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--donation bonus (day #23, post 1/5)--
The ceremony was televised, and there were more people crammed into the basilica than were probably needed, really. An orchestra on standby around both the east and west entrances, a choir in the back, cameras all over the first and second floors, and hundreds of distant relatives from all over the country. The Belgrants, the Carthraces, the Masdens, the Volliers, and many others whom David didn’t care to think about.

In a way, all of these people made it sadder in David’s mind, because he knew that almost no one in the room held any genuine affection for Nathaniel. Even the man’s own wife and son had despised him. Apart from perhaps Charles, Meriwether, and, yes, a small part of himself, this huge confluence of people was merely to keep up appearances, to follow through with familial obligations.

“Here under the Goddess’ divine light do we pray,” said the Master Cleric, a balding man of severely limited stature but with an incongruently large voice that reverberated through the hall. He was a favored speaker at many royal ceremonies, probably due to the sense of gravitas that he could lend a room. “Dear friends and loved ones. Standing before you now, it seems an affront to all my sensibilities that a man so fine as our Prince Nathaniel should be taken from us so long before his time. I would not chide you if your faith in Her will was wavering, if you were beginning to wonder why She would allow such a tragedy to happen.”

David recalled these same words at his father’s funeral, as well. They’d felt just as shallow then, too.

“But let me be the first to remind you, dear brethren, that our beloved prince is now at peace in Her eternal embrace. Mourn, grieve, and shed tears where you must, but remember that he is with Her now, and nothing has truly been lost, for we will all be able to see him again in time.”

David squinted. Nothing quite lightened the mood like a gentle reminder that they were all going to die, as well. He stopped listening and looked over at his brothers.