onni.</style>

The light reflects off a pale face and soft eyes.

You know I need you, we all do.

The Shaman of the Dragon's Throat has wandered far from home. Slung about her neck, a strange makeshift basket weaved carefully by Lyhty to encapsulate the broken sword of her mentor. At the sound of the voice in her head, it feels heavier. Her heart beats feverishly in her chest, restoring a strange heat to her face in the cool depth of the night. The voice in her head is far from the ancient words of a spirit, but comes through in the spoken voice of her fallen mentor, Voltaic the Samurai. Her eyes grow damp as she steps forward through the crowd, sightless, to stand in attention to the trio of lights which hover near the ocean's shore.

You are life, but you kill too.
Little by little, you can torture the mind.
We can leave our mother, but not you behind.
A simple formula, your creation.
With moonlight, lovers' fascination.

Falling in to stand besides Midas, the healer looks much like she has seen a ghost. Her eyes do not waver from the orbs of light to look at the warrior from her home, and she is hardly aware of his presence at her side to begin with. The voice which calls to her so close to her heart that it wrests the breath from her lungs for a moment, the small songbird upon her shoulder chirping nervously in the absent state of his bonded's mind. The little bird had never met the Samurai, but he knew immediately the dark frame with bright yellow points and even brighter eyes that is drummed up from her memory. How many times had she returned to his figure, like a touchstone for her worries?

A tear falls down her cheek and lands with a soft thud on the sand. The voice of a stallion different from her mentor snaps in her ears, and she turns to look at the one responsible. His golden frame was familiar, and Onni wonders rather noncommittally if this was the "stupid idiot" her mother had said challenged for her rank. She smiles. Even in wake of hearing the voice of the dead, she cannot hold back the natural joy of her spirit. Her mother, Kri, alive and well back in the Throat, would not approve of this mourning so far behind the death of the her mentor. Instead, Onni ignores the foolish boy entirely, looking instead to the dark mare as she speaks.

The shaman has a feeling. Certainly, she is not alone in hearing this riddle played in her mind, though perhaps she is the only one that heard it through the tinted glass of Voltaic's missed voice. These glowing orbs were speaking, or someone was speaking for them.

"They are powerful, certainly," she says, quite matter-of-fact, looking at each orb in turn before settling her eyes upon the orb floating above the ocean. She begins to step forward toward the ocean, past the one hovering above the heads of those gathered, hooves dipping into the foam of the sea, past the light wrapped in vines. She stands at the edge of the ocean, her pale face turned toward the light, a miniature sun, pulsating above the brim of the wave for a moment before taking a deep breath. On her shoulder, the songbird chirps in encouragement, and the shaman of the Dragon's Throat steps into the water, coming to a halt when the waves lap at her underbelly, her blue eyes fixed on the light in the surf.
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