Cub wretched forth against the incoming tide feebly, each step deeper into the ocean's embrace as pained and weighted as the bloody conscience that brought him to her shores. She welcomed the orc as she had men and mer for years; captains seeking to tame her, fish boats seeking to harvest her, all such prideful endeavors carried the price of death in her yawning maw, a siren song of gulls the only witness to the lonely sinking ships. It was strange then when the ocean found the orc here today. One who would come humbly to her arms and jutting fangs of reef. Still, the orc entered her of his own device. No lover came without reason and she would see this one piled with the rest.

Though the foam of deeper waters blinded him to the dangers below, Cub pressed on into the damnable sea. It seemed the only course of action really. So long he had thought himself a fortress, a bulwark to those in need. When Arbus instructed them to kill a dragon, he knew what had to be done. The others would slay the beast but at what price? He charged headlong into the mouth of the beast. Gnashing teeth and spells of icefire, his scars speak testament to what the winged beast could have done if not occupied.

The water was now to the nape of Cub's neck as he barely kept his head above water. There was no fortress. He filled the dragon's mouth but Urzoth has still fallen. He carried her back to Zhaveed. They left her with the healers but...no. There was no fortress. Cub was a scythe and carried death across his broad shoulders. With a final determined push against the swirling current, his Coward's Crown faded from sight once and for all.