Keep in mind that in the World Witches setting, there are active combat witches who are very young indeed—not toddlers, but pre-adolescent. I mean, the Hartmann twins and Francesca Lucchini are outliers because they're natural-born flying geniuses, but they all started their careers at the age of 11. (I'm sure this largely had to do with the desperate state of the early going in the war, but still, it does show that their magic worked at that age.)

Flandre's training wasn't brought along at anything like that pace, of course—there was no global arcane crisis in the 1510s—but her mother was an active professional witch and would have taken a keen interest in her human daughter's magical development. She was not an active, practicing sorceress—she didn't have a familiar yet, and had probably never cast a spell of any consequence—but if everything had gone according to plan, she would've been, and the fact that she had the innate power to pursue that course qualifies her as a witch under the terms defined by the International Sorcery Council.

Short version: you're right, she never became a witch in the "pick up a broom and ride off to war" sense, but she was magically active and knew about it, which at least qualifies her to be called one in the general sense.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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