"You are not the one who I've known back when I was still beginning my path," she says, wondering if it her rejection of his memories will make sense. He is no Su, he is just another man who was unfortunate enough to share memories with the 'Sage' who had no right to do what he did. In the end, betrayal was evident and she never forgave him for that either. Thus, she does not put any of her thoughts unto Al-Haytham at this point, a man who was cursed by the Buddha. "Perhaps, one day, you'll be free of a burden you were not supposed to carry. But my question is: Do you wish to be free? Do you wish to start anew? Despite what I may think of your situation, your input is the only one that truly matters." (hehe hi)
"Of course I'm not him. I'm just one of those vaunted counterparts, or whatever they're called. Su just happens to be living in my head. He does pay rent, so to speak."
Al-Haytham said that, yet the moment he did, he glanced away; a sign of dishonesty for disciples of body language. Maybe not of a malicious deception, but he didn't entirely believe it anymore, either. He didn't actually think he was Su, but rationally speaking, in the great game of counterparts, he was a facsimile. They were and weren't each other any more than a reflection could claim the reflected was them, but the lines blurred.
Rationally, he knew that this internal crisis he'd been in denial of was because of how he'd been exiled from Tayvet (Teyvat, as it'd been called before) and how having his identity erased from Irminsul had caused psychological issues he couldn't begin to fathom. Having Su in his mind had been a comfort, because the man genuinely did care for his lookalike, and sharing memories had stabilized him. Until the fractures came, dramatically and devastatingly. First, it had been falling in love with a dead man, those feelings hooked into him like intravenous fluid. He'd thought it was just his own vulnerability inventing love out of air as a distraction, until it became too real.
And now, this woman--this Herrscher(?)--was suggesting he should be rid of Su. Kevin had said that, too, hadn't he? That he was problematic. Maybe not by virtue of his character, but by recognizing the inherent danger of an empty vessel latching on to someone who was a mirror-image thousands of years older than him. How Al-Haytham had leeched and leeched until there was nothing left and the lines were blurring past the point of salvation.
"Technically, I did start anew. I was ejected from my homeworld, tossed through time, with my identity and existence and erased--is that not new enough?" His composure fractures, feeling the cracks grow into a gulf. There's anger in his tone slowly deepening into a deeply repressed rage. At the injustice of what he went through? Maybe. "So, what's the big plan? Erase my memory again, eject Su from my mind, and then what? Pretend everything is fine? Like I could somehow get my identity back when that's impossible? If you want the honest answer, no, I don't want to be 'free'. I'd like to self-destruct--if that's what it even is--on my own terms, thank you."
