"One."
"Two."
"Three."
The three lynxes turned their heads one last time in every conceivable direction and then set their paws in motion to get to the meadow as quickly as possible without being seen.
Salim wrinkled his nose as he smelled the unpleasant odor of the Baldskins, which spread pungently through his olfactory organ and deprived him of any scent trails he could have followed. He shook his head repeatedly during his leaps to get rid of it, but it barely came out of his muzzle.
He turned to his kittens, who were jumping across the path beside him, a little slower than him. Valja had wrinkled her nose, just as he had, and grumbled something disparaging about the Baldskins giving off such a scent, while Akuma gazed intently at the meadow ahead.
Then, at last, Salim felt the soft grass beneath his paws, nestling gently against his pads, and instantly the tension left him. He breathed in the scent of the stalks deeply and ducked down immediately. Akuma and Valja followed suit and he could see from their faces that they were also relieved to have reached the other side. Even if he could see a hint of adventurousness in his daughter's eyes.
"Well done”, he praised them both and a proud smile appeared on their faces. Valja turned back to the path of the Baldskins and licked her muzzle.
"Even wolfs dung smells better than them", she grumbled and then strode purposefully on through the grass. Akuma only commented on this with an amused nod and quickly followed her.
Salim set off after his kitten again, pointing ahead with a twitch of his ear.
"We'll be at the shore of the lake in a moment." Valja's eyes immediately began to light up and Akuma flapped his tail excitedly.
"Make sure I don't throw you in the water”, Akuma laughed and jumped to the side to avoid Valja, who swung her paw out indignantly and aimed at her brother's ear.
Salim was glad that he no longer had to settle an argument, because the outline of the water appeared in front of them. At first, they could only see from a distance how the lake played out its waves, conjured up by the wind into a merry game, but then the shore also became more and more visible.
"Up ahead”, Salim pointed to the lake with the tip of his tail, "That's where the lake is. Don't run into the water." Valja whooped and swept through the grass, leaving a sluice through which Akuma followed her, who seemed just as excited but remained silent. Salim ran after the two and stopped them at the water.
Salim ran after the two of them and stopped them at the water.
He was still amazed at what he saw there, just like the first time he had discovered the lake. There was just something special about being here and looking out at the water, which dazzled him with different reflections of light and presented a spectacle that no one could describe. The waves carried the light to the three of them on the shore and you could almost touch the brightness that dispelled the darkness from the depths of the lake. Individual stones protruding from the water caused the waves to break, creating a beautiful and soothing sound. A song was played by the lake, to which the birds joined in with their sweet, chattering voices, making the whole air resonate.
Salim could only gaze with all his might away from the beauty of the lake and look at his kittens.
Valja sat wide-eyed beside him and, as was very rare, was silent, staring out at the waves as if she wanted to see the other shore that was out of sight.
Akuma, on the other hand, had pressed himself against Salim's fur, but he too was enchanted by the water of the lake. From time to time, he glanced up at his father, his gray eyes darting back and forth between him and the lake in front of him.
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Salim smiled happily. This was exactly how he had imagined it.
"Can we go in the water?", begged Valja when she had regained her voice, "Oh please. Please! We won't go in deep either! I promise." Her dark pupils scrutinized him pleadingly and she furrowed her brow to make an even more pathetic sight.
"All right, then." The lynx sighed softly, but then nodded.
"But you stay at the edge of the lake and don't swim too far out”, he admonished them, but neither Akuma nor Valja were still listening to their father. The two of them were already climbing into the lake, shouting indignantly as ice-cold splashes of water flew through the air and wetted their skins.
Salim, on the other hand, remained on the shore, smiling slightly and watching his two protégés carefully. He didn't want them to take a wrong step and then drown in agony. He didn't want to do that to himself or the sibling left behind.
He watched the little ones as they chased excitedly through the water, probably scaring off any prey in the vicinity of his territory. But at the moment he didn't care, because the joy of his kittens was worth putting up with. Even if sneaking up wasn't necessarily his strong point, on such a warm day there was probably no reason to fear that the prey wouldn't show up. Something would always venture out and he would catch it. And at some point, Valja and Akuma would also catch their first deer or wild boar that strayed into his territory.
He would teach them, he was sure of it. Involuntarily, he had to remember that normally the mother of the kittens was responsible for training them and that the lynx left soon after birth. So said the law of the lynx circle and he would not go against it, for it was a code that every lynx, be it a lynx or a lynxess, had to follow.
His father had also left after he and his siblings were born. He had never met him, and perhaps he wished he had now even more, seeing how happy one could be with a father. Even if Valja and Akuma lacked the role of mother.
But the law of the lynx circle left no choice to any lynx. If an offense was discovered, there were harsh punishments and Salim did not want to know them. And his father had probably not wanted to accept a punishment either. Hardly anyone did.
The lynx just shook his head to clear thoughts of this nature from his mind. Now was not the time to mope. But the sight of the kittens playing cheered the lynx up. Even though they were missing their mother and father, they now had him. Him, who they knew had not fathered them, but treated them just as if he were their biological father. And perhaps they now believed that too.
Smiling, he looked at the wet furs glistening in the sun and the light wind carried the scent of cheerfulness to him.
Salim closed his eyes and breathed in the air deeply to take it all in. The smell of the water, the coming green time and the scent of a lynxess. How wonderful.
But then he opened his eyelids and blinked in confusion. He took another deep breath to check whether his snout was playing tricks on him. The smell of a lynxess?
Confused, he averted his eyes and searched for the direction from which the scent had come to him. He stood up and narrowed his eyes to slits, letting his gaze wander back and forth between blades of grass, water and trees.
And then he could see it. He suddenly knew where that strange smell was coming from. Crouched close to the ground, he could make out a figure that quickly moved away from him when it saw that he had noticed it.
It was a lynxess, an intruder whose scent seemed somehow familiar to him.