The Return

The Return is the twelfth short story in Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe. Written by Kevin Grace, this story follows a Sangheili Shipmaster as he travels back to the Human colony world Kholo. This story takes place after the events of Halo 3 and Halo 4, in which the Sangheili are no longer serving the San'Shyuum.
==Plot==
Set six years after the end of the Human-Covenant war, a Sangheili Shipmaster returns to the glassed colony of Kholo in order to find forgiveness for his sins. He ventures lonely through the remains of the colony, occasionally remembering the glorious days of when he interrogated a human pilot and glassed the colony, as well as the sadder days of the Covenant Civil War.Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, The Return
He experiences flashbacks where he showed his loyalty to the Prophet of Conviction by glassing Kholo. During the process, the Shipmaster marked the Covenant glyph representing "faith" on the surface of the planet.Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, pages 493-497
Years later, when the Jiralhanae betrayed the Sangheili over High Charity, the Shipmaster confronted the ever-ready Conviction, and successfully disarmed him. The Shipmaster exposed the Prophet's deception, seeing the Prophet was fearful and reasoning a servant of the gods should not be fearful, then killed him in front of his crew.Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, pages 501-505
In the present timeframe, after several days of searching, he discovers Kig-Yar pirates fighting humans.Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, page 509 After killing the Kig-yar he finds a lone human survivor. Realizing the survivor would soon be dead, the Shipmaster leaves him and continues looking around the base.Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, page 511 Soon, he finds photos of humans pestering with Forerunner technology, including a Monitor.While the short story merely indicates that the humans had unearthed Forerunner artifacts, the motion comic reveals that one of the "artifacts" was, in fact, a Monitor. Realizing this could be what he was looking for, he returns to the human survivor and calls for help to aid the human, in order to interrogate him and find more information on the Forerunners; his faith rekindled as the scene ends.Halo: Evolutions - Essential Tales of the Halo Universe, page 514
==Characters==
*Prophet of Conviction
*Prophet of Truth
*Thel 'Vadam
*Unnamed Sangheili Shipmaster
==Trivia==
*The Return follows a unique writing style in which as the Shipmaster recalls past experiences, the text turns to italics to indicate a shift to a previous time period.
*The Return was adapted into a motion comic series, in the same vein as Midnight in the Heart of Midlothian, with Part One released on April 3, 2010 and ended on April 24, 2010.Halo Waypoint Schedule
==Notes==
==Sources==
Category:Canon
Category:Halo: Evolutions
Category:Short Stories