//------------------------------//
// Fare Thee Well 
// Story: Strange Bedfellows 
// by BRBrony9 
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The thrusters of the numberless array of dropships and bulk landers formed a new constellation in the southern and western skies over Canterlot in the pre-dawn glow. They were coming and going from Fillydelphia and from the main Imperial landing grounds out on the plains, far from the capital city but still visible as they rose into the heavens. Their fight was over, their war won, at least in this tiny corner of the galaxy.

Chaos forces had been eradicated. Lord-Admiral Marcos and Princess Celestia had seen to that, for neither of them wanted to leave any trace of the foul contagion behind on this otherwise pristine world. Imperial strike teams had hunted down every last pocket of resistance, with some particularly fanatical Chaos troopers and cultists fighting to the last round, refusing to surrender or retreat from their positions, however untenable. Where a particularly strong resistance had coalesced around a defensible position, it was ravaged from orbit before sending in airborne infantry aboard dropships to finish off any survivors. 

But many of the Chaos forces had seen their morale well and truly sapped by the death of their leader and the defeat of their Daemonic patron. They had seen their fellow soldiers wiped out in their thousands, sometimes by their own commanders in pursuit of some grander goal to which the rank and file were not made privy. They had seen their most hated foe break every precept of Imperial doctrine and team up with strange horse-aliens, fighting alongside each other to defeat the servants of the Dark Powers. They had seen their fleets annihilated by powers that even they could not truly comprehend, and with them, their only way off of the planet. Some banded together to commit ritual suicide, in the hope of being reborn as greater servants of their gods, that they may continue to fight for them. Some tried to flee, but Valkyrie gunships and fast-moving armour made flight impossible. Some surrendered, though they were very much in the minority, mostly those who had only recently fallen under the sway of Chaos, or those who had feigned allegiance to obtain food or adventure. Whether they surrendered to Guardsmen or Guardsponies, the result was the same- summary execution, on the orders of the Lord-Admiral and the Princess.

The mop-up operation had taken another week until the Imperial auspexes were clear. Only then could the planet be declared free of taint, restored to its former tranquility. The guns had fallen silent after so many days that time had ceased to have meaning to many of the local inhabitants, especially those civilians who had been forced to reside underground for so long, devoid of any natural light or idea of the natural cycle of day and night beyond the serving of emergency rations at regular intervals. With the war won, they had emerged, slowly, tentatively, from their subterranean cocoon, to feel the sun on their faces again, to see the stars.

To see the Moon.

The news had been slow to spread. At first, only Princess Celestia's closest circle were made aware. She had told them personally, inside the throne room. There were tears in her eyes as she spoke four simple words that had sent daggers of ice through the hearts of them all.

'My sister is dead.'

The Elements wept. Cadence all but collapsed, only supported by her husband. None of them had even been sure that an Alicorn could actually die; it had never happened before. It was widely known that they were functionally immortal in a chronological sense, and could not die of old age or disease, but Luna had not been felled by that. She had been felled by magic and madness, by a combination of Changeling and Daemon. It had taken all the might of the Warp and of royal power to topple her, and even then she had fought and fought and fought, through hour after hour of surgery, but ultimately, her wounds had been too grave, too far-reaching, too unknown to pony science and medicine. She had suffered internal injuries from the force of Chrysalis's magic, but there was more than just that.

The Daemon's strikes, and the nature of the strange realm to which Luna had been temporarily banished, had added another facet to her suffering. The surgeons had been baffled; they had never seen anything quite like it. The ichor-like substance which had been splattered all across Luna's body after her return had acted like acid, burning her skin and the muscles and organs beneath, but even removing the substance, irrigating the wounds, applying salves and creams and potions failed to stop the spread. Drugs would not reverse the progress of the alien burns. They had tried using magic to cauterize the tissue ahead of the spreading wounds, like a firebreak against a forest blaze, and that, finally, had stopped it, but it was a stop-gap solution to that single issue. While the medics had been focused on that, Luna's other wounds had still to be treated, and the doctors could only do so much, even with a full trauma team, which they had managed to scrape together; a Royal Guard surgeon, an anesthetist from Canterlot University Hospital, two army nurses. If the sounds of bombs and guns outside the shield didn't make their hooves shake as they operated, then the identity of their patient surely did.

Despite their heroic efforts, travailing through the night, working in the light of flickering candles as the tiny emergency generator they had needed all of its power to run the life-support machinery, the damage was simply too great, and their understanding of Alicorn physiology, through no fault of their own, was too limited. All they could do was to treat Luna like any other pony, using the same techniques and medicines in the same way that they would in any other operation. But the fact remained that she was not like any other pony. Any other pony would have already been dead, torn apart by Chrysalis's overpowered magic or their soul ripped from their body and cast astray in the hellscape wilderness that Luna had been temporarily banished to. It was that difference, that great strength and divine form of both mind and body, shared by the royal sisters, that had kept her alive through the impossible, but it was that difference, that unknown component, that had confounded both medicine and magic and precluded any effort to save her.

And so, ponies wept. There was grief not just for the lost, the fallen residents of Equestria, but for Celestia as well. Her sister, her oldest and closest companion, her only true family, had been torn from her bosom again. This time at least it had not been she who had caused it, but this time, it was not temporary. Luna was gone from this world, if not from existence altogether, and barring any similar such disaster befalling her, it would be a long time before Celestia was able to see her sister again. What would happen to a fallen Alicorn was a mystery to pony science, and nopony knew if they would ever see their Night Princess again. Would she manifest herself in some way, as a spirit, perhaps, on the day that she died? Or would her soul appear imprinted upon the moon once more, as it did during her banishment? Or would that be the end of it, of any contact whatsoever? The survivors had wept for the death of their co-regent, their beloved Night Princess, lost to them for so long, for a millennium, returning for a few short years before being cruelly snatched away from her rightful place at her sister's side. Nopony truly knew what that meant, and as far as they knew, neither did Celestia, despite her immense power and knowledge. Or perhaps she did, but chose to withhold it from her citizens. Only she would ever be certain of the answer to that. 

The bells of the palace had tolled, every night at dusk, at the moment day changed to night, a solemn, solitary sound of mourning ringing out across the ruined city. Everypony had lost a part of themselves, but they all knew that Princess Celestia had lost more than that. Most of the survivors had lost family members too, but even that was not quite the same. Luna was more than just a sister to the Sun Princess. She was part of her, and part of Equestria, the fundamental forces that drove their society. A large rift had been torn in the fabric of Equestria when Luna had been banished, and it had only been made whole after she had returned. Now, that hole was there again, a part of Equestrian society that had been imagined irremovable by so many generations before. 

Even when she was banished, the old folk tales foretold that Luna would return, even if the story of the Mare In The Moon had become confused, distorted and somehow separated from the fate of Celestia's sister, who remained in the history books, usually listed as a mysterious disappearance in the old tomes and scrolls. Now, of course, ponies knew the truth; they knew the sad tale behind Luna's banishment and Celestia's anguish, and now they knew that the Sun Princess was once again suffering the trauma of the loss of her dear sibling, but this time, the loss was permanent. Yet Luna may have been gone, but the moon would continue to rise and set. Simple physics would see to that, and Princess Celestia would continue the charade of raising and lowering both celestial bodies; as she had during Luna's banishment, so she would after her death.

As the bells tolled, the Imperial forces began to gradual process of withdrawing their units, first from the city, and then from all across the planet. Their time had come and gone, their mission accomplished. They bad fought and bled and died alongside their temporary allies, the strange race of quadrupeds whom many had once considered as blasphemous as any other species of Xenos that they had encountered during the Crusade. But now, there was a strange mixture of unease and acceptance among the rank and file, an intriguing phenomenon that the Inquisition would no doubt take a keen interest in, were they ever to learn of it.

From the western plains, bulk landers rose into the heavens, transporting Imperial vehicles and war supplies. They had the priority; in a telling indictment of the attitudes of Imperial bureaucracy to its citizens, a tank was valued more highly than its crew, a howitzer more valuable than its gunners. They would be the first things shipped up to orbit, to fill the holds of the huge cargo vessels. Once the hardware and materiel were in orbit, the guardsmen would follow. Some units were already being shifted around, airlifted to the landing fields or, in the case of more specialised units, taken straight into orbit, but the majority of the personnel assigned to fight on the planet's surface would remain there for at least another day or two.

The ponies, those that had survived the chaos and the madness that had unfolded, were glad to see their human saviours, as well as their Princess, both of whom had contributed blood, sweat and tears to the continuation of Equestria as a nation, and to ponykind as a species. To the civilians, the Guardsmen were heroic figures, battered and bruised but unbowed in the face of evil. To the Guardsponies and soldiers, they were brothers and sisters in arms, simply fellow warriors facing off against the unknown. The Guardsmen and the Guardsponies had fought back to back, shoulder to shoulder, against the forces of change and chaos, and they had emerged from the other side with a shared sense of comradeship that would have been impossible at the beginning of the crisis. Needs must, as the saying went, oddly a phrase known to both ponies and humans, another bizarre coincidence of their shared language, which gave many pause to ponder. How exactly was it that these ponies knew Low Gothic? A coincidence? Or something engendered in aeons past, either by Celestia or by the Emperor, or even, though such a thing could scarcely be voiced, by the forces of Chaos?

There was rejoicing, of course, at victory, as the official pronouncement was made by Princess Celestia, bellowing out the declaration of peace in her Royal Canterlot Voice, the message being rapidly relayed to other cities as quickly as fast patrol airships or Pegasi messengers could carry the word. What little remained in the way of supplies that could be classed as luxuries had been broken out, alcohol being passed among the survivors freely, wine and beer and hard liquor flowing in celebration, fine caviar and other treats formerly reserved for royal banquets being shared by everyday ponies, guard and civilian alike. They had all come through it together, the greatest threat ever faced by Equestria, and they had triumphed. More importantly on an individual level, they had survived where so many others had fallen. Families had been torn apart, entire regiments of soldiers and guardsponies had been wiped out. Cities had been annihilated by forces scarcely understood by even the greatest Equestrian scientific minds. 

Yet, as with every other crisis, ponykind had come through- broken, battered and scarred, but unbowed. They had not knelt and bent their heads in supplication to the aliens who had come to despoil their planet. They had not stood idly by and accepted their fate. They had not surrendered. They had not flown the white flag- they had flown the Equestrian royal standard, with a prayer to their Princess in their hearts and her name on their lips as she led them into battle. Every single pony still alive knew they had lived through something profoundly historic, something that would, in the future, become intertwined and interwoven with the many ancient tales that formed Equestria's backstory.  The songs and poems would regale thoughtful young foals of the future with stories of how brave the loyal Guard and Army and Air Corps had been, how the twin evils of Chaos and Changeling had been hurled back with sword and rifle and cannon, and how the ultimate blows had been struck by the magic of the Princesses and their Element Bearers.

The stories would also tell of the strange ally that ponykind had found, for not all of the visitors from beyond the stars had been driven by evil alone. Despite the propaganda power wielded by the Imperium that cast any and all alien creatures as being worthy of death, Lord-Admiral Marcos and his men had fought alongside the ponies, and they had fought hard and well. Without their aid, everypony knew that things would have turned out differently. Without the intervention of the Imperial fleet after Celestia cleared the warp storm, Griffonstone would have been overrun, and with it, the Griffon nation would have fallen. Even if the Princesses and the Elements had been able to escape that inevitable bloodbath, which was probable, they would have found themselves relentlessly harried across the planet, just as they had been followed from Canterlot, until the Chaos forces found a way to obtain what they wanted.

It was a sad dichotomy, however; the Chaos plan had involved summoning Malaranth The Infinite, which took a huge amount of sacrifice. The wheels of change had been in motion for years, and every single cog in the great machine had been required to fall into place. If the initial Chaos fleet had arrived alone, before the Crusade reached the planet, then they could have smashed the pony military into submission with contemptuous ease. But as they had found, the Princesses were not such a simple proposition, and Parthax The Infidel's plan involved their capture or death so that he could study their magic in the hope of learning how to use it for evil. Yet none of the conventional weapons possessed by their ground or space forces were capable of harming the Princesses. 

Summoning the Greater Daemon was the only way that Chaos could unleash a creature potentially capable of holding Celestia or Luna to account and fighting them on a level playing field. Yet even the Daemon was not ultimately intending to defeat the Princesses by itself. It was Queen Chrysalis who was meant to hold the key, for thanks to her unique ability to gain power the more love she could obtain, the Changeling leader theoretically had infinite potential. The arrival of the Imperial fleet was a necessary catalyst to help her gain enough power to be able to overcome Celestia, but not the Elements, which tied their strength to the mystical and the ethereal as much as the real world. Having been defeated by them once before, Chrysalis had been determined that the Elements would not be a factor in this fight, and for a long time, she had succeeded. 

If she had remained i control of the Element of Magic, then she would have been victorious, and that would have left her free to continue on with her initial plan, to travel the void using the knowledge extracted from her human victims to allow her Changelings to operate starships. Not only had that been Chrysalis's plan, but ultimately it had been Malaranth's, too, for only a being of impossible power could hope to challenge the Emperor and finally bring about the collapse of the Imperium itself. Other daemons had disagreed with its plan, for after all, the Imperium were the great foe, with the Emperor as the influence and power behind it, and to destroy them completely would deprive Chaos of much of the purpose that drove it forward to continue the endless struggle for control. But, as Malaranth had argued to its fellows and to Lord Tzeentch himself, if the Imperium were to collapse, it would be the largest galactic shift of power, the largest change, to occur since the fall of the Eldar Gods- and what could be more unpredictable than that?

That was why Tzeentch had, long ago, given Malaranth the final approval needed to pursue the plan, for if it succeeded, then everything changed, and if it failed, then it would have failed because of an unexpected twist in the timeline. Either way, Tzeentch and his Daemons would be pleased at the results, for even a failure was not truly a setback for the Changer of Ways- merely a brief distraction, a blip in the swirling morass of entropy and time and alterations that was his specialty. What was life-altering or life-ending for entire planets could be nothing more than a momentary pique of interest for Tzeentch. Such was the nature of Chaos, and such was the way of the universe.





The rows of Equestrian flags fluttered in the gentle breeze, flying at half mast in mourning as they had done every day for the past week, lining the Boulevard of the Alicorns. The broad street had been returned to something approaching its former glory through diligent work from soldiers and labour gangs of Imperial Guardsmen and, at Lord-Admiral Marcos's direction, work teams from the lower decks of the surviving Imperial capital ships to make up the numbers. Bodies had been cleared and burned or buried, wrecked vehicles towed away, blood and gore hosed away from the cobbled stones. There was no disguising the war damage to the shattered buildings, but that was partly deliberate. Nopony could possibly forget the horrors they had just been through and there was no point in pretending otherwise, but at least some effort had to have been made to clean up the Boulevard. After all, this was no ordinary evening.

The Boulevard of the Alicorns was lined with Royal Guard, bedecked in their gold and blue armour, polished to perfection and glinting in the pale light of a full moon. No longer were they wearing their combat uniforms, but their ceremonial ones, spears held to attention in their forehooves instead of the rifles they had been carrying for months. At the far end of the Boulevard stood smaller contingents from the Navy, Army, and Air Corps, both the Airship Command and Pegasi Assault Force, in full dress uniform, lining the route from the palace gates, which lay open wide. Princess Celestia and her honour guard, including Commander Shining Armour clad in his purple ceremonial gear, stood atop the battlements above the gateway. Twilight and the other Elements were also present,  heads bowed. A phalanx of Equestrian airships hung in the sky above the city, flanking the Boulevard of the Alicorns.

Coming slowly down the Boulevard was a simple wooden cart, pulled by four ponies, one representative from each of the military branches. The cart was draped in black cloth, and atop it lay a coffin, midnight blue with silver filigree and handles.  This was no ordinary evening. It was a time unique and unmatched in history.

It was the funeral of a Princess.

Princess Luna lay in her casket, an expression of peace upon her face, surrounded by flowers of all kinds, freshly picked by the foals of Canterlot from the mountainside and the valley below. Her crown rested upon her head, where it belonged. There had been no actual government plan for a royal funeral of such magnitude, for no Alicorn had ever died before. The Boulevard of the Alicorns led from the palace to the city's main station, which was where any deceased notables who died outside of the city would normally be brought by train before transport to the palace for the ceremony. Even though Luna had passed away inside the palace, Princess Celestia had decreed that she should still make that final trip so that as many ponies as possible could see their Princess. Elements of both royal and military funereal protocols had been adapted and expanded at Celestia's direction to try and evoke as grand a spectacle as could be achieved given the ravishing the land had undergone during week after week of war, for Luna was not just a pony, not just a Princess, but to the inhabitants of Equestria, she was a goddess of the night.

As the bier rolled down the Boulevard, the guardsponies that it passed raised their hooves in a final salute. Luna was escorted by every surviving member of the Night Guard, the sub-branch of the Royal Guard dedicated to the protection of the Night Princess. Just like the Solar Guard, they had been decimated in the fight for Canterlot Palace, when they had tried to fight off the invading Chaos forces to buy time for the Princesses to escape the city. There were only thirty ponies escorting the coffin, clad in their deep blue armour, three ranks of five ponies to the front, three to the rear. The only sound was the clopping of their hooves and the gentle creak of the bier as its wheels rolled over the cobbles.

Closer to the palace gate stood not just ponies, but others, too. There was a large contingent of Griffon soldiers, in similar armour to their pony counterparts. There were Zebras from the eastern lands, a small Buffalo contingent in their war headdresses, and a company of Yak lancers. Then, there were humans. A large group of Guardsmen lined the remainder of the street, lasguns held at the present. Every race and creature who had fought for the survival and the future of Equestria was represented in the Boulevard of the Alicorns.

The bier rolled through the gates and into the palace yard, where there were more ponies gathered. Here, however, the representation was not military, but rather civilian, with large crowds of survivors gathered, invited by Princess Celestia to attend, every pony who had lived through the siege of Canterlot and shared in the same dangers as her sister. They prostrated themselves on the grass and cobbles, sobbing and weeping, faces twisted in anguish and wet with tears. Some threw bouquets and nosegays of flowers onto the cart, to add to those that already accompanied their beloved Princess. More guardsponies did their best to keep the mourning crowds back. For those among them who had expressed doubt and incredulity upon hearing the news, seeing Luna's lifeless body in the flesh only drove home the truth of it even harder than for those who had accepted the facts.

In the gardens of the palace, a similar cleanup job had been performed, doing what could be done to beautify the area, just as a body would be suitably dressed before a funeral. Seating had been provided, and dignitaries were present; the Griffon King, Zebra Chiefs, Prince of Yakyakistan. Lord Admiral Marcos and General Jahn were present, too. Celestia had asked if they would be willing to attend with no expectation of agreement, but the Lord-Admiral had insisted on coming.

Luna's casket was drawn to a halt in front of the seating area, as the crowds of civilians were moved up by the guards to witness the event. Twilight and the Elements, clad in mourning dresses hurriedly sewn by Rarity from whatever scraps she could find about the palace, took their seats. The soldiers and guards who had lined the Boulevard filed in as well, filling up the garden. There were contingents from other cities, too, not just Canterlot, and officers among the dignitaries. Captain Ironside, Grand Admiral Bluewater, other heroes and also-rans of the war, distinguished veterans joining with newborn foals to mourn.

Celestia and Cadence stood at the front, beside Luna, and in the silvery light of the full moon, the Sun Princess began her address.

'My loyal subjects. Honoured and distinguished visitors. My lords, fillies and gentlecolts...' She paused for a moment. Though her voice was a strong and loud as ever, there was an undisguised sadness to it. 'Thank you all for attending this ceremony. This...farewell.' She looked over at Luna, lying so serenely beneath the light of her own moon. 'For you all, this is the first time that you have had to say goodbye to my sister. You are all too young, though I know that almost all of you remember her return and redemption. But for myself, it is a second parting...' She paused again to look skyward at the orb hanging in the sky overhead. 'Luna spent a thousand years up there. Please, I want you all to look at the moon tonight.'

To a pony and to a man, every single creature present turned their eyes to the heavens. For some, it was a duty to obey their Princesses' request. For others, it was a compulsion, and even those who did not follow her felt bound by some immutable desire to look at the moon. It was a cloudless night; the Pegasi had seen to that, at least at the lower altitudes. Higher level cirrus and cirrocumulus had been taken care of by Princess Celestia herself- the formation and movement of weather cells, systems, and winds across the planet were in large part driven by the heat from the sun, which meant they could be manipulated, with surprising precision, by the Princess.

'My sister never broke,' Celestia continued. 'She never wavered and she never lost hope. Even while her body was controlled by evil, her mind remained sharp and clear, and she was determined to return to us. To return to my side, to her rightful place as your Princess. That is exactly what she did. She fought through the hardship, through the loneliness, through the pain and suffering, to do what had to be done, and that is exactly what she did again last week. It is no hyperbole to state the simple facts. The simple truth. My sister saved this city. She saved our brave Element Bearers. She saved me, she saved you. She saved every single one of us. Make no mistake about that, and remember it. Celebrate it, every single day of life you have left, every single day that her sacrifice gave to you. Every evening when you look out of your window, look to the skies, look to the moon, and say a prayer to Luna, Princess of the Night, Princess of the Moon, Keeper of Dreams. Say a prayer to my sister.'

Celestia took a step back. Her voice had quavered during the last few sentences of her speech, and Cadence took over, making her own statement, her own impassioned and loving memorial to the lost Princess. Her voice rang out across the gardens, reaching every corner and every ear, just as Celestia's had. There were many nods of agreement and much sniffling and sobbing, mostly from the civilians but some even coming from among the military ranks. Stoicism could only carry a pony so far.

Cadence finished her speech, and Celestia stepped forward again, leading a prayer to the Moon Princess before speaking again. 'I know that every single one of you have suffered during this time of such grave crisis. I know every single one of you has lost somepony you cared for. You have all lost family. You have all lost friends. Here and now, I want to say that I share your pain. I understand your grief and your emptiness. You have only to look around to see what has been done to us. The damage to this city, to this nation, to this planet, and to each and every one of our souls will never be truly repaired. We can never replace those who have fallen. We can never repay the debt we owe to those who took up arms to defend our beliefs and our culture. They are heroes, and they will be remembered, every single one of them. We will build a memorial to the lost. We will build an entire city, a grand necropolis, within which we will intern every single victim of this global tragedy, lest we forget those who made the ultimate sacrifice. My sister is merely one among many. None of those other heroes received a ceremony like this. Circumstances precluded that. But I want to dedicate this night to every one of them. All of our lost. Those citizens who died, and those serviceponies who died doing their duty. This is for all of them, guardspony, soldier, airpony, sailor, civilian, and for Princess Luna. We will never forget our glorious dead.'

Celestia stepped back again, and bowed her head. Cadence did the same, and everypony else followed suit. The Night Guard stepped up, marching into position to the side of the casket. All thirty of them now carried rifles. Shining Armour trotted to the front of the crowd, standing beside them, a stern expression on his face, but with a twitch pulling at the corner of his mouth. 'Honour Guard! Atten-hut! Present...arms!' he bellowed. The Night Guard snapped into action, coming to attention before holding their guns at the present.

'Ready!' Shining called. They cocked their weapons.

'Aim!' he cried. They pointed their guns to the sky.

'Fire!' he bellowed. A crackle of gunfire rang out across the silent city.

'Ready!'

'Aim!'

'Fire!'

Another volley sent shivers down the spines of those in attendance.

'Ready!'

'Aim!'

'Fire!'

A third and final round of shots rolled across the valley.

Shining and the honour guard stepped back, their job done. Now it was the turn of the army. Taking their cue from the volleys of gunfire, a battery of artillery, stationed above the city on the mountainside, had been waiting for their time. The faint voice of the battery sergeant major could be heard echoing down from the slope above.

'On the occasion of the funeral of Her Royal Highness, Princess Luna, Number One Battery, 10th Regiment, Royal Artillery, will fire twenty one rounds. Prepare to fire twenty-one gun salute!'

'Battery, load!'

'Battery, make ready!'

'Battery, fire!'

Bright flashes burst through the veil of darkness, illuminating the city and followed a moment later by a roar, as the first field gun blazed into brilliant, violent life. Each gun fired in turn, seven in total, until the entire battery had sounded its cry. The crackle of gunfire rang out like a bell across the valley, audible miles from Canterlot, carrying the death knell of a Princess through the air. The seven guns fired again, and then a third time, before falling silent, smoke coiling from their barrels, their tribute paid.

Attention then turned back to the skies. Major Spitfire flew at the head of her Wonderbolts, a phalanx of highly trained ponies racing through the sky, a symbolic gesture of love, a flypast to honour Princess Luna and all of the fallen. They passed over the crowd, drawing gasps and applause from those below, accustomed to such flypasts more in times of joy than of sadness. A minute passed in silence, then another. Ponies began to share glances. Was this the end? Why wasn't Celestia dismissing them? Then a low drone filled the air, rising to a hum, then a shriek, then a roar.

Five Imperial Lightning strike fighters appeared over the city wall, flying above Canterlot, trailing smoke and startling the civilians who were unaware of their participation. Captain Eliss Muran, flying lead, pulled back on the stick as he passed over the palace, and his Lightning climbed away, afterburners glowing like suns in the darkness, leaving the rest of his formation to race onward as he ascended to the heavens like a homesick angel, a symbolic departure usually referred to as a missing man formation, but in this case, missing mare would be more apt. There were more sobs and cries from the assembled ponies as some of them recognised the significance, not just of the act itself, but of the fact that it was being carried out by humans, by Imperial aircraft, by a species that had no prior knowledge of ponykind before they arrived in orbit and had to suffer through the same struggle, to honour the fallen Princess who their own dogmatic Imperial faith tried to convince them should have been exterminated on sight. Clearly, these men and women felt differently. 

As Muran roared into orbit and the rest of his flight disappeared to the south, silence returned to Canterlot. Celestia stepped forward again, her head held high, looking to the sky and the receding glow of Captain Muran's afterburners.

'Goodbye, my sister,' she spoke, tears running down her cheeks. 'Until we meet again, fare thee well...'