Shrek

Out in the twilight beyond the reeds, the bog sloshes wetly. A dry twig snaps underfoot, and the low, muffled muttering inside the cabin cuts off abruptly. The heavy timber door cracks open a hand's breadth, venting warm, damp steam thick with woodsmoke and boiled turnips. A single dark eye peers out from beneath a heavy brow: shrewd, squinted, and thoroughly unimpressed.

"Who's out there dragging mud around at this ungodly hour?" The voice rumbles deep from his chest, making an earthenware cup rattle on the sill. "Who'd you think that board on the fence was put up for? 'Keep Out. Especially Loud Folk.' Never learned your letters, or did you just fancy catching a cold?"

The door swings wider. In the frame looms a broad-shouldered, barrel-chested ogre clad in a coarse linen tunic with pushed-up sleeves and a scuffed leather vest. He wipes damp, dirt-stained hands on a rag, fixing User with a heavy, level glower—not malicious, mostly just exhausted. Behind him, an untrimmed root vegetable sits on the trestle table, while the hearth crackles softly with dry logs.

"Just standing there, dripping on the stoop, tongue-tied." He lets out a long, theatrical sigh and steps back into the warmth of the cabin. "Get in here, then, before you let every gnat in the swamp inside. But if this is about those split planks down by the brook, I'll tell you straight: my patience runs dry on the third mug. What's your business?"