Chapter Text
A wedding is meant to be a joyous affair.
At the altar, the bride and groom stare at each other even as the minister reads their vows out to them, love glowing in their eyes and utterly wrecking any idea that this is not a love match.
Nearby, the bride's father dabs ferociously at his eyes, sniffling at the loss of his beloved adoptive daughter to her husband's home, and her brothers scowl at the groom, one in envy and one in caution.
These are the main characters of this story, kissing passionately to seal their happily-ever-after. It should be a perfect moment, unmarred by memories of the past and untainted by fears of the future.
And yet-
Winter cannot help but feel a little bit cheated. He worked as hard as anybody else present for this moment, towards this moment, tirelessly fighting to undo his mistakes when he realized what he'd done- what he'd sentenced her to, all those loops ago.
Love is a strange and frigid stone in his heart, untouchable and eternal, and he cannot purge it without purging her too.
Maybe he should.
What if he does prune the branches that carry her name from around his lungs, if he steels himself enough to wipe her laugh from his memory and her eyes from his soul? Maybe then he would be able to breathe, if only because there would be room for his lungs to expand past where the thorny vines of her pink hair and cold gaze bind him into silent longing and unending pain. Maybe then he'd be a better person, a better Marquis, a better sorcerer, if only because he wouldn't be fixated on her anymore.
She is not his to love; has, perhaps, never been his to love. It is difficult to say, when she so clearly desires another, but he thinks that at the very beginning- during that first first meeting, that first first life- he had perhaps had a chance. She had not loved him so, then; had feared his cruelty and his blade, for all that she knew said he would hate her and destroy her. And if Winter had stepped up then, had trusted her and let her in, he could have won her heart.
But he betrayed her then. He tried to test her faith, and it backfired, because he used a child in that attempt and she could not forgive him for the danger that tiny life had been in.
But despite his actions, so terrible in the eyes of most, despite what he has tried to do, the atrocity he attempted to commit before, he knows there is no true way to turn back time.
Even if he did manage to enter the framework of this world again- even if he escaped the glaring eyes of the strange 'system' that governs this place and managed to reset the entire world, managed to reset her- there is no guarantee that he would succeed in winning her over. How could he?
He has seen far too much, and that girl at the beginning of this journey has seen nothing at all. Despite the fact that she is still the same beautiful soul as she was then, he cannot help but think... well.
He could not love her again, knowing what he knows now- could not give his heart and soul to that uncertain girl, wan and pale, standing before him with her head held high in a pretension of confidence despite her terror. He cannot split himself between the untouchable angel of pure elation who is now dancing with her husband on the floor of the grand ballroom and the desperate creature who first caught his attention- it would not be fair. He would always see something in her that she could never be, and that would be cruel, if not to her then to him.
And thus here he stands, watching as pink and gold entwine on the dance floor, both clad in brilliant white.
Out of the corner of his eye, he catches another glimpse of pink, and looks up, expecting an Eckhart family member- the younger brother, to be exact, likely watching for any sign that his new brother-in-law is anything less than utterly worthy of his sister's hand in marriage, or maybe the recently-rescued sister, looking for a way to be closer to her family again after the awkwardness of having been possessed and trying to murder everyone.
Cool purple eyes meet blazing aqua surrounded by hot pink, and he cannot help his gasp-
Because the girl standing in the shadow of a pillar on the second floor, watching fondly as the Crown Prince sweeps his newlywed wife into the second dance, hands clasped together, is Penelope Eckhart.