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#andromache of scythia
non-un-topo · 11 months
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hot guard summer
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artgroves · 7 months
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Andromache and her sisters
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linaxart · 3 months
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Andy
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gallifreyburning · 1 year
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This year I was SO thrilled to win one of @seanchaidh7 's Fandom Trumps Hate auctions, and she was kind enough to agree to continue her amazing portrait series for The Old Guard!
The details here are so perfect: Andy's axe providing a glimpse into the Scythian-like steppe landscape, and Quỳnh's liquid hair and the bathymetric pattern on her clothes -- every time I look at them I find new things to love! I adore these characters, and Ash's thoughtful presentation of them is perfect!
If you're curious, take a peek at her other TOG portraits: Nile, Joe, and Nicky
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Sword gays showdown, round 1, bracket two
Propaganda:
For Demoman:
Demo occasionally fights with a talking haunted sword called Eyelander who loves cutting heads off, they're also sort of frenemies, it's a really fun dynamic since Demo seems a lot more energetic when fighting with him.
First, although the main focus of the character is on bombs, he has a menagerie of various swords that are equipable items, with a Demoknight being a popular "subclass". He isn't canonically lgbtq+ but no one in tf2 is cishet and have you heard the voicelines.
For Andy:
she is master of weapons, and also just a queen in general. also also, she’s highkey the pinnacle of gay pining (girlfriend trapped in a cycle of death/rebirth at the bottom of the ocean, and andy spent centuries looking for her to rescue her)
Has been a sword (or more commonly a labrys, or improvised weapon) gay for thousands of years
She's an unknowably old immortal and unspeakably skilled in any/all forms of combat. She typically uses her signature axe but per the other characters, "she's forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies will ever learn." Until recently, an unkillable gay (at least not permanently). She's bitter, she's badass, she's even bisexual. Peace and love on planet Earth.
Andromache is super tough, strong, and can beat anyone in a fight. She can also beat the bury the gays allegations as she can die but does not stay dead. She has been alive since est. 4700 BCE and has been protecting humanity with her blade skills for over 6000 years. She has been the leaders of various communities and worshiped as a goddess in several cultures. Andy is the founding member of the Old Guard, where she fights side-by-side with her life long love Quyuh (or Noriko as she is known in the comics, who is also a badass warrior and archer). Andy knows countless languages and is an expert in all weapons but her main weapon of choice is her labrys (a very lesbian blade weapon, so I hope it can be excused that it is not a sword). She has forgotten more ways to kill a man than any person/army will ever know in their lives. And yet even with this ferocious and tough skill-set, she is still so kindhearted, caring, passionate, selfless and protective of her found family and will do anything for them and for her love (even during the present complicated situation which i will not outline bc spoilers for The Old Guard). Please vote for Andy, she is a lesbian and wlw icon <3
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just-a-german-girlx · 6 months
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15. Against the wall ~ Andromache of Scythia (nsfw)
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We go over the new fighting technique once more before deciding to act out the fight again.
"Come on, y/n! Look out for your left foot!" Andy shouts at me, attacking me in the technique we just covered. She manages to kick my left foot, which wasn’t in the right position anyways, and I fall to the ground with a grunt.
Andy pulls me up and pushes my back against the wall, one of her thighs sliding between my own to keep me in place, her hands wrapping around my throat.
"You’d be dead by now, y/n. You might not be dead permanently, but that doesn’t mean you should collect deaths as if they were trophies, hm?" Andy growls.
I fake choking noises, ready to flip us over and get the upper hand in the fight for once, but suddenly Andy shifts her legs, and her thigh presses directly against my clit.
I can't help but moan.
"A-Andy"
She smirks, leaning down and whispering in my ear. "Yes, little warrior?"
"Y-your l-leg," I moan as she moves it against my center.
"Do you want me to stop, y/n?" she says huskily, biting my earlobe.
I groan, gripping her shoulders.
"No...please.. " I breathe out.
"What do you want me to do, love?"
"Kiss me...please," I moan.
Andy leans back down, connecting our lips for the first time.
A few minutes of making out later, and I'm more aroused than I've ever been in entire my life. She massages my breast with one hand, her other hand on the wall beside my head, holding her up as she’s leaning forward.
I moan her name, bucking my hips.
She pushes them down with her hand before pushing her hand into my underwear, finding my wet heat.
She groans.
"Oh y/n, is that how you always feel around me?" She smirks and I nod. She hums and pushes two fingers inside me, earning herself a moan from me.
Kissing her way down my body, she pulls down my workout pants and underwear. Her fingers still thrusting in and out, she swirls her tongue around my clit, and I bury one hand in her short brown hair, the other one squeezing my own breast.
She inserts a third finger and sucks on my clit.
I scream her name as I reach my high.
Once I've calmed down, I pull Andy up and kiss her hungrily, flipping us over so she’s the one trapped against the wall, intending to give Andy a mind-blowing orgasm as well – and knowing that she will not object at all, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to push her against the wall in the first place.
Needless to say, our training wasn’t focused on fighting techniques and their practice, but neither of us minded, and Andy promised me to go extra hard on me in the next session to make up for it.
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diver5ion · 9 months
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nkp1981 · 9 months
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The Old Guard
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lily-s-world · 2 months
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It has been 16 months since the filming of The Old Guard sequel was completed... So, what is going on Netflix? Where is our movie??
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mysteriousbeetle · 4 months
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The Old Guard: Forces Multiplied issue #5, page 28
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One of my (many) favorite details on TOG is how each of them reacts after dreaming about Nile. Presumably, they all had the same dream (considering both Booker and Joe saw the same things, Joe just needed Booker to jumpstart his memory to realize them, and also that the flashes we get for each character aren't necessarily the same things they mention after they wake up) but what each of them retains is wildly different. Joe remembers the people best; the first thing he says is "I saw an older woman in a hijab", and he draws Nile near perfectly without needing any help remembering her features. Nicky remembers the environmental information best; dirt floor, clay walls, the knife was a pesh-kabz, Pashtun. Booker has some flashes of information, but he doesn't retain it well (saw a part of a name tag but doesn't remember what it said, vaguely recalls a medevac) but what really sticks with him is the way he felt when she died. And Andy remembers the military information best ("she's a marine. combat or near-combat duty")
It's really consistent with their characters in many ways. Joe approached this with the empathy (in its literal sense) that he always does, latching unto the people, paying attention to their stories. Nicky was cataloguing information, sniper's eye, focused on anything that would give them clues as to her location, which is what matters best; Booker tries to focus on the objective details, but he's stuck on the pain; and Andy focuses on the military information (uniform and weapons, presumably). I find it really cool how they all retain different things from the dream, focus on different things, because even the same visions are different when you consider how wildly different their points of view and personalities are, and they showed their characters through that scene flawlessly
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non-un-topo · 1 year
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Outfits of the Guard from an older fic of mine, Tangerine and Roc. Supposed to be a bit of a mix of styles from Central Asia in the late 15th century as they go about their travels, with a little battle-ready touch.
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acupofqueercoffee · 1 year
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“With her sweetened breath and her tongue so mean”
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Andromache the Scythian x Witch Reader
gif ▸ queen-shuri ( i don’t know how to link a gif ㅠㅠ )
request ( found here ) by @nightly-polaris
i left her powers to your imagination though i did play around with the idea of them being soulmates. wow it did take me a while. this was harder to write than i thought. frankly, i’m not very pleased with it. i went too long without writing and i feel like i’m getting rusty. i just hope that i managed to do your idea justice 🥹
(=^・ω・^=) leonora the cat made a cameo appearance
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Myriads and myriads of millennia. That was how long the Scythian had been walking the earth. There was not a corner of this world where her soles had not touched. Many a time had the sky borne witness to her downfalls, and thereupon, her immediate beginnings. Throughout her journey as an immortal, she had seen it all, privation, plenty and everything in between. The wonders and weirdness of the world could no longer provoke in her a sensation that would otherwise have six thousand years ago.
Regardless of her very old age that could have her certified as a living fossil, and the boundless knowledge that she had collected throughout her very long life making her a walking encyclopaedia, there existed many mysteries that even Andromache had yet to see. Amongst them, magick was a concept that still remained foreign to her; therefore, a threat. Unfamiliar though it was, it was not entirely unheard of. After all, she herself had been caught in the crossfire while trying to free the accused from the witch trials. In the end, they were just that: accused. There ended the extent of her experience regarding witchery or anything supernatural for that matter.
The only occult phenomenon that she knew to be bona fide was their immortality. The rest was sham. That was, until her team notified her of the all too familiar dream. Until a family of four bar Quynh and Booker, became a family of four, plus a hazardous, peculiar individual.
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The arcane parts of you that had remained concealed for the better part of your life had only recently come to light when you unfortunately faced your demise.
The cause of your death had been as good as silly, slipping on a wet tile and cracking your head open on the edge of your bathtub, but it had shed light on an important piece of information nonetheless.
One second, you were dead, and the next, you woke up in a pool of your own blood. To you, who had been revealed to the bombshell of an information about a week ago, that you were a witchling, you were just in assuming that it was part of your newfound identity.
However, on the following day, with the arrival of a mysterious woman on your doorstep, your life was turned upside down. Going with her had not been of your own free will, having been meticulously knocked unconscious and finding yourself on an unfamiliar bed upon awakening.
The root of your sudden perturbation stemmed from the absence of Leo, a majestic Somali cat with gorgeous red mane that resembled a smaller version of a fox. She had been your greatest companion long before you had been made aware that she was your familiar. It appeared that the bond between a witchling and her familiar became only stronger once a witch unlocked her true potential. Only when a fluffy ball of scarlet hopped onto your bed could you calm.
In addition to, quite frankly, the charismatic complexity of a woman that you eventually learned named Andromache, you met three other people; Nile, who looked the closest in age to you, Nicky who had the kindest face out of the four, and Joe who appeared the most laid-back. All five of whom, four who you had just met, and the remaining one who, as explained by them, was away to carry out his punishment, were not entirely unfamiliar to you. You had seen them in the dream that had sought you right after your very first’s death.
Regardless of your non-involvement in being here, the decision to remain here was done of your own free will, reached by not only your instinctual feelings but also the support of Leo. Growing up alone, you had no one to miss you, and no one to be missed by you. It seemed sound to stick with those as peculiar as you were, than to stick out like a sore thumb amongst the ordinaries, or so you had believed.
Oh, how terrible of a mistake you had made by assuming that being immortal would make you the same as them, or them the same as you.
Although the others welcomed you warmly, making you feel at home as best as they could, your confession about your true being was not received kindly by Andy as the others called her. In fact, even the nickname was a privilege that was beyond your reach.
“That’s Andromache to you.” so she had corrected, lips the very picture of a straight line, when you had made a slip of your tongue.
Being forced out of slumber one night by a curious dream, similar in kind to the one you had on your death’s day, led you to seek the group with a question in mind. No sooner had you set foot in the room than the Scythian made herself scarce without so much as acknowledging you.
“Andy, albeit not being the most open person, can be ridiculously protective of her team. You are now one of us which means that she cares.”
“Humans harbour fear of the unknown. Even Andy cannot be entirely immune to it. Give her time.”
“She’ll come around. Take me for example. I had been killed once, beaten to a pulp, and had my bones broken by that woman, all of which transpired within the same day.”
Despite the reassurances from Joe, Nicky, and Nile, you would rather she kill you than disregard your existence altogether. Her aloofness stung you all the more for you felt oddly, albeit rather profoundly, connected to her.
You wanted to believe that it was time she needed, and time, you gave her, but when you were being actively avoided by her like you were the very plague, it only made sense that your tolerance would eventually run thin.
Unlike the Scythian along with Joe and Nicky who had been protecting humanity for centuries, and Nile who used to be a marine, you lacked experiences when it came to being a warrior. Additionally, being a witchling meant that you were a complete novice in magick. During one of your first missions, due to an error on your part, you had hindered your team by causing their unnecessary deaths.
You were not oblivious to the fact that the Scythian’s immortality had reached its end. In fact, it was by dumping all your attention onto the woman that you had not a dot to contribute to your part of the task. Although the mistake was borne of your all consuming concern for the Scythian’s safety, appreciation was the farthest thing from which you ended up receiving.
“Andromache, I keep having this dream of a drowning woman. Is she someone like us?”
When you had brought the question to her with a flimsy hope of instigating communication, sapphire green eyes had coldly held your soft-eyed gaze.
“There is no us.”
Such had been her words, thickly laced with venom that it rendered you absolutely crestfallen.
Thereafter, you were left alone in the room along with your question neglected. The answer to which was being delivered to you presently in what you could only describe as the most unkind fashion.
“You wanna know who that woman in your recurring dream is? That’s Quynh and if I could, without question, I would trade you for her. You should be the one locked up, not her. Quynh isn’t a witch. You are!”
“I- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-“
“Every day, I worry over whose immortality will be stripped away next now that you’re in existence. What use are your abilities when you can’t even make good use of them? A hazard to the team. That is what you are! Nothing but a liability.”
Razor-sharp and poison-bitter, her frankness certainly did a splendid job of maiming you.
Despite not only being shunned, but also having your sorry little heart wounded by the very kingpin of the team, withering was the last thing that befell you. If it did, you were doing a good job of putting up a front, fragility hidden behind a tough facade.
You trained more. You smiled more. Always so cheery, always so carefree until one day, a relatively trying mission brought about the shattering of the mask that you had painstakingly put in place.
“Have I done something wrong? Why does she loathe me so?”
Having been bursting at the seams with bottled up emotions, it was no wonder that your heart reached its breaking point.
“I can’t. I can bear it no more.”
An endless leakage of tears marred your features as you came apart at the seams, revealing to the team the depth of the wound the Scythian’s coldness had burned into your psyche.
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You were different as they were but at the same time, you were different from them altogether. The Scythian had her suspicions to begin with when, after swiftly sketching the picture of the one who had visited their dream, Joe had handed her the book in which a familiar face stared eerily back at her.
Losing her immortality meant that she was no longer privy to these interconnected dreams. However, there was no mistaking the face that had been plaguing her dreams for years. Andromache did not know what it suggested for them, and it was disconcerting to say the least. Then, once the fact was made known that you harboured powers beyond immortality alone, with her suspicions solidified, you were deemed a threat.
As was with Nile, there, too, was a strong possibility of you coming to be at the cost of one of the veterans’ immortality. The staggering awareness that it could very well be Quynh was a bitter pill to swallow. It did not make it any more palatable that Quynh was unfairly accused of being a witch, and locked up in the bottom of the ocean for centuries upon centuries only for a real witch to take her place.
If her rationality had not been muddled by stress, and the deeply rooted guilt and resentment of having to lose Quynh, she would see that her judgement about you had been done with extreme unfairness. Cruelly subjective instead of reasonably objective.
In the end, Joe and Nicky had to play the role of an eye-opener.
“What’s wrong with you, Andy? You’re being unreasonably cruel to the kid.”
“She proved hazardous to the team.”
“She is a part of the team!”
“She’s not entirely like us.”
“That’s absurd!”
“I lost my immortality upon Nile’s arrival. Quynh is next in line. What if she-” Brushing her palms over her face, a sigh was heaved into the cocoon of her hands. “The innocent has to suffer while the guilty takes her place? Don’t you think it’s unfair?”
Joe levelled her with a glare that screamed incredulity while both of them sounded truly disappointed.
“My god, Andy, are you hearing yourself?
“Where is the Andy I know who’s endlessly caring to her people?”
“Your anger is dreadfully misplaced. It is those pea-brained bastards that should be rightfully crucified, not an innocent kid.”
Even amidst being chastised, Andromache could not help but be awed by the couple as they effortlessly supported each other.
“You’ve been nothing but, to be brutally honest, a heartless bitch towards her, and yet, she’s always been heedful of your safety. Despite her lack of experience, the kid’s been tirelessly pushing herself. Can you not really see? Or, did you blatantly choose not to?”
“The way you treat her is cruelly unfair. You know it to be true. You can’t tell me otherwise. Whether she is a witch, or- or say, a vampire, or whatever the hell she is, she’s irrevocably one of us.”
“Poor kid’s devastated by your actions. You would do well to own up to your mistakes and ask her for forgiveness.”
Slowly but surely, the Scythian was beginning to see the errors of her actions, but it was only after having been knocked some sense into her by her very family could she truly grasp the extent of her callousness.
And thus, she came seeking you, a mission that was accomplished rather swiftly.
The sight that she had walked in on forced her to a stop. Keeping herself hidden behind a wall, she was caught off guard by a pang of…perplexity, she decided to name for now, that started pounding against her ribcage.
You were locked snugly in Nile’s arms, face buried in her chest as you dissolved into tears. Seeing you so broken, and knowing that she was undeniably the culprit behind your suffering did something inexplicable to her, but when the pang only intensified, her mind was transported back to a period of time many many moons ago. She had found the amour who she was particularly fond of mingling with someone else, and needless to say, it had not sat well with her.
The green-eyed monster had taken possession of the Scythian then.
Now, the same monster was knocking on her door, bringing with it an unpalatable sensation.
Confused and overcame with labyrinths of emotions, Andromache who had never, in her immortal life, willingly backed down from a challenge experienced her first surrender. Incapable though she was to approach you, the Scythian’s night was spent fruitfully as she dissected her puzzling reaction.
By morning, the puzzle was solved, and her feelings, understood. The pang of perplexity, as it so happened, turned out to be a pang of jealousy, followed closely by guilt and something else entirely that she was not yet ready to admit out loud.
The question however was, had she been too late in realising her mistakes, and thereupon, her feelings?
She had every intention of talking things out with you, but the sudden emergence of a mission compelled her to put it on hold.
Joe and Nicky took care of driving, and as much as she disliked seeing you stick to Nile the entirety of the ride, she knew that she had no rights interfering. For that, she had but herself to blame.
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Raining down around Andromache in a violent downpour were bullets. None of them were offered a chance to reach her, for as she fought with her foes, her team had taken it upon themselves to guard her. They were playing defence while she did the offence. Although at first, their strategy was working remarkably well, as the troops multiplied on the opposing side, their stance faltered.
Being a burden to her team was the last thing she wanted, and having had enough of her team suffering in her stead, she took off from the formation, aiming instead towards the enemy line with her beloved labrys in hand. At her lead, her team followed suit, coming to grips with the enemy team. They covered her, as one after another, the opponents were annihilated by the Scythian’s effortless execution.
Everything had been working in their favour until, all of a sudden, Andromache found you planted firmly in her way. Although, if only for a moment, she was confused, she learnt just as quickly that a bullet had found home in your flesh. A moment later, and her axe, too, found sweet purchase directly between the eyes of your aggressor. Together, you made light work of defeating your opponents. As you kept them restrained with the help of your powers, she delivered finishing blows.
Between using your powers to assist her in combat and taking damages for her should the assaults were to prove lethal, one too many times had you use yourself as a shield. As a result, your body was riddled with many an injury which the Scythian noticed were taking longer than necessary to heal. Through the wounds leaked blood, and it made Andromache nauseous with worry.
What she perceived next, she heard it first, before she saw it. A loud bang of a gun that sounded from behind you.
Almost instinctively, her hands found home on your hips, soft flesh yielding beneath her calloused fingers as she quickly did a swap of positions. If a bullet were to hit, it would be her instead of you. The inevitable pain, which she was bracing for, never came. She understood why by the time her eyes fell on you. Tendrils of glowing green were dancing to your fingers’s desire as a protection was conjured around the pair of you.
The mission, once again, accomplished, she took the time to admire the delicate blossom of a smile on your lips. A feeling that quickly dissolved into worry upon hearing the little whimper that escaped them. By the time your eyes slipped shut, and your legs gave out, with her heart in her throat, she caught you in her arms.
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The shock Leonora the familiar felt upon seeing you in the Scythian’s arms only continued to crescendo when you were carried not into your room, but, hers.
“She isn’t healing. Why isn’t she healing?”
The question was evidently for her, and so, she answered.
“Immortality doesn’t grant her immunity to damage done by her mate. A mate’s rejection to a witch is quite possibly the most harrowing form of torture. It leads to deterioration of the body.”
Her response took a while to come. “How can I find them?” Leonora eyed the Scythian curiously as plethora of emotions flashed across her face before the words were hissed through gritted teeth. “Her mate.”
“A witch’s familiar cannot be understood by just anyone. Only her true mate can.”
“What are you implying?”
“You’ve been seeing her in your sleep, have you not? Long, long before her immortality came.”
By the way she was looking at her, sage green eyes shimmering with shame, she almost felt bad, emphasis on almost, because in the end, she did not shy away from rubbing salt on her wounds.
“Given your time on this earth, I had surely believed that you would know better than to jump to conclusions. I’ve overestimated you, it seems.”
“My time on this god-forsaken place is precisely why I can’t trust people outside of my team. On more than one occasion have I been led to plight by pity and my sense of duty. Some of which have caused me my comrades.”
“And you thought it wise to reject one of your own?”
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“I fucked up, I know. But I don’t want to fuck up any more than I already have.” The Scythian’s voice was laced with genuine upset as she pleaded with your cat, eyes desperately beseeching. “So, tell me, please. How can I fix this?”
“There are quite a few things you can do. That said, physical contact with her mate is the easiest and the most effective way for a witch to replenish her energy. I would strongly advise cuddling.”
Thus landed the Scythian into her bed that was presently housing your unconscious frame.
Only now, as she was lying face to face with you, did she realise how little she had looked at, let alone appreciated, you.
Tentative fingers touched a cheek so soft to unveil your face curtained by a few strands. Battle-hardened though they were, they executed the task with tremendous tenderness.
The scars that her eyes discovered upon wandering down your neck had the effect of jogging her memory. With the long forgotten memory now dug up and on the forefront of her mind, she was transported back in time.
During one of her travels, she had chanced upon a house on fire. Even though, normally, she would avoid involvement in fear of exposing herself, and consequently, her secret, she felt compelled to enter the roaring flames. What, or rather, who she found was a little girl trapped inside a room. Instead of crying as any child in such predicament most likely would have, she was busy murmuring reassurances to the little kitten that was cradled protectively in her tiny little arms. There was no doubt that she was in intense pain if the wound that had been leaking blood on her neck was any indication.
Now that she thought about it, the familiar dreams began on the very same night. It had been so dark in the house that she did not get a chance to properly see your face. Nevertheless, your cat was right. Andromache should have known. If she had only taken the time to think carefully instead of rushing to conclusion, all the suffering would have been spared. After all, in all the dreams that she had of you, you had never so much as harmed a hair on an ant’s, let alone, a person’s head. How big of a nitwit had she had to be to harbour the thought that you would be capable of intentionally sabotaging them.
With your face as sweet as Baklava and your heart so golden, you had to be the quintessence of innocence, pure, unsullied white, sent into her life to remind the Scythian, who was tainted with darkness and death, that the world was not only teeming with war and wickedness. In contrast, she had to be the wickedest of them all to be able to trample a delicate little bud without giving her a chance to prove herself.
She had, Andromache admitted, oh so cruelly, snuffed out the little shimmering ray of light. Come hell or high water, it was now the Scythian’s duty to chase away the heavy, stormy clouds that were threatening to devour the little sunshine.
If you were to allow it, she would, in fact, declare you her sunshine.
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Meanwhile, feeling rightfully smug, Leonora the cat revelled in having her head scratched as the ginger fur-ball lounged in Nile’s lap.
She might have made a drama out of a crisis while playing cupid, but what she had said, in her defence, were not entirely incorrect. She would be a fool not to make the most of a stellar opportunity if it meant making her best pal happy. After all, unlike you who was annoyingly upright, she was a firm believer that if used wisely, trickery always bore the sweetest of fruits. Plus, if you finally found someone to cuddle with, then, she would hopefully, thankfully be spared the odds of being squeezed to death.
And viola! If love was on your side and luck on hers, you would win yourself a girlfriend, while she got to experience freedom. It might just be the best example of killing two birds with one stone, if Leonora did say so herself.
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Waking up to a muscled body pressed against yours, and strong arms cocooning you, you had half a mind to believe that it was a by product of your sleep-ridden mind.
Only when you heard Leo’s voice in your head did you realise it was in fact not a hallucination.
“You really don’t have to do this.” Unlike your utterance, your actions suggested otherwise. As if possessing a mind of its own, your face had sought solace in the warm dip of her throat. When you spoke again, it was but a murmur. “I’m aware that you love Quynh.”
Her reply came a moment later in the form of a merciless stab to your heart. “I won’t lie to you. I do love Quynh.” Your endeavour to escape from her embrace was doomed to failure. “But, it is no longer the kind of love that I felt once upon a time. Loving her doesn’t equal falling in love with her.”
“It was hard, losing Quynh, and I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself.”
You were wounded, and thereupon, healed by her words. The choice, essentially, lay in her hands.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive myself either if something were to happen to you.”
She coaxed your face out of its little haven in favour of her soft-eyed gaze roaming over the planes and hills of your face.
“You must have felt scared. Lost. I was supposed to be there for you.”
In addition to the collapsed eyebrows, her voice had a sad lilt to it as a thumb gingerly caressed your cheek.
“I know a simple sorry cannot fix all the pain I’ve caused you, but if you’ll let me, I truly wish to earn your trust.”
Since the mood had been too gloomy to your liking, you opted for a lighter, more benign route with your response.
“Now, now, Andro-“
“Andy, please. Call me Andy.”
“Andy.”
Her name tasted sweet on your tongue.
“You were saying?”
“-someone might think you’re trying to woo me.”
You came dangerously close to disclosing your desire, and if you were being honest, you had been entertaining the idea of confronting her after your facade fell in front of the team. It was an all-or-nothing decision.
After everything she had said and done, you would be lying if you said you were not hoping for her to ruthlessly reject you. At the same time, saying that you were not foolishly hoping for her to miraculously return your feelings, too, would be a downright falsehood.
“What if I am?”
In the end, it was neither foolish nor impossible, though, it did feel miraculous all the same.
You liked her. Tremendously. And although it was true that she had hurt you, you knew for a fact that her reason for doing so was not ill-intentioned. It was done out of worry for her team, and blaming her for it would be ludicrous. You did admit that she had been terribly unkind to you, but you knew that she was altruistically caring at heart. Not only could you feel it, you liked her too much to deem the errors of her way irreparable. Mistakes came to be in the first place as an opportunity for one to learn from them. You were all to willing to give her a chance.
“Well then, Andromache of Scythia, luckily for you, I’m not very hard to please.”
“Kiss me as much as you’re sorry, and I’m all yours.”
You watched, giddy and gleeful, as a smile bloomed on her handsome face.
“With pleasure.”
Fanning the flames of heart palpitations by bombarding one with kisses, as sweet, and soft as soufflé, should be included in the ever-growing list of ways she knew how to kill a man. Of course, she was allowed to use this delightfully tantalising technique on you and you alone.
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this is how i imagine leo would look like as a cat
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linaxart · 2 months
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Andromache of the caves filled with treasure
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romancingromanoff · 5 months
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Second Death
Andromache the Scythian x f!reader
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I decided to create a series for Andromache (my beloved). Here’s part 1, part 2, and part 3
Summary: Your first mission does not go according to plan
TW: Violence, major character death, somewhat descriptive gore, getting shot in the face, head explosions (kinda), ANGST
Words: around 3,000
A/N: Aside from being very difficult for me to write, this is probably the darkest I've ever gotten in terms of physical violence. So, uh, Happy Halloween I guess?
The plan was based off Buenos Aires 1822 (not 1922 as you had incorrectly assumed at first) which was a reference you obviously didn’t understand but was being explained to you in the most hectic way possible.
“Wait, so Nicky was decapitated-”
“Half decapitated. I didn’t actually die!”
“But you were quite light-headed for the rest of the day, my dear.” Joe feigned concern, brushing the back of his hand across his partner’s forehead and smiling like a fool.
Your leader was having none of it.
“Can we be serious please?” Immediately, the entire group’s focus shifted back to the Scythian. She certainly wasn’t going to admit it but she was apprehensive with this being your first mission. For months, you’d been doing nothing but training and begging her to let you in on the action until she was finally forced to give in. The instinct to keep you safe gnawed at Andy while it became increasingly difficult to ignore how your desire to prove your worth would only continue to grow. She recognized the same frustrations in a much younger version of herself and remembered how reckless it drove her to be.
“I’d rather we didn’t repeat that portion this time, agreed?”
You all nodded.
They laid out all the details about the traffickers and the group of people you were meant to rescue. It was an estimated 25-40 women and older girls being smuggled through for undoubtedly unpleasant purposes Andy didn’t get too detailed with. She, Joe, and Nico planned to storm the ship when it completely docked and most of the crew was on land retrieving supplies and weapons. That would leave only a few guards standing between them and the captives, who were most likely being held somewhere below deck. Once they find them, you and Booker would bring in the truck to help get everyone out. It sounded simple enough, but the fact that it was meant to go off without a hitch somehow doubled the amount of pressure you were applying to yourself. They had all done this at least once before, so if things went south then it was all because of you.
A few hours passed and you sat next to Booker in the passenger seat of the truck parked a couple of meters away from the ship and near a loading dock. With the engine off it was starting to get increasingly cold, but you didn’t even mind the chill at that point. You needed to be as alert as possible for what was to come.
Booker clearly sensed your apprehension. “It’s okay to be nervous, we’re not going to let anything bad happen to you.” He kept his voice low and his eyes glued on the dock entrance while you tried to do the same. 
Your mind was wrapped up in much bigger concerns. “I’m not worried about that. What if something goes wrong because of me? If I get hurt then so be it, I just don’t want to endanger anyone else when their lives and freedom are at stake.”
“You’ll be fine. Trust your training and lean on your team if you need help. That’s what we’re here for.” He offered you an encouraging smile that you attempted to return the best you could, yet you also wished he wouldn’t look at you with so much sympathy all of the time. As much as you appreciated everything they had done for you, you longed to show the others that you were capable of carrying your own weight and didn’t need someone to hold your hand constantly.
The two of you settled into a silence that was occasionally filled with a comment or two about nothing in particular. It didn’t do much to settle your nerves. You watched as dozens of muscular men left in packs, each one armed with at least a pistol that Booker taught you how to spot. He translated some of the French he could hear them speaking, which was mostly crude, misogynistic banter that made your jaw clench up.
“Good to know that men are pigs in basically all cultures,” you murmured mostly to yourself and tried to get your jaw to relax. Surprisingly, it earned you a gratifying laugh from the Frenchman and you were relieved when he didn’t take your comment too personally. 
“For the most part, I don’t disagree.”
“How will Andy and the others know when all of them have left?” You changed the subject upon the realization that the rest of the guard was hidden somewhere no one would see them, not even you. It was still difficult to imagine they had a better scouting position than the near-direct view you did.
“Don’t worry, they’ll know,” Booker assured you in a slightly amused tone. Some secrets were still too complicated for you to know about yet, you supposed.
Almost a half hour later, three heads eventually peered up through the shadows and Andy, Joe, and Nico lifted themselves up onto the ship. Perfectly lit by hues of the full moon, they danced towards their destination, the sheer coordination and skill reminding you of just how experienced they were. With Andy leading the pack, they silently began making their way up the vessel as a single unit. No words or other body gestures needed to be shared when they occupied the same hive mind. The group only came to a stop when they reached a door and huddled around it, trying to listen for anyone that might be on the other side. When you assumed everything was clear, Andy swiftly kicked it open and entered with her gun aimed and ready. 
Not even a minute after all three filed in, the sound of a gunshot suddenly shook you. You immediately turned to Booker, whose face gave away the slightest look of concern at the noise. This must not have happened in Buenos Aires. No more gunshots followed, thank goodness, but there were sounds of a struggle going on below deck which had the two of you on high alert. You prayed that nobody else close by could hear the commotion.
Things began to steer away from the original plan when Joe emerged from below far before he should have, struggling to keep another figure under control as he held their arms in a twisted position behind their back while continuing to firmly push them forward. Even in the dark, you could just make out how young the kid appeared to be. He couldn’t have been older than 16 and you assumed his reason for being on the ship was because he had an older relative in the crew. You relaxed when you realized that meant how unlikely it was that he’d be trained in how to fight. Joe would definitely keep from harming him unless he absolutely had to. Stupidly, you also forgot about how reckless young boys can be.
Everything fell apart in a mere matter of seconds. As he appeared to calm down, Joe eased up on the grip he held the boy with and he it didn’t seem like he would move at first. But in an instant, the scraggly kid darted from his grasp and sprinted around a corner and out of your line of sight to the completely opposite side of the ship. Booker reached for the door handle as a precaution while the rest of his body remained seated. A bead of sweat rolled down your neck despite the chill in the air and the gradual understanding that Book might be preparing to leave you on your own stilled your body completely. All of the careful planning you had fought to carefully commit to memory melted into mush.
Your thoughts were interrupted by a high-pitched whistle that rang through the air and your eyes quickly followed a bright red light travel up into the sky before it burst into a large display of lights and smoke. Time seemed to slow down and your heart sped up. Of course, if there wasn’t going to be another pistol going off, it had to be a goddamn flare gun. Yelling, alarmed Frenchmen could then be heard scrambling towards the dock and Booker cursed under his breath.
“Stay here, I’ll go help the others!” Booker leaped out of the vehicle, throwing the keys which hit your petrified figure. Part of you wanted to speak up and stop him but you could only squeak out an indecipherable sound of concern seconds after he was gone. Looking back at the ship, you caught sight of Nico peeking his head out from the door they entered through. He exited with a determined look on his face and was followed by a line of women. You itched at your sweating palms when twenty women or so had piled out and there was still no sign of Andy. 
The men hurrying in from the opposite direction quickly diverted your attention. Squinting your eyes, you were able to spot a figure in the distance headed straight towards your vehicle. You nearly panicked but caught yourself, uncertain if you were dealing with the traffickers or possibly random dock workers that had been alarmed by the flare and merely wanted to check out the situation. Either way, you decided it was still too risky to start up the engine just yet. At least, you told yourself the others probably wouldn’t want you to give away your position.
That’s when you noticed a faint movement in your side mirror. A tuft of matted blonde curls belonging to a distressed woman’s face peeked over the top of one of the crates not to far behind you. She must’ve spotted something concerning, because her eyes went wider than a trapped mouse’s and she disappeared back down, ultimately causing the crates to shake. You ground your back teeth together and prayed it was only you who had seen her. But then right on cue, the blinding glow of a flashlight landed directly over the area where the woman was hiding. The man you had spotted only moments before, his flashlight lit up a devious grin on his face that urged you to hold in your breath. He even sounded like the devil when he spoke. It didn’t take a high level French skills to tell that he began goading the poor woman like it was some sadistic game to him. 
He approached the crates ever so slowly, savoring the anticipation which laid before whatever unspeakable plans he had for his victim. It then occurred to you that she was most likely paralyzed with the same fear that had struck you.
And yet, she was the one currently being hunted while you were poised to sit and watch it unfold. You, protected by both your position and inexplicable gift of immortality. None of it seemed remotely fair and your body began to stir at the simple thought.
“Under no circumstances should you be engaging in combat,” Andy had firmly laid down the law several times leading up to this day. You’d never wanted to disobey anything she said so passionately before and here it felt like you scarcely had no other option but to go against something she forbade. 
The adrenaline rushing through your veins threw your body into action before you could debate any further. Barely aware of the forces taking hold of you, you tumbled out of the door and landed directly behind the attacker who continued to stalk forward towards the woman’s hiding place. He slowly began to raise his gun, something with barrels much longer than your forearms, and it was like you didn’t have the time to properly assess whatever danger lie at the other end. You just didn’t want it pointing at her.
Without a hint of hesitation, you drove foot into the back of the man’s left knee and he immediately crumbled down to about a third of his height. You were ready for him with your knife once his face spun around and an overpowering sense of rage guided your arm to make a clean cut from just below his right eyebrow, across the bridge of his nose, and finally through the center of his left eye. 
Something solid and heavy smacked the front of your head and you could hear the woman behind you scream in horror before everything went black.
Horrific violence was nothing if not a sheer constant to Andy. She had both experienced and caused enough to fill the oceans with blood, yet nothing made her seethe with rage more than watching yours spill from your head like a geyser. A thousand lifetimes stained with death could not have prepared her for the sight of your limp body hitting the ground, to which there was no question as to whether or not you were dead. Even if you had been wearing some type of protective head gear, a shotgun firing within five inches of your face would have been fatal. 
She was usually a pro at keeping her emotions under control until the mission was completed and never steered away from the plan without first calculating the absolute best course of action. The other teammates she had and the terrified group of women she was meant to protect called upon her to uphold her position as the leader, a task she had shouldered over a million times before despite whatever her personal feelings demanded. Absolutely none of that mattered now. Getting to you, killing that bastard, and wrapping you up in your arms became the only course of action she was capable of taking. 
Her first priority was taking out the son of a bitch that dared to touch you before anyone else got hurt. She handed off the little girl she had been carrying to Nico before barreling over a crate and launching herself over the side of the ship, rolling smoothly to break her fall when she hit the the dock. 
Despite how fast she ran, she seemed to move at a cursedly slow pace. She was still too quick for the man, his blood leaking from the fresh gash you had tore across his face, to notice her. He didn’t even get a chance to run before the warrior drove her labrys straight into the already-open wound. Andy could only revel in the brief taste of satisfaction for a moment before her emotions began swarming once again, the anger she had held for that man was now aimed solely at herself.
“Booker, get her into the back!” She barked at the Frenchman to take care of the hostage still hiding while rushing over to where your body collapsed. Up close, the sight was even more gruesome as blood, flesh, and bone were splattered all across what used to be your face. It would have been generous to call what was left of everything above your neck a simple stump. She knew she needed to get you out of there fast but hated to leave behind any parts of your head that might have been salvageable. Even saving something like an ear or significant chunk of your skull could aid in speeding up the healing process. She knew it would be excruciatingly painful for you to grow back yourself. 
She desperately grabbed at fistful of what she hoped was your brain before scooping you up in her arms. It was the fact that you were so much lighter than usual which made her wince, though she couldn’t help but be somewhat relieved when it meant it allowed her to run faster on her feet. Cautious yet quick, Andy made a beeline for the passenger’s seat of the truck and cradled your body in her arms while you continued to bleed out. It wasn’t a sight she wanted any of the hostages to witness and it’s not like she was letting go of you anytime soon anyway. 
“Drive!” One word was all she needed to command whomever was at the steering wheel to get out of there as fast as possible. It didn’t even occur to her to look up and check to see who she was sitting next to, as she immediately began trying to pick up any movement in your chest or a sign of a pulse in your wrist, anything that indicated the resurrection process was in motion.
“Please, please, come back to me,” she pleaded as your warm blood began to pool across her lap.
“Give her a second.” She realized it was Booker currently driving. “It’s only her second time and will probably take longer than expected.”
The women they had freed were now crammed together once again, only this time being in the back of a dark loading truck as it sped through the dead of night was probably far more merciful than them being forced to witness the transformation you were currently undergoing. Andy, however, couldn’t tear a single string of her attention away from you throughout the entire process. 
Each noise you made followed by the eventual cries of her name from your lips, once your mouth and airways had completely reformed, tore at Andromache deeper and deeper, in ways that no physical pain she had ever endured could compare. She bit down on her tongue till it was bloody as you repetitively squeezed her hand throughout the entire process. The same ones you often used to delicately recreate precious moments on paper broke more than a few of her bones. But Andy barely noticed and didn’t have the capacity to care. All she was focused on was you.
For the first time in centuries, the Scythian invoked the words of an ancient prayer and resurrected a long dead language as she tried to soothe your pain. She stopped believing in a higher power a long time ago but couldn’t shake the truth that repeating those words made her feel anchored to something even larger than her life or her immortality. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t try if it might possibly bring you a sense of comfort, which she actually prayed may happen. 
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nicelytousled · 1 year
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on their way to steal ur girl
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