The Diary of the Forgotten

Voronwë

It seems that all of my friends are dead. First the wars in Beleriand cut the list of my friends very short, then there was the Sea taking it's own, then Gondolin fell, and finally, finally there's the cursed third kinslaying in the harbor.

Those Feanorians cause nothing but trouble.

I should probably tell that I didn't make it to Valinor with Eärendil. It was the Sea, once again. I had to do that, at least try to beg for forgiveness from the Valar.

It was the worst storm I had ever seen. I had to do my best with Wilwarin, but it seemed that neiter me nor even Eärendil couldn't make it settle. The waves kept throwing us around, I though that this is it, Wilwarin is going to give in, we're going to fall over, we're all going to drown.
I was desperate, we were all desperate: holding on the ship for dear life, hoping that it would make it, for a second longer, for a couple of moments longer. Neither of us were scared of death, but drowning in a stormy sea is a horrible way to go. You feel so helpless, so utterly powerless with the wrath of the Sea surrounding you, like a pack of wolves surrounding a wounded horse.

There's nothing to be done, not really. I was thinking of my friends I lost on my previous plead for help. That time the ship just gave in, shattered like glass to those underwater rocks. It was all the howling of the wind, the screaming of nearly-drowned people, the vicious struggle to stay alive, to keep on swimming. The waves, the wind, the rain.

I didn't make it to the shore on my own, it felt like something had carried me there, made sure of my survival. At that point,  I didn't want to make it. I wanted to drown like my friends did. I saw how they gave in to the Sea, how one of them kept fighting her way to the surface, only to be slammed to the rocks beneath, forced to stay underwater until life escaped from her in a chain of silvery bubbles. It was like the Sea didn't want to give her the slightest opportunity of survival.

A few dozen years later, I felt the same thing.

I was thrown back in to the present, when I saw something white and shining fall down to the deck. It was a bird, a woman. Elwing and the Silmaril. I saw the jewel, the only bright thing on that day. Eärendil lost his ability to think clearly, he was so scared of finding his wife in that situation. He knew that the Wilwarin couldn't keep us all alive, there was too much weight. He knew that the ship would fall over at any moment, to get us all to the Halls. Elwing kept holding on to his husband, to the jewel. The other marine was clinging to the ship, eyes closed, shaking for exhaustion.

It was like riding a leaf on a hurricane, it was like there's nothing to keep you alive, the world is so unstable, so brutally alive, so ready shut down everyone's lifelight. The Sea is the most cruel thing, just because it just is unchained by any motive, by any morality. The Sea has no mercy.

In that moment, I knew that Eärendil was going to make it. Somehow, he was going to stay alive, he was going to get the mercy plead received, he would be the one to put an end to Morgoth's villainy.
In that moment, I knew that I had to keep Elwing alive. The Jewel, that couple must stay alive. Without me.

I was terrified, I remember how she had fought till the end against the Sea, how it had just pushed her down like her fear didn't mean a thing.

It looked like the Sea was boiling. There was no horizon, just crazed water everywhere. A complete chaos, a end of the world made of water. As a marine, I feel as I belong to the Sea. This was a different world, not the one made of water I had been used to sail. It was no home.

My body refused to let go, my hands kept on holding the ship. Even when I was thrown overboard, I couldn't let go. My hands refused to listen. I knew that I was weighing the Wilwarin down now, I could kill them all for holding on. No, I would kill them all by doing so.

The Sea was keeping to tear me, to pull me down. I sensed the water around. I felt like I could've died for fear only. I looked back, seeing Elwing's horrified eyes. She knew that I didn't fall to the water accidentally. She knew that I had saved her life.
That gave me enough strenght to let myself give in.

Then I was in the heart of the Sea, again. I couldn't stop trying to fight my way up again, to the surface, to the air. I was not thinking. The sense of fear was too controlling, too overshadowing everything else. In the moment I was alone in the water, the Wilwarin disappeared. I had been torn apart from the fate of the great ones.

In the end, everyone fears it.

Not death, but the feeling of dying without hope, without mercy, without any single reasonable thought in your head. It's not like a getting a blade to your heart, that you can accept. It is the ultimate feeling of desperation, fear and loneliness. It cannot be compared to the ones who die in the dungeons of Morgoth, there you have at least a solid ground to fall down on.

In the end, everyone knows the fight against the fate is useless.

But still, you have to try. Must battle for the seconds, must try to get more air to your lungs. It's so useless, that it's pathetic.

In the end, no one gives in.
There's too much water around you, undeneath you.

But, as clear as day it is, everyone's is forced down fighting against something you cannot win.

The Sea and the Water, the burn of fear, the desperate effort to keep going. The feeling of utter loneliness.

No one should die like that.

But I did.