Taliesin's Room - Safehouse

[Sara Stanton]

"Fine." she sighs, taking a step back and awkwardly wrapping her arms around herself.

[Taliesin]

Will turned around and walked back over to the pendant on the wall, rubbing the stone bit.

"Is there anything else you need? You're not close enough to have birth while you're here, are you?"

[Sara Stanton]

"I still have two and a half months to go."

[Taliesin]

"Well, you'll be out of here in a few days, so have no fear."

[Sara Stanton]

"You think it'll be that easy?"

[Taliesin]

"No, but there are cells, both upcountry and down on the mainland, that are a little more out of the way. It's obviously not safe anywhere, but there are safer places than here."

[Sara Stanton]

Sara nods.

"Are you going to come along?"

[Taliesin]

"I'm needed here. I can't just skip off to the countryside."

[Sara Stanton]

"Of course..."

[Taliesin]

"It'll be difficult to figure out how to do so many at once. Maybe we'll do it in stages.

As for your husband, I'd suggest possibly mailing him direct. A little dangerous, as they do open the mail sometimes, but safer than putting him in a combat situation."

[Sara Stanton]

"You're really not very confident in him, are you? He's not nearly that incompetent."

[Taliesin]

"He is. I know, I was him, remember?

You're much more competent than he is. If you had his powers, you'd be nearly unstoppable.

As it is, there's no one in this building he could hold a candle against, and six or seven people here who could hijack control of his body, including you. He's a liability."

[Sara Stanton]

"I think it's been so long your memory is exaggerating." Sara tries to defend Will.

[Taliesin]

"Do you know what I can do, Sara?" he said, turning around.

"I control matter on the subatomic level. I can replenish matter faster than it's physically possible for me to get rid of it. If you were to put me into a machine to harness that energy, I could keep London in power perpetually. I can replicate any complex structure you give me, and create machines from sketched out blueprints. I can survive explosions, dismemberment, extreme pressures and heat and cold. I do not age. I do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe. I can be a solid, a liquid, a gas, a plasma.

And what does he do with that? He tries to be someone's shoe."

[Sara Stanton]

"You've had 18 years to perfect it and he shouldn't spend more time training."

[Taliesin]

"And that's not all. He's got so much self-esteem and ego problems he's absolutely useless, mentally. If you decided that you'd prefer him to be...to be...I don't know, to be your god damned toilet, he'd do it without hesitation! In a couple years, he's finally gonna get up the nerve to ask if you and Bear want to cuckold him while he's tied up in your room! You don't have a husband and a child, you've basically got two kids."

[Sara Stanton]

"Don't be ridiculous! He'd never ask me that!" Sara protests, perhaps a little too vehemently.

[Taliesin]

"Wouldn't he?

Or are you saying he'd be too timid to ask, because that's more true."

[Sara Stanton]

"He knows even asking that would make me uncomfortable!"

[Taliesin]

"Which is why it takes him so long to ask.

You've been in his head, you know his dreams."

[Sara Stanton]

"That doesn't mean he'd actually ask that. He already knows what the answer would be!" she frowns a little.

[Taliesin]

"Three years is a long time. You do get a bit more playful," he chuckled. "And I get more serious. We find a happy middle.

D'you remember....what was it, funtime? Playtime? Yeah, we haven't done that in...well, it's more then a decade.

...Occasionally there was a little roleplay, but no more was it any of that domme/sub stuff."

[Sara Stanton]

"I guess that's good news..." she says carefully.

[Taliesin]

"Yeah, so, anyway, some things work, some things don't. He suggested that. Things were awkward for, like, a month. But that's the kind of person he is, at the moment.

It's...

How can I put this without using a cliched clay metaphor...

...


...I'm gonna have to use the damn clay metaphor.


When you first get clay out of the wrapper, it's hard. It's firm. It keeps it's shape, but you can't do anything with it of any interest. That was me when I first manifested.

But then you start working it. You kneed it and add water and spin it around, and it gets much more useful, much better, but, at the same time, malleable. It can't keep it's own shape. That's where he is now.

And then you shape it how you want it, make it perfect...and then you fire it, and it hardens. And then it's the finished, and best, and beautiful. And it keeps it's shape, and can stand up on it's own, and can last forever. That's where I am."

[Sara Stanton]

"That still doesn't make him weak. And none of us is as strong as you guys. You're not the only one who got stronger in the last 18 years."

[Taliesin]

"I don't trust him to take care of you," he finally admitted. "I don't trust him in the least.

You died because he couldn't do it."

[Sara Stanton]

"He has a better chance if he's at least there instead of being pulled out of an envelope."

[Taliesin]

"If he's not THERE, no one can rely on him, and he won't let them down. If he's not THERE, you'll rely on someone who knows what the hell they're doing.

Maybe we can disguise him as your baby--you're obviously of the right age. They'd be less likely to check into a woman and her child..."

[Sara Stanton]

"You have got to be kidding me..."

[Taliesin]

"You have a better idea?"

[Sara Stanton]

"How about something that doesn't humiliate him? What happened 5 years ago didn't happen just because you weren't 'perfect' yet."

[Taliesin]

"If I wanted to humiliate him, I'd just spar with him and take control of his clay. Of MY clay."

[Sara Stanton]

"Yeah, telling him he's too much of a liability to help protect people is much better." she frowns.

[Taliesin]

"He is, now.

You want to make me trust him? You want me to feel comfortable, sending you off with him?"

[Sara Stanton]

"We're not going to go out there alone."

[Taliesin]

"Oh, so you're just always going to have someone else there? But you always DID nix the idea of a threeway."

[Sara Stanton]

"I'm still hoping we'll find a way back to our time. And I thought we were talking about traveling anyway so of course I'd rather do that with more people."

[Taliesin]

"Whether you do or not, whether you travel or not, do you or do you not trust Will to protect you? Because I don't!"

[Sara Stanton]

Sara doesn't say anything for a while, glancing at the piece of stone on the wall.

"That's not fair..." she says quietly.

[Taliesin]

"I ask you again, two questions.

Do you trust him?

And do you want me to trust him?

Honestly, please, I've known you forever, I can tell."