"Zar'gaul, Narlek, Durst, Kwor Ruk'nar, Drost, and Sirn," Graul repeated the names of his sons with a quiet rumble of pride entwined in his voice. Walking to and fro on the muddy red banks of the river that separated the land of Durotar to the equally as inhospitable Barrens, the orc's onyx eyes scanned the land for troubles lurking in the distance as he continued. "All of your brothers have passed their Om'riggor, Caewyn." He stopped directly in front of the growing girl now a lass of fifteen, his eyes pinioned upon her like a lance struck true. "And now it is your turn."

For a girl of fifteen Caewyn had sprung up like a well rooted tree once the roots dug deep. At thirteen her puberty had kicked in like a rampaging tauren in a jewelers shop filling in the parts that had once made her seem gangly and scarecrow-esque. Her hair, to the middle of her back, was a tangled mess of blood and dirt and dust she kept tied in a leather cord, but gleamed like burnished copper when the sun glared down upon her. She had outgrown her diminutive stature topping in at what an orc would deem short at an even six feet. Scars ran her body like a trace work leaving pale-pink stories mapped about her sun kissed skin. Her eyes were whiskey brown and sharp with the sense of combat.

Dressed in merely a brown woolen loincloth around her waist and a faded black wrap around her chest along with a brown satchel slung at her left side, the girl seemed the epitome of a warrior bred in the harsh wastes of Durotar. A spear made of rough wood and a sharpened stone sat with a practiced ease in her right hand to finish off her warriors regalia. Her pose, lazed but ready to become tense at a moments noticed marked her a fierce fighter trained by the most fearsome warriors. She seemed to fit right into the company of orcs had her flesh been green and her mouth tusked.

Stabbing the butt of her blooded spear into the soggy ground Caewyn gave a firm nod to her father. "I understand, my father," replied the girl and her lips quirked into a smile. "Like my brothers I will return to finish the rights of my Om'riggor. Hopefully," she jested, "with less scratches than Kwor."

A lurid thundering of raucous laughter rumbled up behind her from her brothers. Seven all told, he males of the Strongspear line were massive beasts. The youngest of the men, sixteen, towered a head over her six feet and each of them were broad, thick limbed and built like oaks just as their father.

Crossing his bulging arms, Graul scowled to hide a grin at her quip. "The Om'riggor is not to be taken lightly, Caewyn. When you pass the river you will be alone with but your spear and your heart to seek the beast to slay for your right of passage. You will come back victorious or not at all."

Caewyn dipped her head solemnly at the chastising rebuke. "I will not forget, father."

Untangling his knotted arms, the elder orc laid a war calloused hand on her right shoulder. His thumb traced her sun burnt skin and traveled over the puckered edge of a pink scar crawling up her neck. A faint smile twitched upon Graul's rough face at the girl ready to become a woman and take her place in the warriors meetings. "I know you won't. With your mother watching down I have all faith you will pass your Om'riggor then finally be seen as a warrior to all the Horde and valley."

~8~8~

Sweat gathered in tiny beads and dribbled down Caewyn's brow as she trekked the harsh lands of the Barrens. Sun baked down upon her relentlessly, baking her body under the hostile rays and allotting no clemency from the heat. With nothing but her spear in hand, no water or food, the land was doubly treacherous for one such as her.

The Barrens, for its large hills and vast land was aptly named. The grass, so different from the red sand and soil of Durotar was a dry and tawny in long tracts of land only dotted with a few solitary trees. Hot winds whispered thougt the land spurring the stalks to dip and play with the intangible hand pawing at them.

With each step the dry grass crunched under Caewyn's feet as she marched deeper into the flat land. In someplace the grass was high enough for a full grow lioness to hide in and the girl had no doubt there were plenty stalking her. In lands like the Barrens and Durotar everything was hunted from the mightiest of the hunters to the lowliest of beasts.

Perhaps, she had considered for a moment, the lions would have been prey to take down, but the Om'riggor was not about ease. A right of passage from their people on Draenor, the Om'riggor was the last step into adulthood. An orc would have to go out along into the wilderness and kill some sort of animal to claim their Om'riggor.

Many in captivity after the last war with the Alliance had never had a chance to take their Om'riggor, but all the line of Strongspear's had taken their rights and many had passed and she would not, for all her deformities, fall short of the task before her. Time honored traditions had to be followed and she would come back home no longer a child, but a woman.

A sad smile perched upon Caewyn's lips at the thought of the right that now faced her. So many years had passed that had led her to the brink of child to adult. Her matron would have been so proud to see her daughter take her Om'riggor but the cowardly Quillboars attack had ended her. Still, she had died with honor and though they all missed her they knew she was watching them with all the warriors who died fighting and thrashing for honor and glory.

Thinking of her mother, Caewyn felt confident her matron would have approved her tactics that she herself had drummed into her daughters mind, especially for the moments of her Om'riggor and all battle that would be to come if she survived.

"You are not as your brothers," she recalled her matron say without fail in their long hours of training alone. Drenched with sweat they would sit under a scraggly Joshua tree in the hottest part of the day as her mother used the sand as a board to teach her of tactics along with a bit of figures and rough writing and reading besides. She would look at her daughter, her eyes cold and understanding all at once. "I do not say this to make you feel inferior, Caewyn, I tell you this as warning and truth. You will never have the brawn of your brothers bearing or the muscle. You have some strength, and some sinew enough to take many, but head to head their power will win. You cannot be the bulled headed warrior that they are, swinging wildly and rising headlong into the fray, embracing death as a lover. You, daughter, must be the wiry warrior, the wily berserker who picks her spots and strikes with alacrity and savagery. Speed, slenderness, you must use these as you use the spear. When you have found the spot that will ensure you a victory then you may become the reckless one, but not before…."

Golden sun slowly fading into night as Caewyn's reverie drew to an end. The sky was painted in muslin sheets of dark scarlet and lilac as the heated orb bid the world adieu. All the day she had stalked and hunted and slipped through the plains, her heart and mind winding the old paths that had brought her to her Om'riggor and the person she was to be.

Hadn't she taken her mothers words to heart? Caewyn thought as she scaled an only slightly challenging hill for a better vantage. Her calloused fingers gripped sun warmed rock and bits of grass lodged into cracks as she climbed the knoll. Bloods sprang from her fingers with the sharp cutting of stone as she scaled the ridge, mingling with the red rock, but she pushed forward, her mind still swirling with the thoughts and memories that pursued many in their Om'riggor.

All her life her parents, even her brothers had trained her without relent. They challenged her in every way they could fathom. They encouraged ruthlessness both against her and in her. She could still remember dragging herself into the home bloody and bruised and trudging through weeks of pain against more combat. They fought and sparred and sparred and sparred until she could beat every one of her brothers in single combat.

Still, a look of chagrin donned her face, that did not take away what she was, a freak, and a mutant. No matter how good she became, no matter if she were a warrior, no matter how well her matron's training sank in, there would always be that one thought like a splinter lodged in the back of all their minds. She was different. Like the one armed babe that hadn't been fortunate to live, like the warriors who came back with limps and withering and diseases that slowly gnawed away at health, she was different only worse. She stuck out like… like….

As she scaled the knoll, her eyes pinioned upon a blatant figure stomping through the sun withered grass on the other edge of the hill. Freezing, the girl barely dared draw breath as she stared at the creature from her perch. Luckily the sun was behind her, masking her body if one were to stare at her granting a bit of cover against the threat that appeared.

With the receding rays, the last of the sun did well to embellish the creature, displaying it like fanciful war gear.

A raptor gilded in bright purple scales and large bright blue markings that donned its torso marched through the bristly brown grass atop the hill. The creature, large and serpentine was a thing of beauty. Its tail was thick and waved dangerously back and forth with each step. Razor claws like newly forged daggers twitched to its own rhythm and dug mounds of dirt from the earth. A maw of yellow, pointed teeth gnashed and clicked in front of a long red tongue that was thick with venom.

Bold and vibrant the raptor stood out from the dun and browns of the barrens that surrounded it. Compared to the insipid yellows of the giraffes and the dark tan of the lions and hyenas the colorful raptors did not fit in their world of low grass and muted hues.

Just like her.…

~8~8~

Twilight was just falling as the males of the Strongspear family finished their meal. Splintered wooden plates usually licked clean were left with scraps of food and uneaten meat that sat cooling and perched upon by flies. The jugs of ale and mead had become warm and even the cactus apple surprise the now ancient Ta'ni had brought by was bereft of any touch.

A normally raucous table filled with fighting and laughing and good natured jostling was eerily silent as the brothers and their father waited for their daughter and sister.

Worry niggled at their hearts like a maggot eating at their flesh. Thick fingers drummed upon the table and the benches creaked as the shifted nervously. Every so often a pair of eyes would flicker to the door before looking away at some other feature of the home as they let thoughts of ill dance in their heads.

Was she alright? Had the elements done her in?

"She should have waited another year before taking her Om'riggor," Zar'gaul finally grumbled, unable to bear his feelings longer, and rubbed the thick sprouts of his growing beard nervously.

Despite his anxiousness Graul scoffed a scolding sound to his son and crossed his arms. "I thought she was ready and she thought she was ready. There was no need to wait," he chastised to his eldest inwardly hoping he was right.

"And I thank you for the vote of confidence, Popo," Caewyn agreed as she entered in the ramshackle house.

The orcs remained frozen as the girl approached from the darkness. Spear in one hand, like a staff she padded towards the long rough hewn table. Long scratches stood out an ugly red of fresh torn flesh against her tanned skin and a large mark ran along her thigh where her brown satchel hung.

Stopping at the end of the table, the girl dug into the leather satchel. Blood dripped from between her fingers as she hefted the mass in her hand and deposited it to the table.

Smiles crossed all their faces as the looked upon the prize their kin had wrangled. The heart of a mighty raptor!

"Hearken to me my children, my kin," Graul began the ancestral words as he rose slowly from his perch. Pride flashed upon his face and his chest swelled near to bursting as he placed a hand on her opposite shoulder just as he had done on the start of the day. "Today, Caewyn, my daughter, you leave the old behind. No longer are you a child. You have passed your Om'riggor in the sight of the ancestors and the spirits. Today you are a warrior and today you are no longer a girl, but a woman."

Burning pricked at Graul's black eyes to speak the words to the last of his children. Blinking hard to fight back the tears, for a moment he thought he caught a glance of Shala behind the girl, grinning at them both. The faded mystic blue image of her only lasted for a moment before being closed in by the final darkness night wrought upon the world.

Stoically fighting back tears he smiled widely, feeling the spirit of his wife close for the occasion. "Your mother would be proud, Caewyn," he managed steadily and could almost feel her hug at his side, her hand upon his heart as she used to do so many years ago. A single tear stared from his eye and brooked down his coarse face as he declared with certainty, "Your mother is proud."