Chadwick Rye

Bruxa Ironskull raised her face to the darkening sky, inhaling deeply as the first electric tang of approaching lightning scorched the air. Around her, the rest of the adventuring party scurried to secure the campsite—the human wizard Alastair muttering protection incantations, the elven twins Lyra and Lysander hastily erecting a reinforced tent, and the halfling rogue Pip frantically gathering their supplies before the deluge hit.

“Bruxa! A little help would be appreciated,” Alastair called, his voice tight with irritation as he struggled to maintain the glowing barrier above their camp. “Unless you plan to simply stand there until you’re struck by lightning.”

A rumble like avalanches in distant mountains rolled across the valley. Bruxa’s lips curled into what humans often mistook for a snarl but was, in fact, a smile of profound satisfaction. Her tusks—adorned with iron rings that marked her fifteen successful raids before she’d abandoned clan life—gleamed in the strange pre-storm light.

“Little wizard,” she replied, not bothering to turn, “why would I help prevent what I’ve been waiting days to feel?”

The rest of the party paused their frantic preparations, exchanging familiar glances that Bruxa had come to recognize over their six months traveling together. The look that said: *our orc is being strange again*.

Let them think what they would. Three weeks of relentless sun had left her green skin dry and cracking, her spirits diminishing with each dusty mile. But now… now the blessed chaos approached.

The first massive droplets struck her upturned face—each one a cool mercy against her weathered skin. She closed her amber eyes, savoring the gathering intensity as gentle patter transformed into hammering percussion against the earth.

“Most people,” came Lyra’s melodic voice as the elf appeared at her side, silver hair already plastered to her skull by the downpour, “prefer to stay dry during storms.”

Bruxa opened one eye to study her companion. After half a year, the elf’s delicate features no longer seemed so fragile—Bruxa had watched those slender hands draw a bowstring with deadly precision, had seen those luminous eyes harden with resolve when facing enemies who underestimated her.

“Most people,” Bruxa rumbled, “have never known the glory of standing undefended against sky-anger.”

Thunder cracked directly overhead, so powerful it vibrated through the soles of her bare feet and into her bones. Perfect. The storm had found them.

“In Bonecrusher Clan,” she continued, raising her voice against the storm’s voice, “young warriors earn their first name-marks during storm season. We climb High Skull Rock and stand beneath open sky while storm gods test our courage.”

Lightning split the darkness, illuminating the valley in stark white brilliance. For a heartbeat, Bruxa could see everything—the ancient trees bending before the wind’s fury, rivulets of water carving temporary canyons through soil, her companions’ faces caught between concern and fascination.

“Those who flinch or seek shelter remain children,” she explained as darkness reclaimed the world. “Those who stand firm receive the storm’s blessing. The mark of thunder in their blood.”

She rolled up the sleeve of her hide jerkin, revealing an intricate scar pattern etched into her bicep—a jagged lightning bolt surrounded by circular runes. “I stood through three storms before receiving my blessing. The fourth struck me directly.”

Lyra’s eyes widened. “You were hit by lightning and survived?”

Bruxa’s laughter joined the thunder. “Survived? I was transformed!” She spread her massive arms wide, embracing the torrent. “Storm rolled through my veins, burned away weakness. When I descended mountain, I was no longer child but *Bruxa*—Storm Bringer.”

The rain intensified until it seemed they stood beneath a waterfall. Alastair had wisely abandoned his protective barrier, recognizing the futility of opposing such elemental force. Even Pip had stopped fretting over their belongings, watching the orc with newfound curiosity.

“The weak fear storms,” Bruxa continued, her voice carrying unusual gentleness beneath its habitual gravel. “They see only destruction—trees fallen, rivers flooding, structures damaged. They miss the truth.”

Another lightning strike illuminated her powerful frame—six and a half feet of muscle and scar tissue forged through battles both chosen and forced upon her. Water cascaded down her face, between the tusks that marked her as outsider in these human lands.

“What truth?” asked Lysander, who had joined them, his scholarly interest piqued despite his drenched state.

Bruxa inhaled the storm-scent deeply before answering. “That destruction and creation are same force. Look around after storm passes—new paths carved by water, soil enriched, seeds carried to new ground. Fire-trees in southern ranges only release seeds after lightning breaks their outer shell.”

She knelt suddenly, pressing one massive palm against the mud. “Feel how earth drinks? How it softens to receive what sky offers?” Her voice lowered to a rumble barely audible above the storm. “This is oldest magic. Older than your spellbooks, wizard. Older than elf-songs or halfling tricks.”

The others exchanged glances, but something in her reverent tone kept them from dismissing her words as barbaric superstition. For once, they seemed to recognize that her perception might contain wisdom their scrolls and tomes had never captured.

“So this,” Lyra gestured to the maelstrom surrounding them, “is your favorite weather because it reminds you of home? Of becoming a warrior?”

Bruxa rose to her full height, water streaming from her ritual-cropped hair down the sculpted planes of her face. “No, elf-sister. Is favorite because it is only time I feel world as it truly is—raw, powerful, unconstrained by pretense.”

She extended one calloused green hand, catching the raindrops as they fell. “In human cities, you build walls against wind, channels to control water, roofs to hide from sky. You separate yourselves from world’s true nature.”

Thunder rumbled again, more distant now as the storm’s heart moved eastward through the valley. Bruxa’s expression softened into something rarely seen by her companions—a wistful openness typically concealed behind the mask of stoic warrior.

“Storm reminds Bruxa that beneath armor, beneath battle-rage, beneath even skin… I am elemental force also. Like lightning—brief, fierce, connecting sky to earth in moment of perfect truth.”

The downpour gradually subsided into gentle rainfall. Around them, the forest seemed renewed—colors intensified, scents heightened, sounds clarified. Life responding to the storm’s challenge with defiant vitality.

“Also,” she added with unexpected mischief glinting in her amber eyes, “mud fights after storm were best part of clan childhood.”

Before they could react, she scooped a handful of fresh mud and launched it with unerring accuracy at Alastair’s pristine robes. The wizard’s indignant sputter was swiftly drowned by Pip’s delighted cackle and the twins’ startled laughter.

As chaos erupted around her—the dignified adventuring party devolving into mud-slinging children—Bruxa Ironskull, exiled warrior of Bonecrusher Clan, felt the familiar electricity of the storm still humming through her veins. This unlikely band of soft-skinned companions might never fully understand what it meant to be forged by lightning and claimed by thunder, but perhaps today they had glimpsed something of the primal joy that civilized societies had forgotten.

The storm moved on, leaving behind a transformed landscape and five mud-covered adventurers who, for a brief, perfect moment, had remembered what it meant to be wild.