;ooc; character notes;
Weaknesses/Issues/Insecurities: Past, Present and Future
Andromache has trust issues. But not entirely in the way that she can't trust people. Some people she is far too quick to trust, to confide in and others she will wrongly turn on without enough reason. For example (sorry Shi) Theseus, she knows he's a womaniser and she knows that he may have ruined people in the past and been cruel but his charms are too much to deny and she clings to the friendly words he provides her with every time she's ready to break down. Now she finds herself indebted to him, after he has saved her on numerous occasions and even given her a job, and deep down she knows that he isn't just going to click his fingers and have her free from owing him anything. But she'll still cling and she'll still let him pull her out of every desperate situation she ends in, because it doesn't look like anyone else will do it instead of him. On the other side of the fence, she'll most likely never forgive someone like Helen. It just will never happen. Her pride can be painfully annoying when a situation calls for it because you can take the girl out of the royalty but you'll never take the royalty out of the girl. She's way above some people; it's as simple as that.
As partly discussed in the previous paragraph, Andromache has found herself becoming a permanent DiD and there is a big part of her that just won't let her push herself off the ground and take her life into her own hands. At sixteen she was given to a husband, shipped off to another country to marry Priam's favourite son, without so much as a word in the matter. Granted, that part of her life turned out well. She was married into a respectable and powerful family with a loving husband and family. But then war came to Troy and every day was a constant worry about whether or not her husband would return with his shield or on it, she was helpless. Then Astyanax was born and Hector and Andromache rejoiced over the birth of their son. But then Andromache became a helpless wife waiting for her husband to return home safely with a helpless child who, Andromache knew in the back of her mind, would not be likely survive if the war was lost. Andromache's fate rested in the hands of the Trojan soldiers and the gods. When Hector fell, Andromache's walls of protection came crumbling down with him. She knew this was the end. Hector had been Troy's best warrior and had been keeping the Achaean soldiers at bay for almost ten years. Now that he was dead the fall of Troy could be seen in the near future. But when Paris defeated Achilles there was a glimmer a hope. Greece had lost her best soldier and the man who took down Hector. But then the unthinkable happened. A night siege, taking Troy down from the inside out. She hid her son in his father's tomb, praying to the gods that no one would find him there whilst she did her best to hold off anyone approaching. Her desperate attempt failed and she was dragged away to become a slave and to watch her son be thrown screaming from the walls of the city that should have been his. Andromache, for the next six months, pulled herself from reality and lived in a shell, almost in a comatose state and let life go on around her. Now an unwilling concubine to the man who had thrown her son from the walls and the son to her husband's killer, she no longer wished to live. She longed to die but when she withdrew out of her shell and back into her life, there was no way she could truly abandon her new life. Once her son, Molossus, was born Andromache took new hope in her life, attempting to retrieve a little of what great amounts she had lost. She now had a son, one who could never replace Astyanax, but one who still needed her love and attention. She also now had a husband and, although not technically her husband, he needed attention also. It was here that she began to develop feelings for Neoptolemus. In her mind he was not the same Neoptolemus that had killed her son as he seemed to change so much whilst she was withdrawn from the world. This Neoptolemus seemed to treat her well, almost as his second queen and so her fondness for him grew.
Here's where the current situation really effed life up for her.
Now Andromache has to deal with the trauma day after day of knowing that, not only is her dead ex-sort-of-husband in the complex living and breathing, but also that her Astyanax could also show up at any time. She constantly lives in shadow of fear and guilt. Part of her is terrified of Astyanax showing up, knowing who the father of her second child is, and this makes her distressingly guilty because she should want every chance she has to have just a few more moments with him, to at least say goodbye. And to apologise for letting him down. She blames herself entirely (except for maybe Helen who started the whole thing off ;)) for his death - she didn't fight hard enough, she didn't try hard enough, she could have saved him - and doesn't think her son could ever forgive her if he knew what came after his death. Andromache's heart is torn in all directions. She cannot truly side with the Trojans, as her second husband and son are Achaeans, and she cannot side with the Greeks because her first husband and son is Trojan. But she cannot split her love equally between them, either, because she would be betraying the other half of the equation, but loving some more than others would be more than unfair and they don't deserve not to be loved (even if they do). Then comes the issues with her future. Not only is there four more kids with Neo in the equation (and the murder of Neoptolemus in the equation), but there is also a marriage to Helenus that result in a child to be considered. At this moment in time, her heart is torn between hating him for betraying Troy and causing all of the deaths and liking him because in the house of Neoptolemus he is one more friendly face. This confusion now leads to anger anger leads to hate, hate leads to the Dark Side of the Force towards him and, in some cases, hostilities.
In the deaths of Hector, Astyanax, most of Troy and Neoptolemus, comes a clear and deeply terrifying epiphany to Andromache. Everyone she loves leaves her. This fuels an irrational need to attach her emotionally to everything, in an attempt to strengthen relationships as if these friendships would stop a freak accident or a war from taking them away. She does it with a great deal of people, although they might not know it, and she will carry on doing so until she sorts out her insecurities. Which isn't really going to happen as she fears opening herself up to someone else will add them to the list of people who will leave her.