Chapter Text
Who am I if not myself?
The question Kaeya pondered night after night after night after endless night was running circles around his mind in an endless game of tag that he could never win. He was dizzy with it, the cartoon stars he could feel around his skull a cruel mockery of the ones in his eyes. This mental prison, this horrid, self-contained torture that he kept under lock and key always managed to rattle it's cage hard enough to catch his attention, and it would drag him in and cuff him and hold him against the wall as it whispered sickeningly sweet nothings into his ear. It was a ruthless thing, relentless in how it followed him like a dark cloud, never evaporating even though he had given it plenty of chance to go.
Archons, it was eating away at his brain and feeding on his soul. This constant state of pure uncertainty was akin to a frosted lake that he walked over precariously, each step forward another threat of plunging into the iced waters below and freezing to the bone. He could scream for help, claw at the jagged surface, but his lungs would only fill quicker, the ice cutting his palms clean open, and he would only perish faster. He would die in the frost of his own heart, in a lake of his own tears and blood, forever lost to himself and to the world. One wrong step in this chase could break the ice and send him down, down, down into those depths.
If he asked for help, what then? Would he be dragging his rescuer under with him when he tried to pull himself up? Would they fall through before they could reach him in the centre of this lake, lost to him for the rest of time? Perhaps they wouldn't want to step on at all, leaving him stranded and alone, a constant so familiar to Kaeya it felt as comforting as the warm embrace of wine on his lips. Who would want to save him, after all? If he asked, many would insist they would, but at the edge of their doom they would leave before giving him a second thought. He was made to be left to the icy talons of fate, made to be torn apart and sewn back together by the same falsely caring hands, made to be tossed aside and picked back up like a child's toy as people saw fit.
Even then, children named their playthings and gave them purpose. They cared for them like family, cried when they were lost, craved their company and companionship with fervour. What had Kaeya been given? A name with no reason. He had been identified and thrown, left crumpled between the toybox and the wall like a rag doll whilst others were taken out with love and patience and given something to be. They knew of their purpose, who they were, and like a child it made him want to kick and cry and fuss because there was nothing he wanted more than clarity. Was it too much to ask to know? To have this comfort of stability, was it a luxury that everyone else in Teyvat was granted but him?
Perhaps it was meant to be this way. The universe had left him out, hadn't it? Was that part of the plan of the stars, his true purpose in this life? Perhaps Kaeya Alberich did not deserve happiness. Maybe he was created solely to rot in a dark corner, eyes wide and desperate as he searched for the truth only to find that this was his only answer. That had to be it, fate's plans for the descendant of a sinner, the worst kind of person to be. Should he wait, still as a corpse, for the day his skin broke out into a field of Inteyvats? Should he continue his fruitless search until the flesh began to fall from his bones, or until his own delusions consumed his muddied and ruined mind, forcing him out of his own body and into a hell created by his own design? Should he wait to be brought to his knees before Celestia and made to beg for the mercy of his maker, tears freezing solid on his cheeks with the ice in his own heart?
Or should he let it all end now?
His sword, that horrid blade that had seen so many battles, ruined lives and families with not an ounce of the care he so desired, lay mere metres away. It would be so easy, so very easy, to see what it felt like to be his enemy. He was his own nemesis anyway, wasn't he? That section of him deserved it. It deserved to be ran through, left to bleed out on the cold surface of his mattress, tainting the snow white sheets as he tainted Teyvat with his presence.
Of course he couldn't.
He was all too scared of death to accept it's welcoming embrace.
Who am I if not myself?
What if myself isn't me?
Why am I not myself?
Why is this happening to me?
What did I do to deserve this?