Ragged Robin
Legacy Name: Ragged Robin

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The colours had faded; the petals hung limp and curled in on themselves.

Robin plucked it from his jacket, pinching it carefully by the stem and holding it up to his face to scrutinize it with an unreadable expression. Jack made no comment, but his jaw tightened, and his gaze remained fixed on the wilted flower when Robin tried to catch his eye.

"Alas, 'twould appear my own romantic ventures are doomed." Robin finally remarked dryly, and his voice caused Jack's eyes to jerk upwards towards his own. "Good thing I ain't pursuing anyone, anyhow. Perhaps it'd be a better fit on your breast, WJ."

He proffered the flower, holding it out delicately between his fingers as one might present a rose to a pretty girl, but Jack's expression did not mirror his own amusement.

"Or on hers?" He prompted further, humour taking a turn for the unkind. "A dead flower for a dead girl?"

"Jezebel explained that very tradition to you in the first place." Jack responded quietly. "The symbolism of a ragged robin. The language of flowers. Do you think a true monster would care for such things?"

"Such a thing to call the woman of your heart! I called her no such thing."

"You've called her such often enough in the past." This time, Jack's tone was sharp, and firm. Robin raised a brow, and leaned back with his hand (still clutching the flower) clasped to his chest as though the underlying force had caused him to take a step back... though the twitch of his lips suggested he found the whole thing nothing less than amusing. "I am not deaf."

"No, but you are blind. Don't you see what she is? She is a monster." Robin leaned forward again, a conspiratorial set to his features as he added in a stage whisper, stressing each syllable as though proper enunciation alone might force Jack to see sense. "She kills people."

"You're right." Jack answered, and the sudden acquiescence threw him off. While Robin stood genuinely bemused, he continued, in the same calm, reasonable tone. As though their disagreement really were over something as trivial as to which pretty girl to give a pretty flower, rather than if the resident pretty girl were a parasitic undead abomination or not. "She does kill people. But only if she has to; to protect herself, to protect me, or to protect you. If they knew what she was, what we are... it's them, or us."

"You're right." Robin returned, and Jack cocked an eyebrow in honest curiosity in response. "Except I think you've drawn your line in the sand in the wrong place."