A tear rolled slowly down her face. Another followed it, and another, but Gilda raised no claw to wipe them away. She held her regal poise, looking into the distance, awaiting the sun’s slow rise. And when it at last shone its light upon the world… she would sing.
She wanted to look away, to gaze instead at the one lying beside her, lifeless… yet serene, happy. But she would not break millenia-old griffon customs for mere discomfort. She would not dishonour the one she loved so easily.
At last, the bright orb of the sky began to edge over the surface, reminding her of Fluttershy’s love of the dawn and all its wonders. Oh, how Fluttershy would sing, so full of life and joy… and now she would be sung over, as she was returned to the earth.
As she imagined laying the beautiful pegasus in the dirt and covering her again, Gilda shook and had to swallow back a gasp of pain. She would never love again; not for griffon traditions, but because there was simply no other like Fluttershy. No other being in Equestria - pony, griffon, or anything else - would she ever love as she had that beautiful, beautiful…
She praised all the gods that the sun had wholly risen when she broke down, falling to her side and covering her beak with both claws. She curled up beside Fluttershy’s body and sobbed - reached out to brush her pink mane out of her eyes, as she had done so often in the years before… only this time, her eyes weren’t full of kindness, gleaming with love for everything there was. This time, they were closed, never to open again.
She cried for a long time. And finally, as the sun shone brightly upon them, her cries turned into something else. Slowly, a melody began to form, and wracked less and less by her mourning, it began to grow. As she sang, Gilda thought of her life with Fluttershy; memories, glad and sad, melded together in perfect harmony and presented themselves to her. Their love had transcended mere words, and so, wordlessly, she sang of everything they were, everything they had been together.
Gilda sang of her frustration at finding that a little yellow pegasus was destined to be the love of her life; she sang of her joy in finding that she didn’t care. She sang of everything she grew to love about Fluttershy, and she sang of how proud she was, to have shared everything with her.
At last, singing of the long wait ahead of her, until they could meet again, Gilda lowered Fluttershy’s body into the open grave awaiting her, returning her to the earth which she had loved so much.
And though she would soon stop singing, she knew that the song was a part of her now, and would be until she breathed her last.