She shakes her head. "I am not a - whatever Melkor and the ones in Valinor are. I cannot produce inherently magical objects. There are rocks that are lastingly warm as a natural feature of physics," Uranium, plutonium, thorium, and so on, "But they are also potentially very dangerous."

"All right. If it's only a few weeks' crossing we can survive the cold. Thank you."

She's still dwelling on accidentally melting a hole through a continent while trying to figure out how uranium worked. That was not a fun week.

"Right. Shall I make a prototype cart and have someone try it out? I'll make it with a wide gear ratio, for calibration."

"Thank you very much."

"You don't need to thank me so much."

She holds a hand out and looks like she's concentrating. Her thoughts are indistinct and relying on an unfamiliar sense.

He's seen the Valar at work, she's helping them, he can keep his head down and save the panic and confusion for later.

After a few minutes, narrow pillars of some kind of stone emerge from the ice, pushing melted water out ahead of them and managing to not crack the frosted ground open. These mushroom out into a road. Once she has a stone surface to work from, she generates various pieces from it - stone slabs of a frame, extracting metal and forming important parts with it. Wheels, she considers, might be a problem - no oil or rubber is readily available. She kludges it with ball bearings and ridged, grippy mineral edges on metal wheel frames.

The cart takes shape rapidly. Is nobody curious enough to ask her about the process? No, of course not, fear is boring.

They are definitely fascinated - they're the Noldor, after all, and this isn't how Aulë works, and they're going to look at it more carefully later - but no, they're not going to pepper her with questions. Fëanor probably would but he's off across the sea already.

"Here we go. First prototype, expect design flaws." She hovers herself into it and demonstrates how to pedal and steer. It's a wide, squat box with two sets of pedals that move as one, but only one steering bar. It has more wheels than is strictly necessary, which makes it unwieldy and difficult to steer but less prone to slipping around or tipping.

"Let's see if it works. Would you mind trying it?" It would be pleasing if her first try on this was mostly acceptable. All the pieces she's used before, it's just assembling them in a different way, but still.

And they go ahead and test it out.

It's somewhat hard work, pedalling, and hard to steer. But the thing does move, almost as fast as a horse once it's up to speed.

"This will certainly get us and our supplies across the Helcaraxe very quickly. We are tremendously grateful."

"I plan to make a few hundred, not enough to carry all your people, but perhaps the sick or small, and supplies. And the road. Roads are relaxing to make."

"I am glad to hear that," he says. "We can walk, especially if there is a road. It won't be a particularly hard journey."

"Good, good. What is this whole thought-talking thing, by the way?"

"Osanwë? Is it not known to you?"

"No... I forget if I explained how I am from a different world entirely, to you. I am visiting, somehow, and I don't miss my home enough to attempt to return quite yet. This place needs help."

"Yeah," he says, "yeah, just a bit. The fire on the other shore, was that you?"

"They tried to set the boats on fire, ostensibly to attract Melkor's attention but later they admitted it was to keep them out of everyone else's hands. I arrived just as the fire was burning and put them out - they had left someone inside the boats when they lit up for Cap's sake - ended up returning them to Valinor."

"Okay. Thank you."

"So. How do I stop doing it?"

"I'm sorry. Stop doing osanwë? You're - a Power, you can presumably just will it -"

"If I am a Power, I am a Power of a very different land."

She tries it. Her thoughts are her own. This thought is shared. This thought is private. (It's quieter, but not gone.)

"I'm sorry, I don't have any idea how to teach things to powers," he says apologetically. "You can see in my mind how we do it."

"Thank you." Hm. She tries to read what he's sending more closely. She can do arbitrary mental states once she's learned them. You have to, to enchant... Even though enchanting was never her strong suit.

And then tries again, remembering her home.

[nothing]

"Did you get that?"