It was that one ray of sunshine, that peaked through the canopy above her group, which dragged Nissa from her dreams into reality. She habitually spread out her senses and found little change from when she went to bed last night; the twins, Anna and Gareth, were still asleep in their bedrolls, Fenrir was doing his due diligence as her back warmer, and Halvor...
She sighed 'Halvor is still sitting in the same place he was when they stopped.' Cracking open her eye lids, she confirmed what her magical senses told her that was Halvor unmoved. In fact, if it weren't for the slow and steady rising of his chest you'd think he was a life-like statue.
A brief stretch inside of her bedding enabled the blood to get flowing once more, and then she pushed herself upright and began to quietly put on her nearby armour. While Nissa did this, she occasionally threw a glance at Halvor while thinking about last night. When they stopped for the evening, he told the group in his usual conversational tone that he would be taking the night shift; then promptly assumed the position he was currently in. Even when Gareth cooked some freshly caught wildlife and offered Halvor some, he didn't move. As the night came in, the twins went to bed leaving Nissa and Fenrir alone as she struggled to decide to keep watch with Halvor or go to sleep and let him "take the night shift".
'To be honest, it was kinda awkward.' Nissa thought before a quiet voice from behind interrupted her thoughts.
"Thats how he sleeps you know." Turning her head, she looked at Fenrir who was gazing at Halvor.
"I imagine its different than the regular sleeping else I'm going to start guard shifts." She responded hoping to understand before her paranoia could act up.
The sounds of early morning in the forest were all that she heard in reply as Fenrir went silent. Nissa waited, hoping he would respond, but after a minute or so she gave up and was turning back to buckle the remaining straps of her chest plate when he hesitantly spoke.
"...Its a sort of trance, he's aware of anything that moves in this area, but it allows his body to rest. Though not deeply enough to induce dreams... or nightmares."
His last two words were barely audible as he broke his gaze from his boss and rested his head on his silvery paws once more. Nissa quietly started again on the buckle as she digested Fenrirs words. 'I wonder what drove him to use that method... Is that why he always declined quarters we offered him?' Her thoughts faded back into the recesses of her mind as she finished equipping herself and moved to start breakfast.
'Cold cheese and dried fruits sounds alright...'
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It wasn't long before Anna woke up and shook her brother awake, resulting in him harmlessly cursing her in return. Anna turned to her own armour ignoring his crass words, and Nissa smiled as she heard Gareth mumble underneath his breath "Oh, I'm gonna get you...". She had known the twins for a while now, they became acquainted during her recruitment for the initial campaign for Dawns Hope. Ever since then, they stuck by her side, as comrades in arms, to bodyguards, and now steadfast friends.
Although the revelation of their heritage of being Khazji was shocking, to say the least, she trusted them, and was grateful for their willingness to guide the group to their Exarch. Apparently an Exarch in the Khazji community is the leader of their people in this world. Anna had explained it to her before they separated for sleep last night, but not before Nissa extracted a promise from Anna to share more knowledge about her people with her.
The group finished their breakfast in a short manner and prepared themselves for travel once more. It was at that moment that Halvor finally moved from his seated position, as if sitting for that long had no affect on him, and summoned their wolf mounts. Three silver wolves the size of a horses, shimmered into existence whom promptly trotted to their allocated people for the coming day.
Nissa however turned to Fenrir who grew to a similar size and, after readying herself, jumped up onto his back. She remembered yesterday when he pulled that trick out but not before prefacing it with a "Did you know I can do that too?" A small smile grew on her face as she leaned into Fenrir's back while he began to moved towards the rest of the group.
There wasn't many words exchanged, a nod from Halvor towards Anna and Gareth, and then Gareth guiding his canine mount to the front to lead for the day. Gareth then looked to Nissa in confirmation to go, which after a brief look at each of the party members, she gave with a nod of her own.
'I hope I'm not picking up on Halvors habit of non-communication...' Nissa realized as the group started at a moderate pace in the direction of the Jungle of Mor.
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When the moderate pace dropped back down to a trot, Nissa sat back and pulled out her map as she attempted to place their location. Anna said their home was in the Jungles of Mor which was directly south of her country yet separated by an ocean. The route that Halvor chose to get them there was to portal them to their south western border with Stylia, then hug the coast as they pass through Stylia and exit through their eastern border and entered the Jungle or Mor.
In all it looked to be a good pair of weeks to get to the jungle and a week more to find the Exarch. The unspoken fear was that the Emer had gotten there before them, and this caused their group to slow down only when needed for their mounts to rest.
Her finger trailed across the leather parchment until it stopped near an indicated landmark which she had spotted an hour earlier, they had crossed a bridge that spanned a major river which separated the temperate regions of Stylia from the supposedly uninhabited Jungle of Mor.
'We've made good progress. With this pace we'll be able to...' Nissa's thoughts were rudely cut off as she felt a wave of magic pass over her. It didn't harm her, but her Binding recognized it as a type of heavy non-detection ward.
It only took her a second to pass through the ward, and what she saw on the other side immediately made her snap her spear forward and pierce the un-shielded head of an Emer Berserker. Her gaze quickly surveyed the discovered surroundings and found a decent force of roughly a hundred Emer hastily gathering themselves to attack her group.
'A hundred on five, great...' Nissa thought as she called upon her Binding's magics which manifested spears of ethereal light. Then with her own battle shout, she dashed forward atop Fenrir into the disoriented group and sent a volley of her magical spears into the gathering enemy ranks.
Anna and Gareth were only a step behind her as they followed her charge. Nissa couldn't make time to look for Halvor but was confident that he was doing his part as well.