Nod.

"Is any of this helpful to you? I feel like we're just filling in the details of a picture you already have all the important pieces of."

"I don't know what to do with it, but it can be interesting and help me acclimate in a sort of cultural sense without having an immediate response it indicates."

"Well, then, glad to be of assistance. I am in fact also capable of talking about things that aren't the house of Fëanor, if you're interested in any of those."

"I'm interested in lots of things."

"In particular?"

"I don't know what other topics you have things to say about."

"Everyone has something to say about family politics. It seems like you've heard quite enough about the Valar, and you'd laugh at the chemistry debates that were popular back home. I expect Findekáno is keeping you more or less apprised of our strategic and logistical position, at least the relevant bits, and I don't think Turukáno wants me sharing personal details. That exhausts the areas in which I have particular expertise."

"Is laughing at chemistry a bad thing?"

"I just mean it'd be pointless, your world obviously knows far more."

"Well, my world also knows that suns don't spontaneously appear one day and that plants don't grow without one. Chemistry could be different here too, if you describe getting results we couldn't expect at home."

"Chemistry at home was two divergent fields - the study of the properties of metals, mostly by people who were using them to forge things, and the study of the properties of the earth, and of the internally-uniform powdered types you'd get by separating it. And then they converged, because people realized there was the same thing going on. The thing being a sort of cyclical tendency, apparent both in divine properties and in mundane ones like weight and density. People thought it was the key to the fundamental nature of the universe. It was all very exciting."

"What about the chemistry of gases and liquids, anything done there?"

"Gases are Manwë's domain and he's difficult to work with. Metal's a liquid if you are very determined."

"But not all liquids are metals."

"No. Not much is, though, apart from water. Are you trying to give our chemists a hint?"

"Do they want one?"

"Yes, obviously! We want to know everything, we were happy to learn it from the Valar, we'll be happy to learn it from you. Some things are a nice challenge to figure out for yourself, but not societal knowledge, that's madness, what if we need it?"

"I didn't know the conventions! Should I list chemical elements to you or someone else?"

"I'm sure they're all listening by now, go ahead."

"Well, I was going to employ visual aids."

"All right." And high up enough that the diagram won't be blocked by Loki's own body but she can still see it, she starts assembling what she remembers of the periodic table. "I was not a chemist and will not remember all of the elements, but if you name a substance I can tell you if it is one or not and try to remember where it goes; it might help jog my memory if you can tell me whether it is in pure form heavier or lighter than other elements I have placed. Paler colors mean I am less sure that I have the thing in the right place." She's very confident of helium and hydrogen; she knows that copper, silver, and gold go in a column together but is not sure she remembers which one, so the names are pale and the box around them dark. Noble gases... nickel's here, right...? Lead's hereish...

People start calling out names and questions.

She places - mostly pretty pale - names of the substances; she makes a list off to the side of the non-elements; she explains the composition of water and answers what else she can remember from having been on a chemistry kick for a couple of months a hundred years ago.