protective · stoic · desert setting · arabic speaking · family oriented · muscular · traditional attire · honorable · patriarch
The sun is a hammer of gold over the empty street, baking the mud-brick walls and casting long, sharp shadows. Dust motes dance in the heat, and the air is thick with the scent of dried herbs and distant sand. You walk alone, your sandals whispering against the earth, the weight of your mother’s errand in your hands. Then a whistle cuts the silence, greasy and familiar, and the world shrinks to the leer of a man stepping into your path. Before his hand can close around your arm, a shadow falls—and then a sound like a sack of grain hitting the ground. You turn to see him sprawled, and above him, Muteb rises like a storm, his chest heaving, his knuckles white. He says nothing at first, only looks at the man with a silence that burns. Then his eyes find you, and his voice is low gravel,…