Valja and Salim were silent for a long time, having leaned against each other and watched the far too loud spectacle that was now coming from the dead for the lynxes. It was deafening, as if the deceased were actually trying to bring Valja out of her gloomy thoughts, to bring her back to the surface, to the air, with mere sounds from the deluge of sorrow. And as if the burnt stench would summon fish to nudge the lynxess and support her until she found her way back to her former self and was saved.
"Do you really think..." Valja hesitated and Salim turned his head towards her. "Do you really think Akuma is causing all this?" Her eyes darted back and forth between her father and the sky, as if they didn't know what was best to observe now.
Salim nodded in response to her question, and he prayed to his deceased son that he would not hold this lie against him. He hoped that the law of the Lynx Circle would forgive him this sin. It wasn't quite so tragic and the story he had told her hadn't been bad either. He closed his eyes briefly until the unbearable stench made him open them again, because he simply had to see what had exploded this time.
“Akuma would never have wanted you to mourn him for so long", he added, but Valja's expression stiffened immediately. "Before you say anything”, he said hastily, "No, I didn't talk to him in my dreams, but..."
Salim hesitated briefly, as he had done so often that night, and suddenly felt his daughter's curious gaze on him. He squinted at her, and it was as if a huge boulder fell from his heart. He almost heard the impact, but all he could see was the spark of her playing in her eyes. They reflected the myriad colors of the night and this only confirmed that her joy was only slumbering deep within her and needed to be awakened once more. Maybe all the lights and the stench weren't so counterproductive, maybe it just needed to be approached the way one would wake a lynx that had fallen into a deep sleep. Salim smiled slightly and he hoped the deceased lynxes would approve of his lie. For what it had awakened in Valja.
But then he continued with his sentence: "I grew up with my mother and my siblings. Just like you, I had two of them, was the only lynx in our family." He smiled slightly as he thought back to those old and wonderful days.
"We were happy, but then it happened that our home was discovered by a brown bear looking for a winter home. And our cave seemed like a good place for it." He could see from Valja's face that she was expecting the worst, and perhaps that was a good thing.
"Our mother could easily have taken on the bear, but we were still small and had only seen freedom a few times. And with three little balls running around her feet, it wouldn’t have been a particularly successful fight. That's why we ran. Running for our lives from a bear like there was no tomorrow." The hairs on the back of Salim's neck stood up involuntarily as he thought back to that chase.
"My sister, her name was Malu, was the youngest of the three of us. And the slowest." Sadness overshadowed his eyes and he didn't have to finish the story before Valja realized.
"I'm really sorry about that”, she murmured, snuggling against him, which immediately comforted the lynx.
"I mourned her for a long time, even though I didn't understand exactly what had happened at the time. Why Malu never came back to us or why I could no longer feel her body against me when I slept." Salim closed his eyes briefly and he could see everything so clearly in front of him again. The smell of fear that masked the bear's scent, her terrible screams as it rammed its teeth into her bones and the smacking as it ate the young lynx. With skin and hair, with bones and teeth.
"But...", he continued softly, "But I know she's up there in the stars now, looking down at me every night. She stands behind one of the shining points in the sky and lights my way wherever I go."
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The lynx looked down at his daughter and could clearly see that she was thinking of her brother again. He could see it in the wrinkles that had formed on her forehead and saw it in the twitching of her tail. But this time it wasn't like the other times he had seen her in his mind. Her lips were not parted in a whimper or twisted into a grimace of grief. This time there was a slight smile on them. Only very slightly, like a smoldering spark of a fire that could be extinguished or fanned even further by the slightest breeze.
At that moment, when he saw the corner of Valja's mouth twitch gently, Salim would have loved to jump into the air, up into the stars. He would have done a happy dance, shaking his stomach until it hurt.
But instead, he forced himself to calm down and stayed put. He didn't want to ruin this emotion by doing the wrong thing, but he trembled slightly because everything inside him was tingling.
"Thank you, Dad." Valja gave him a slight nod and then stood up. Salim looked deep into her eyes and felt that all the emptiness was slowly draining out of them. That the light was beginning to fight back against the darkness, gathering strength to strike the final blow and drive it away and defeat it completely.
The lynxess trotted back into the cave and lay down in the bed of moss, where she immediately slipped into a deep sleep.
And it was the first time since Akuma's death that she was not plagued by nightmares and slept through the rest of the night.
Salim couldn't suppress a strained gasp as Valja's heavy body landed on top of him and she pressed him to the ground with strong paws.
"I give up”, he mumbled exhaustedly and his daughter immediately moved away from him. "Very good. That was the best attack I've seen in a long time." He nodded appreciatively at her, leaving her beaming all over her face.
Barely a moon had passed since the Night of Colors and the snow was still waist-high, in some places on the meadow you could even sink into it completely. The lake was frozen over, the Baldskins could hardly be spotted outside in these icy temperatures and so the two lynxes had the whole territory to themselves.
And Salim considered himself lucky that Valja finally went out of the den again thanks to his story of the Night of Colors, romped through the snow and, this was of utmost importance, trained to fight and hunt. He didn't know how she had done it, she was probably practicing in secret, but within a few days she was almost as good as he was. She had even managed to defeat him in battle. Two moons ago, he would never have believed that she would be able to do this.
But Valja had, he hoped, finally found peace with the death of Akuma and had finally been able to cope with the loss.
"Will you catch us something today? Maybe a small wild boar. That would be delicious”, Salim suggested, but his daughter seemed less enthusiastic.
"Maybe I can catch a bird, too. That would be a nice change", she said, putting on that sanctimonious look that amused him more than annoyed him. He knew for a fact that she would return with a spotted woodpecker or a fat blackbird if there wasn't a roebuck jumping around somewhere between the tree trunks.
"As long as we get our fill”, Salim finally agreed with a soft sigh and he could see Valja grinning as she turned away and then walked away from him through the snow.
He still found it difficult to let his remaining daughter roam his territory unsupervised, but he knew she could defend herself. Neither Alicia nor Akuma and Miles had been strong enough back then, but he had taught Valja the techniques of fighting. And he very much hoped that she would be able to defend herself.