Quyhn
She holds the labrys. Quyhn’s fingers are white as they tighten around it, as she stands over her former lover, the woman who had just dropped her weapon at her feet. Who kneels, unresisting, in front of her. She can see the others running towards them and gives the order to fire on all of them. To knock them down til they can be restrained. Til they can pay.
“Non” Booker spits out from where he’s barely breathing from his last session in the water. “She’s not immortal anymore, Quyhn, please” and there is despair in his voice, but there’s been despair in his voice since the moment she first dreamt of him so she almost ignores it.
But she can’t ignore the look in Andy’s eyes as she stares back at Quyhn, as she stands and waits for the guns to fire. There is something there that Quyhn has never seen, never imagined, a willingness to let it end if this be the end. Andromache has never looked like there was an end to face before.
The fear that rushes through her makes her fast, as she moves in front of her love, the bullets she’d ordered piercing her own flesh, the ax falling from her fingers - and into Andromache’s.
The rage in her beloved’s face as she turns on the men, as Quyhn fades for a short time from this world …
It’s enough to make Quyhn believe in her again.