[Metal Tsubasa]: 95.The Angels of Sol Haven.Soreth.You don't want me

“Soreth!” the fire angel heard Basa shout from his right as he sat quietly under the tree.
He looked up plainly at the other fire angel as she approached. His gaze was cool, but sweet. The shadows from the tree above danced over his permanently tanned face and a smile almost shifted over his face, until Basa stopped in front of him saying, “Where’s Irafel?” There was disappointment in her voice. “I thought you two went everywhere together.”
The older fire angel’s eyes shifted back to the ground where they had been fixed only moments before. The smile that had half appeared was now completely gone and he replied to his student coldly.
“He needed to rest,” the fire angel half grumbled. “I’ll be your teacher for the day.”
Oh how he hated his own feelings. He wished that he didn’t feel the way he did for Basa, when clearly she was too infatuated with Irafel, not unlike most of the other angels of her age, and even some that were older, like Alevex. Soreth was never on the receiving end of affection, not with his strong demonic soul and his almost uncontrollable anger.
Fists clenched, Soreth went through Basa’s lesson as if it was merely to prove that he knew the lesson himself. Everything was gone over very quickly and Basa grumbled unpleasantly all through out, being that she wasn’t given time to fully understand it. If she would ask him to repeat something, or explain something better, Soreth would simply tell her to, “Ask Irafel when he returns.”
The lesson ended quickly and Soreth found his feet just as fast. As he turned to go Basa called after him. “Does he even know I’m here?” she questioned quietly. “You always tell him what I say, and he always talks to you. He looks at me sometimes and smiles… but does he really know I’m here?”
“No,” Soreth replied firmly, almost feeling satisfied that he could give her a negative answer after all she was putting him through, “you’re just another illusion to him. No one’s real to him, except me.”
Soreth hadn’t turned back to look at Basa right away, but after taking a few steps in utter silence he turned and saw Basa’s face turning red and hints of suppressed tears seeping out from the corners of her eyes.
“Oh,” she replied, smiling as best she could at the moment, “I see. Well, I suppose that makes sense. I-it’s not like I’m anything special. I should have known I wasn’t any different.”
No longer did Soreth feel satisfied with what he had said; he wasn’t even happy that he had told her the truth. Seeing her begin to cry, the fire angel wished he had lied to her, or at least been a little less brash. With a sigh, Soreth knelt down next to Basa, as she continued to force herself not to fully cry. She looked at him, certainly upset with him for being so mean to her and at the same time wondering why he was still there.
“Don’t cry over him,” he said, though the kindness of it was sort of muddled in his still need to be upset. “Irafel is not someone that needs those tears. Trust me I-.”
But Basa interrupted. “I’m not crying!” she shouted as she stood. “The lesson’s over, you should get back to Irafel.”
He couldn’t do anything to stop her. Now she would certainly hate him and attempting to make her listen would make things worse. He listened to Basa however, and returned to Irafel, he was lying in bed with a lethargic smile dressing his face.
The fire angel sat next to the bed quietly, waiting for his long-time friend to say anything. He did, shifting to look at Soreth.
“Look at you,” the air angel laughed lightly as he stared at his friend. “You’re funny.”
Soreth looked up from where his face was resting in the cup on his palm. “I’m funny?” he questioned quietly, still mulling over the botched lesson with Basa. “Why am I funny?”
“Because you get so grouchy when you feel this way.”
“What are you talking about?”
The two angels paused, as they shared a glance. Irafel smiled pleasantly into the fire angels miserable features. The air angels eyes were like the sky on a foggy day, shifting from a muddy blue, to a grey, to an almost off-white and Soreth could look into them and he swore he saw his friends past working helplessly into the darkened subconscious of Irafel’s head.
Irafel sat up, his pale lips slipping back into a more serious look, which was rather unusual for the mentally unstable angel. “You like someone,” he said pleasantly, though his face suggested other emotions “don’t you Soreth.”
Soreth didn’t reply, he merely looked away, towards the window next to where he sat. Not that he needed to answer, Irafel knew him far too well, even with his sanity lost to the wind. The two sat in silence until Soreth was summoned elsewhere, and he quickly said goodbye to his friend and that he would return when he could. Irafel smile back at him and said, “Don’t by so angry, you should tell them how you feel.”
Most of the time, Soreth took Irafel’s advice, for though the air angel had more than one screw lose, he was normally right when it came to such things. Now however, Soreth couldn’t find it in him to listen. Like an indignant child, Soreth grumbled over Irafel’s request, trying to justify not listening.
But day after day, Irafel remained in bed and day after day, Soreth was left to face the one woman that Irafel wanted him to talk to. However, the more he was with her, the more she detested his presence. The lessons became more like simple arguments that always ended in Basa leaving in a huff and Soreth doing the same. She was simply infuriated, while he was more frustrated with himself for being so cruel to the one person he wanted to care about him the way he truly cared about her.
He would go to Irafel after every lesson, and every time he would say the same thing he had said the first time; again and again Soreth ignored his friends helping hand. He was far too stubborn, at least when it came to this, but still Irafel pushed on and on, like a broken record.
Then one day, Soreth waited under the tree for more than two hours, but Basa never came. By the second hour he was up and began looking for the other fire angel. No one had seen her, though most paid little attention to her. He asked many of the other angels, but their clues as to where Basa was were vague and misleading. Furious, more with the fact that he knew he had caused this, Soreth returned to Irafel, hoping that the all-knowing nutcase would have some sort of clue, but all Irafel told him was, “You shouldn’t be angry, that never makes anything better. You shouldn’t be angry Soreth, you shouldn’t.”
That just made him angrier and more frustrated with himself. He shouldn’t be angry, but how could he not be when Basa had up and disappeared. It was his fault she had, he knew that, but Irafel wouldn’t get out of bed for anything and Soreth was certain he was the only one that could get her to come out of hiding. Nonetheless, the fire angel was determined to find her, to make sure she was alright and to… to apologize. Though he was furious, and certainly would want to yell at the younger angel for up and leaving, he knew it was his fault and he knew he would have to apologize.
He looked and looked and looked and looked, but he found nothing. He looked on each of the Sol’s and no one had seen her. Discouraged and tired, Soreth found himself back at that same tree. He plopped down on the ground, his back slamming against the tree trunk. “Where are you?” he muttered to himself as he dropped his face into his hands. “Basa, where are you…?”
A pair of fiery eyes watched Soreth from up in another tree. They sat quiet like a cat, and being that the eyes lead to a demon soul, they looked like cats eyes. Basa watched silently as her teacher’s assistant seemed to fall into himself.
She had grown tired of Soreth’s nagging, sick of him bullying her. So, in an effort to completely avoid him, she moved all about Sol ___ and had only moved up into the tree after realizing that Soreth was coming back to their meeting place. Now, she leaned through two branches, just to hear what he was saying. She couldn’t make it out, it was too muffled, too quite, but still she leaned closer.
After a moment or so, Soreth collected himself in a single sigh as he stood. The action alone had caused Basa to jump back, but as she attempted to do so, one of the two branches snapped before she could regain her balance and the fire angel fell to the ground next to Soreth with a loud thud.
“Ow…” she grumbled, rubbing her tail bone, which had taken most of the impact.
Soreth’s eyes widened with the site of Basa. She had scared him half out of his mind, but now, with his heart rate returning to its normal pace, he found his old emotions. The older fire angel’s glare was just as fiery as they could possibly come and just as scary as a water angel catching on fire. He stopped over to the young angel and pulled her fiercely up by her forearm, so much for apologizing.
“What do you think you were doing?!” Soreth shouted angrily, his grasp still tight on Basa’s arm. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”
Basa remained quite, her head tilted down towards the ground. How infuriating! This didn’t make anything better, and Soreth became more upset with every passing moment of silence. He gripped her arm tighter and tighter, and only released when he heard Basa being to sob.
She wouldn’t look up at him; she wouldn’t let him see her cry. When she realized he had let go of her arm, Basa took off running, saying nothing to the other angel. Soreth couldn’t follow her, his body just wouldn’t respond. When she was completely out of site, he dropped his arm from the position it had been, when he had released Basa and began to walk away. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled quietly.