Resigned sigh. "I understand. But I am not willing to take an irreversible decision like that unilaterally."

"All right."

"I am sorry for the... inconvenience."

"It's not about the inconvenience, it's about the potential tragedy if something goes wrong with the new dimension."

Tired sigh. "Apologies all the same."

Nod.

"Anything else?"

"Did you say you can do floating islands?"

"Sea floating, but yes. I suppose I could make... a land city standing on top of a mobile platform, but I guess those aren't as desirable. And I guess that with the right amount of engineering I could make a flying city on my dimension - with fire as an endless energy source - but I suggested mobile floating islands because those can be made independent of my cooperation."

"We could launch one of those to buy some - goodwill in case of other catastrophes."

Slow nod. "It's not going to have any lightbulbs, but I can set it up so it's just a matter of screwing them on and it can use gas lamps." Felix adds thoughtfully. "I can sort of bypass the overdecoration problem by making all the tacky features removable. And we can fill in any empty space with," he makes an all encompassing gesture, "anything really. Very pretty containers filled with whatever your heart's desire."

" - I can ask some people what resources would be really useful."

"No weapons please. Or anything... objectionable. My pocket dimension does architecture by itself, but you also should come up with specs for the city."

"Oh, definitely not weapons."

Nod nod. "Would it... maybe not buy would will, but sound better justified if you told your neighbors that I want to train the red dreamshaper to get specific magic birds? It's somewhat true..."

"I don't think they'll find any justification sufficient for a red having dangerous magic."

Sigh.

"There really isn't any justification sufficient."

"For what it's worth, we'd be approximately as panicked and horrified if any citizen had incredibly dangerous magic which they were not complying with safety precautions for."

"It's worth something I guess. But how many of your citizens would say that their lives are worth less than a whim?"

"I can't imagine why any, including the reds, would say that."

Felix feels sort of inclined to say that one of the things he could do - that admittedly takes a lot of time - is effectively taking a thought out of someone's head and turning to written format. Literal mind reading. He does not say that.

"Maybe next election you should make a better effort to win the red vote."

" - I'm not a politician. And reds don't vote."

Resigned sigh. Gosh that sigh is so resigned.