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// Burden 
// Story: Book 1 - The Behemoth came to Canterlot 
// by Equimorto 
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"I'm starting to understand something."
"What is it?"
"Why I'm here. Why I'm still here, after everything."
"And why is that?"
"First, let me ask you something. Why do you do what you do? Why do you live on?"
"Because I think it's right, I suppose. Because there are others I want to help. Because, if I go, there are things that someone else will have to do, or they will be left undone. Because if I stay I can do those things, and help others, not just immediately but in the long run too. And, well, I have personal ambitions too of course, but those are... secondary, I suppose. I like success, the fame, personal gratification, but not at the cost of hurting others, and not helping them would count as that. And I have things I want to do. Things in my head that I want out of just there and into the physical world. When I look at my friends, at those I help, at those I make happy with what I do whether that's something big or small, that... It makes me happy. It makes it worth it. All the sleepless nights and tiring days. I can be a bother sometimes, I know that, but I like to think I can have my head straight when things get serious. I'm not always right on that, but I've been trying my best. I'm told I've been getting better. Anyway, yes, back to your question. Making others' lives better betters my own, I guess is my answer."
"That's a fair way to live. Noble, even. Had I seen it sooner I might have seen to that. Of course, I could hardly see at that time, I suppose that's the irony of it. Fate does seem to delight in mocking me, and hardly can I blame it for that. But I did promise you an answer. I'll start a little earlier, forgive my theatrics, let me have some fun. For a while... Oh, I don't think anything of my old life can be confined to just a while, not even a relative while. For a time, I lived only for myself. That was an earlier time, I was younger and more stupid than even the young and stupid self I've grown to loathe. For a time I delighted in the praise. I truly thought all that was said of me was right. Those days came and went, and I won't dwell on those events. Then came a time where I was meant, in my mind, to work on something."
"And what was that?"
"Something better. I belived, at first, the crowning jewel of my display of magnificence. The more I came to look at my life, the more I believed it should instead be something better than myself. Now I'm not even sure of that, or if perhaps I haven't just failed. It's done regardless, still here I am. I've thought to myself long and hard about the reasons for that. Not to atone. That is melodramatic beyond even my limits, and still it is far too kind on myself. Not just to witness, or to narrate. That is someone else's role, for sure I know that. I am here to make something of myself. I don't know what, I don't know when. I have been given a life, and I am to shape it. For once it won't be anyone else's. Maybe that will mean I will be kind to it."