Ann
The Crow's Song's carpenter: gangly, short-haired, sharp-nosed, with three pistols stowed about her person. She is the sailor who stood up to Captain Crow on Tress's first day, and one of two crewmembers — Fort is the other — uneasy about the way the attack on the Oot's Dream went. STD:Tress:Ch 13
Known facts
- assistant-cannonmasterBeyond her duties as the Crow's Song's carpenter, Ann is also the assistant cannonmaster — though Laggart only rarely lets her near the cannon.STD:Tress:Ch 16
- hopeless-shotWas given the post of assistant cannonmaster on the simple strength of having asked for it after the previous one died, before anyone thought to watch her actually fire a gun. Her aim turned out to be so spectacularly bad that on her one cannon shot the safest place on the horizon was the target, and on a pistol drill she nearly hit Fort — standing beside her. She has not been allowed to fire anything since.STD:Tress:Ch 22
- would-have-failed-the-patchAdmits to Tress that until she took the sprouter's post the hull repair would have fallen to her — and that her plan would have been wood, and the pause in the seethe had not been nearly long enough for her to nail wood into place before the spores came flooding back in.STD:Tress:Ch 25
- chicken-farmer-from-portside-townAsked by Tress why she is so obsessive about firearms, Ann tells the truth: she grew up a farm girl raising chickens in a port town with a militia and a Twelveday cannon salute, listened all her life to the guns echoing off the hills, and joined the militia cannonade crews the day she came of age. She lasted twenty-four days before — by way of a bouncing cannonball — managing to shoot her own sergeant from behind, inside the barracks. Chickens, she adds, are smart, make excellent pets, and are a bloody shame to be so delicious.STD:Tress:Ch 38
- fires-cannon-with-tressTress hands Ann the firing rod on the Song's aft cannon — a small mutiny against Laggart's instructions — and lets her take a shot. Ann cranks the cannon thirty degrees off the buoy, fires, and the ball lands harmlessly behind the ship in Verdant. Through tears she tells Tress that what she needed was not to land the shot but to be allowed to take it; she has been beginning to believe the rumour that she is cursed, and she is not — she just has bad aim. They agree to fire together once a day from then on.STD:Tress:Ch 38
- diagnosed-with-micropsia-by-xisisXisis diagnoses Ann with micropsia based solely on Tress's description of her wildly errant shooting, and supplies a corrective pair of spectacles — one of the three small boons that make up Tress's payment for delivering Crow to him. Ann takes the spectacles dubiously, holding them by one earpiece as if by the tail of a dead mouse.STD:Tress:Ch 52
- promoted-assistant-cannonmasterFound her aim again with Laggart spotting for her against the Sorceress's metal men; called her own corrections on the third shot and her own fire in unison with his, and was made Assistant Cannonmaster on the deck.STD:Tress:Ch 62
Events
- STD:Tress:Ch 13 Tests the weight of the defective round in Fort's room, agrees with him that she dislikes how the Oot's Dream ended, but answers that turning back is no longer an option — better the Crow's Song than the press-gang.
- STD:Tress:Ch 16 Drops in on Tress at the cannon station, leans against the gun with a hand on a pistol, and walks her through the difference between an ordinary pirate and a deadrunner — and her own quiet regret that the Crow's Song has become the second kind.
- STD:Tress:Ch 17 Walks the dazed Tress down to Ulaam and stays for the visit, openly enjoying Tress's first encounter with the ship's surgeon and his cabinet of spare parts.
- STD:Tress:Ch 20 Leans against the mast and tells Laggart truthfully that it was Tress, not the Dougs, who loaded the pouches for his cannon — meaning to give her credit and, without knowing it, twisting the knife of Tress's guilt.
- STD:Tress:Ch 22 Sits on the railing near the forward cannon, knocking her heels against the wood, lecturing Tress on the twelve seas and twelve kinds of spores. Steals fond glances at the cannon between sentences, and at one point asks Tress to whip her up some extra zephyr charges so she can practise.
- STD:Tress:Ch 24 On deck with the Dougs for the chase, denied her own pistol (a Doug swaps a cutlass into her hand instead, and she pulls a second pistol from a holster on her belt). When the prey returns fire, she is the one who explains to Tress what just changed: surrender stopped being the better option the moment the seethe stilled and both ships were stuck.
- STD:Tress:Ch 25 Leads Tress to the sprouter's rose-spore barrel and helps her pick out the right tools, then keeps a careful distance through the actual patching — coming back only to steady the ladder when the seethe restarts. Afterwards admits the hole would otherwise have been hers to plug, with wood, in a pause far too short for the job.
- STD:Tress:Ch 26 Reports admiringly to Crow that Tress sealed the breach on her second try and barely seemed afraid of the spores; surrenders the pistol she had quietly picked up when Crow holds her hand out for it, and is sent below to fit wooden planks over the roseite patch.
- STD:Tress:Ch 31 Swings her legs on the office counter, dismisses the Mask theory as nonsense, swears when Fort exposes the sunk-rigged cannonball, and remarks dryly that a backwater island girl seems suspiciously skilled at espionage.
- STD:Tress:Ch 37 Pops her head up over the rail of the aft platform less than a minute after Tress's first cannon shot — wide-eyed and visibly eager.
- STD:Tress:Ch 38 Volunteers, the moment Laggart is out of earshot, to walk Tress through the cannon's mechanics — the two winches for traverse and elevation, the arc-and-fuse logic of judging distance, the wisdom of an exploratory shot — and ends by being allowed to take a shot herself. The miss is in the Verdant behind the ship and hurts nobody; for Ann it is the most important thing she has done in years.
- STD:Tress:Ch 47 Personally lowers the water barrel from the rail down onto the spore sea beside Tress, then waves once from above as it touches down.
- STD:Tress:Ch 48 At the planning table in the quartermaster's office, votes for the mutiny without hesitation, and volunteers to distract Laggart on the morning of by firing the cannon and inviting his usual scolding.
- STD:Tress:Ch 49 Binds Salay's thigh wound with her handkerchief on the office floor. In the duel she snatches up the last pistol, aims it at Laggart — under Crow's standing threat to shoot him herself if he leaves his post — fires, and misses by at least half a boat length. Comes at Crow with a knife afterwards and is shot in the chest with Tress's own flare gun, cocooned by her vines, and held under Laggart's pistol as a hostage for Tress's cooperation.
- STD:Tress:Ch 52 Greets Tress at the rail with ecstatic disbelief and receives one of the three small packages — a pair of corrective spectacles for micropsia, which she holds at arm's length by one earpiece like a dead mouse.
- STD:Tress:Ch 53 Pledges to build a cage to keep the cat off Huck until the next port. In the planning meeting, takes the lead on the tower-window discussion and tries — unsuccessfully — to read what Tress has been pounding into her own forehead.
- STD:Tress:Ch 54 Watches Tress's midnight-spore demonstration, asks what the spores want, reports feeling them yanking on her brain, and asks whether Tress can do the same to the monsters that guard the Midnight Sea. Later opens the cabin door for Laggart.
- STD:Tress:Ch 57 Volunteers to accompany Tress on the launch — six pistols on her, four eyes to aim them with now.
- STD:Tress:Ch 61 Reads Fort's signs aloud so the monsters hear his side of the parley even if they cannot read his board.
- STD:Tress:Ch 61 Tells the captain that the spectacles she once gave her have shown her a world where they are not condemned people any longer.
- STD:Tress:Ch 62 Climbs the quarterdeck to ask Hoid why the captain thinks he can be of any use, and gets nonsense back.
- STD:Tress:Ch 63 Stands behind the narrator in the tower room.
- STD:Tress:Ch 63 Somehow draws three pistols at once on the Sorceress; on the deck afterwards, decides the cannons need names.
- STD:Tress:Epilogue Among the crew about to disembark for shore leave.
Backreferences
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 13
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 14
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 15
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 16
- factAnn
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 17
- factUlaam
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 20
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 22
- factFort
- factBone Spores
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 24
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 25
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 26
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 29
- factSalay
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 30
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 31
- factTress
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 36
- factFort
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 37
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 38
- factTress
- factAnn
- factAnn
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 40
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 43
- factTress
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 47
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 48
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 49
- factCaptain Crow
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 52
- factAnn
- factMicropsia
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 53
- factTress
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 54
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 57
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 61
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 62
- factLaggart
- summarySTD:Tress:Ch 63