Deepwater stood in the center of camp as he stared over the cats walking around. Their day to day work passing by, bringing in prey, cleaning nests or grooming one another. Tilting his head back, he looked up into the stormy sky, feeling it in his whiskers that it was going to rain soon. All cats could feel when rain would come, but he could feel it so deeply in the roots of his bones that it caused his body to ache and hurt. It pulsed before each thunder rumble in the distance. He squinted for a moment before looking back down over the camp. His eyes landed on Cindercloud, his ears perking up as she seemed to be watching her kits, now turned apprentice.

The blue black tom cat turned to see what she was looking at. Rosepaw chatting with Tip-paw. Deepwater squinted with a soft glare at the two apprentices, knowing that they had grown close ever since the mud slide. Even before then they where close, but after that they had only grown closer as friends. Dotkit, another of Barkback and Doublepelt's kits would sometimes join them, but often was left out of the loop.

His heart suddenly thud painfully in his chest and he looked up, a thunder clack coming coming moments later. Standing up, groaning, the tom cat shook out his pelt and walked past the camp, his head low and his body limping with a struggle. His front paw, missing two toes, ached with each step, his back leg with the ripped tendon felt like it was ready to buckle under him if he put to much weight on it. Still, he continued on, head low until he reached the camp entrance. Stepping out into the territory, the massive male sniffed around, his scared up face twitching and throbbing as he focused on regaining his hunting skills. It had been moons upon moons since he had hunted on his own, tracking and taking down his kill was more difficult now that his body had healed.

Though his body had recovered, his mind hadn't. Deepwater had yet to accept the fact that his beloved had passed away, every night having nightmares of his sweet Riverclan mate had tormented him night after night. Dream after dream. It burned in his very soul to think the one cat he had risked everything for was gone. The daughter she had left behind hating Deepwater with such a passion that it crippled any hope he had ever had of being a father once more.

When he had joined Emberclan and met Cindercloud, he had thought, for just a moment that he could love again. He had hoped that all was not in vane, and that maybe she had feelings for him like he had grown for her. Even as he watched her grow pregnant, some part of him realized that he wouldn't be the father.

Stepping through the territory, he looked up, not realizing that it had started to rain on him. Sighing, his head dropped, hanging between his shoulders like a fruit ready to break off it's branch.

Continuing on, his nose close to the ground, he kept an ear out for the sound of prey, but the rumbling of the thunder and flashes of lighting where a sure fire way to keep his hunt fruitless. Deepwater raised his head, glaring up at the sky before his eyes landed on a branch. Blossoms, soft flower petals hanging from a broken twig that seemed like it was struggling to hold onto the tree. It's sweet colorful petals fell, one after another, his one good eye tracing as they landed in the mud.

As the rain thundered down, the mud splashed over the petals, making it look like it was being burned, turned to ash without the use of fire. He stepped closer, looking down at the flowers, his whiskers dripping now with heavy rain drops that thundered down on his back and on his head.

Deep water's green eyes fogged up as he gazed wistfully at the blossoms as they where buried in the blackness of the soil under paw. Tears bubbled up in his spring colored orbs, jolting through his scared up face and soon another crack of thunder struck close by. "Lakestorm..." A whisper of his breath came out, hidden by the roar of the rain falling around him. Flashes came over him, claws, teeth, pain and blood.

Stumbling back, his tail pushed up against the trunk of a tree, eyes flying wide with yet another flash of lighting, seeing a form in front of him flickering with the light before vanishing again. He shook his head, mouth gaping, broken jaw quivering. "No... No, leave me alone Rippleweed!" He growled out into the forest. Another flash, and the cat was at his face now.

He jumped back with a scream, turning and running away, kicking up mud as he went, his eyes wild with fear as he ran. Each flash of lighting brought her in front of him, every tree he passed he saw her staring at him with lifeless green eyes. His heart pounded in his chest until his two toes paw slipped on a slimy stone and he fell forward, rolling and sliding in the mud and getting coated in it.

A symphony of agony crashed into him, ringing in his ears louder then any thunder crash. Groaning in pain, he forced himself to sit up, looking up as another flash rippled passed. The cat too flashed in front of him. Deepwater jolted backwards, but this time the vision didn't fade. It stared at him, those pale green eyes, like lake mildew gazed at him with a billowing indifference that could be felt.

Biting back another yowl, he glared at her, pushing up into his paws, holding his twisted one to his chest and roaring at her. "What do you want from me!?!? What did I do to diverse your torment Rippleweed!?! Even in death you must hate me! Why?" He screamed at her, the spirit gazing back blankly at him.

The silvery tabby patch opened her mouth, smoke rising up from her jaws. "You stole something from me Batstone... For that I will never forgive you..." Right before him, the eyes of the she cat turned black and sunk into her skull, her fur falling away in patches and her body crumbling away into ashy dust, the rain breaking her body apart until there was no trace she had ever been there.

Staring out at the muddy pile before him, blackness melting into the bloody colored mud, he quivered, tears once more welling in his eyes until he crumpled in a heap and sobbed.

It wasn't until hours later that Deepwater would return to camp, the branch of the cherry blossom in his mouth, his fur caked in mud. Every cat had gone into their den to sleep, but he wasn't ready yet. As he came closer, he stepped into the warriors den, setting the branch with it's brilliant red and pink petals on the edge of some she cat's nest. Then, he stepped back outside, sitting in the middle of camp, eyes closed and gazing up into the sky, letting his face and fur get pelted with the bullets that fell from the sky.