The night sky above Mort Myre Swamp was veiled in a restless shroud of clouds, and the air hung thick with mist and decay. Lanterns failed to hold the gloom at bay; the light of the moon barely kissed the earth through the oppressive murk. Trees sagged under their own weight, gnarled limbs like skeletal arms reaching to claw at the unwelcome.
Nyssarra moved soundlessly, her boots pressing into waterlogged soil with the grace of someone born between leaf and shadow. Her crystal-blue hair shimmered faintly, capturing residual moonlight and weaving it into the quiet thrum of her presence. Her bow, carved from silver ash and inlaid with tiny shards of enchanted crystal, was held at the ready, each step laced with vigilance.
She had followed the trail for days. Travelers had spoken of a revenant haunting the swamp—a warped fusion of beast and spell, a predator driven mad by corrupted magic. Bodies had been found drained and torn, eyes wide in terror, throats missing. Nyssarra had expected something feral, twisted by dark enchantments or ancient malice. Something barely sentient.
What she found instead... was Wolfthora.
The clearing revealed itself like a wound in the marsh. Brambles hung like curtains around a ring of shattered trees and trampled fungus. In the center stood a woman, backlit by the embers of a dying fire. Black fur wrapped her shoulders in a tattered cloak, more beast than clothing, while horned shapes curled from her brow—crafted from bone or illusion, it was hard to tell. Her eyes, burning with crimson intensity, met the darkness like a challenge.
Blood glistened on the claws of her gauntlets—metal-tipped, brutal, still wet from the kill. Behind her lay the remains of the creature Nyssarra had tracked: no longer a beast, but carrion. Slain not with mercy, but with fury. Torn, scattered, and steaming in the cold.
“Too slow,” the wolf-woman growled, not turning to look. Her voice was low, feral, laced with dry amusement. “Hope you weren’t here to save it.”
Nyssarra had already drawn her bow. Silent. Steady.
“Let me guess…” Wolfthora turned now, deliberately. Her posture was a challenge, her movement like a dancer who had learned grace from predators. “Elf-blood. Seren’s child. Come to purify the darkness?”
The name made something ancient stir within Nyssarra. Her hands remained firm. Her expression, unreadable. The swamp itself seemed to pause, listening.
“I’ve heard of you,” the woman went on, her smirk sharp. “The ‘quiet protector.’ Defender of the meek.” She gestured behind her with dripping claws. “Tell me—what would your goddess say about that?”
Nyssarra loosed her arrow.
It whistled toward its mark, but Wolfthora was faster than a woman should be. She spun, metal bracer meeting the arrow mid-flight. Sparks scattered in the wet air, fizzling like dying fireflies.
The stillness shattered.
They clashed—one with bow and precision, the other with claw and chaos. Nyssarra moved like wind through trees: each step practiced, each breath measured. She used her surroundings, leaping from half-submerged stumps, ricocheting arrows off stones. Her magic hummed faintly with each strike, channeled through crystals to seek truth in the storm.
Wolfthora was a tempest. She snarled and lunged with raw, reckless joy, her blows wide and savage but never clumsy. She fought like the forest’s vengeance, like every broken boundary and every burned grove given voice and teeth.
Neither gained ground. Water splashed. Branches broke. Magic hissed. For a long, breathless span, they were the only things alive in the swamp.
And then—silence. Both stood apart, bloodless but winded, steam rising from their skin.
“You’re better than I expected,” Wolfthora admitted, her tone grudging but not without respect.
“You fight like a storm,” Nyssarra replied quietly, bow half-lowered now. Her voice was soft, but unshaken. “But you killed it. That creature… it would have destroyed a village by now.”
Wolfthora scoffed and turned away. “I didn’t do it for them. It was ugly. And in my way.”
Nyssarra’s eyes narrowed. She said nothing.
“But,” the Zamorakian added, flicking black ichor from her claws, “if they live because of it... that’s fine too. I guess.”
For a heartbeat, neither moved. The swamp held its breath again.
“Thank you,” Nyssarra said at last, the words delicate as snow and twice as rare.
Wolfthora flinched—actually flinched—as though slapped. Her lips curled back. “Don’t thank me,” she snapped. “I’ll rip your throat out next time.”
“You could have tonight.”
The wolf-woman blinked.
And then, for the first time, laughed—not cruelly, not mockingly, but short and startled. A sound more bark than melody, like something torn from a throat unused to joy.
Since that night, their paths have crossed again.
Once near Edgeville, where undead spilled from a forgotten crypt. Once amid the lawless skirmishes of the Wilderness, their battle dance playing out beneath blood-red skies. And once, memorably, in the haunted depths of Daemonheim, where they fought back-to-back against horrors that defied name and reason. Nyssarra’s arrows flew straighter in those moments — not from fear, but from a strange sense of rhythm. Wolfthora’s rage made space for her calm.
For her part, Wolfthora had begun appearing without explanation. A shadow in the trees. A flash of black fur and the low growl of warning before something lunged out of the dark — and fell, felled by a claw that was quicker than Nyssarra’s arrow could fly. When asked, the wolf-woman offered no answer. When thanked, she snarled.
They never called it friendship. Wolfthora rejected the word with a hiss. Nyssarra never offered it.
But once, after they evacuated a village caught in wildfire near Taverley, Nyssarra left a token behind: a crystal shard, shaped like a wolf, humming with the softest magic.
The next day, it was gone.
Neither of them ever mentioned it. But when Nyssarra came upon a beast mangled before she could raise her bow, she sometimes found that same shard resting on a rock nearby — untouched, as if to say, “I was here.”
When asked about her, Wolfthora would only mutter, “That damn elf is a menace with that bow.”
And Nyssarra?
She would smile, almost shyly, and say:
“She’s wild. But she hunts the right things.”