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After a little bit of an impromptu preparation, we’re all standing around a decent-sized hole in the ground in the Canterlot Cemetery of Heroes, which Celestia said we could bury Nadiya in. Her coffin is off to one side, and Twilight’s putting a blank gravestone into the ground, right in front of the hole.

“What do you want it to say?” she asks, lighting her horn up.

I mull her question over a bit. What’re you supposed to put on the gravestone of somebody you hardly knew?

“Nadiya…” I exhale deeply, thinking. “Can we just leave it blank for now? I don’t really know anything about her.”

“Do you still want the name on there?” Twilight asks.

“Sure, but leave some room for her last name.”

Twilight cuts her name in stone, then stops her magic and steps back. “What do humans do at funerals?” she asks.

“Like I said before, it depends. I guess,” I wipe my eyes, which are starting to form tears. “Anyone who wants to say something can.”

“Can I?” Twilight asks. I step aside and point at the grave, letting her know that she can go.

“Well,” she says nervously, “I didn’t know you, but from what Keerthana told me, you sounded like a great human. I just hope you didn’t suffer.” She steps back and sniffles a bit.

Since nobody else steps up, I go to the edge of the grave and kneel down. “Nadiya, I…I’m sorry. I could have gone and looked for you, but…I didn’t. I just got so wrapped up in getting myself adjusted to this place that I didn’t even think of you for a few months.” A single tear falls from my eye onto the closed coffin lid, almost poetically. “I just hope that nobody else has to lose their life in this cause.”

“Beautiful,” Twilight says. “Does anypony else have anything to say?” They all shake their heads in response.

“I think we’re done now,” I mumble. Twilight levitates the large pile of dirt next to us over the open grave, then gently lowers it. Our exploration party just got one member less, and that means one person less I have in this world.