* Happy Birthday Miss Samson !
He isn’t one of the first to leave, preoccupied with attempts to keep up appearances, he talks to Annissa, and has a short conversation with Joan before moving on. He has to find Cora before the party is over, give her the carefully wrapped lapis pendant, he’d picked out weeks before the event. He’d heard the stone was used to represent royalty, a symbol of power and wisdom. She cleans up his battered face, all loving smiles and caring hands, he’s lucky to have a friend like her, truly they’re all lucky the head of Prometheus hasn’t found a way to stay kind.
Like that party is over, the night’s events replay in his mind, an endless loop as he tries to make sense of it. Cathrine’s cancellation, his “fight” with Russell. The threat on taller man’s lips. He catches a cab home, to clean himself up. The shower he takes is long, stretches on for what feels like hours until the little corgi claws at the bathroom door. He takes his time getting dressed. Pulling on pajama pants and a plain white t-shirt as he thinks about the hand on his ass, the feeling of taller man looming over him. It twists in his stomach like misshapen butterflies, tapping at the clear glass of a mason jar, trying to escape. He shakes the thoughts away, and his mind settles on Cathrine, the dim lights and the loud bang echoing through the party, the deafening silence as body was pulled from the room leaving smudged crimson stained across the floor. The threat Russell made to steal his points. Had he followed through with that threat with Cathrine?
Taliesin rubs a hand down his injuried face before packing a bag, collecting Bwyln and calling a car to pick him up. He checks into a hotel that same night, rents it for three days in a faux attempt to hide away from Prometheus for a while. He’s been avoids mirrors until last minute. Two hours before showtime he sits in a makeup chair and lets Cat clean him up the best she can without hurting him. He presses a kiss to the inside of her wrist and gives her a sad smile before he heads into the studio.
He comes out with a smile that hurts split lip, Bwlyn follows at his side, giving his most charming doggy smile. Taliesin waves as he moves across the stage, and he seems genuine as he comes to stand on his monologue marker, the faded shape of a daffodil beneath his feet. He gives a slight bow, facing an audience of approximately two hundred people, bruises scattered across his face, little scrapes and scratches across his face for the second time in two months. Finger raises to lips and the crowd slows to silence, it’s a comfortable sort of controlled environment. Something he’s been doing for ten years.
“Last night, as many of you know was Cora Samson’s birthday.” A few cheers, nothing major, they’re well behaved tonight, perhaps they’re in shock. “I would tonight, like to talk not about the wonderful leader of Prometheus, but the event that everyone is talking about.” He doesn’t hide how tired the topic makes him, burn it translates into a look that says : I know, everyone is talking about it. “I want to talk about Ruby and Russell Torrance, about grief and what it will cause people to do. But most of all, I would like to ask that you all send your love and kind thoughts to the two... they’ve been through quite a lot and I think a bit of kindness in the world is always needed.” This was the easiest way to resolve things of course. To shift the blame, to move on for the night, so he can think of anything other than Russell Torrance.
















