+This Human Story+
First Signet m Aries
Friendship

TRACK 000                                               Prelude

- 19 years ago

     Beneath a starlit sky lay a beautiful, young angel strewn face-up over an alter. His shining platinum hair was tangled over his face and he was breathing heavily. Blood stained his white, roughed wings and armor.
     The full moon shone over a massive rose garden where the alter stood. A long, stone walkway connected the alter where the angel lay to an old gothic-style gate. Suddenly, the gate crept open.
     "Matariel?" A dark, female figure walked onto the stone. "Matariel I need you. Please... help me..." She sounded faraway.
     Matariel the angel struggled to rise from the blood soaked alter. Once he gained his footing he stretched his wings and folded them again. Matariel checked for a sword that wasn't there.
     "My love, what has happened?" The woman broke into tears as the angel moved into the moonlight. She quickly ran to his side. "Are you okay?"
     "H-he was her..." Matariel's voice was weak. He put his arm over the woman. "But I-I forced him out. He stole my sword-and my power."
     "Matariel..." She put her arm around him and her other hand over his heart. Almost instantly a blue light appeared from her hand and covered his wounds. The light set in and began to heal him. "I'm sorry..."
     "Come with me Matariel. I need you." She sounded even more far away.
     "Anything for you, love." Matariel stared into her beautiful eyes. Slowly, they started to kiss.
     When he moved away, she started to fade away. When she had fully faded away, Matariel's gaze moved to the moon which strangely was no longer full. It was a crescent shape and dogged by stars at both points.
     "I'm coming." Matariel said strongly now. He flapped his wings and slowly took flight. Once he was about ten feet off the ground he flew though the still open gate.

- 10 years ago
Nippon, Tokyo                           the Uttaku apartment

     "Your cousin is coming today.." His mother sounded neither depressed nor enthusiastic. She, rather went about the house cleaning everything more than it needed.
the young boy, Matariel, laid sprawled out across the couch with his sister, Aya sitting on his legs. He had the remote in one hand and was flipping channels on the television. Another boy, older than Matariel and Aya, moved around the house cleaning like his mother.
"Mom... do you really want Less to stay with us?" Aya questioned her mother who was now looking out the window.
"It's not that I want to or not, I'm really doing this for your Aunt Sekoi." She said still staring out the window.
"So that means you don't want him here?" The innocent little girl gazed back at her mother with wise green eyes. Her thick black hair fell to her shoulder as she adjusted herself on her brother's legs.
"It wouldn't hurt to have another child your age to play with. He was born just a day before you and Matariel were..." Their mother looked at them on the couch. "Matariel, why don't you help your brother and I clean up the house a little? You know your sister can't do any heavy work because of her asthma."
"Alri--"
"Matariel cleaned the house yesterday mom. Don't you remember? He should stay here with me." Aya interrupted. Her gaze turned to Matariel and he smiled back at her.
"Fine." Her mother said and turned back to the window.
"Mom, are we going to adopt Less?" Matariel spoke as a fan blew on him, his platinum hair gently blowing in the breeze.
"Well, yeah... Sekoi is going to sign the papers while she drops him off, but he is going to keep Trance as his last name, his fathers last name..."
"When are they supposed to be here?"
"Anytime now," She took her gaze from the window. "Gahgiel, you are going to have to help me. Matariel, Aya, and Lesser are all younger than you. I... I've been under a lot of stress since--" His mother trails off.
There mother was a good woman. She is a nurse at Tokyo's Central Hospital. He husband was murdered when Aya and Matariel were only four. The murderer was never caught and she had never really stopped mourning him. Now she wore a light blue dress with her strawberry blonde hair pulled into a ponytail that stopped midway down her back. Stress and old age showed itself on her pretty face.
"Kids, you should change into something nice." She said as the doorbell to the apartment rang.
The three children ran off to their rooms. Matariel and Gahgiel entered the room they shared while Aya went to hers.
"Have you ever met Lesser?" Matariel asked Gahgiel.
"No, not that I can remember at least." Gahgiel was completely different from his brother and sister. Matariel and Aya were very kind and light-hearted, but Gahgiel was always serious. His hair was a dark brown and stuck up in almost everyway. Matariel in a way felt sorry for him, Gahgiel probably never had any fun in his life.
Matariel finished dressing and walked out with Gahgiel following soon after.
A dark haired boy stood in the living room. He seemed very small and weasily.
"Hi, my name is Gahgiel. This is my younger brother and sister, Matariel and Aya." He motioned to Matariel who waved and Aya who just stumbled into the room.
"Hi." Lesser's voice said, his voice sounding displaced. Less didn't talk much because he is and only child and stayed at the home and became home-schooled. Yet he had a shimmering quality about him. It was eerie and calming at the same time.
"So Less, what games do you like to play?" Aya asked clutching a doll as she leaned on Matariel.
"Insects..." Less pushed his way pasted the kids, knocking down Aya, and stood beside his parents.
"What's his problem?" Matariel asked as he helped a sniffling Aya up. Matariel stared at Less and the boy stared back, looking through him into nothing.