#copiaaether

Sister Imperator was sitting rigidly at her desk when the door burst open with an earth-shaking force. Copia was standing on the other side of it, seeming to simmer with all of the rage he had ever possessed in his entire life.

"You promised!" He roared, not caring who heard him. His anger could fill the entire Ministry for all he cared. "You promised me nothing bad would happen!"

"Well of course I promised, dear." Her voice was as cutting and cold as a scalpel. "Sacrifices had to be made. I knew you wouldn’t be strong enough to do it on your own if I merely demanded it. You’re far too soft about things like that." Imperator stood from behind her desk as Copia sank into one of the chairs, too furious to even cry.

She moved beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder but he shrugged it off instantly with an acidic snarl. "Don’t touch me!" Her fingers were tainted. Grotesque and vile appendages that were only used for ill. He felt corrupted as it was; as if the blood on his own hands would stain him for the rest of his life. "You made me… Like a lamb to the slaughter; my sweet, innocent Aether. How could you?"

He could barely hear her words over his pulse hammering in his ears. "There will be others like him…"

"There’s no one like him. The Ghouls aren’t like some toy you can just discard when you're done with them. Each one… Each one leaves a hole in the Ministry when they go."

"I know that, dear. I know it hurts." Her voice was softer now, trying to get him back on her side, but his anger burned white-hot, even towards her; especially towards her.

Copia stood to his full height. "No you don't. You’ve never cared about anyone in your entire life!" The slap was loud and hot against his cheek as her heavy rings collided with the bones of his face. Copia's eyes watered and his anger seemed to cool the barest amount. He turned to face her again. A wordless crackling hostility fell like a chasm between them.

He turned suddenly. Copia had always been loyal to Sister Imperator, to the Ministry. And he owed this place an incredible debt in raising him. But he could no longer bear to call her his mother. As he crossed the threshold of the lioness' den the hallway seemed to stretch out before him like an endless purgatorial expanse. He clutched the wall, his breath finally coming in ragged, broken sobs.

Copia would remember this betrayal for the rest of his life. How he had blindly followed that black witch's twisted orders. She had said it was a binding ritual. Something to entwine their souls for an eternity. Something he had to do alone. Just him and his most beloved Ghoul.

He had prepared everything just as she had asked him to. Aether had come to him, looking as regal as ever. Unwittingly putting his earthly life in Copia's hands. And he had taken it blindly. The ritual chamber was smeared with his blood. The image of Aether, lying on that altar as Copia had lovingly cut the sigil into his chest, as carefully as he could. And Aether hadn't so much as flinched.

Copia had read the words from the book she had given him. Like a loyal, stupid dog. A binding ritual! He would have cut out his own heart to save Aether and now, he would never see his beloved Ghoul again.

It had been their first banishment, and Imperator knew. She knew what would happen. She knew how much this would crush Copia's infernal soul. So why?! He would hear Aether's voice in his head ad infinitum. The last words his Ghoul ever said, ringing like his penance bell forever.

I trust you. I love you.

He had watched as white-hot flames suddenly burst from the sigil in Aether's chest. Clutching his Ghoul's hand as if their feeble corporeal connection, their love, would have been enough to extinguish the flames. Copia had clung to Aether's fingers until the heat consuming him was too much to bear.

He finally wrenched his hand away; a ring of painful, seared skin circling the base of his thumb and across his palm and the back of his hand where Aether had gripped him in his last moments on earth. His lover's cries would haunt Copia's dreams until he died.

He had somehow made it back to his room, but his bed seemed to be more than he deserved right now. More than he ever deserved. He deserved to be torn apart, tortured, burned, flayed. Anything to equal the suffering that his beloved had endured by his own murderous hand.

Copia fell headlong onto the stones, his tears darkening the floor beneath his miserable form. At long last, body exhausted, he unwillingly crashed into a fitful slumber, his dreams as vivid and visceral as his reality. Aether stood before him, a bare-chested vision. His arms were wet to the elbows with blood. It dripped from his fingertips. The sigil was a twisting white scar in his lover's grey flesh.

Aether moved to touch him with those gore-smeared fingers but Copia recoiled from him. Mercurial tears streaked his beloved's cheeks and Copia's heart broke, reaching out to stop them. His fingertips touched the Ghoul's face, smearing the silvery tracks red with the blood -Aether's blood- on his own hands.

You're just as tainted as I was. Moreso. Aether's words were accusatory. But a sweet, eternal voice in his head washed the churning guilt from his whitewashed soul.