Nome looked around himself.

Such industrious creatures. They work ceaselessly until their task is completed. Then they go and find something else to work on.

So ingenious. Absolutely my greatest work of art.

The snail trudged over to his workshop. Unlike the Folk of the mountain, his life did not revolve around work but rather around Art. Dr. Leo had given him the ability to create, and so he had—he produced masterpiece after masterpiece, and they were spread to all of the lands.

Petra smiled as, under the snail's deft manipulation, the work took shape. Nome required every Folk child to spend some time in his studio, where he taught them the value of patience and acceptance of things that could no be changed. It was hard for a Folk child who was no more than a fortnight old to understand that the very oldest Folk lived no longer than six months, and that they would almost certainly not last long past four.

Some projects simply could not be finished in that time. But that wasn't the way the Folk thought. They lived every day to the fullest. Nome had dwelt in the mountain since he had created the Folk, six years ago. Naturally, none of the original Folk were still alive, and though Nome was only a middle-aged giant land snail, fifteen generations of his chosen people had come and gone.

To Nome's substantial ego, this was fine. To his more-than-slightly melodramatic heart, however, it was a different story.

How can they live, he mused, how can they carry on when even mail sent to our kin in the lowlands is received each time by the successive generation? How can they be happy so... briefly?

Occasionally, he wondered whether lifespan was a relative thing. Relative or not, however, his Folk still died like lemmings. It was lucky he had had the foresight to include such a sizeable libido in their makeup.

Petra looked curiously at Nome. The snail had stopped working as he pondered, but now he slowly continued.

"You know," Nome said after a while, not meeting Petra's gaze. "The humans and merpeople in the other lands... even some of the animals... they..."

"Yes?" Petra asked.

Nome groaned inwardly. Why did I make them so bright and bushy-tailed? "They... for each month you Folk live, they have twenty years."

Nome could see Petra thinking it over. "Why? What do they do?"

"Nothing, I think. It's natural—"

"No, I meant how do they spend that time? If Folk lived for one year, we'd be overcrowded and the mountain would be like a honeycomb with all the tunnels. If you think about it like that, I guess we don't really have short lives. We're happy, and we get things done. We don't really need to live any longer than we do. Ah—Nome? Nome, are you alright? Why won't you look at me—oh. Nome, you're crying..."