A loud rumble jolted Salim out of his thoughts and the lynx flinched, startled. He blinked in confusion and raised his head. He was still sitting at the entrance and ice-cold night air was still flowing into the cave.
But it was already dark outside and the snow was so thick that Salim feared that he would sink up to his knees as soon as he stepped outside. The wind was now howling stronger and more strongly, but above all louder, so that it rang in the lynx's ears.
From all these facts, he concluded that he must have fallen asleep. And not just a few heartbeats as he had assumed. Night had already fallen.
With a short yawn, the lynx got up and stretched extensively, moving all his bones. All except the ear, whose bones still ached with some movements and had remained bent since the fight with the wolf.
Salim turned to look at Valja as she slept, her tail twitching restlessly and occasionally emitting a mournful mew. Nightmares were probably plaguing her again, as they had so often in the past few moons. He had never been able to stop or end them. She was trapped in them, just as she was in her grief.
He had almost forgotten the noise that had woken him up in the midst of all his thoughts and worries. The deafening crash that had woken him from his sleep. Even with only a half-functioning brush and immersed in a deep dream, he had been able to hear it clearly.
Salim stepped out of the cave in alarm. What could that have been? He dimly remembered hearing it once or twice before, but his memory failed him at this important moment. No matter how hard he tried, he simply couldn't remember the origin of it. He stared into the darkness, keeping himself in the shelter of his cave, but all he could make out were the skeletons of the trees and their branches as they stretched upwards, gasping for air.
He tensed everything within him, all his senses on high alert, but nothing but the normal sounds and scents of the forest and the gentle whiff of a Baldskin that had probably been out for the evening. He could even hear the lake in the distance, its barren waves lapping against the beach.
But then something unnatural reached his ears. A distant whistle, which was immediately followed by the sound of thunder. Somewhere between the trees in the sky, something bright and red shone for a few heartbeats before disappearing again. And it didn't take long for an extremely burnt and unpleasantly pungent smell to penetrate his nose.
The hair on the back of Salim's neck bristled involuntarily and he opened his eyes. Fire! Fire nearby.
He was just about to rush back into the cave to wake Valja and get her out of here as quickly as possible, but then those strange sounds rang out again. Then the sky was bathed in a dazzling light. Salim was able to watch the spectacle closely, even if the bare branches of the trees occasionally blocked his view when the wind blew too hard. The whistle and the bang sounded a third time, this time directly above him. He could make out a sphere that split into countless splinters and bathed the sky in a bright light like green embers. The night suddenly seemed to turn into day, as more and more colored ash illuminated the dark air, the noise grew louder and louder and a horrible stench mingled with all the impressions.
And suddenly it seemed as if Salim was being plunged into the ice-cold lake and his head was being cleansed. He could remember his mother's words. How they had sat together at the entrance to the cave and stared out into the forest. In the sky, countless colors glowed and the stench they brought with them was willingly endured for what was to be seen. Of course, at first Salim had been frightened by all the new impressions and had hidden in the back of his home. But at some point his curiosity had got the better of him and he had trotted off to his mother, who had given him an explanation for everything.
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She had called it the Night of Lights and a small smile appeared on his lips when he thought of Minou. She had taken away his fear, because this wasn't dangerous. At least there was no need to fear for his life, even if his mother had warned him not to go too close to the places where the Baldskins lived. Because that was where these strange noises and colors came from.
He quickly hurried back to his bed of moss and nudged Valja's forehead with his snout. "Wake up!", he muttered, perhaps a little energetically, and his daughter did indeed open her eyes after a few heartbeats.
"Come on. Something's happening", he whispered and quickly helped her to her feet. Her nose wrinkled in disgust as a cold breeze carried the stinking smell into the cave, but luckily for Salim, she didn't object. She probably knew that no amount of pleading or begging would help. Together they sat down at the entrance to the cave, just far enough away from the snow that they didn't freeze too much.
"Don't worry", Salim encouraged the lynxess when he saw her fur bristling and her tail whipping back and forth restlessly. "Look up." He pointed with his muzzle towards the sky, where countless lights were still shining and never seemed to stop.
Valja seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then she asked in a hoarse voice: "What is that?" And Salim was so glad that her curiosity showed, though not in her body language, only in her answer. He gently wrapped his short tail around her.
"These are the colors of the dead." Of course, he knew that the Night of Lights was not created by the deceased, but rather by Baldskins who set some stinking stones on fire and then let them fly into the air, where they exploded. But he wanted to give Valja a different version of this, simply to take away her grief and sorrow and give her back her joy. Even though he knew it could take a long time for his attempts at healing to work, he just had to try.
He continued when he noticed the questioning look on his daughter's face: "At the time of death, when death is closer to us than at any other time, our deceased look down on us in particular. They know when we are unwell and visit us in our dreams." He squinted at Valja to determine her reaction, but she just stared motionlessly up into the night sky. He could only tell that she was listening attentively by the way her ear was turned towards him. So, he carried on talking, recounting the words that had just come into his head.
"No one in the stars wants us to mourn those who have left us and will not return. They want the joy in us to live on and not be suffocated by a lost life. And that's why, in the time of death and cold, they give us something that reminds us of the good things in life." He was silent for a moment to let his story sink in.
"They want to give us back the warmth that seems lost in the snow. Give us colors where they are missing due to the bleakness. And they want to give us smells and impressions that are masked by the cold." Then he remained quiet and listened to the irregular sounds of the constant thunder, breathing in deeply the burnt smell. Even though he knew that nothing in his story was true, he was beginning to believe it himself. How much more beautiful it was than the vile Baldskins that brought nothing but death and destruction.
"And you think Akuma is up there too?", Valja's soft voice rang out, almost drowned out by the din. Salim nodded and he could clearly see how the tension was easing a little.
"Akuma gives us the white light and its shards. To remind us of the color of his fur and to give you the peace you need to find after all this mourning."