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[Startear]

I

Bowki does have eyes. He is only eight years old, but his eyes are sharp. He can see the different smiles and easily distinguish them. He can see other things well too, but it is the smiles he notices most. Especially those of his parents. All of them have the proud smile, the one they flash when he does something extraordinary. Like when his arrows hit their mark, and when he got to know Quicksnap. They also have the same smile when they comfort him. And then there is the smile in their eyes, the one reserved for when he does something he shouldn't and they try to be stern and fail.

Sometimes father get a distant smile. It isn't like mother's when she remembers something from when she was young.

No, it is a different sort of distant. Almost as if he is sad and tries to disguise it.

When Bowki sees that smile, he kind of wishes his eyes weren't so sharp.

II

Serrin knows what her recognized is going to say before he utters a word. The black haired female has always known this day would come. She has tried to prepare herself, but obviously failed. Because she can feel the sting of salty tears.

But what can she do? Dyrr cannot forget. He has moments when he does, well helped by their beautiful son. The flashes of peace and happiness are only temporary. So she hides her sorrow behind a smile as their foreheads touch. He is surprised by her action, by her simple understanding.

Then she follows her lifemate to the cellar where they first met.

III

Talmah doesn't have the heart to follow his lifemates down. He chooses to wait at the stairs. It is almost worse to see their backs as they slowly descend down to where the wounded sleep. But it leaves him free to let the tears roll down his cheeks.

It takes forever before his lifemate comes within his field of vision again, yet it is too soon before there is only him and her again. By then he has wiped his tears away, but she knows he had been crying. She always knows.

**I miss him too.**

IV

Wing sees his grandson run from his parents hut and swing his legs over his wolfriend, before the youth takes off. By now almost everyone knows that Dart has joined the wounded in their sleep. He hopes his friend has happy dreams, free from the horrible images left from the war. Bowki who is full of smiles and laughter doesn't know about that, he knows nothing of those terrors. Of course his grandfather wishes he will never learn.

His lifemate puts a hand on his shoulder. "Leave him."

"He could hurt himself."

"Let him howl, beloved." She squeezes his shoulder. "He is only ten. Let him grieve. Let him howl."

V

Newstar finds the cub after the moons have disappeared behind the mountains. As she expected, he sits on one of the places which isn't occupied by a body in wrapstuff. He stares at the one she knows belongs to her friend.

She sits down beside him. He makes no move or sound to either acknowledge her presence. He keeps staring at his father's wrapped up body in complete silence.

"Father is wounded, isn't he?" Bowki turns her head towards her. "Like Kimo, only different."

His aunt cannot do anything but nod.

When they go upstairs, they pass the jars with the many pebbles. Bowki pauses for a moment. Then he bends down by the one where those which are reserved for the ones which doesn't mark time. He picks one up, and put it into the other one.

"Don't tell," he begs.

Newstar smiles reassuringly.

"I won't."