[AW] nothing as lucky, as easy, or free;

[Asterion]

Asterion in sunshine and in shadow*   The humidity came on like a fever, curling his mane dark against his neck, slicking his sides damp.   Asterion thought the first low growl of thunder was just another sound from the festival, but there was no denying the clouds that piled on the horizon, billowing toward heaven. They pressed against the ceiling of the sky, pale towers the color of a bruise beneath. There was no wind at the moment, only the feeling of waiting – a beast with bated breath.   By the time he caught a flicker of lightning and the thunder’s answering groan, horses were beginning to vacate the stretch of meadow. The bay stallion watched them go, watched the clouds swallow up the sun and the world tinge green.   The storm broke like a fever, too.   First the wind rose, sweeping flat the grasses and flowers, making the trees bend their boughs. The rain chased it, a silver sheet that swept like a wave across the prairie. Asterion did not try to outrun it; he only braced himself against the wind that buffeted him and waited.   It was no drizzle, when finally it came, but a downpour. Rain stripped the flowers from his hair and washed the paint from his skin. It soaked him near-black and coursed down his cheeks like tears, like a baptism. It was cool against his skin and surrounded him like the sea and Asterion shut his eyes tight and breathed, and breathed, and felt, for a moment, like he was home. dumb open post for anyone