The Songs of the Faithful

A soft and cool breeze blew through Calvin's feathers as he sat perched on a small boulder overlooking a peaceful valley. His knees were tucked in close, his arms folded and resting atop them, and his wings spread lazily over the grassy hilltop. It was dark. The moons were dim in the sky, leaving space for the brilliant array of stars overhead.

Fireflies flitted among the grass and in the trees, their small and brief flashes of light hardly noticeable. A chorus of crickets played faintly against the stars. The pensive pauses between their chirps as they anxiously waited for an answer from their fellows. Family members? Potential mates? Warnings of danger? Or maybe just speaking in whispered tones of… …Well whatever crickets talked about.

Calvin found himself humming. He had often listened as the crickets pined to each other when he'd quietly crept up atop the primitive walls of Galingere to gaze at the stars. As a boy, and as a man. Calvin had always craved moments of silence like that. Moments of reflection. He'd always taken the time… to pray.

"🎶 On the morrow when I wake, 🎶" Calvin sang. His voice was low, without being a whisper. It broke the silence, but the fireflies continued their own lazy bobbing in the air, and the crickets didn't so much as pause in their hesitant chirping. He could imagine them singing along. "🎶 I'll fill my lungs and steal away, 🎶"

"🎶 To sweeter pastures in the sun

Beyond the moons, beyond what comes.

When all my hope has fled away,

I stop to listen and to pray.

When all I find is pain and fear

I look ahead to holier years. 🎶"

Calvin tilted back his head and spread out his legs on the cold stone, gazing at the stars.

"To holier years…" He traced a finger in the dirt. The hymns he'd heard growing up had always been special. There was something so calming, just thinking of the words, hearing the music. He didn't always know what to pray, or who to pray to. But hymns… they felt like a prayer in themself.

Calvin sang out the rest of the song, sometimes forgetting the words and having to skip around with humming. He was certain he'd sung it out of order. He definitely didn't start at the beginning. He started on another song, and it got a similar treatment.

He sang for hours, maybe. The time didn't matter to him, it was therapeutic. He imagined his mother singing them to him, or his father. Father had often sung them to sleep. Often having them join in, just like he had them say their prayers. "Worship comes in many different forms." He'd said.

Calvin had clung to that. But all of it had changed when he became a divine spirit. Even when he found out his mother and his aunt's true identities, it had been easy to continue on. But pulling back the curtain, and all the new power. It had started to make him jaded. But now he was back to where he started. Alone. No direct proof of divinities. No visiting the location of an afterlife every day, no divine missions, no carousing with angels. Just a man. That's all he was.

Calvin gazed back up at the endless sky. There was something beyond Edemia. There was Alawyr and Myurit, sure. But beyond them? As a mortal, he'd always believed there was something looking out for him. He'd believed so dearly in the gods. Then he'd met them, and then he'd wondered. Who looks out for them? ...Can they really look out for me? Calvin felt a tear slip down his cheek.

"🎶 When all I find is pain and fear 🎶"

There had to be more. Right?

"🎶 The mother, the guiding light is near. 🎶"

Grandma Lassune. But even she came from somewhere, didn't she?

"🎶 The shining dome of heav'ns ascend

And all the world is put to bed

When gods have closed their eyes to rest 🎶"

Calvin began to choke up.

"🎶 I know, that still, they do their best. 🎶"

Pulling his legs back close against his chest, Calvin cried. The last line coming out in a barely in tune whisper.

"🎶 And I, but still, must do my best. 🎶"