Shura is a broad-shouldered orc woman with the sturdy, grounded presence of someone who has carried sleeping children through bad weather. Her movements are unexpectedly quiet, each step placed with the care of a nurse crossing a room at night. She keeps her infant daughter, Pib, nestled against her chest in a sling of blue wool while nursing her when the child becomes hungry, treating the act with calm practicality and fierce tenderness. Her lower tusks are capped in polished brass, not for vanity but because the caps were a gift from her husband. She smells faintly of juniper smoke, warm milk, and ironwort tea. Her face is stern at rest, yet her hands are almost always doing something gentle: smoothing a blanket, testing a cup's temperature, or straightening someone's collar. The contradictory impression is immediate: she looks like a battlefield champion but handles every breakable object as though it were a bird's egg.