The Pirate and the Rogue

Darcy supposed she should have dressed a little more nicely for a public outing, but the problem was... she didn't technically have a release form signed to go on Hogsmeade trips. The other little problem (it was a technicality really) was it was not what you would call a technical Hogsmeade weekend in the sense that the professors had allowed them to leave to Hogsmeade. But Darcy found if you walked out the gates like you had a reason to... no one stopped you. But why did this affect her style of dress? Right! Because, she had actually hadn't strolled through the grates but... scrambled over them. Hence the garb better suited for escape routes. And besides - she thought she looked pretty badass. The shirt showed off her tan and her muscles.

She hadn't been to Hogsmeade since she was a wide-eyed twelve year old, wondering what it would be like to live with her ma in a normal house instead of on a huge ship with her father. Of course, that had been a time when she had looked at everything with the innocent rose-tinted goggles of youth. The mother sentiment had turned sour, but Hogsmeade seemed to be just as charming as when she had first seen it.

She had a small pocketful of money, a bag on her back that had a half full bottle of rum ready, and a pack of cigarettes tucked in the waistband of her trousers. The day was full of promise.

"Young gentleman, would you kindly take off your feet from my table?"

Reid half-mindedly wondered if he should deign to response. The atrocious grammar decided it. It irritated him, the plain murder-and-mangling of the English language.

He angled his head, cocking his chin to one side, looking up. "Point one, I'm not a 'young gentleman'. Point two, your English is a disgrace to English blood. Point three, I gave the order of an Earl Grey, " He held up two fingers. " twice to the wankers that you call waiters. Is this what you call service?"

Madam Puddifoot blinked several times. The words of an adult from a fifteen-year old, the sound of a refined accent enunciating crass insults had the tendency of doing that to a person.

Reid waited for a few minutes. Silence. He sighed.

Kicking off his feet, the force caused the table to unbalance, and fall sideways on the floor with a loud bang. Madam Puddifoot shrieked, and Reid winced at the high-pitched onslaught on his eardrums. Heels kicking up dust, he walked calmly to the door. Twisted his head backwards.

"I complied with your request. Aren't you atleast going to voice a 'thank you'?"

A higher shriek. Reid sighed again. Barbarians. He exited the cafe, and head-on collided with a....boy. No...girl. Man-girl?

Really, she was allowing anything to draw her interest. She let her gait loll comfortably as she strode down the street, her eyes darting about as she followed anything that seemed remotely interesting - a child being lifted off the ground by magical balloons, a dog being chased by a chicken three times the size of a normal one, and a mysterious cloud of pink bubbles floating about on their own accord.

Finally, she found something of interest. It all started as she neared a shockingly feminine shop and could hear a ruckus from inside. Usually, women who went out to sip tea weren't the kind to start a brawl. She approached curiously, stepping up onto the stoop and peering inside to see a row unfolding between a boy about her age (she'd guess) and some official of the shop.

So caught up she was in watching the woman, that she didn't notice the approach of the boy. Her hand was on the handle of the door so, when it swung inward, she stumbled after it. This meant colliding with the boy.

"Whoa!" she said. She reached up and grabbed his shoulders, steadier herself. "Sorry about that. 'Scuse." She hopped off the stoop and looked up at the sign, before looking through the window at the woman and then at the boy. "Didn't think tensions ran so high in a tea shop."

Girl. The voice confirmed it.

It was a particularly untidy-looking girl though. Mussed up hair, a particularly standout attire, combat boots. And all that cropped, curly hair. Reid found himself just standing, and regarding the girl from head to toe. It was nothing lecherous, just a plain inspection of a particularly interesting specimen of i]Homo sapiens[/i]. And he admitted it, it was interesting. It carried a characteristic air, an aura more like, of something Reid hadn't quite ever encountered before. It bore a disinclination to follow every stereotype he had ever seen. It was interesting.

And Reid should probably stop referring to it as an 'it.'

He replied, strangely enough. Not with an insult. "They do if the tea shop is run by a banshee. And served by waiters incapable of understanding basic English." Then an eyebrow arching disinterestedly. "Why are you so interested?"

Yes, that was better. A light tinge of rudeness. Comfortable and familiar. He had an inkling though, that it wouldn't be very offended. Um, her.

He looked her up and down and she quirked an eyebrow. "Like what you see?" she queried, sounding neither offended nor suggestive, just curious as to why his manner was so pointed. He did not seem to actually be checking her out, but he was pretty openly ogling her. She grinned her twisted grin and said, "I could pose for you, you know. Make it easier on you." She held her arms out straight and tilted her head back.

She dropped her head back to its normal position as he spoke and she said responded, "Oh, they're giving banshees jobs now. And the illiterate. Well, equal opportunity, as I always say." She was kidding, but the girl had a weird way of joking. It wasn't exactly sarcasm that rang through her Scottish accent, but it was a clear, if somewhat gentle, tone of jest.

She dropped her arms to her side as he, a bit rudely, snapped at her. "No need to displace your hormones, Surly Shirley. Admittedly, I'm just ravenously bored and looking for anything of interest."

"I could pose for you, you know."

Oh right, he was staring. Reid didn't stop completely, though the intensity of the gaze reduced somewhat. The urge to avert his eyes immediately was overpowering, but Reid resisted, because doing so would make him look like an awkward idiot. And Circe, did he abhor looking like an idiot.

"If people are not equal, there is no reason for opportunities for being so." He shot out bluntly, like a cold, edged piece of metal. It wasn't rude though, atleast not in his mind. Reid was talking. It was just the way he talked. Conducted conversation. "You're not going to let an ant do a lion's job now, are you? The world works on inequality. Thrives on it. The day everyone is equal, is the day the world falls on its knees. And donkeys rule it."

"Not to say that they don't already." It was a mutter, and Reid walked along, hands buried in his pockets. He didn't wait for the girl to fall in step with him. She would follow, soon enough. He didn't know for how long he would allow it though, it was a rather new experiment. And she would walk, because she wished for something interesting (Surly Shirley, what a phrase, really). And Reid thought vanity was reprehensible, but he advocated honesty, which was why he had no problem admitting to himself that he was probably the most interesting thing she would find at present.

Darcy stared at the boy. In all honesty, the girl couldn't give a spit about social activism or politics or whatever the hell he was talking about. Darcy knew about the ocean, and about various cities, and the stars. But when it came to who was their Minister of Magic, or what the current policy was on employment, or how fair the world even was - she had no clue. Her world was the ship, the crew was her society. Beyond that, she found it hard to care.

And this was why it was so hard for her to actually connect with anyone while she was on land. She didn't mind when she was in the middle of the sea, but on land... she did get lonely. She wasn't an introvert by any means, and she missed being able to interact with people. She didn't care age, race, gender, religion, or mindset. She just needed people sometimes.

"If donkeys ruled, then at least we'd know our leaders were asses," she said, a tad lamely. "I don't know about this whole giving a lion a job fit for a mouse thing. I know that people need to do something, and they needed to be appreciated for doing whatever that is." She shrugged. Whatever. She wasn't trying to be perfect.

She didn't know what else to say. "I'm Darcy," she decided on, putting out a calloused hand to shake. "Darcy Deas. I'm a sixth year, going into seventh, I guess. I don't go to school much." She grinned. "You?"