Once, Hasan had enjoyed the visual interest of an approaching storm. He had been born in the midst of a terrible one, or so his mother had told him, and so the sight of looming black clouds and branches bending as though in supplication had often drawn him into a somber, contemplative mood, as he thought back to a time he could not remember and wondered just what his mother had experienced that night. He imagined lightning striking with a great clamor as he slid onto the wet ground, marking an omen that would hang above his head the rest of his life, while his poor mother, shaking and soaked to the bone, smiled without a lick of knowledge as to what his little life would become.

Now, with no visual interest to hold his attention other than a vague grey smear, Hasan found that his other senses came alive in a way they never had before. The heaviness of the humidity sat in his lungs like water, with it all the scents of salt and earth that had been carried for miles; he even swore he could hear the electricity in the air, beneath the hiss of the the wind in the trees. And in the moments before a roll of thunder, there was a stillness he had never noticed before, as though the earth and all its creatures were holding their breath.

Sometimes, though he knew the danger it could incur, Hasan felt drawn out into the open during these moments, before the rain really set in, and this was the case today. He liked to feel the electric air whisking around his body, tousling his mane and tail and filling his lungs. In these moments his mind no longer felt like a cage. He was simply alive, a creature living in the moment. For a time he was able to forget his blindness, to stop wondering how ugly the scars on his face made him. He was able to forget his grief over his mother, years-old but still tender to the touch, and able to stop worrying about his grown son.

Then, a voice, so close he nearly jumped out of his skin. Hasan's ear twitched toward it, and his nostrils flared to test the individual's scent. He recognized neither, but given he had largely kept to himself since taking refuge in the forest, that hardly accounted for anything.

"Then you must be as blind as I am," Hasan finally rumbled, turning his sightless face toward the mare. There was no malice in his tone, but neither was there any friendliness. His expression was flat, the amber of his eyes barely visible beneath the milky grey clouds. Though the swelling had eased, he still had difficulty prising the lids open fully. "Do I know you, sunshine?"