In Times of Prayer
By Kay
Author's Notes: This was the hardest to write, because I don't understand April well at all. I'm not even remotely Christian. But I hope the sentiment is there, at least. :)
April still prays to God every night, but sometimes it's an afterthought.
It's hard. There is no one in Everworld that believes, not a soul that can speak a psalm or the pieces of the Bible, and she had never thought to memorize it all. The stories fade a bit in her mind, until the point where she dares to go to Jalil in the early hours of the morning, voice hoarse from crying, to beg he copy what the four of the Old World children-- though not children anymore-- could remember of it.
She expected him to refuse. But Jalil's dark eyes passed over his face only once, grave, and then he nodded. They can all read the desperation, the edge, that lingers in them all.
She tries to teach some of the children in the villages they find, but these boys and girls with their ratty hair and dull eyes can't see past what is in front of them, only have a gaze for the gods they know exist because they rule over them everyday. No one cares to hear the teachings of an invisible, abandoned god.
Sometimes April wonders why she does it. Why she kneels on hard floors and prays, why she still reads from their makeshift Bible (only half the size of what she recalls, and it makes April cry), why she still preaches and still believes, sharp and fierce and full of the dangerous quality of hope, that this is more than a book of stories. She asks for ponies in her prayers. A good song to slip back into her memory. The rain they miss in the autumn. David's life. Christopher's love. Jalil's peace.
Most of all, April prays for her faith. In the war, in the days that follow, in David's reign and their consequent fall that it will remain strong in the face of adversity. It's funny in an unfunny sort of way that April is more pious than she'd ever been in the Old World. Now, when she holds a sword, she prays. When she goes to sleep at night, she prays. When she sees something beautiful, she prays.
April does not die for her faith. But she suffers for it, and exalts in it, and in the end she finds her strength born with each sunrise.
End