...Because he's out of range for someone he's known less than a week, or more abruptly and worryingly than that?

Everyone else seems to have lost touch also, though they're trying not to seem too panicked.

Well. That's...worrying.

She decides to distract herself from the worry by clearing ash from the air, if there's any still there.

There's plenty, and this can definitely occupy her for a few hours. At which point someone comes to tell her Nolofinwë's asked to speak with her.

"He can come here or someone can carry me. I'm not going to be using most of my muscles as muscles for a while."

So several people carry her. Nolofinwë is in a tower with a clearly magical ball in the center and a clear view of the whole of northern Beleriand. 

"Hello, Illia. Something is cutting off communications with Dorthonion both direct and indirect. I was trying to think whether there's a way to leverage our combined abilities to tell what's going on.

"I can try some things." She pushes the crystal ball to do its job better.

He looks at it. "That is making it resolve better, thank you. Can you do it - more?"

"Yes. Do you have any--magic painkillers or something? Magic from home is really lossy about dealing with pain from magic and nonmagical painkillers don't work on it, but--" she focuses harder, jaw clenched.

He starts singing. 

The pain does lift, substantially and startlingly. She feels warm all over.

She focuses very, very hard on the crystal ball.

"Thank you," he says tersely. "I'm riding out. You should rest and recover."

"I'm going to clear out some more ash while the effects of the song are still going and crash like a wild boar through underbrush when it wears off."

"Very well." He's already putting on armor.

So she finds a window and stares at ash some more and wills it to clump and fuse and fall out of the sky and not get in anyone's lungs and kills them and marvels at how not in pain she is.

After a while the song wears off and she is in fact in a lot of pain.

She was planning for this! She has a soft surface handy on which to black out from the pain. If she had been in little enough pain to not be knocked unconscious by it then her plan would have failed.

When she wakes up the mood in the castle is surprisingly cheerful. Apparently everyone did something very stupid and larger-than-expected numbers survived. And she still hurts a lot.

She solicits details and more tea and heating pads.

There are, apparently, only a few of the crystal balls, all connected to each other, such that the Enemy obtaining one could use them all. The most important front of the attack - the war is apparently still ongoing, they've now retreated to the castle and are keeping orcs at archery-length but nothing's ended - was an effort to destroy Dorthonion and get theirs. Fingon had rather recklessly plunged in, fought something far more powerful than him, and managed to drag half his forces out with a surviving cousin and the crystal ball. The King, who'd headed out there to yell at him for even trying, had ended up agreeing it was the right call and helping to pull it off. Everyone insists that the exploding Balrogs were an important factor in getting close enough to even give it a go.

Exploding the balrogs: so extremely worth the pain.

There are a lot of injured people. They can sing if that will help her move?

If they can do the make-it-not-hurt song from last night she can totally heal people.

So someone follows around singing the warmth-and-magic-healing song and pointing her between people who need healing. 

And she heals, and she heals, and oh she is going to pay the Piper for this later but this is why she's a mage. Well, half of it. She really needs to talk engineering with someone properly at some point. Meanwhile healing.