Lyara was correct. I did feel better in the morning. When Mom howled her regular morning roll-call the lack of Cyante's voice did remind us all of what happened but Mom and Dad seemed not to be bothered by it anymore. Neither were my older siblings. As a result, I forced myself not to think about it anymore. He was dead and he wasn't coming back, that was life.
"Wanna play something?" Lyara asked me when everyone went on their way.
"Sure. You're going down." I grunted and pounced at her.
Lyara jumped back, barely avoiding my lunge. "You're a thousand winters too young to beat me." She howled as she pushed my nose down with her paw.
I pulled back and snapped at the paw but Lyara already jumped behind me and pawed at my side. "Too slow!" She howled.
"I'll show you!" I growled and torqued my body, hitting her in the neck with my head.
Before I could catch her mane and pull her down I felt a tug on my neck and ground left my feet. "You lack the experience." She let out an amused grunt as she stood over me. "Now stay down."
I tried to roll away but she quickly caught my muzzle in her jaws. "Fine, I give up," I whined, laying on my back.
"Good." She grunted. "You'll never catch me." A shower of dirt fell on me as she broke into a sprint.
"Just you wait!" I howled after her and with a roll, I was on my feet and sprinting after her.
She ran for a while, leading me around the river and back to the valley entrance, then in a twist she pushed me to the ground again. "I can do this all day." She grunted.
"Fine... I give up, you're better." I grunted.
"Really?" She licked my face.
"Yes, really."
"You were talking so big. Why give up so fast?" She asked sitting down next to me.
"Not really in the mood today..." I said, watching Xerio who didn't seem to be bothered by the previous day's events at all, chasing his tail in circles.
"Still hung up about Cyante?"
"Hmm... I couldn't do anything..."
"That's just life." She grunted and lay down next to me, poking my head with her nose.
"How did you feel the first time?"
"I was the only one in my litter. Never had to deal with littermate dying, but some of my older siblings did get sick and died from that. Dad was even angrier about it than yesterday, he's good with healing but he couldn't do anything. Mom had to drag him out of the den by tail since he refused to move for five days after that. The best you can do is try your best not to die and hope the others do so as well."
"And when you were the older one?"
"One of them happened... Mom put me in charge. Accidents happen, even when hunting small deer, unlucky kick in the head and you die before you realize it, they don't care about anything when they know they can't escape and your defenses won't hold if you aren't ready. Trumpet was from a litter of seven, he's the only one who made it through winter..."
"Sorry."
"You have nothing to be sorry about. Life is just that. If you get broken down like this when something doesn't go the way you want it to then you won't last long. You have to get used to it."
"I'll try."
"Don't go scaring her like this." Dad's voice sounded behind us.
"I'm not scaring her..." Lyara pouted as Dad lay down next to me and gave me a kiss.
"Even if we are as old as we are, we make mistakes and let accidents happen. I should have patroled a bit more. You said you managed to catch two fish on your own yesterday, right? How big were they?"
"One was small, like the one Mom showed us." I spread my paws to show him how big it was. "The other one was longer than I am tall and slimy, it looked more like a snake. It put up a big fight and I got carried down the river to where Xerio was. With his help we quickly killed it."
"That's a great catch. How did you find hunting in the river?" Dad asked enthused.
"It was hard. I only managed to sneak up on every tenth fish or so... And even then I missed them so much." I grunted, annoyed.
"That's really great for your first time. I remember when Anaji first showed me, I didn't manage to catch a single one in a whole day."
"Really? I think Mom said you are..."
"I'm older than her by one winter, but there was no river in my parents' territory, I only learned to hunt fish after I got together with Anaji." He said. Lyara laid down her head on my back already to take a nap.
"Dad? Mom made a fish in the air when she was showing us how to hunt. How did she do it?"
"It's just an illusion." He said and a version of Mom the size of my paw appeared in the moss in front of me. "One way to use magic. They are quite useful when you need to show something to someone but they can be tricky to use. Are you interested in them?"
"A bit, they look interesting," I admitted.
"Learn the basics first. I can test you anytime you want, once you manage to get to my fur I will teach you more about them, right now you lack the control needed, it does take experience if you don't have the talent."
"Dad?"
"Yes?"
"Thanks. Could you stay here with me?" I asked. I knew he came to talk with me like this because I had a hard time, even though he must have felt even worse, losing one of his pups.
"As long as you want me to stay." He assured me.
I laid down my head on his paws and close my eyes. There was a great sense of security flowing through my mind with him being so close. I felt a weight on my neck as he settled down for a nap also; noon was coming and it was too hot to do anything.