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Everyone retained their memories from previous
In this au all the capture targets including the duke suddenly recall their respective memories of all the previous cycles. However there is one very big difference in this cycle, Yvonne is alive.
The Eckart siblings never snuck out to the festival, Yvonne had a fever from running around in the rain days before. She never convinced her brothers to sneak out to the festival, and she never got separated from them thus the Duke never adopted Penelope while looking for Yvonne.
Yvonne also has her memories from her time in the mirror of truth and being possessed by Laila.
Upon realizing that they never adopted Penelope the Eckarts begin frantically searching for her joined by the Crown Prince and Vinter. However, since it has been nearly six years by then, they have no leads. When they ask around the town about the duke who met her, they learn that her mother died but she was never buried and Penelope was nowhere to be found.
Cut to Penelope, after her mother passed away slave traders captured her, this particular group of slave traders has a reputation in the black market for selling high-quality ‘merchandise’. They initially intended to sell her along with the other enslaved children but because of her exotic hair colour, they decided to keep her until she was older so she would be sold at a much higher price.
This particular organization is known for selling high-quality slaves as they ‘train’ them to serve multiple purposes. Penelope was able to learn to read and write because of this. However, one day the slave traders found out she could use magic, and they quickly scrapped the idea of selling her and instead using her for their own purpose.
They forced her to learn magic on her own, she has a room with a straw bed, a bookshelf and writing material. Since she didn’t have anyone to teach her properly she had to get creative to get any results.
Compared to the other slaves she does get better treatment but she is more likely to get punished whether it was because they expect more from her and think she’s not working faster enough or she just happens to be in the vicinity whenever they're in a bad mood so they take out their frustrations on her.
Throughout the years she has gotten better at magic and has made process on her escape plan. The only problem is the colla they put on her neck that will electrocute her should she disobey an order. It's the only thing keeping her from running away and she is on a time crunch as she is finally going to be sold at the upcoming auction. And she's the main attraction.
Back to everyone else, Vinter has been looking for Penelope since the time-loop reset and has come across a rumour of a slave auction coming up at a party. It said that these merchants possess high-quality 'merchandise' and their prized possession is said to be a girl with the blood of a wizard.
This obviously gets his attention and upon further investigation, he not only finds out that the majority of the Empress's fraction are are going to attend this auction but the fact that these merchants may have ties with Laila . So he enlists the help of the Crown Prince in order to raid this event.
Callisto obviously uses the opportunity to weaken the Empress's fraction so that he could focus on finding Penelope. After much preparation, they've successfully completed the raid and arrested everyone involved.
Everyone involved is happy that she's alive and all but they quickly realized that unlike then she doesn't have memories of the time loops.
Callisto lead the royal guards whilst Vinter took stock of the slaves. You could imagine the look on his face when he came across the person he's been looking for, Penelope. He almost didn't believe it because she looked so....different.
She actually does have all her memories it's just that unlike them she went back in time to after her mother died so she now has to deal with her trauma from the six years she was a slave.
I feel like at some point in their time together the male leads have contemplated putting Penelope on a leash when out in public. because homegirl be wandering away from them getting into all sorts of trouble.
They've definitely got a bunch of mini-heart attacks when they take their eyes off her for barely 5 seconds only to look back and find her gone.
Penelope has a dark green tail and fins Callisto has a blood-red tail and fins