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L A lone-standing crown makes everyone uneasy. That's why in some provinces, a crown must consign itself to the flames of its deceased bearer's funeral pyre in order to prove its loyalty. Any crown refusing to do so is ritually destroyed by the mourners. Though people have been known to include in their wills the controversial clause of coronal manumission, setting their crowns free upon the occasion of their own demise, the prevailing opinion is that a lone-standing crown is a vulnerable crown, and therefore potentially treacherous, even if only by example, so that the kindest and most socially responsible act is to make arrangements ahead of time to take the crown along into the afterlife.

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