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Seeing Houzin fall in the pool, Kosuke considered letting his second-cousin simply have his shame. Then he shook his head, offering a paw to help him out. "Come on, you, no sense taking a bath now." And he could wipe his muddy paws off on the other male and be rid of the discomfort for a little white, at least.

Mat waited anxiously for the answer, but this one did not make her as happy as the last. "What? But...but I wanna see!" she said again, in case her mother had missed her words. But then she was ignored and left with her aunt and the other lioness that had walked with them to the wells. She watched her mother walk with the rest of the lions and sat down, her ears drooping.

"It's not fair," she muttered quietly to no one in particular. Now she wouldn't get to see who it was! She knew she wouldn't get into trouble if she had gone. All those big lions were falling in the puddles...she could have gotten around them easily! Pah!

Mat pawed at a well, watching some dirt fall to the bottom, still sulking.

Shula, one of the missing youngsters, was to blame for another absence: She rounded up her best and only friend, Kerra, and convinced him to join her (as if he had a choice) in taking advantage of this opportunity. Wise beyond her days -- or good at mimicking those that were -- Shula knew this rain was a big, big, biiiig deal! And so she was not surprised the adults were in a frenzy.

Dare she say, they were distracted!

What if Nergui took advantage of it?

"Come on, we're gonna keep an eye out," she'd told Kerra, and off they went toward the ward's den. Shula was hoping to impress two of the many Azars in the pride -- one being her own mother, the Brigadier, and the other her future mentor, Azar'bijan.

When they got there, Shula "let" Keera help her onto one of the taller slabs of rock and "allowed" him to sit next to her as they started their watch. She was not very apologetic for the many times she had shaken off her soaked coat and splashed him.

This was a serious situation. Niu was a serious lioness. But Gods help her, she could barely keep from laughing at the sight of Azar. She'd spent more and more time with the grump lately, most of which was patrolling... but some of which wasn't. Certain lions were starting to notice.

Since the rain first fell, Niu had been doing her best to help. In the chaos, she had lost track of Shunqa, and didn't find it all too important to track him down again.

She padded up to Azar, parts of her face twitching and giving away her supposedly concealed amusement. "Look at you, worrying for the cubs." What a softy. He'd never live this down. "I'll help you."

Cubs? It didn't seem like it was to be much of a surprise; with the sudden excitement of the rains, someone was bound to be lost. And cubs being the easiest to lose... Well. Two and two. Alya watched the scene. The strange figures were still of importance, but it would seem that it would have to wait. The children, now, had become a greater priority.

What a nuisance.

But there was little else they could do, at this point. Who knew; perhaps they could further investigate the strangers while searching.

Cubs?!

Mpeko listened, ears alert before she moved silently, trying to head towards the Ward Dens. She didn't mind looking, even if she was slipping around some, but cubs needed finding and she wasn't going to wait.

Agni moved rapidly himself, sniffing around as he moved, wordlessly, trying to spread his search, though he wasn't confident how.

Huo too, began moving rapidly, paws briskly touching land and raising as he walked, nose twitching.

Zjarr had slogged through the mud behind the others, avoiding the trenches via the splashing of those who had fallen in. She couldn't see who exactly had, but spent all her concentration on where her paws touched and following the others in the direction of the oasis. She arrived towards the tail end of the mission change explanation. Cubs? Well, she wasn't so long grown herself, and could easily see how the youngsters would see the storm as an adventure. She herself was astonished by the sheer volume of liquid pouring from the sky. How did it hold all that wet?!

Her musings were besides the point, though. She waited patiently and silently for orders. Right now, she considered Morag her leader, and intended to discover what she intended to do before haring off in search of wandering cubs. While the babes were important to rescue, there wasn't much sense in the entire group of them splashing through this mess. It was even possible they'd pass the cubs without ever knowing it! it was so dark, and the mud so clinging, and the cubs so small, they could easily be camoflauged too well to be found by a lot of random searching. She would never say so, but it was her opinion that those who knew the cubs best should be searching carefully and leaving this group to do the job of discovering the intruders before any further mischief happened.

Elcca's ear twitched, listening to Morag's lowered words. Although she could be a fickle, selfish sort, Elcca was at least hernest in her advice. She squinted her eyes, attempting to focus on the world beyond the rain constantly pattering upon her back. "Chaos tends to create more chaos. I doubt a bunch of cubs are out simply playing in the rain."

Not to mention, cubs made good bait for whatever it was they were hunting. If the children weren't involved yet, they'd soon be. "Besides, other than these tracks-- that are vanishing quickly-- our next stop was to be the wards. Whether we're hunting the five or the cubs, its the next stop."

She stepped through the muddy sand, watching where her paws fell. With the oasis overflowing, there was a lot more than a trench to stumble into this time. "Besides, I have a feeling this is all at least partially related to one another," she mused.

Another arc of lighting flashed across the sky.

In the burst of light, Veru got a better look at the tracks. He scowled, his sad feather sticking to his face. "It looks like canine tracks- big ones."

"Canines," Alya echoed, her face growing grim in the blackness. It was hard to imagine anything good coming out of this, especially now that cubs were involved. The lioness caught some of Elcca's words and glanced over, ears flat and tail twitching. Related. Hopefully not, but it seemed more than likely, at this point. "We should hurry then, should we not? If there are any sign of mutts, we can investigate them as they come. Just another thing to look out for."

If there were dogs out there, their priority was to find them before they could find the cubs. They could look out for both. Two birds, or however that saying went.