a public relations aide tossed a lot of terms at Starlight. Some made sense, like Stageshow props and frequent smoke inhalation. Over the next few days, more frightening and less familiar ones were confessed by Trixie herself. Manchester Score. Shame-Prone Patient. Lung Cancer. 

Medicine was such a blind spot for Starlight that she stopped trying to keep up after awhile. The other ponies had their jobs to do, and Starlight had hers. She was still figuring the details out, but certain tasks slowly solidified through her funk. 

Trixie had no family, so it was Starlight who sat next to the hospital bed through long nights. It was Starlight who answered gurgled questions about healthy lives being led by friends outside. It was Starlight who held Trixie’s head after the fearful jealous crying started and talked quiet assurances until Trixie’s strength was spent. That last part never took very long.

It was Starlight who walked home alone after each visit.

She skipped the Summer Sun Solstice that year. The day was better spent seeing Rarity present trembling Trixie a hoof-made silver wig. Starlight missed the Running of The Leaves too, since that was the weekend she helped Fluttershy smuggle in a kitten for Trixie to snuggle after a particularly rough session of chemo. Then on the day of Winter Wrap-Up she stood near while Trixie opened an encouraging letter from Twilight, pulled out a paper “strength charm” folded to look like the Alicorn Amulet, and laughed so hard she needed Starlight’s help reaching for her respirator.

Half a year passed before Starlight felt ready to apologize. Trixie's first month of treatment, the one before Starlight found her, had been lonely, fearful and full of bitter frustration at being sick. By now Starlight had stayed firmly by her best friend's side for nearly five times the length of that initial stretch. Yet it still didn't feel like enough.

Starlight confessed as much one rainy spring afternoon, and an ever-present oxygen mask wasn't enough to hide Trixie's weak scoff. "You're sorry? For thinking Trixie was strong enough to take care of herself? Really, what happened to your unicorn pride, Glimglam? And here Trixie thought she was the one getting hollowed from the inside out."

"You know you've been holding steady for the past two screenings, Trix. Two more and that's enough to be counted as being in re... uh, remiss.."

"In remission. And yes, The Great and Not So Powerful Trixie is doing better. Not good, but better. Someday she might even hobble out of here tumor free. But when she does... be honest. Do you expect her to still be the same pony she was when she trudged in here? Puffing from the long walk and annoyed she has to get checked for signs of Fluttershy's silly bird flu? Do you expect her to still care about dumb things like that?"

Starlight studied her companion lounging on the rec room couch in front of her. This hairless, surgery scarred bag of bones looked nothing like Trixie, but it certainly acted like her. For example, it tended to answer its own questions.

"I'll be the same pony in the ways that matter, Starlight. I'll grow back my Cutie Mark and my mane and puff my inhaler enough to be able to talk in my stage voice again. But I'll be a different pony in the ways that matter too. I'll be hugging more students and smiling at more foals on the street and fighting less with Twili-"

"One thing at a time, Trix. You need to focus on getting healthy enough to get out of here before you make plans for afterwards."

The former showmare chuffed as she labored to standing position. "Making plans to get out of here is the best health boost Trixie can give herself, Glimglam. And before you so RUDELY interrupted, I was trying to say that you've spent a lot of time in here too. Maybe someday you'll tell Trixie the real reason why, or maybe you won't. But on the off chance you come out of this different too, promise this: Promise you'll be a different pony in ways that matter just like Trixie."





Six more months passed after that. They were easier than the ones that came before. Sunburst managed to keep the School of Friendship running in Starlight's absence, and the Hearth's Warming dance doubled as a welcome back party for the estranged principal as much as it was a celebration of the season. Even the yearly play recounting Equestria's founding had a closer to home feel, courtesy of a saucy but familiar new theater director. Trixie's hair had returned quickly, but her passion for the stage had returned even quicker. Supervising spotlights were just as fulfilling as standing in them, she happily found.

"I don't have a clue who I'm going to get to fill your old guidance counselor job," Starlight confessed during the afterparty. 

Said 'afterparty' was only called that as an in-joke; the attendees were just staff who stuck around to clean the gymnasium after the dance was over and the students had dispersed. This year it was Starlight clearing tables, Sunburst putting props in boxes, and Trixie sitting on the edge of the stage wrapping lights with her forelegs. Though hunched to hide it, Trixie was breathing heavy. She likely would be doing so for the rest of her life. Nopony had opted to comment on it.

"Maybe you could be the counselor again, Starlight." Sunburst bucked a potted tree and caught each falling bulb decoration in a crate balanced on his back. "Like in the old days. I mean, I'm not the bragging type but I think I've done a pretty bang up job running the school while you were, um, out doing more important stuff."

Starlight levitated another soiled plate to her nearby cart. "Toss back a few too many Empathy Cocoas tonight, bucko? I seem to remember you practically kissing my hooves to welcome me back to the old stomping grounds. Nah, we all have roles to settle back into. Can't be shuffling jobs around for each and every pony. Someone new'll have to run the guidance office."

"Hey now, who said anything about the guidance office needing new blood?" Trixie had somewhat caught her breath and was sitting up straighter as she worked. "You're talking to a multi talented performer, Principal Glimmer. Trixie can handle both her current jobs. Call it making up for lost time."

"Holy smokes, Trixie Lulamoon signing on for double shifts? It's a Hearth’s Warming miracle!"

Starlight shot a furious look at her co-principal, but balked at the sound of dry, cough-like laughter coming from Trixie's direction.

"Must be, Sunburst. Must be."

The three of them worked in comfortable silence for awhile. Even Trixie's quiet huffing eventually became a calming constant. A predictable pulse of life.

"Gonna go gather the tinsel in the hall now," Sunburst suddenly announced. "You two do your thing you gotta do, kay?"

"Huh?" Starlight looked up from the cup she was dumping out, but he was already gone. "Did you say something to him I didn't hear?"

Trixie finished her last spool of lights and deposited them in the box. "As if. He's probably just good at reading others after spending a year in your old horseshoes. Guessing you're thinking hard about somethin' over there?"

Starlight regarded the glass in her grip. Felt the waxed wood under her frogs and heard the pulsing air conditioning  in high ceiling over her and her friend's heads.

"We're back," she said simply.

"Feels like it's been forever, eh?"

Starlight shook her head. "Not at all. I mean, not for me."

Trixie waited. After four whole seasons of doing little else, it was something she was very used to. Mostly because it kept paying off.

"The whole year feels like it was run on fast forward for me. Looking back I guess the days felt long, but when all of them are put together it's just a big blur."

Trixie kicked her back legs lazily as she sat. "You've cared too much before, haven't you? A long time ago, you put a lot of stock in somepony who either got sick or moved away or something when you were really little and it bucked you up in the head. I can tell."

Now Starlight was the one whose breathing was shallow, and Trixie held up her hooves submissively. 

"Hey, you know the unicorn code: each of us keep our uglies to ourselves. Still..." her tone softened. "You were there for Trixie when no one else was. If the favor needs returned, her stage always has an open spot on it."

"Th-thanks, Trix. Maybe someday you'll drag the whole story outta me, but not now. We're both tapped out."

"Fine, fine. The Great and Boundary-Respecting Trixie won't push the issue. But she will ask... when you cared too much the first time. Did that pony you thought you lost end up okay in the end?"

The thump of a toppling tinsel stand echoed from the hallway, followed by a yelp from a startled but unhurt stallion.

"Yep," Starlight smiled. "He turned out ay-okay." 

"Then there was never any doubt I would too. No one outperforms Trixie!"

Starlight nodded wistfully as she stacked the final few party plates and dusted her hooves. She breathed deep. For herself and for Trixie. Then she moved onto the next table.