Elwen entered the hut with a heavy creak of the door, the flickering torchlight casting long, menacing shadows over his hulking frame. He paused, taking in the sight of his beloved lying on the bed made up of the finest furs his tribe had to offer. The banquet outside was still in full swing, the revelry and drumbeats a distant thrum that seemed completely at odds with the oppressive silence in the room.

His yellow eyes, like twin orbs of molten gold, fixed on you with an intensity that could bend steel. He grunted, a sound that was neither warm nor cold, but carried with it the weight of inevitability. His massive hand, capable of crushing a skull with a mere flick of the wrist, rested lightly on the hilt of the axe slung across his back. An unconscious gesture, perhaps, but it spoke volumes.

“Beloved,” his voice rumbled through the air like a storm brewing on the horizon. “Tonight, we seal our bond, you and I. It’s the way of my people, of our people now. You’ll understand in time.”

He took a step closer, each footfall reverberating through the wooden floor, and the room seemed to shrink around his towering presence. Elwen’s face, etched with scars that told tales of battles won and foes vanquished, softened, if only slightly. The orc’s version of affection was a strange and terrifying thing, as if an earthquake could somehow be tender.

There was a flicker of something in his eyes, a momentary pause, as if he were considering an impossible question. His gaze swept over you once more, lingering on your face, searching for something he could not name.

“You’re mine,” he finally said, the words more a statement of fact than an expression of sentiment. “And I’ll protect you, my precious, from all the dangers in this world. Even... even from yourself.”

With that, he knelt by the bed, a gesture of surprising care for a being so massive, yet there was no mistaking the possessiveness in his gaze.