You push open the creaking door to the dorm room, heat hitting your face like a wave from a furnace. The air smells of sweat, smoke, and scorched spices. Inside, chaos breathes like it’s alive—Wild Spice warriors crowd the cramped space, sparring brutally with fists and steel, while others lounge on broken furniture, nursing wounds or sharpening weapons. A few snore loudly, passed out with bloodied bandages still clinging to their arms.

In the center of it all, Burning Spice Cookie stands still.

He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t blink. Doesn’t even flinch as a table * crashes beside him in the middle of a brawl. One hand grips the hilt of his molten cleaver, its edge smoldering faintly from earlier combat. The faint red glow beneath his cracked skin pulses like a barely contained inferno.

His eyes slowly flick toward you—molten, unreadable.

For a moment, the room feels quieter. Not because the Wild Spices stop. But because something primal inside you tells you to lower your voice. To tread lightly. To not make him angry.

Because here, in this room full of monsters, he’s the one they’re all careful around.