"No substance?" Poe asked, flabbergasted. He stood and gestured at the flowers on the ground. "Everything alive had substance. A place. A purpose. Demeter's precious crops would never be pollinated, if the bees didn't have your flowers to feast on, before the crops were grown. I see them all, you know. Not just the humans. The animals. The beasts. The ones who die of exposure, wishing for shade. Shade that a single tree grown by you could provide. Every leaf, every vine, every blade of grass - all of it is needed, required, or the entire thing falls apart. You are necessary, and you are valuable, and somehow still you manage to create things like this!" He gestured back to the tree. "What is the point of life if there's no beauty to be found in it!"

He was getting angry again and he hissed, cutting off and clicking his tongue as he forced himself to look away. Damn it. Damn it.

"Your mother is a fool," He decided, darkly. "And a cruel one, to ever let you believe this. Jealous, maybe, I don't know. But if she won't value you the way you deserve, then I will make her suffer the loss she didn't know it'd cause."