Cards of Finality

by SwordTune

Chapter Faith

Faith

Do you think you have faith?

"It's something I can't explain," Caller Weaver once said to Hammer Heart. "I don't know why you were chosen by harmony, but I have to believe you were."

"I doubt it," she replied abrasively, though in his memoirs Caller Weaver liked to believe she was much less harsh with her judgement. If I could find the writings of Hammer Heart herself, you'd see that wasn't the case.

But one thing was true between their two writings. Hammer was the source of his doubt, but also the reason he believed in his Harmony. Why would some pony who never even tried prayer or meditation be a tool for harmony?

"I went up there to get you because I'm your friend, damn it." If she could hate one thing about Caller Weaver, it was his insistence that she was a piece of harmony. "I did that, me, not some all-seeing, all-knowing, magical fart in the wind."

But never, not once, did he flinch at her criticism. Because it was true. He doubted something commanded her, but it was her own will that made harmony so strong in his mind.

She acted on her own yet it was what harmony wanted, needed. But that's exactly what I think it is. Harmony simply is, it's simply being. All its pieces is simply being. Everything was meant to be.

Those were his words, written on a scrap of paper to himself while he pondered what to pen into his texts. Knowing whatever he wrote could very well be taken as law among some of the most devout, he was careful; but he wanted to write it in and tell the truth about her role in harmony.

That scrap of paper was cleaned up and thrown away by a servant later in the evening. It never made it into his books, or his scrolls.

Over time, Caller Weaver changed. He meditated less, talked to his acolytes less. He was still revered in his life and long after, but he deemed his involvement unnecessary. If harmony was the act of being, he reasoned, then he would be happy in every way possible and sample all that harmony had to give.

"Caller Weaver, why have you not meditated for two weeks?" asked a follower one day when the sun was shinning and the cool air blew through and nipped at the skin.

That day, he had promised to treat Hammer Heart to lunch on a hill at the edge of the city that overlooked the rolling grasslands around them.

"Have I ever told you about my pilgrimage to the mountain north of here?" he asked the follower, who was young and had only heard whispers from the elder followers. So, of course, the young one shook is head.

"Then let's just say I wouldn't be talking to you without my friend here. For me, spending time with her is as holy as any session of meditation."

Hammer Heart let him speak of her like that even if she disagreed with it. She didn't mind because she was celebrating a special day, and the anticipation of surprising Caller Weaver put her in too good of a mood.

She found it funny that day, and almost every day since. Weaver was young, or so he claimed, but she was younger, yet she started a family with love while he had just his faithful. Who were great, but no family.

I asked him to bless my marriage with Jewel Smith. Sometimes I wish harmony was some kind of deity, because I would pray to it to send me back in time to see his face all over again.

I have to admit the shock was funny, but it brought a different joy for Caller Weaver. His friend, who just reached adulthood when they met, was now entering another stage in her life. She make new bonds, and strengthened old ones.

Life sang with her, and she sang with life, like a flute and the player together as one, composing new songs with improvisation and picking every accidental beat and note and running with it because if she was a song then life was a performance and it was impossible to turn back when you're on the stage.

I will forever consider my greatest accomplishment to be my role in their wedding. Hammer Heart, my old friend, and Jewel, a new friend, have allowed me to live free. Before their weddings, sometimes I would still hear the voice, in my sleep, or idle moments in meditation. It was rare, so few and far between that I could even tell myself I did not hear voices and believe it even though it would ultimately be untrue. This following of mine may be based on my insanity, but by coincidence or will of some higher power, I think it has stumbled across some truth of the world.

Indeed he found his harmony. For the years following that wedding day, his temple became temples and many followers spread their faith and his words through good deeds and charity. It was their will to change the world for the better because they knew it would take action to have an impact. It was the only way to enact harmony's will, by acting on their own.

And throughout those years he became close to Jewel Smith, and closer still to Hammer Heart. He was the godfather of their children, two daughters and sons; despite Jewel's indifferent attitude and permission, he still followed Hammer's wishes and refrained from teaching her children his faith.

Only one joined the temple, and it was his choice entirely.

Not all days are good for him though. He's questioning himself more than ever, or maybe that's just the look of some pony accepting reality. I don't know, I never looked at myself when I saw it.

I don't think she accepted it herself until the moment her lung infection took her, but it's what she wanted others to believe, and what she wanted herself to believe. But sometimes what we see and believe just aren't true.

Caller Weaver wrote that Jewel asked, begged even, for him to pray for her health.

"You might as well," he had told Caller Weaver. "It's not going to do any harm."

I won't, no, I can't. It wouldn't be harmless. Again and again Hammer Heart insists I do nothing, and I understand. It would undermine everything she stood for, wouldn't it? Oh, I wish I'd hear some voice in my head, real or not, just for the chance it might say something to help me think this through. Anything, please. Just say anything.

This was his harmony. He met with her every day, more often than he attended his own temple, and more often than Jewel Smith.

"He might not like it when I'm gone," she told him, three days before her passing. "He doesn't like or dislike your faith, but he's never been good with handling his feelings. He'll take it out on you, and blame you for not praying."

"I hate to say it, but perhaps it would be better for every pony if we just did one meditation session." The hospital near the crystal palace felt colder as he said those words. It was a chill that bore deep through his flesh and into his bones until many years later.

"Better for him, maybe," she said calmly, though I'm not sure how she felt inside, "and perhaps better for my friends and yours. But they have ample time to make things better for themselves. Selfish or not, I won't die struggling to appease others. I'm all I need to please."

Three days later Hammer Heart's lung infection killed her. Mucus and fluid had built up in her lungs, and already a week before her death she suffered bouts of torrential coughing, blood and pain included. It was not an easy or unjust death.

The funeral was held quickly after; sadly a sarcophagus had been prepared by the temple, which was something Hammer Heart did agree on. She would not be buried as a saint no matter what others thought. She was buried as a friend. As family.

I went back. That mountain we climbed. And I stood on the edge again just like I did so many years ago. I turned back, and started thinking.

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I turned back, and started thinking. I saw her there standing strong like the climb was nothing. I closed my eyes and I saw myself, thinking about all the things I only truly understand now. She was being a friend; all harmony is is being.

What does it mean? She saved me and now she's dead. Why are we being? I revered you, Harmony. You opened my eyes to a wonderful world where life was meant to live by the forces of your nature. I was happy in accepting the world and all its changes. And now you've taken it away.

What is it that you want? There is no path to joy and peace with you as the guide. You, who built a following through me using her. You, who answered the simple question of how we should live our lives. Now torn asunder, the flesh of faith rend as a wolf would its prey. We were united -I was united- under you, Harmony.

But who ever said unity was what Harmony wants?

If that's not what it wants then why follow it then? It would take time to bring the truth to the others, but that effort is preferable to letting generations believe they have found solace in harmony.

You were certain that your faith was the truth?

Yes.

The absolute truth?

Hammer Heart gave me every reason to love harmony and the unity it brought me. Ponies live lives envisioning only one outcome, fixated on a course they have no power over. I thought true happiness could be found in accepting that and living with it.

Standing on the mountain and feeling the winds crawl into my jacket, I saw it coming. On the world's edge everything seemed to collapse, encapsulating the land in a monstrous tide. Black, fury, frozen. A city of ten thousand crystal ponies cowered below, hiding behind magic and finding every distraction they could possibly have just to call themselves fine. Nothing was wrong around them, the city was all that there was.

What could they do against the mountains of snow sprinting in the winds; wendigos on the plain scoured for the damned. The storm ate them all the same as everything, only it swallowed them whole and not one by one.

You were certain of your belief then. Can you act now, without doubt?

So many found safety in temples, for reason even I do not know. They trusted me, and I trusted the world, but I didn't know the world enough. I've witness the end of life, what more is there to see?

The life after death.

After. There's the rub. Why did she opt to suffer? Would it be so preferable to suffer the stings of life than to take up arms against the troubles and by opposing them, end it? To die, a sleep. Would there come a nightmare, or dream, if anything was to come at all?

For who would bear the whips and scorns of Harmony's change -the pangs of love and love lost- and suffer the sweat and burdens of a weary life, but that it seemed a paradise against an unknown land where no tourist can truly speak of?

Did she, was it, fear? Fear of the void clouds looming around the city of life, ready to swallow you whole? Or was life as sweet for her as it was for me once, and rather she relished living than feared death. The next day, and the next, was all she wanted. So, then, is that for me?

Live a life a day, and I might change. I would subject myself to change and be swept up by Harmony like all the others. The temples might stand. They might teach what I have said, and trust blindly in the words not the life. And perchance, they find their life fits snug. I cannot know anything anymore.

That, just may be the only truth.