***WARNING!***

This chapter contains descriptions of self harm and dark thoughts. Read at your own discretion.

.

Sorry for the infinite time it took me to write this. I ended up with quite a long chapter, around 18k words, and so I decided to split it in four parts. I still have to finish editing the other three (the bulk of it is done, but one never knows how life will get in the way and delays hobbies...), but I'll post them as soon as I'm done.

Now, brace yourself to follow Ferdinand as he plunges in the depth of self-loathing.

.

Many thanks to Krymzim and JcFerggy for helping me polishing this chapter.

What I love
will spoil
What I love
will have to die
Have to die

I keep myself harmless
I'm not allowed to love
so I won't have to suffer (no)
and no heart will break

That I'm happy cannot be

Ferdinand closed the restroom's door and leaned his back against it, sighing heavily.

A whirlwind of feelings, emotions, fears and lingering sensations was raging into his mind, disorienting him, disintegrating his self control. He was at a loss as to what to do, as he had never experienced such a confused state of mind. Whenever he had to face his feelings before, it had usually been fear, depression, or despair. Those he could handle, but never before he had to deal with his heart racing like crazy, his blood boiling and his sword unsheathed and ready for-

He grumbled, undoing the lace fastening the lower half of his nightwear to lessen the pressure. When had been the last time that the stiffness had lasted longer than his getting out of bed? He was just a kid back then, struggling to get used to the changes in his body, but he was an adult now, he should have better control than this. Besides, Rozemyne had demanded gyu so many times that he should have gotten used to the feeling of her body pressed against his by now.

Not that she had ever straddled his lap before...

Once again, images and sensations from a few moments before made their way to his mind. The softness of her chest, her breath tickling his neck, her gentle smile, the enticing sounds she made, her sweet scent, the movements of her legs...

...the boiling hot dampness of her cup pressing against his sword.

Ferdinand freed his throbbing manhood from the way too constraining fabric of his pants. He looked down in disgust, loathing that thing for thinking it was needed and condemning himself for fueling its delusions.

He couldn't afford such nonsense now. He needed it to quickly return to its normal state so he could get out of the restroom and properly apologize to Rozemyne.

...not that he had any clue how to make it return to its normal state.

He massaged his temples, telling himself to calm down and stop rushing things. He couldn't go out the way he was right anyway, he should make use of this time to come up with a proper strategy. He had once told Rozemyne that he didn't fight battles he wasn't sure he could win, and this was not a battle that he could win without careful planning.

'She has never looked at me with such open disgust.'

Could he pretend he wasn't trying to kiss her, but just getting closer to see something on her face? Could he make her believe that what she felt was just Schlaftraum's wood, that it didn't mean anything?

'There really isn't a way to win this without cheating and deceiving her?'

"Milord," Justus' voice came from the other side of the restroom door, interrupting his thoughts. "Lady Rozemyne opted to relocate to her quarters. I will be escorting her."

Ferdinand's breath caught in his throat. He had instructed Justus to make that suggestion, but he hadn't anticipated that she might actually follow it... that she might run away from him. Had he really ruined everything? He felt his heart beat fast and something grip his stomach, a sensation of anxiety like he hadn't experienced in ages.

"Milord?"

Justus' voice called him back to reality, reminding him that it was no time to retreat to his crumbling inner world. Maybe she was just tired. Maybe she was being considerate and was going away to give him some space. He swallowed hard, trying to calm himself.

"Did she say anything?" He asked, expectantly.

"Nothing, Milord."

"...I see." Ferdinand replied, trying not to make his dejectedness too evident. For her to go away like that, without saying a word... Was it her way of cutting him off?

"You should take advantage of the empty room, Milord." Justus added in a whisper. "Walking around may help with Beischmacht's stiffness."

Ferdinand blinked. With his mind occupied with a much bigger problem, it took him a moment to realize what his aide was referring to. And as soon as he did, he also realized that the stiffness that had been troubling him was gone.

"I see. I will try." He answered, without bothering to tell Justus he didn't need the advice anymore. "Once you have escorted Aub, you can retire for the night." He then added. He wasn't ready to face his way-too-perceptive aide yet.

"Milord? What about your dinner?"

"I can take care of it myself. I need you to rest to assist me in the upcoming days."

"There is no need, Milord. Serving you dinner will not hinder my rest."

"Justus." Ferdinand said with finality. "This is an order."

"...As you wish, Milord. Good night."

As soon as the sound of footsteps outside the door subsided, Ferdinand exhaled deeply and turned to look at the ceiling, hitting the back of his head against the door. Normally, he would have been frustrated at his own clumsiness, but the dull physical ache was both a welcomed distraction from the pain gripping his chest and a deserved punishment for his unsavory actions.

'...Who would have thought that being rejected by a woman would hurt so much?' he thought in self-mockery before stopping to ponder his own words.

Sylvester had teased him endlessly for his lack of interest in the fair sex, but now that he had finally found the one woman he was attracted to, it was her that didn't want him as a man.

He lowered his eyes, feeling a sudden wave of tiredness. Why was his life always about giving up the things he wanted, letting go of the things he cared for? Why were things that others could have without even making an effort always so difficult, so unattainable, for him?

He caught sight of that thing, limp and dangling out of his pants. An unsightly lump of meat whose only purpose was passing waste, distasteful when spinelessly hanging down, grotesque when raised. And yet, despite being the lowest of the low, that thing had dared act on its own, defy its master's will, try to reach out to her, to his goddess.

'Despicable. Those who don't know their place should be taken care of.'

Looking at it with contempt, Ferdinand put his fingers under it and slowly lifted it up, mimicking the position that had caused the mess he found himself in.

'Would she feel comfortable again if I cut this abomination off?'

He grabbed the tip, squeezing it strongly enough for that thing to feel pain.

"Messer." He let the word roll on his tongue and brought the knife underneath it, pressing it against the shaft.

With a slashing motion, he moved the knife to the side, letting the whole edge run against the flesh.

Pain. The much deserved pain intensified, concentrated in that single spot. Ferdinand closed his eyes to better burn the sensation in his mind, before dissolving the knife and letting go of his own flesh.

That thing fell back against his pants, dangling like nothing happened, mocking him.

An empty threat. His act was nothing more, for he couldn't cut a part of himself with his schtappe, nor he would accomplish anything by doing it. Rozemyne disdained physical punishment and blood so much, that she would probably consider him insane if he told her he had removed a part of his body.

Ferdinand pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to detach from the restroom's door. With much more effort than he thought would be needed, he moved closer to the toilet bowl and started relieving himself, holding that thing with much more force than what would have been comfortable. Cutting it off might not have been an option, but he could at the very least inflict it the pain it deserved.

He forced himself to get out of the small, cocooning space that was so in tune with his mood. He moved to the table and started going through the plates of his dinner, without eating much of anything. His mind was too occupied with the earlier fiasco for him to be able to concentrate on anything else.

The more he mulled over it, the more he convinced himself that things had gone wrong from the very moment he had tried to take Rozemyne for himself.

'I don't understand the feelings of love between men and women.' she had told him when he had first wordlessly expressed his feelings to her.

At the moment, he had thought she was mocking him.

However, after his initial dejection at the utter idiocy of her answer, he had tried hard to make sense of her nonsense: he had told himself that her irregular growth might have been to blame and that, given enough time to adjust to her adult body, she would come around and give him a proper answer. He had even dared to hope she would eventually accept his feelings, just like she had accepted everything else about him.

'I've just been lying to myself.'

She might have had the body of a child until she was fourteen, but she had memories of a past life as an adult. It was his understanding that she had not been married in her dream world -at the very least, he liked to think she had not- but she must have had a general knowledge on the matter. She wouldn't have written a story where people openly held hands and even kissed if she didn't at least understand how attraction worked, would she?

'No way she doesn't understand her own feelings for me.'

She had stated countless times that she considered him 'family', but despite her tireless declaration of intent, each and every small gesture between them -her physical checks, random closeness, gyu- rekindled the hope that she might have had romantic feelings and just needed some time to come to term with them.

'How sorely mistaken I've been.'

She had just been trying to reject him in the gentlest possible way, but he went and started hoping for something he wasn't entitled to. He had seen it many times: whenever he had let hope get the best of him, he had soon after regretted it -usually as he licked both his physical and emotional wounds.

Only because Rozemyne was involved, he had let himself believe that things would somehow work out, that he might find a full, all-encompassing happiness. And while blindly believing in that lie, he managed to trespass badly enough that she was forced to give him the most painful rejection of his whole life.

Forget getting closer and becoming her all-god, forget true happiness. After hurting her like that, what most likely awaited him was banishment from her family. And it only took a bell since she told him the gods had joined their threads and used hers to repair his.

'Those bastards, I bet they're spying me and avidly enjoying my suffering.'

And it was while cursing at the gods that he moved to the bed. Schlaftraum must have heard his profanities, because as soon as Ferdinand fell asleep, Rozemyne appeared in his dreams. Beautiful, elegantly clad in thin clothes that left little to imagination, and feminine as she'd never been. Laying sideways on the bed in a way that emphasized her soft curves, she smiled seductively at him while patting the space next to her, inviting him to join her. He stared at her, mesmerized, and had no choice but answering her summons, powerless as he was against her charms. As soon as he laid down she moved closer, put her hands on his shoulders and straddled his lap.

Beautiful midnight hair cascaded around him, forming a curtain that secluded them from the world.

He stared into her eyes, so full of love and unconditional acceptance, something he had craved his whole life. Bewitched, he reached out to caress her face, wanting their closeness to be complete, absolute. Wanting to utterly lose himself into her. His fingertips reached her skin, but in that exact moment her soft smile distorted into a panicked grimace.

"Disgusting..." The word felt like a dagger being thrusted in his guts. Feelings of violation and betrayed trust clear on her face. She looked at him as if he were the most hideous of lowlifes.

He woke up in a start, his breath ragged, his heart beating like crazy, his stomach churning. He brought a hand to his mouth in a rush, forcing himself to take slow, calming breaths and willing what little he had for dinner to stay down. When he finally regained control of his stomach, he let his body heavily fall back on the bed, covering his eyes with the back of his hand as his breath slowly returned to normal.

He realized then that it had been a dream. Schlaftraum had seen fit to torment him in his sleep, as if he wasn't already tormenting himself in his wake.

Not that he didn't deserve it, but he dreaded the prospect of a life spent continuously reliving, both awake and asleep, the exact moment Rozemyne realized she loathed him. He was used to people disliking him, but could he really bear the pain of being hated by the only person who had ever cared for him and not for the benefits he could bring her?

He felt defeated, empty. As if, in exchange for keeping his dinner in his stomach, he had to vomit his hope, his happiness, his fighting spirit... everything.

He lay there for he didn't know how long, strained and exhausted, as he let Rozemyne's disgusted face go back and forth in his mind.

If Justus had called them after their lips had touched and their mana intermingled, would she have given him a second chance? Or, at least, not pulled away in disgust?

Had Justus called him as soon as he started waking up, could he have stopped before things went out of control?

'Dregarnuhr surely went out of her way to make sure we were called at the worst possible moment...'

And she wasn't the only one to blame. He could name Beischmacht for making him so painfully aware of Rozemyne's body, Anwachs for giving her such a voluptuous body, Sehweit for not giving him enough foresight to avoid holding her in his arms while falling asleep...

'Why do the gods enjoy so much making my life difficult?'

Couldn't they even realize how it inconvenienced their most beloved child, Rozemyne? She had to go back to the past and give up part of her own life to fix the mess the gods had made with his thread, only to be made aware one bell after returning that she hated him.

...He should also blame Liebeskhilfe for carelessly cutting his thread. And Ventuchte for stubbornly wanting to fix it. And Sterrat, for marrying them without making sure she knew what she was getting herself into...

He suddenly slapped his hand on his face, rubbing it in a very unrefined way. Incompetent as they were, it was not his job to fix all the mistakes of the gods. It would be an endless task, given how selfish and short-sighted they were, and it still wouldn't change the fact that Rozemyne hated him.

Out of frustration, he grabbed the comforter and tossed it to the side, standing up from the bed. He needed to clear his head, and to do it he had to put some distance between himself and the place where everything happened.

He put on his chamber gown, preparing to relocate in his hidden room, when his eyes casually caught a glimpse of the sky through the curtains of the window leading to his terrace. He had always found solace in the night sky, and the crisp sea breeze would surely help him make order of his thoughts more than the enclosed space of his hidden room could.

He walked outside, taking a deep breath of the fresh night air, and went to sit on one of the chairs that adorned the balcony -an intimate set of two chairs and a low table, where he and Rozemyne had often enjoyed cold treats during the past summer. Knowing that no sane person would be out at this hour of the night, he slumped in a very un-noble like manner on the backrest of the chair, his head turned up to the sky. For a moment he even thought about laying down on the table, but dismissed the thought only because the table's surface would feel too cold.

He opened his eyes and simply let the quiet magnificence of the starry night fill his vision, that boundless harmony of tiny dots of light scattered on a canvas of abysmal blue, so perfect and unperturbed by the petty arguments of humans. Staring at it had often made him feel like he could be swallowed whole, and yet for some reason it had never failed to give peace to his restless mind.

Even now, while he couldn't completely get rid of the chaotic horde of negative thoughts plaguing his mind, focusing his attention on something else allowed him to assess the situation with clearer mind and more detached eyes.

No matter how many things went through his head at once, if he excluded all the feelings, conjectures, blame-placing and so on, there were only two simple facts that remained: first, they were married, and second, she loathed the idea of being intimate with him.

Before meeting her -or actually, before seeing her in her adult form- he never had a problem being celibate, for he had never really craved to welcome winter. Being with her, though, had made him utterly, painfully aware of his desires, enough to cloud his judgment, but as things stood, a winterless marriage was the best he could hope for. Being close to her without ever being able to quench the thirst he had for her would be an endless torture...

'...but I'd rather endure an endless torture than live a life without her.'

He sighed. "How can I assure her I won't demand the fulfillment of her marital duties, even if it's in my right to do so?" he asked out loud, focusing on the brightest star in the sky. The star didn't answer him, but just imagining that it could give him advice was reassuring in its own way. Other times before it had helped him find his way when he didn't know what to do and had nobody to ask for advice.

'Would she give me the order to stop desiring her?'

It would be the easiest way for her to make sure it was safe to be around him, but he knew she wouldn't do it. He still couldn't believe she had accepted his request to hold onto his name.

Maybe he should reduce their hours of joint work as much as he could. He should start by moving his desk out of Aub's office and having Hartmut and Clarissa teach her in advance the classes for the scholar course -he wouldn't be able to teach her the gender-specific ones, anyway. They could also start to have meals separately.

Would it even make sense? He wanted to find a way to stay close to her, what was the point if they never saw each other? Besides, if he went out of his way to stay away from her, wouldn't she start thinking he was doing it because he couldn't control his inner Ewigeliebe otherwise?

And aside from that, they would still have to act as a couple during all the official gatherings. Would that limited time be enough to convince her he could control himself, or would she think he managed to only because everybody's eyes would be on them?

'...Would she even be able to act like things were normal between us if I had to escort her?'

Her noble façade had improved greatly ever since she became Aub, but there were still times when she openly displayed her emotions. If nobles from Alexandria or, worse, Archduke candidates from outside were to notice they weren't on good terms as a couple, they would be assaulted by men wanting to marry her and women wanting to be his mistresses.

He pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to keep the incoming headache away.

He focused his attention back to the sky, his sight falling on a particular group of bright stars that had caught his interest during the years. No matter how many times he observed them, using enhanced eyesight to make sure of what he was seeing, his eyes told him that those stars had a distinct bluish hue and that there was also a bluish something, a very faint haze, surrounding them. It was a mystery he had wished to solve many times, for stars were said to be stitches of the embroidery made by the goddess of light in the god of darkness' cape -the sky- and were thus supposed to be all point-like and golden in color.

However, he was now just superficially staring at them, without enhancing his vision or observing the color, the haze or the mutual disposition of the stars. There was a question much more pressing than the knowledge of the sky. A question that was lingering under the surface of his consciousness but that he was refusing to fully form.

'What if she decides to take another husband?'

In terms of mana capacity there was nobody that matched her aside from him, so she could only have a winterless, childless marriage... but considering that she loathed even just the idea of kissing him -let alone welcoming winter- was there even a difference between him and any other man?

If she did actually take another husband, would she divorce him, even knowing all the consequences it might have, or would she keep him close, be it for his mana, for his Grutrissheit or just out of pity? Would he be able to withstand the pain of rejection if she divorced him? Would he be able to endure witnessing her giving another man the kind of love she couldn't bring herself to give him?

He really didn't want to think about either of those possibilities. He knew he'd have to, sooner or later, but couldn't he afford the luxury of pushing away his problems, for once in his life?

He inhaled deeply, watching the sky without focusing on anything in particular. He felt tired. That sort of tiredness that ran much deeper than many uninterrupted days spent subjugating the winter's lord, or many sleepless nights spent doing headaches-inducing paperwork.

It was a feeling reminiscent of the period between his father's death and his joining the temple. That foreboding knowledge that however good he did his job, no matter how many meals or hours of sleep he sacrificed, it was never enough. Every little joy in life could crumble away and slip between his fingers.

'Is there really a point in living if duty is the only thing that is never taken from me? Is this actually any better than being turned into a feystone before becoming human?' He wondered, feeling himself being crushed under the weight of his life.

The (translated) verses and the chapter title are from
"Was ich liebe", Rammstein, Rammstein (2019)

Here the original lyrics:

Was ich liebe,
Das wird verderben
Was ich liebe,
Das muss sterben,
Muss sterben
So halte ich mich schadlos
Lieben darf ich nicht
Dann brauch ich nicht zu leiden (nein)
und kein Herz zerbricht
Dass ich froh bin, darf nicht sein

In Ascendance of a Bookworm mythology, the night sky is indeed the cape of the god of darkness, but I made up the part about the stars.