//------------------------------//
// Above 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
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"Do you know what it's like to feel what someone else is feeling? Really feel it? I doubt you do. Not the same way I do. Not in the same physical, visceral way I do. You can imagine it. You can empathise, and if you've felt or are feeling something similar then you can understand to a pretty good degree what's going through someone else's head, but it's not the same thing. I can feel it. All of it. It's my burden and my glory. Every sensation, every shiver of emotion of someone's heart and mind, I can sense it on myself like it was my own. I can swim through someone else's feelings and breathe them in.
"And when I stand up here? When I look down from this balcony at the city below? I can feel all of it. Everyone's hearts. If I stand in silence and listen, I can feel it all pour up over me like a river. I'm not allowed to drown in it. Even if I wanted to I don't think I could. I can just see all of it. Feel all of it. Dozens, hundreds, thousands of different tunes, different voices, different worlds, all at once stacked on top of each other yet equally clear. It's not like sound, it's not even like music, but it's not a cacophony. Everything is clear, separate, distinct. It just is. All at once, and I take it all in. Because that's what I do. This is who I am.
"When I close my eyes, I can still see it all. I can still hear it all. Be through it all, and let it all be through me. It's a lot. Believe, it's more than you could imagine. You aren't built to withstand something like that, but I am. Most cannot even stand the full depths of their own heart. They break down when they get there. I have to take it all, for everyone, together. And I just do it. I don't know, honestly, if it's wearing me thin. I understand the absurdity of it, the immense weight of what I'm going through, but it doesn't touch me. I don't feel it.
"Or, maybe that's not the best way to put it. Because I do feel it. I very much do feel all of it. I'm not a passive observer, no, and it's not just a spectacle for me to watch. It is, very much, like a river. I have to be in it. Let it seep through the cracks of my mind. Sometimes, some rare times, I find something that truly hurts even me. Something that hits in those spots where I can be hurt, or something that, rarely, can disturb even me. Not all hearts are as pure and pretty as we'd like to believe, but I still have to see to them all the same.
"What right have I to see so much? I've wondered it myself. Truth is I don't know the answer, but fate put me here. I cannot ignore my calling to it. I try to do good by it, I try to be worthy of the privilege I've been given. That's the least and the best I can do, and I will keep doing it. I can only hope that it will be enough."