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Lysende had lain quietly and listened to the person she was sharing her hiding space with as her breathing deepened and eventually turned to snoring. Gintare, she had said her name was, and then requested that she be woken in the event of a fire, from which Lysende assumed she didn't want to be woken for anything less interesting than a fire.

That was fine with Lysende. If Gintare slept through the storm and then left once it was over, Lysende could remain in the shelter a bit longer and sleep until she was rested before setting out once more in search of a lion to impregnate her. She wasn't particularly enthusiastic about her quest, and was willing to take any sort of delaying action she could come up with.

As hours passed it became more difficult for Lysende to stay awake and on guard, however. Listening to someone snore was boring, raindrops were soporific, and eventually Lysende succumbed, falling into uneasy dreams of the only lion she would ever love.

Coincidentally, Gintare was also dreaming of the only lion she had ever loved. It was not a new dream to her, since she had had the bad fortune to meet the love of her life when she was very young, and the worse fortune not to recognize him for what he was until it was much too late. She had been dreaming of him ever since. There were about four bases for her dreams.

This one was the one where Arindam returned to her and asked what had happened to their cubs, and Gintare was forced to admit to him that she had lost one of them, and that the others had left her one by one. On rare occasions he was angry at her for her carelessness, but usually, and more heart-rendingly, he forgave her failings and said they would just have to try again, wouldn't they?

She always woke up from that dream aroused and melancholy all at once because no matter who she had spent the night with, it hadn't been him. The gods could be very cruel that way.

In her dreams, Lysende had to say goodbye to her sons again. Her beautiful, beautiful boys. Kesa, Talas, Yegolide, and Tasik, all gone forever. She still had her daughters, Airavata and Pandora, but thinking of them was just as heart-breaking. She knew that they were now old enough, by the pride's rules, to be allowed to go out into the world in search of lions to put babies in them. In her dream her sons faded away while her daughters pressed close, chanting their joy at being vessels for cubs, their eyes blank and their voices without inflection.

In the real world, Lysende began to thrash and moan, trying to escape from her daughters, whose insistence that she be as happy as they were had begun to turn violent with her continued attempts to get away from them and talk to them as if they were people rather than wombs. She would not fight her own daughters, but they had no such qualms. Their claws tore into her, and in the real world she screamed.

A scream woke Gintare, who shot to her feet, earning herself a sore skull for her trouble. The branches on these shrubberies were seriously low, and a good deal harder than branches had any right to be. No wonder they were so good at keeping the rain out.

"Ou..." she moaned. Then she turned her attention back to her surroundings. They did not seem to be on fire or rapidly filling with water, so there was no immediate danger. That was a plus. But if that was the case, why had her companion screamed?

Ignoring the promise she had made not to touch her companion, Gintare inched closer to where she had last heard her companion's voice coming from until she could almost make out her form in the darkness. Then she extended one paw for a good, hard poke.

"Wake up," she hissed. "You're just dreaming, for goodness' sake."

Lysende woke up with a snarl, instinctively lashing out with her claws at whomever had dared touch her. In another moment she recalled where she was and the situation surrounding her lack of solitude. She also recalled that Gintare had promised not to touch her. She decided not to feel guilty about trying to remove Gintare's head.

"Obviously," she replied in a voice that dripped with disdain. Then she sighed and added in a more contrite tone, "I didn't mean to wake you. As you said, I was dreaming."

And with any luck Gintare wouldn't ask her what she'd been dreaming about, because Lysende didn't want to talk about it. She had tried talking about it with her mother, and Katerina simply had not understood. There was no reason to expect a perfect stranger would be any more understanding.

"It happens," she said dismissively, and then said nothing else for a several long moments.

Luck had nothing to do with her lack of questions. Gintare didn't ask Lysende about whatever had haunted her dreams because she genuinely didn't want to know. Lysende was a single-serving friend, and that meant that Gintare had no earthly reason to burden herself with the younger lioness's troubles. It wasn't as if she could do anything to ease them, anyway, except talk at her, and Gintare knew very well that she was hardly the best lioness to turn to for consolation. She was clever and independent, but not particularly comforting or compassionate.

"Will you be able to get back to sleep?" she asked instead. That was, in her opinion, the more important matter. At least, it was the more immediate matter insofar as matters relating to Gintare herself stood. "Because I think I might like to try to sleep a little more."

"I didn't mean to fall asleep in the first place," Lysende confessed. "The sound of the rain turned out to be soporific."

She couldn't see Gintare in the darkness of their shelter, but she got the feeling that the older lioness was regarding her with a sort of blank and impatient look. Lysende's answer had not been to the question Gintare had asked.

"I could probably get back to sleep," she said. "But if you would prefer I can remain awake and keep watch."

That had been her purpose originally. She couldn't help it that her body had betrayed her by slipping into unconsciousness, and then her mind had betrayed her by giving her dreams of loves lost. If she could avoid having that happen again by staying awake, she would do it.

Gintare sighed to herself. A part of her was aware that she should offer some sort of comfort, but that really wasn't her forte, and there was a very good chance her efforts would have the opposite effect. On the other hand, that might mean she had her thicket to herself again, which might not be a bad thing.

"It's always nice to have someone keeping watch while you sleep," she said agreeably. "But if there's something you want to talk about, I've found that it can be easier to tell things to a complete stranger than to people you actually know. Less judgment."

Actually, that wasn't true about the judgment. Gintare was just as likely to judge as anyone else. More, in many cases. However, she acknowledged that her opinion and judgment would probably mean less, given her lack of any sort of relationship to Lysende.

Lysende's resolve to keep her troubles to herself faltered for a moment. It would be nice to unburden herself to a stranger. She held no illusions that she wouldn't be judged, but like Gintare she didn't think it would bother her as much to meet the censure of a stranger. On the other hand, what would telling Gintare of her heartache actually change? Not a single thing.

"No," she said, shaking her head even though she knew Gintare would not see the motion. "I appreciate the offer, truly I do, but I don't think it would really help me to talk about things. Action, not words, is what I need. I just don't really want to take action in the rain, you know?"

When Gintare indicated that she understood, Lysende nodded, mostly to herself, and went on, "I'll just keep watch then, and let you know when the rain stops. Then I'll be on my way."

"All right," Gintare said, still agreeable. She was basically getting what she wanted, after all. Why shouldn't she be agreeable?

Without further ado, she closed her eyes and in short order she was asleep once more. This time, she did not dream of her cubs or her lost love. When Lysende woke her to let her know that the rain had stopped and that she was leaving, she was genuine in wishing the younger lioness the best in her endeavors.

"Take care of yourself," she bid Lysende, thinking of both the physical and emotional dangers that awaited a lioness in life, and that Lysende had probably already seen her share of both. Well, that was the way things went.

Once Lysende had departed Gintare gave the mud outside a long look and decided she didn't feel like slogging through it right now, so she went back into the shelter and closed her eyes to sleep some more. A person could never have too much sleep.