Indifferent Savior

Nissa's tired mind was rapidly asking questions, trying to make sense of her situation and failing every time to reach an answer. It also didn't help that Fenrir, the talking wolf, was a chatterbox. Did she know the other wolves were his cousins? Did she know he was the most elegant among them? Did she know that he was able to help power her spells instead of wasting her own energy? ... Wait a second, that's actually pretty useful to know.

"Would you be able to assist the healers?" She asked him. Not only would it lessen the strain on the weary medics, but would also, hopefully, tire the wolf from his excessive one-sided conversations.

"Mmm... Only if you are there Lady. Boss instructed me to stay close to the Leader of this ...." He paused as his eyes shifted back and forth between the men close by before finishing "... Army."

Nissa could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, but in truth her army was a shadow of its former self. Ten thousand spears, with three thousand Binders from every type, and now barely a thousand combined. Well, she knew where she needed to be then; not here in the Command tent, but among her injured soldiers.

She turned to speak to her cousin, Wynfir. He was still dressed in armor from the freshly ended battle, minus his plated helm that showed his steady blue eyes amidst a mop of black hair.

"I'm heading to the healers, see to the troops while I am gone Wynfir." His armored first rapped against his breastplate as he saluted and replied "My charge it shall be until your return, Guardian Nissa." A small smile graced her face. Despite their situation, Wynfir would never fail to respect the old ways. Nissa then moved towards the entrance of the tent, leaving the following conversation with her advisors, and commanders, to her cousin.

'Wynfir would do what was needed, he always did.'

"On our way finally? Good, never liked tents. Especially ones made of leather. Did you know..." She let lose a soft sigh as the wolf started a tangent about his dislike of tents, and armor, that use wolf leather. Ever since his introduction, he would constantly be chatting about something he knew or commenting on something he saw.

As Nissa walked towards the muffled sounds of pain and healing, her mind began to slow down and she realized the level of her fatigue. Her own cuts and bruises were of course healed by herself, but a deep weariness was just waiting for her to stop before sending her into a long dreamless sleep.

Her eyes flickered towards the singular movement at the wall some hundred meters away; their savior who was walking the length of the wall while occasionally stopping and etching something into the earth with one of his swords before continuing. Everyone was wondering who he was and what he was doing, and Nissa was no exception.

He said that Galea sent him to save them, but she couldn't ignore a small seed of doubt that asked to what lengths he would go to help them. A doubt whose foundations reached back to the beginning of her second life.

When Galea brought her back from her first death, she blessed Nissa with her own personal Binding of War. In her world, magic could grow in two ways bound or unbound. Unbound, it would grow to mirror its user. A calm peaceful disposition was more inclined towards the healing arts, a battle maniac would find their magic shift towards combat magics. Bound made the users magic shape into the direction they wished to go. Over time they discovered those who gained deep insight to their unbound magic were able to imprint that magical path into special objects that were in turn used to help bind others to the same path. These paths were called Bindings.

In Nissa's first life, she followed the steps of her fore bearers and chose the Binding of Knighthood. It served her well during the start of the conflict, but when the scope of the war engulfed her entire world; its value quickly plummeted.

This new Binding was truly a Divine gift. The Binding of War was not new, there had been others who were insightful to its magic and uses, but these were mortal views. Galea's Binding was a Gods understand of War. It boosted her magic in personal combat, in large area combat, in supportive battle magics, and even emotional magic. Nissa had begun to tap into the knowledge and techniques at only the surface level with great results that spoke for themselves. Without Galea's Binding, she would not have been able to do as much as she had done.

Her Emotional Magic was an interesting ability to sense others emotions and to a degree influence them like a rallying shout or a cry of fury.

It was this magical sense that had raised her concerns. When the man spoke to her, he felt apathetic towards everything. There were other emotions she could tell, but they were so small they were barely noticeable especially during her tired state of mind.

'Why would the Goddess send someone like him?' That was the real question she wanted answered coming firmly ahead of 'Who was he?'.

The weary guard gave her a solid salute as she moved past him and finally entered into the grounds where her troops were either hopefully being treated, dying, or worse dead. Leaning her spear down next to the poor lad, whose hand tightly gripped the bleeding stump of his missing arm, she muttered to herself.

"Time to get to work."

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Her eyes fluttered open and noticed the waning light of day from the flap of her own tent. How did she get here? Recalling her most recent memories did Nissa uncover that small mystery. She remembered mending the shredded insides of a soldier's stomach; then as she attempted to stand up her vision flickered before it went to black.

'Looks like I fainted.' She mussed.

Nissa's hand then felt the smooth leather grip of her favorite weapon. 'Good, at least I don' t have to go looking for it.' Letting loose a sigh of comfort, she began to push herself up and noticed the familiar grey fur of her talkative yet now silent companion who was looking at her.

"You did good work there Lady." He told her as silence quickly returned to the tent. She looked at him 'That's it? Huh, guess I did tire him out.'

"Thank you. How long was I out?" Nissa asked as she reached out towards her gear in attempt to dress herself before going out. Seeing her efforts, Fenrir placed his head on his paws and answered "Not too long, about two days. Almost three, night is almost here."

'Two days?!' That paused her. So much could happen in an hour let alone two days! Her movements began to become frantic as she quickly tightened her boots and moved onto her chain mail. Her worry escalated to another level as she thought of her Savior's instructions to meet him promptly.

Fenrir began to chuckle as he saw her ever increasing anxiety and as she turned to him with a scowl he responded "Hehehe... Calm down Lady. Nothing bad has happened, and don't worry about the Boss. After I informed him about the situation around your camp and you being... indisposed, he instructed me for you to begin your efforts to reestablish your army and also to look after your people for the next few days. He will drop by when he's done, and in the mean time; I am to be your connection from him to you."

Although his message did stop her rising levels of panic, it made her ask "What's he doing?" Fenrir shrugged indifferently as he replied "He's making sure there are no enemy survivors. Best to keep them blind to his movements as long as possible."

That calmed her, at least she wasn't offending him with her actions and the battle lines would be pushed back enough to give them some breathing room, but what he said next caused her to frown again.

"Oh! And he rebuilt your walls for you. Handy piece of magic that. Did you know... "

'He rebuilt their walls?!' She exclaimed in her mind.

Dropping the coils of chain mail into a pile, Nissa quickly exited her tent and gazed at the newly rebuilt walls. The ruins were replaced with grey colored battlements reaching double their previous height. Curiously the wall was devoid of any tower, and the entire structure was of one solid piece which, she assumed from its color and texture, was granite!

'Handy indeed, but there wasn't any gate. How were we supposed to get out?' She then had another strange thought.

'Did he not want them to get out?'