Bulag, Ushtur, and Durb had all returned to Orsinium upon reaching the Hammerfell border, saying their farewells and going north. Anxiety overtook Urzoth for days; a feeling more brutal than any gut-wrenching punch to the face, urging from her more frustration than working with cheap, dry leather. To capture the feeling was to swoop down and capture a single grain of sand between her fingers. She was unused to and unfit for dealing with such helpless worry, and she put up with sleeping and eating only as much as would keep her less observant companions from noticing. Cub seemed to be nervous as well, but for reasons she knew he could at least logically justify. She had tried to tell him to suck up his worries early into their journey, that none of the others would even recognize his brand, but how could she expect to tell an Orc like Cub to get over his anxieties when her own threatened to swallow her up?

Marching had taught Urzoth more patience than she thought she could possess. She’d gotten damned soft since saving all of Tamriel; while her physical form was more viciously fit than ever, her heart had shed its many thorns and, in the quiet times when it could crawl from its ironclad shell, it emerged bruised and scrambling for control. She thought of the swarms of dwemer in the west, of Morshum and Orsinium burning, of her mother possibly being cut down or dragged off by filthy dwarves, and the maelstrom felt like a giant’s fingers had wrapped around her spirit and squeezed a little tighter with each uneventful night. She sat near the fire, watching it flicker against the backdrop of black-silver rain outside, and thought her many thoughts. 

Cub’s eyes met hers. She watched him fidget with his hood and his belt. She’d noticed him doing that lately—perhaps it was ill-fitting? She would need to ask him later if she might fix it, then. For the sake of his trousers not flopping to his ankles in the middle of a fight for their lives. 

The others had huddled close to the fire as well, and Urzoth tilted her head in to listen and hum. Marassa’s plan seemed the most sound, by her estimate, but it didn’t cover much beyond providing them with a new, marginally less useless place to hide before the bronze tide again lapped at their feet. She again glanced outside into the pitch of the night sky and to the mountains that reached for it and mulled over the situation while others threw in their input. 

The High Elf spoke. She’d avoided him, as she did with most of her newfound companions, but his apparent age and fair amount of logic had earned him his fair share of her acceptance. Granted, his fair share offered him about a sliver of her capacity for respect. But it wasn’t an awful start. Some of the others were the sort that left an impression of weakness. Not of physical weakness—wielders of the arcane demanded as much awe and honor as any well-scarred warrior, she had quickly learned—but of the mind. It must have been a hunch. The Heroes would not travel with weaklings. Not out of some code, or because of high standards. Weaklings would simply die in their company. She would watch them and see. 

"The longer we fight the dwemer with our feet instead of our swords, the more land they take and the more entrenched they become. There are only so many places we can go before you run out of holes to hide in." The lizard grumbled forth, and Urzoth shook her head. He was a warrior, as many of them were, and kept his blade close at all times, a habit Urzoth understood well. She could practically smell the fervor he hid in himself, like the warriors of Morshum had displayed much more openly: a thirst for battle, craving the rush of ripping an axe or a hammer out of someone’s skull and watching the vibrant arc of blood trail the weapon for a single satisfying moment. He was a warrior, but he clearly hadn’t realized that his brash call for an offensive would just leave them all dead. 

Cub stood with a quickness that made her stand and growl as well. Seeing his anger flare up, she stepped about the campfire with a storm at her shoulders, elbowed past a few companions and stood a few feet from Cub, facing him with a stern silence as he spat, "There is no offensive!" His eyes darted about for a tense moment. Urzoth’s entire body was brimming, like a coil crushed down, ready to spring upon Cub and wrestle him into calming down if he got at all violent. "You had an army behind you and still failed. We should hunt those bastards down in their holes and make them tell us where they took Zhaveed; he's the only one who can stop this. He's done it before, he'll do it again." He panted for a while, and Urzoth almost instinctively pressed a hand to his stomach, as Ushtur had done. She could practically feel his heartbeat thunder through all of him as he tossed up his hood quickly. 

Urzoth retracted her hand, regretting the motion as soon as the gathering quieted. She glared at Blade, brow furrowed. “I don’t like the idea of hiding and whispering in the dark. But that is what we must do until we have a way of fighting the dwarves on equal footing.” She stared at the group about her hard. “Falkreath is too temporary. Windhelm would offer the best protection and it’s got access to the sea, but it’s far off.” She turned to Cub again, a questioning look in her eyes. “Ruins?”