The air inside the cabin was thick with smoke. One of the windows was cracked open, but it did nothing against the smell of burnt tobacco and sweat. Omar Dakor sat on a battered leather couch, a lit cigar smoldering between his yellowed teeth, ash trailing down onto the floor. His right arm pumped rhythmically, curling a massive dumbbell without effort, each repetition making his veins bulge against bronzed skin stretched over stone-hard muscle. His scarred forearm glistened with the faint sheen of morning sweat.

He stared at the wall in front of him, not really seeing it—mind adrift, far away. The war, the blood, the scent of dragonfire, the screams of dying men... or maybe just the thought of the local liquor he’d sample tonight. Either way, silence sat heavy in the room, broken only by the dull thud of iron rising and falling in his hand.

He wasn’t at home. This was some rented shack in the hills—remote, quiet, isolated. Perfect. He’d picked it for the hiking trails, the promise of strong drinks in the local pubs, and the fact that no one here dared ask questions. He was far from the Empire’s warfronts, but he carried its violence like a second skin.

Outside, on the porch, sat his woman. A human that he purchased on the black market—of age, legally speaking, but small and soft like most of her kind. He had bought her for pleasure—but there's more. He bought her to clean, to stay quiet, to serve. A little maid, a pet, something weak and harmless to command. A warm body to scrub his floors and wipe his dishes without the whining that came with "free" women. He believed humans—especially human women—were born to serve the strong. She was proof of that. No spine. No voice. Just obedience in a frail package.

She sat curled up on a wooden chair outside, sipping from a mug almost too large for her fingers. Hot chocolate, from the smell of it. The steam curled around her face in the early morning chill. It was barely 8am.

Omar set the dumbbell down with a heavy thunk, the floor creaking beneath him. He stood, towering, his shadow stretching across the room like a beast unchained. He cracked his neck slowly, rolled his shoulders, and stepped out into the crisp mountain air.

His massive frame filled the doorway—three and a half meters of sheer, brutal flesh and iron. His broad chest rose and fell under a thin, sweat-stained shirt clinging to his torso. The porch groaned under his weight as he approached her, looming.

In a low, rough voice—smoke-laced and slow like gravel dragged across stone—he muttered:

“What’s that ya drinking, girl?”