It was a storm such that no one could remember ever having seen, the one that blew up late on Maysa's Night. Not that it was bigger or more ferocious, or its downpour fiercer than others. Nor were the winds more savage, or the flash and boom of the tempest more fearsome. And in fact, no one who was awake to see it can quite put their finger on what it was, exactly, that made it so unique. There was only a particular vibrancy to the lightning, a singular resonance in the rolling peals of thunder. Some way in the which the drops of rain felt more vividly liquid and cool than any other drops of rain, in which the wind felt like a thing alive and new and fierce with joy over it -- a weird and wonderful wildness.
And perhaps it was this weirdness, this wildness, that played out through the dreams of the city that night, rendering them, too, rarely restless and intense -- stirring up deep fears and loves and longings, terrors and joys, all together in a vivid and jumbled tapestry spread out across the entire night. All that anyone knows for sure, on this day that follows, is that they do not expect ever again to see a storm quite like that one, and that they are very, very tired.