And her mother has appallingly bad judgment and no place having the power to banish people, but he can imagine how he'd feel to hear that said about his father. "Well. I am sure you are not feeling lucky to be here, but we are very lucky to have you, if you can heal starving people."

"Indeed. Where should I start?"

"You'll start by healing exactly one volunteer, and then we'll observe them overnight, even if there are other people dying in the meantime. I've never heard of anything like this and can't take chances."

"...If that is the way you think best. Although I am very much unsure what you think I need permission to touch someone in order to do which would be worse than death."

"I also don't know. Everything about you is entirely unprecedented. But some kind of magic that requires the participant to be willing, but then bends their will, or harms their soul, is not more unlikely to me than women materializing from Asgard with the power to heal the dying."

"I am absolutely sympathetic to a paranoid desire to retain one's will for oneself and as I said am not an expert on souls, so I suppose if these are your priorities I will abide by them."

"The Enemy was said to have the power to trap a soul, prevent it from returning to Valinor to be reembodied, twist it into something under his power. And the Enemy can wear a fair face when he pleases, though not such a thoroughly incarnate one, and if he knew we were here he'd just kill us all. I don't think you're the Enemy, but we'll walk carefully here."

"You said Midgardians have soul...animals? We are soul animals, I think. This form is chosen by the soul, willingly, and we have a fair bit of flexibility to remake it in our preferred image - we can generally heal very well, but after a few months without sustenance it's that much harder. When we die we used to just ...wander, bereft of a body that we could use to engage the physical world, and then the Valar found us and now they keep the dead in the Halls of Mandos, and judge us, and when we are found adequate they create for us another body so that we may take up our lives again."

"...Well, the judgment step is worrisome, but I will nonetheless accordingly fret slightly the less over the dying."

"One of the terms of our ...exile.... is that we will not be reembodied for many Ages, should we die, and never permitted to depart Valinor again if we ever are reborn to it. So we are quite eager to avoid that. But the anger of the Valar may be tempered by the Ages, while the evils done by the Enemy are irreversible as far as we know."

"Slightly, as I said. How long is an Age?"

"Four thousand years, six thousand? They are begun and ended by momentous events so there's no fixed length. Before Incarnates walked the world, when it was just the gods, there were Ages that lasted millions of years. Now things happen faster."

"I see. How long will it take to find my volunteer?"

"It sounds as if they're already on their way. Do you have a concern other than preferring not to needlessly let people suffer?"

"No."

"All right." He turns around. "Laurefindel, this is Loki. She is from another world and tells us she has healing powers. She is looking for a volunteer to demonstrate them. Loki, can you explain -"

"At a touch I can cast a spell to remove various accumulated damage. It will not make you feel nourished or warm but it will undo wasting, frostbite, that sort of thing."

The new arrival nods, then looks uncertainly at Nolofinwë, then nods again. "Please do that."

Loki holds out her hand.

He takes it.

And lo, he is healed.

They're all watching intently. Laurefindel's thoughts don't change, except in the sense that you're expect suddenly feeling significantly better would change them. HIs soul doesn't visibly change. He smiles. "Wow. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Findekáno stares at his father searchingly for a second, then picks up his things. "Loki, while they're ensuring that no harmful effects manifest later, would you like to head out ahead? We can talk more, now that the important thing is in motion, and it's probably better not to have you in close proximity to him while we're checking if anything goes wrong."