Mare Crisium

“How’s Lorenzo holding up?”
The line crackled slightly, unsurprisingly. What was more surprising was that either of them, through all of this, even had enough cell service to make the call in the first place.
“Terribly- Honestly how the fuck were you thinkin’ he’s doin’?”
Of course he knew that, but he still held out the hope it wasn’t the answer. He ignored the other man’s harsh words, instead continuing to pick through the scattered garbage, readjusting his phone to his shoulder.
“And you? Ya doing worse than he is?”
Sekhm went quiet, aside from his uneven footsteps through snow. At least he hoped it was snow. It almost sounded like he was limping.
“-Nah. I ain’t worse than he is, or maybe just… I ‘unno. Different, I guess. More pissed than anything, he’s a fuckin’ wreck in all kindsa ways.”
Chiiri sighed through his nose, long since having figured it to be the case. Even before they went to the front, Lorenzo was a different person entirely. Sekhm was everything he knew him to be but amplified.
Both men were almost… animalistic in their fear, paranoia, dread and how they conducted themselves, as if a switch had been flicked. As if they went back to something much more primal and driven solely by survival and snap decisions- something undoubtedly they had been for a long time. How easily they fell back into it, while packing, panicking, drawing out long hidden dusty weapons and go-bags and packing all of them into the car like it was rehearsed- it had to of been. Maybe it never was something buried, just masked.
“Whadda bout you, Chi? I heard about the fires. You staying safe down there or causin’ trouble without me?” Sekhm laughed, and the sound of a match nearly against the receiver was quite clear.
“I’m fine, staying with a couple of locals. EMS I think, one of em runs one of the cafes too, I dunno, they’re kinda weird. Good folks though, soon as everything lit up they got into action.” For a moment, he struggled with the piece of sheet metal he dug out of the sand, as it wobbled and bent in protest at being moved. It’d have to be good enough for a makeshift table though.
“I heard some guy sayin’ the whole island is gone. The Crane got outta here quick, soon as the news broke.”
“Not the whole thing but uh…” He paused, looking up the beach to the city. He didn’t even know how to describe it other than apocalyptic. Lava, molten and red, still flowed through many of the streets. Some flows, now cool on the outside, were up to rooftops. Everything was gray with ash and mud.
“...Not the whole thing.”
Sekhm just grunted in response on the other end of the line, for a long while.
“Bad?”
He nodded, and realized that he couldn’t see him. Of course he couldn’t.
“Yeah. Really really bad.”
It was only about ten feet of dragging the wobbly sheet metal across the sand before Sekhm questioned the noise.
“What in the fuck are you doin’ man? That ain’t lava or nothin’, is it?”
“No, no no I uh… I’m making a table?”
The line was quiet, aside from crackling static, the poor connection.
“A table?”
“Yeah. Those EMS guys need one for doin’ triage and puttin’ med supplies on an’ shit.”
“Ah.”
The metal bounced over the bodies of dead fish and turtles, all strewn over the sand as far as he could see, for as long as he dragged it. Sekhm didn’t question it further, seeming to just… want to be on the line.
“Hey Sek?”
“Yeah man?”
“What didya mean ‘The Crane got outta here’?”
He didn’t really like how quiet he was.
“Soliairs left, dude. They fuckin’ just straight up left the front, took a whole ton of their ships with ‘em.”
Mulling it over, it made sense. This place was their home, if he was remembering right. A lot of the locals had talked about the god like they knew them, that they drank with them, took gifts just as many as the offerings as they gave. Were it not for the fact his other form couldn’t fly, if he’d heard that Nottingham was on fire and he had the means, hell, he’d probably ditch whatever he was doing too just to go back and make sure everyone back home was okay.
Sekhm though sounded bitter in his words, almost spitting them, and that too he understood. The Crane left their post. As far as he knew, they were the heavy artillery, their ships one of the only things holding back the dragons from a full scale assault and even with them, things were bleak. Sekhm confirmed it just as he thought it-
“Fuckin’ left us to die out here.’
“Worst comes to worst, you and Bird Brain can just hide out in a hole till it’s over. Even if I gotta drag you two idiots out myself I’ll come up there-”
“Stay in fucking Shanai, mate.” Chiiri had only heard that tone in Sekhm’s voice once. Even when he’d heard it the first time, right before Nitali had… Even the first time, he’d hoped he would never hear it again. “If worst comes to worst, fucking stay in Shanai. You do not fucking come here, you fucking stay there, and you fucking move on. You forget about us.”
Every word was punctuated with a bite that went right to his chest, like the bark of a drill sergeant, even though the phone. Every word in of itself was an order.
“If this goes as bad as it can, you do just like The fuckin’ Crane and you leave us to die up here.”