Wellnigh emptyhanded

A compressed, bullet-pointed, day-by-day timeline of Nirnaeth Arnoediad. Made because it’s just too complicated to keep in my head. Taken from the 1977 Silmarillion only, specifically the chapter “Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad”. Time details (what day it is, which part of the day it is) are bolded. Knowledge of the source material is assumed.

I cover all six days of the fighting but not what comes before or after. I call this a timeline of Nirnaeth Arnoediad, but as we will see, Nirnaeth Arnoediad technically only refers to the fourth through sixth days!

Am I Not Also a Vala?

Behold, the words that I spoke before have proven true. Unjust indeed was the doom that was laid upon you.

Yet if the heart of Fëanor remains free and valiant still, as it was in the days when he spoke in Tirion, then I will aid him, and lead him away from this narrow land.

For am I not also a Vala? And greater in might than those proud ones who dwell in the city of Valimar.

The Silmarils, gouache on bristol paper, 42 inches (3.5 feet) in diameter

I made a thing! Illustrations about the story of the silmarils in red-figure pottery style. It was fun to work on such a large scale.

Nor do I think he stopped when he was captured by The Enemy. I think it became his sole source of hope that someone who cared would hear him and free him one way or the other and in a sense that prayer was answered.

I don’t even think it stopped when Fingon died. I think Maedhros prayed he’d find peace and safety in Mandos. I think he prayed he’d be home safe soon. I think he was grateful that no matter the end the person he loved most was at last out of harms way.

No he stopped praying after Doriath. The night he lost so much. The night he lost three brothers. The night that Celegorm bled out in his arms going out of the world quietly, in stark contrast to how he entered it. But it was not those deaths that stopped his prayers, he knew his brother’s wrongs, the harm they’d done. He knew with as much pain as it brought him they deserved it.

He stopped praying when he lost two little boys in the woods. When in desperation with tears freezing on his cheeks he called out with the simplest prayer you can “please.” He was met only with the bite of the frost and the cold moonlight and the colder indifference of gods that claimed to be loving. When Fingon had reached out in a moment of need despite his own banishment an eagle had been sent. To save Maedhros’ wind and war torn soul. But when Maedhros asked them to save two little princes lost in the woods there was only silence and contempt.

And finally here I come with a Moringotto aka the guy who thought it was a good idea to work with a giant spider…🙈

Elwing's goodbye, for @nolofinweanweek filling both prompts for Day 4 and for Day 5 (Elwing, Elrond, Elros). Double posting today because I'm working the rest of the weekend and I don't think I'll get around any more prompts this year.

Like you could have died. There were other children at Sirion who died. Before that, your uncles (they were your age, they were also twins, you are named for them and your sons will be as well) were killed, and your grandfather and your grandmother, and—

but you weren't. You weren't killed, and you do not know why. And every time your guardians brush the pine needles from your hair, when they tell you stories, when they sing you to sleep, you remember. You could have died. You should have died.

And you do not know why you did not die, and so you must be careful, and you must be quiet, because they decided that you would not die, and they could decide otherwise, and you do not know why they decided as they did, and you do not know what would make them change their mind.

So you stand still when they hold you, and you tell them that you forgive them, and you listen to their laments, and you are not angry, and you are not bitter, and you do not braid your hair the way your mother did, and you do not wear grey.