That day, the chill was still in the air a little and she wore a heavy grey coat, pistols concealed in the back of her trousers, swords strapped across her chest in an ‘x’ with the leather harnesses. She’d just been to the market and had some vegetables she was going to attempt to make an edible stew with. Hell, she was a pirate, not the goddamn cook. She was used to this being someone else’s work. But she was carrying an arm-full of potatoes, parsnips, turnips and carrots to cook up with the rabbit she’d just caught and started down a dirt road that led away from the tavern and back to her dwelling.
She walked with a slouch as usual, her hat the only thing disguising the tangles in her hair that she had yet to deal with and once in a while, she’d look up at the sky, which was getting bluer by the day instead of that dull grey it’d been during the heavy snow.
But this time something caught her eye when she looked up and she didn’t look back ahead. Anne dropped what she was carrying and unselfconsciously gawked at what she thought she’d seen when she looked up just seconds before. A figure in a robe riding a broom… in mid-fucking-air. Anne might’ve been considered a conventionally pretty girl if it weren’t for the sneer on her face all the time or these wild expressions she’d unconsciously mimicked from living with her crew mates. Pretty or not, she was what she was and her surprise was plain. Her brow furrowed, jaw slack before a string of expletives jumped from her mouth like a cork flying from a bottle of champagne.
“What in the motherfucking, bloody hell is that?” She was slowly reaching behind her coat towards her pistols but wasn’t sure if she should try to talk to it or shoot it. After all, even from a distance, it seemed to be a boy… but he was flying on a broom. As the more superstitious crowd used to say witches did that and she thought of Black, telling her there were male witches called ‘wizards’ but the shock hadn’t quite allowed her to really make that connection in her mind right now. “Goddamn speak to me or I’ll make fucking sure you’re grounded for life!”
Her slender fingers tightened around the handle of the pistol and she drew it out, still keeping it behind her back. Shooting was the easy part. Drawing was what always took the most time.