Silver Moraine to frayed silver linings

Ah.

She had wandered too far. 

She stared now into the grave of a glacier gone. A flow of ice, slinking back into mountain and earth. 

Carefully, she placed a paw upon the chaos of dirt and stone, a familiar greeting to her senses. So many memories, stuffed and churned in a land not called home. The wind rustled through the evergreens that dared to inch close to the moraine. 

No, no, no, not home. This was not the Windbound Expanse she knew. 

But still -

A hollow light of the past came over her eyes. A ritual, one that would never end.

“Child of Windbound …

Set now upon setting breeze 

So you may find what we could not. 

We give you name of not-blessing.

Leave, and never return to this place of desolation. 

Carry our kind to all corners of the realm -

But dare not to forget what wisp of breeze you rose from.

Turn away, child -

Never Windbound again. Always Windbound forever.

Away, away, away, we wish you to find rest…

…in the name of the place called the Other Shore.”

The moraine, though not the one she knew and loved back home, still echoed with the distant words of the rite of farewell.

Other Shore turned and ran. She held the words close to heart, then tried to flee from them. She wanted to be free, free, free, and the Windbound Expanse had given her that freedom - but also tied her back to a place dead and gone. Questions, many of them, marked her youthful mind. Answers, none of them, came to meet her.

She bolted. To the ends of the world, to the past, to the future, to the place called the Other Shore.

Odessia strayed further and further from the copse, which felt like a distant memory now. Her mission was plain and simple: acquire a buff bodyguard to protect her from would-be attackers. So far, no luck. But it had not been that long, and she knew that this place was full of odd wolves and very few she considered normal. She passed by forests, mountains, plains, beaches, and more before she came across another soul. Said soul was galloping at full speed either toward or away from something—Odessia could not determine from here which one.
The white streak across the dark earth looked to be a bit bigger than Odessia, though not by too much. She had good running form, though Odessia thought she was a big skinny from where she was standing. Then again, it was hard to tell from so far away.
No time like the present to practice her tracking and stealth skills, and the blue-eyed wolf was soon hot on the trail of the other, though not going nearly as fast. Instead, she picked a respectable loping gait. If her calculations were correct, the other wolf would not be able to keep up her full-speed run for long, and Odessia would eventually catch up to her.
When that happened, she would be sure to stick low to the ground, ducking behind whatever obstacles she could to keep out of the other wolf's line of vision, should they turn around. Excited at the prospect of once again sneaking and stalking, Odessia's main quest quickly flipped from finding her bodyguard to becoming undetectable by the wolf up ahead.