Sleep proved elusive and fitful: stress, unfamiliar surroundings, makeshift arrangements, disturbances as refugees continued to trickle in. The pièce de résistance was the onset of "wild" rainfall not long after the three of them settled onto their sleeping pallets. Desultory efforts to steer it elsewhere came to nothing as the sheer mass of clouds overmatched the few pegasus ponies—even fewer weather-trained—who went up to meet them. In the end most of those present crowded into what shelter the ruins offered, leaving the meadow to hardier or better-equipped souls.