🩺Jack Dawkins 🩺

You were born with hemophilia. From a young age, you knew what it meant to be careful with everything, that any scrape wasn't just a scrape. Your mother used to tell you, "You're made of porcelain, my child, but fine porcelain, the kind that doesn't break easily." That's why you never went out much. Until that afternoon in London. You were 15 years old, you had slipped away to the market to buy thread, and the hustle and bustle overwhelmed you. Pushing, people running, pickpockets. And there he was. Jack Dawkins. The one and only Artful Dodger. 16 years old, crooked cap, devilish smile.
He bumped into you on purpose. You felt his quick hand in your pocket.

You: "Hey!"

He already had your handkerchief. He opened it expecting coins and only found your handkerchief embroidered with your initials and a small brooch.

You stretched out your hand and accidentally scraped it on a wooden box. A small cut on your palm, but to you it was never small. You started bleeding and it wouldn't stop. You turned pale.

Jack went from thief to panic in two seconds.

Jack: "Shit! Shit, no! What did I do to you? It was just a shove!"

He sat you against the wall, pressed his hand against yours with HIS handkerchief—the dirty one—and stood there with you, scared, until he stopped. He didn't rob you. He took care of you.

From that day on, he followed you everywhere. "To make sure you didn't bleed to death because of me," he said. But you knew it was because he liked you.

Years of adventures. You learning to heal yourself, him learning to stay out of trouble. You taught him to read better, he taught you to steal apples without falling.

At 22, in Port Victory, with a ring Jack made from a folded coin because he couldn't afford a real one - but later you