//------------------------------//
// The Funeral 
// Story: Rusted Armour 
// by Diamond Sparkle 
//------------------------------//

It was more than fifty years after the wedding of Princess Cadence and Shining Armour, which had so nearly been ruined by an invasion of Changelings, and black flags flew at half-mast upon every flagpole in Canterlot, as Shining Armour, Captain of the Queen's Guards, was dead. It was not an assassin or a sudden outbreak of disease that had slain him, but a whole lot of little things as his body slowly aged. A whole Company of the Guards were drawn up for the funeral. Traditionally, Earth Ponies were always buried to be forever in contact with the earth, their element, Pegusai were always cremated so that their spirits could rise up into the sky, and with Unicorns it varied with each family and the wishes of each individual unicorn. Shining Armour had chosen burial, and lay there in an open coffin, his body withered with age. On Cadence's left side was Princess Celestia, on her right Princess Luna, with an aged Twilight Sparkle who was hardly able to stand. Cadence knelt down by the coffin and kissed her deceased husband on his forehead, before the coffin was closed. After the Princesses and a crying Twilight delivered their eulogies of how good Shining Armour was he was lowered into his grave.
Later, after the funeral feast and just after Celestia had lowered the sun and Luna had raised the moon, Cadance asked to be allowed to chat with Celestia in private, and Celestia had obliged. "How do you feel?" Celestia asked. "Are you heartbroken for the loss of your loved one?"

"No...and I feel a bit guilty about it too. It’s more like the loss of a good friend. We….we have not made love for twenty years. We…when he was young and strong like me everything was perfect between us. Well, not perfect as we had our share of arguments over the years, but no more than any other couple. But we…I tried my hardest to keep us together, but whilst his mind remained strong until the very end, his body was aging whilst mine stayed the same. Whilst he was young and even into his middle age it didn’t matter, he was still the handsome stallion who attracted me to him. But slowly his…it’s like if you had a tasty storehouse of the finest apples in Equestria and they slowly started going bad. First a bruise or two, and then…his body was being rotted by age and there was nothing I could do about it.”

“His muscles, once so strong, gradually weakened and his body…he grew fat and…ugly and near sighted and it’s like his body withered away. It sounds so horrible and unfeeling, and a part of me still loved him until the end, but physically he stopped being a stallion I married long ago. I…I ended up having an affair with a young corporal as I have needs, needs that he could no longer meet by the time he became sixty. He never found out, it would have broken his heart. I will never marry or have a serious relationship with anypony again, it’s just not worth it, this staying young whilst they grow old and die.”

“I feel the same way, I know just what you’re talking about,” said Celestia. “I fell in love twice, both times more than a thousand years ago. My first one, Swift Sword, was murdered by a friend of Nightmare Moon not long after I banished her to the Moon. I turned the murderer into a statue and placed him at the grave of his victim. He’s still alive in that statue; unable to move or speak and doomed to stare at a wall forever. No doubt if I freed him he would be more insane then Discord. My second one, Tasty Cupcakes, I had the same problem with you as you did with Shining Armour. His mind and personality were fine, but because his body aged, he grew more and more...unattractive physically, like a slowly rotting apple. And it was not his fault of course. After that I never fell deeply in love with anypony, I just used some of them for sex or for cuddles and kisses. But I decided that I could never give myself fully in love to a mortal again. The only immortals I know are Discord...as if a relationship with him would ever work." She snorted in disgust at the idea. "Luna...but she's my sister and neither of us think incest is in anyway a good idea, even with no danger of children as we are both mares.. And then...and then you came. Give me a chance, and I'll be the best girlfriend and wife that you ever had. And you'll never need to worry about me getting withered and old and dying like Shining Armour did and like any mortal would that you stayed in love with until the end."

"But you're a mare and I'm...I'm not a lesbian. I'm a straight pony."

"Nor am I but I want an immortal lover like myself who will be in there for the long haul. I promise you that I will try my hardest to make it work for both you and me, so that our love for each other will still be there even when the sun dies and Equestria crumbles to dust. Don't you want the same thing, everlasting love?"

"But what if it does not work out? What if your everlasting love for me turns into everlasting hate, and I end up banished to the Moon? Or worse still, frozen in stone like Discord, left unable to speak and move and forgotten about? That would be a true hell for me. Although we are both alicorns, your power is far greater then mine. Many ordinary, non-immortal ponies who get married end up hating each other to get divorced after only a few years. How can I be sure that such a thing won't happen to us? How can I trust you?"