"To what do I owe the pleasure?" The girl says, bowing mockingly. Her robes flow as she does, bringing to mind rustling flowers.

"You know exactly why, parasite." I shoot back immediately. The scowl on my face is unbecoming, but I really don’t care right now.

She smiles at me and spreads her arms wide to gesture at the endless field of lotus flowers surrounding us. A minute passes before she deigns to respond. "They are happy here. Everyone is happy here. Surely, you won't take that from them?"

That's what she always leads with. The happiness of her victims, as if she actually cares about them.

"I couldn't care less. Taking a few can be overlooked, even an entire island, like you used to. But you just had to get greedy, and spread like a damned weed. Now I have to deal with a shared dream the size of a nation! Do you have any idea how much of a problem that is?" I start shouting at her halfway through. Why can’t she just understand what she’s doing?

For the first time in years, Lotus’ carefree smile breaks. Her contempt is palpable now. “Greece is my land. I will not just give it up now that I have finally united it under my peace. Furthermore, it is your job to maintain the sanctity of dreams to begin with. I refuse to change at your leisure.”

That insolent—”It isn’t possible to keep something that size from interfering with other dreams!”

“And if it does, yet more would experience true peace. I see no wrong in that inevitability.” She doesn’t seem to understand at all. Her mask of tranquility has reformed, and she’s back to being hard to read.

What the hell do I say to that?


>Try to explain exactly why this is an issue. Even a brick wall can be brought down if it's hit hard enough, right?

>Just kill her on the spot. There isn't any reason to let her live after the trouble she's caused.

[This is just something silly I've had on my mind recently. It's not gonna be pretty, but it'll certainly exist, for certain. It's not going to be much more than a couple of updates either, hence being in /shorts/.]