Thunder awoke Lichennose in his den.

   The pale tabby gasped, eyes wide as he jumped into consciousness. The moss of his nest was stuck into his fur, from rolling around in his sleep. Looking out to the camp, he saw rain pounding the ground, turning his home into a dark blur of mist and blue streaks.

   "See, Bumblebee? I was right!" he snorted, glaring at the chubby she-cat. She shifted in her nest, peering back at him angrily.

"Yeah, yeah, what do you want? Free prey?" she snarled, before flipping over again and drifting back to sleep. Lichennose huffed, biting the bits of nest from his messy fur. Hearing a shuffle from somewhere in the den, he looked up and searched for the source of the noise.

   Quailflight was the only other awake warrior, grooming in her own mossy nest. She seemed to have been listening to the two, her ears perked.

"Why are you up? It can't be past sunrise..." Lichennose asked, twitching his tail as the striped tom shifted to see her better. Quailflight looked up, blinking warmly.

"Um, I was on the Dawn Patrol. Everyone else fell back asleep already..." she mumbled, after a long moment of thought. Lichennose ignored the falter in her tone as she spoke.

The pale tabby stood, arching his back in a stretch then shaking the sleep from his pelt. "What do you think your doing?" Quailflight chuckled, smiling. "I'm hungry." Lichennose glanced at her, padding out of the den, rain immediately drenching his coat.

He started towards the soaked freshkill-pile, ears pushing back against the storm. Suddenly, the sky rumbled, then lit up as a deafening crack of lightning sounded. Lichennose yowled in shock, jumping and spinning around in the mud, racing back to his den in terror.

"You look like a drenched squirrel!" He was met by a snort of laughter, Quailflight staring at him from her dim nest. He chuckled, "You don't look much better." Then shook the water from his fur.

"That's why I was grooming." she rolled her hazel eyes, twitching an ear.

Lichennose plopped down in his nest, resting his chin on the side, facing her. "So, is the freshkill-pile soaked?" Quailflight asked, swiping her pink tongue over her pelt again.

   "Mhm." he rolled onto his side, yawning. "The storm's probably gonna chase all the living prey back into their burrows, too."

   "That's too bad. I was planning on hunting today." Quailflight meowed, "I guess I'll have to tomorrow, if the rain's stopped by then. I remember the last storm this loud, it was drizzling all moon, even after it ended!"

   Lichennose thought back to the time she was talking about. He and his brother had only been kits. Their mother had gotten after them for trampling around in the mud and water, getting their pelts soaked. The memory made him purr.

"Yeah, me and Bramblefoot were barely two moons old then!" he exclaimed, chuckling lightly. Quailflight nodded with a smile.

"Hey, do you think those loners will cause any trouble?" she suddenly asked, ears perking. Lichennose raised his head, confused as to why she'd asked so quickly. "No, I doubt it." he responded, stretching out his forelegs.

   After a few heartbeats of silence, only broken by the pounding of rain outside, the other cats around them began to stir. Cedarwatcher shifted awake, beginning to groom quietly. Asterfoot twitched his ear, Stromgaze flipping over in his own nest.

"Oh, sorry, I need to go." Quailflight hopped onto her paws, skirting past him and hurrying out into the dim storm. Lichennose blinked, getting up and pacing after her.

As he pushed through a thin curtain of lichen into the soaked camp, he looked around through the thick rain. But, unfortunately, the light she-cat was no where in sight.

- – = + = – -

Lichennose laid across a damp rock, eyes half-closed. The camp was busy, as always, with warriors slipping in and out, patrols returning, and apprentices play-fighting. It had stopped storming awhile before.

He was watching Fennelwhisker's kits and Dewkit wrestling in a puddle. Pebblefur was sitting a tail-length away, with Birchkit huddled in her paws, barely a scrap of fur. The young kit's sick nature made Lichennose worry. Fennelwhisker was no where to be seen.

Looking back at the kits, he realized Dewkit was loosing. Cherrykit had the smaller she pinned, with her muzzle barely above the water's surface, forcing her to gasp for breath.

"Dewkit, come here!" Pebblefur called, waving her tail. Cherrykit let her tiny denmate scamper off to her mother, before her and her littermates ran off to chase a stray oak leaf, Seedkit leading the charge.

Lichennose turned his attention away from them, watching Willowwhisker and Cloudpaw sorting herbs at the mouth of their shared den. Cloudpaw clumsily pushed a bunch of dandelion flowers into a pile of fuzzy leaves, which looked nothing like the dandelion. She then tried to move a juniper berry, crushing it into the stone with her weight.

Her matted mentor sighed angrily, so loud that Lichennose could almost hear it. Willowwhisker then growled something to his apprentice, Cloudpaw snorting in defiance. The two then continued sorting herbs, the matted tom angry and his apprentice no better.

   Lichennose looked over at the camp entrance, where a Hunting Patrol was returning with their jaws laden with fresh prey.

At the back of the patrol, Quailflight stumbled, her hind legs stiff and her tail bushed up. It looked like she'd sat on a twig. Lichennose tilted his head in curiosity, watching her pace with wide strides to the Medicine Cat's Den.

Suddenly, a small shape trampled in front of him, then leapt off the rock after a butterfly. It was Sagetail's kits, with Foxkit in the lead.

   They scampered after the colorful winged bug, as it flitted over a small clump of ferns. Berrykit strayed behind his siblings, while the other two attempted to catch it, failing and chasing the insect towards the Nursery.

   Lichennose purred at the sight, suddenly realizing how heavy his eyelids had become. Settling his head down, he eased into sleep, his back warmed by sunlight while he lost consciousness.