Empathy is a good thing. The ability to put yourself in another's shoes, to imagine what they must feel in a given position...it is a useful skill, one that the whole of the world could do to possess. If more people could attempt to understand what those around them feel and experience, if more people could recognize that, no matter how different, culturally, physically, and mentally one person is from the other, they are all feeling, emotional entities with the same basic desires, fears and dreams...if more people could do that, the world would probably be a better place for it. There would probably be less wars, fewer arguments, and fewer divisions, because instead of just whipping out a sword when a conflict came up, people would attempt to view the issue from all angles and work it out that way. After all, sometimes, a whole war could be the result of a simple misunderstanding or cultural difference.
Yet, Jeya's problem was not due to too little empathy, but way too much of it.
Laying in bed with a pillow over his head, Jeya had his eyes clenched shut as he attempted to will away the headache that had spawned. He'd been dismissed from class early today after...a lesson in magic gone wrong. Knowing that his main weakness was his ability as an Empath, one of his instructors had been working with him to set up a block that would at least shield him from the constant bombardment of foreign emotions. Indeed, while being an Empath was also a great strength, it was the fact that he couldn't yet control the ability that was problematic. He picked up on the emotions of anyone that was nearby, and while for the most part he was used to the constant swirl and hum of feelings, and had learned to differentiate between what he was feeling and what someone else felt, and while this meant he could, under normal circumstances, ignore the other emotions...some instances could be hell on him.
He dreaded crowds. A few people at a time could be dealt with, but a swarm of people could be downright intolerable and overwhelming. And give him a killer headache. Or make him sick to his stomach or just plain depressed if the people around him were feeling all weepy or stressed. It was a real mood killer at times.
So, that was what he needed to work on. A lot. He needed to learn how to filter the emotions of other people, and then learn how to identify which emotion belonged to who. Right now, he could do neither. Well, sometimes he could identify individual emotions if only a few people were around him...
Most of the time, he tried to ignore the emotions, though. It always felt like he was invading their privacy, and sometimes, he didn't like what he felt.
In any case, today the instructor, a fellow Empath though obviously far more advanced in her ability than he was, had tried to help him set up a block and, of course, after setting it up, they had to test it out. Bad idea. Jeya sucked at holding the block, and the wave of emotions she lashed out at him with crippled him. She'd chosen a dizzying medley of emotions ranging from insanely happy to suicidally depressed and everything in between. Not a fun combination.
He had to be helped back to his room by a fellow student, head reeling, temples pounding and nausea threatening to solidify into something even less pleasant.
And, that's where he'd been for the last hour and a half, waiting for his senses to return and the ickiness to die down. Thank goodness it was starting to ebb now.
It was a good twenty minutes more before he could finally lower the pillow away from his face and sit up, still a little woozy, but one hell of a lot better than he had been. But what was worse was the embarrassment. Even at seventeen he was praised for the skill he displayed during spars, for he seemed a natural when it came to handling a weapon. And yet, a simple, invisible attack, a strong surge of emotion, could turn his world upside-down and disorient him--or, in this particular demonstration, send him spasming on the ground like an epileptic.
In fact, he'd been the poster child for what not to do and what could happen if you lowered your guard. There were other Empaths in the class, but they seemed to have no problem whatsoever with erecting a mental block and keeping their emotions safe and separate. It just came naturally.
His ability was simply too strong. He didn't know how to control it, and it was a source of constant frustration for his professor. And himself.
He could weild a sword and hit a moving target dead-on with an arrow, but what good were any of those skills if it came down to actually using them in a real battle? He'd be useless as a soldier. He'd be crippled by his opponents fear, stress, hatred, exhileration...or any combination of them. And in a battle...those emotions would be multiplied by the hundreds. Emotions ran strong when lives were on the line.
Scooting slowly to the edge of the bed, sweat-dampened, red-streaked black hair hanging dully in his scarlet eyes, Jeya sighed and rubbed along his forehead. He'd get it...eventually.
He had to.
