onni.</style>

Always.

The sun-kissed healer smiles contentedly, perhaps for the first time in months, as her old friend as he welcomes her with open wings. The worry in her heart ceasing almost immediately, the wracking, terrified pounding halting as she eases into the thought that... she is home. After months of seeking the trails of a mare destined to never return, Onni had come home. Her pale eyes scan the crowd for a moment, seeing no sign of Midas. Worry grows in her brow for a brief moment before the hushed sound of her own name perks here attention.

The voice is familiar, yet different than she ever imagined. Her pale face turns to look directly into expectant, dumbfounded emerald eyes. The golden boy she had not seen in over a year - Cera. His body now grown, towering over her own form now. "Hello, Cera. You have grown in my absence," she says quietly, a smile forming on her face once more before soliciting further information. "Is your father well?" a whisper, not wanting to speak over the newly crowned Sultan. Still, the need to ascertain her old friend was well overrode the hesitations she would otherwise have felt.

Within a few brief moments, a great hush fell over Onni's soul. The fires of the Seer begin to rage, and, filled with childish hope, the Illuminant's eyes dart to face the inferno. Heart still within her chest, breath captured within her lungs, every fiber of her being stands upon point as the golden image of the Sun emerges. A peaceful smile radiates from her face as she breathes outward, head immediately kneeling forward in respect to his appearance. After leaving the sands of the Dragon's Throat for so long, she had much to make up for. To earn the respect of the Sun God once more, she would need to watch her actions carefully.

The eloquence with which he speaks delights Onni, but the contents of his words are troubling. Darkness... it would never stave from Helovia for long. Glancing toward Sohalia, expecting her to take up the majority of the speech, the Illuminant is surprised to hear Gaucho's deep voice rumbling with a semblance of normal prosody. The mare remembers a time when he had struggled with many simple phrases... names, her own included. Another reminder of how long she had been gone. His words bring her eyes to fall upon Ampere, a black mare glazed with black that she vaguely remembered seeing... somewhere. Her features were familiar, but perhaps more alarming was the yellow feather tucked within her mane.
Voltaic, she thinks briefly, pausing to stare perhaps a bit longer than needed. The weight of the small pouch containing the fragmented katana suddenly felt under her wing.
Surely, the feather could not belong to her fallen mentor. Could it?

Sohalia breathes hope into the herd with her words of strength, and Onni's attention is refocused. Onni's eyes fall toward the ground, having little to offer to this Academy. Not particularly wise, not particularly schooled in magic, and only formerly familiar with the arts of war. Even now, after all of these years, the only thing she could do was serve as a vessel for the light of the Sun. Why had she thought it wise to ever leave this place?