Disclaimer/Author's Note: Any and all recognizable characters from LOTR that appear in this fan fiction have been shamelessly borrowed. Familiar scenes will be adapted from both the books and, where appropriate, in the spirit of the movie. Anathia is a character of my own creation. Time permitting, I will be doing a two part series on this character. The first part (The White Wizard and the Grey Lady) follows Anathia from The Fellowship of the Ring until the destruction of Isengard. Part two (The Grey Lady and the Horse King) should take us through the end of the series.

The White Wizard and the Grey Lady

I.

In the black tower, Anathia closed her eyes.

Silence. Like a calm before a storm, before the sky turns grey as cinders, before the clouds break and pour their wrath upon a dusty and parched earth. Her unlined hands and delicate fingers too, customarily moving, over a bit of cloth, over a piece of fruit, over lines on a page, stilled. But then she heard it, deep in her head, growing louder in her ears, the sound of hooves against the plains. Low in the distance, like thunder, but there was no mistaking it. A horse and rider riding fast to Isengard.

Shadowfax? The snow white flanks of the Mearh horse took shape in her mind's eye. How long since she had seen that stallion in the flesh? Or its rider? She could not answer her own questions with any clarity and opened her eyes. And there stood Saruman, watching her intently from the doorway. She hadn't heard him come down the hallway, had not felt his presence. Her mind had been too far away and she too clumsy in letting it wander. The expression on her face must have given her away or perhaps the White Wizard could slip into her mind without invitation now.

"For one once so talented, Anathia, you have fallen far. From unimaginable heights. Your mind wanders and I hear it doing so," he spoke deliberately, with an edge of malice and ridicule behind his words, as if she were a novice once more. He steeled his expression.

Anathia felt a burning sensation near her eyes, on the sides of her head, and unbidden, salt water momentarily blinded her vision. And she could think of nothing but green hills, and gilded chambers and grass rolling in westward winds. A solitary hemlock tree stood outside the city walls on the side of a hill. Two little girls, twins, in matching green dresses with black trim, sat beneath the hemlock tree. The first, Anathia's sister Elfhild, held a doll with button eyes and yellow hair, the color of wheat fields at harvest. The other, Anathia herself, grasped a bouquet of white flowers in her fist. Symbelmynë. The white flowers that grew on the graves of their forefathers.

Get out of my head!

A small sound escaped Anathia's lips, the short intake of breath, but she said nothing and did not let her eyes sway from Saruman's, even as two lonely tears marched down the sides of her face. He tipped his head slowly, mocked, "Be careful, my dear. Soon you won't have any secrets left."

The White Wizard turned and walked from her private chambers. Anathia covered her mouth with her hand and for a moment more contemplated absolute silence. But the thunderous sounds in her head would not stop. Indeed, Shadowfax crossed the plains to Isengard. Disgusted by her weakness, she brushed her fingers across her lips, as if wiping a bad taste from her mouth.

Father of my fathers…she rose and walked to the window, looked down upon the steps leading up to the Orthanc. Save me from myself.