We bring loneliness upon ourselves.

Onni resists the urge to sob at the thought, for he spares none of her feelings in stating the truth. As if he saw through this act of sorrow like a poorly acted ruse, knowing that it is her fault she stands alone on the sands. As much as the Illuminant would pin this crushing feeling on anyone else, the knife being twisted in her heart had been beckoned by her own actions. There is a silent desperation in her stance, a choking breath caught in her throat, the crushing weight of her own actions upon her shoulders. You left them, she thinks. You have no right to be sad. No matter who had left Onni first, she still abandoned what family existed here in Helovia. Left them to rot with the dead.

All of the faces of her friends, the ones she had kept safe for years. The brilliant sun rising over the orange and crimson sands - the sky painted in a myriad of pastel hues before giving way to the ocean of the sky. The lake... the lake which reminded her so much of the Islands where Voltaic had reigned. Every splash of the surface reflecting the bright yellow lining his feathers. The wind, which rushed over the dunes and danced with the dust, forming memories of her mother even in the absence of the Resolute. The clouds which slowly pulled across the horizon playfully reminding her of the feathered, teal toned stallion named Moth. The extraordinary flowers he had lain at her hooves. Then, she had dreamed to know the meaning of love, of family, only to have each leave her.

The solace and warm touch of the sun now lost from her heart, though still radiating from her coat, was the final blow. Without the favor of the God of Fire and Light, what made her special? What would make people seek her, if not the gift of life which she called upon? Onni had nothing to offer - the muscle of her military training gone, her gift of healing thrown away. Alone, so terribly alone.

She had chosen this fate.
Yet, the shrieking in her heart reaches for the Sun, only to find it unresponsive.

Rarely are we as alone as we think.

Turning her pale face toward him, the glistening eyes of sorrow hold a question, unspoken, unable to find the will to ask if Eribor was offering his company in stead of all she had lost. As if he had read the question within her gaze, his muzzle reaches out to briefly touch the tear and dust staied cheek with infinite softness. Blue eyes widen in surprise, as though a statue had been animated to touch her, seeing the emotion softening the edges of the gruff features. The grumpy stallion she had met in the Throat throwing away his reservations, breaking all the walls she had seen that day, in an attempt to comfort her. Lyhty's chirps of protest do not register, for only one thought holds in her mind.

Perhaps, if she could no longer hold the warmth of the Sun, she could find comfort in the steady Earth.

Onni looks to the green emerald of his hoof, her voice soft but warm. "Will you stay for a while, Eribor?" Through thick white lashes, the girl peers up at his face cautiously. "Please?"