The light of the Dragon's Throat traveled North on steady hooves, seeking reprieve from her home after the mess that had been the herd meeting. It had never occurred to Onni that the leadership of her mother had been glue holding everyone together with mutual respect. Now, having seen how quickly the ones she lived with jumped to conclusions about the brutish built Gaucho, the shaman had a sickening feeling about her herd mates.

What if she had been unable to communicate in this tongue? What if she had been born far away, crippled by the challenge of learning a new language? Would she too be questioned as a healer? Would it not matter, since she only serves as a needle and thread which sews them up when they get injured? Likely in her position, it mattered little if she could speak or not. All that mattered was that she was gifted with the sunlight. As long as she could pick them up when they fell, she had worth.

Suddenly, the mare shudders. Ultimately, she was in a position ready for replacement. The did not need her, but the Sun Physician. Above, soaring high in the sky, the songbird calls down reassuringly with sharp tones. You needed by me, Onni, healer or no. The shaman smiles to herself, continuing forward.

The grasslands soon become the forest the mare had traveled through to enter Helovia years ago. Then, Onni had not been a healer, quite the opposite, in fact. The tobiano had trained and succeeded as a warrior in Isilme. However, all of the soldiers in the land simply could not fight the evil which had befallen their homes. When they had been forced to retreat, the girl had started anew. The shaman had been hopelessly lost, wandering about in the new world looking for an answer, a cause. Something. When she had stumbled into the Dragon's Throat, that is when it came.

Sunfire, so warm and pure and full of life. The answer she had been looking for did not come from a mortal being, but from the deity of Light and Fire. Maybe it had come because her mind was open, searching selflessly for a cause, but one thing was certain: the life Onni lived now belonged to the God of the Sun. It is true her mother soon captured the Dragon's Throat for her family and friends, but the true loyalties of the painted mare's heart still lay with the Sun God. Maybe that is why she did not leave to search for her mother.
Maybe she should have, after that display back home.

So dreadfully focused on her thoughts, the healer does not feel as the small songbird lands upon her withers. She does not hear as another gets closer in the woods. She does not see the way the shadows dancing with the speckles of light on the ground. Until, of course, she is nearly about to walk into this stranger. Stopping abruptly, hooves sliding further into the loam, the pale-faced shaman blinks open her sky eyes, clearing the smoke from her mind.

"Hello," she says briskly, offering forth a hastily painted smile. The mare before her likely things her a spacey idiot, but the Illuminant is really sort of a spacey idiot in some regards... she just keeps it in control most days. The champagne of the opposite's coat, however, startles memories in her mind. Moth, she thinks, resulting in an inward groan from Lyhty. What had ever happened to Moth?
""

The response was just as noncommittal. Onni is relieved that her absentmindedness does not bother this newcomer, or the girl she assumed was a newcomer. Most who traveled within the Threshold's forests were arriving from elsewhere. The champagne color reminds the shaman of Moth, and fleetingly in her chest the mare hopes that this stranger comes from the Vale of which he spoke. If she had been, it would be an opportunity for the girl to track down an old friend, possibly.

Please - what is this place? A typical question, one that brings an easy smile to her pale features. "You are in Helovia," the painted girl says kindly. "Welcome."

The shaman was hardly an ambassador for the land of Helovia, but this mare seemed like she needed a friendly face. Lost, so very lost, from the drag of her voice to the words they spoke. It would almost be ironic, if the healer knew that the mare was looking for someone in such a state. Even if she could have known, the painted girl has nothing to relate with. Perhaps, she could sympathize with the Illuminant as a child. Onni did spend a whole year searching for the land of Isilme and her mother after the cataclysm. Now, however, the mare might give her advice to stop looking and start living.

Instead, with her lack of knowledge, the healer is left to ponder about the cause of the melancholy aura surrounding the pegasus. "It is no trouble, miss."

"If you need a place to rest, my home is south of here - the Dragon's Throat. I am Onni," chirping from her withers, the songbird demands his own introduction. "And that is Lyhty."
""