"...No."

"I have."

"And yet of the two of us I have heard by far the greater number of songs referring to such and such a character's soul being a duck and the implications this has for her evenings, so this confers you little expertise on Midgardian habits."

"What implications might those be, then?"

"Oh, it won't rhyme if I repeat it."

"Of course."

"If I do go back it probably won't be for a long time. I'm glad I didn't get attached to any of them. They die very young."

"Is it true, then? Less than a century each?"

"It's sad."

"Heartbreaking. And they have a fair number of wars amongst themselves, and even crude weapons and brief training can leave soldiers with septic wounds and missing limbs and not a real healer among them."

"Maybe we should bring a healer."

"Do you know some?"

"No, but I'm sure I could find one who'd like to go to Midgard and heal people there."

"They'd have their work cut out for them. There are many, many Midgardians, and they have such brief generations that there would be another batch by the time a healer had thoroughly covered even a few of their nations."

"They'd still be better off than if no one did anything. The real trick would be to find a way to make them less brief, I suppose. Maybe if I knew magic I'd try that."

"I've occasionally asked Father questions about how he'd go about inventing this or that magic, and while I believe he's considered fairly accomplished usually his opinion of the matter is that it's not feasible - I haven't given him this particular problem but I doubt it would distinguish itself."

"Well, so maybe I couldn't invent a spell to tap a mortal on the nose and make them stop dying so fast. Does it follow that there is nothing whatsoever to be done? I wouldn't think so."

"I'd certainly be delighted if something like that were invented. They have so little time."

"Well, if I give in and start learning magic, then ten or twenty centuries along when I am finally satisfied with my understanding it'll be the first thing I try. If there are still mortals by then."

"That's a long course of study. Does it usually take that long?"

"No. I did mention it was driving me mad."

"Why so? What's so maddening?"

"It's just so—" He gestures vaguely, unable to properly articulate his difficulty. "Imagine that you want to learn to read, but there is no such thing as a letter or a word, only entire books set out all of a piece. The finest of scholars can discern with careful study which part of the book is written on a particular page, and use that understanding to create new books. Except that it would not take me ten centuries in that scenario to figure out how letters worked."

"That... sounds very frustrating. I've never tried to learn anything as poorly organized as that. No wonder you stopped."