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This was an eventuality, Kaeya knew that but stared at the letter that was a summoning. It felt like a nightmare.
Standing, he folded the letter and set it on the table, taking his vision off and next to the letter. Hesitating, he slipped the eyepatch off his face. Keeping the eye closed, odd to have it off, but Kaeya couldn’t bear to wear it, not for what he had to do.
He was out the door, thankful that everyone was at home at this late hour. Kaeya scrambled up the roof and jumped his way to the city’s walls. He did not want to chance anyone stopping him.
Once out of the city limits, he began walking northeast, avoiding some hilichurls camps set up along the way.
Kaeya didn’t let his thoughts wander; no time for seconding guessing himself. He had to keep going.
He had been born for this.
Instead, he kept his eye on the sky, on the stars. Counting each of them as he and dil. Kaeya slammed the door shut on finishing that thought, drowning it out by counting stars.
He would miss the stars, but he hadn’t been born to enjoy the stars.
His boots echoed on the Thousand Winds Temple stone; Traveler must have cleared out the ruin guard here again. It was silent beyond the wind brushing against the stone and the distant sound of water hitting the rocks.
Waiting for a moment, listening, he heard an echo of footsteps.
“Kaeya.” Kaeya only faintly recognized the voice and face, but it was enough.
His birth father.
There were two flanking him, their heads covered with robes.
“I did,” Kaeya stated curtly.
The man looked surprised by the reply.
Kaeya withheld a snort; It had been over a decade since the abandonment, and his birth father was distant in the little memories he had of the man.
“Your mission is nearly done, son. We just need your reports, then you may return home.” His birth father said, almost kind about it.
Kaeya didn’t hesitate, he had made up his mind a long time ago. “No.”
Yes, he had been born for this, to be a spy, to be a sleeper agent, but Kaeya burned whatever reports he had written on what they had considered his 13th birthday.
He would be the one to choose what he would die for.
“No?” echoed back at him. They never accounted for the fact he could say no. Foolish, really.
“No,” Kaeya smirked, “I will die before you get anything from me.”
“You dare spit on your duty, on our people,” one of the robbed figures spat.
“I was eight years old when you abandoned me to be a child spy, what people?” Kaeya pushed back.
As an adult, with Klee, Bennett, and the host of other kids that had decided he was a safe adult, he couldn’t fathom treating them like his people did him.
“We were desperate,” they threw at him as if it justified anything.
Kaeya snorted, “No. It has been 5 centuries since the Cataclysm, and now you wish to wage war with innocent lives that did not do Khaenri’ah wrong. A war with the wrong people is no war at all. You wanted power and revenge, and you would use children to get it, and for that, my answer is no.”
“Failure of the mission means we will execute you,” his birth father threatened.
“You think death scares me?” Kaeya kept his body loose as the robed figures grabbed him and pushed him to the ground.
“We will get the information we want, then execution for your desertion.” Whatever facade the man had dropped, now he just sounded disappointed, as if just Kaeya was a failed recipe.
Kaeya opened both eyes for the first time in a decade and stared up at his birth father, smirking, “Too late,” he had accepted that this was his expiration date over a decade ago.
Kaeya surprised them by falling backward out of the hands holding him, rolling to his feet, and letting his stiletto slip from his sleeve to his hand.
The three dropped into a fighting stance, but Kaeya wasn’t planning on fighting.
Flipping the stiletto around, “I may have been born for your grand plan, but I get to choose how I die,” was the final thing he said before the other three understood what he was doing. The dagger was up and slashing his throat. Dropping the blade, he dropped to his knees and felt blood soak his shirt.
“Wasteful,” the man spat.
Kaeya smiled, hearing the frustration. He gave the people he cared about more time. Hopefully, they are able to make the most of it.
Black encroached on his vision, and he knew he fell over because he could see the stars again, though much less vibrant as dawn was about to break.
He began counting the stars.
Distantly he heard a roar, crackling of lightning and blades meeting, but he had nothing left to think about why. He felt himself slip further away. He could no longer see the stars. Perhaps dawn had finally come hiding the stars once again.
“-orry, Sorry,” Diluc. It jolted him from slipping away for a moment. How? Why?
Kaeya felt something warm press into his throat, then it burned, getting hotter and hotter.
The pain crashed into him, and Kaeya knew nothing else.