Anna The Gift of the Soul

by Arwen Imladviel

A story three Ainur tell to three silent, but familiar, listeners. Once upon a time there was a maiden, and her name was Anna. But where is she now - that lovely being, whose path took her to the shadow... the darkest shadow. Complete at last!

7. The Son

It seems I came to interrupt an interesting dream. Your parents, I presume. Must have been a traumatic exprerience, losing them like that.

I know.

You are about to hear a secret.

I had parents, too. I am not Ainu, but Ainur-born. The valar never figured out the Ultimate Sacrifice - soul transfer. Two Ainur can have a child, if one of them dies to give it a soul. My soul is my mother's, and my father is Melkor.

He named me his heir. That is why I had to survive, even humbling myself in false apologies and pleas for mercy. I had to live on, to grow strong.

To become Annatar, the generous Lord of Gifts.

I sought to make men more than men, elves more than what they were.

To create a power independent from the West.

Thus did I become the Lord of the Rings of Eregion.

Númenor became jealous and warred against me, but my diplomacy allied me to the king who had imprisoned me.

My revenge was sweet, more so because the Valar were its instrument. I lost my fair form, the memory of my mother, at the fall of Númenor.

But her soul lived on.

Many stories you have heard of me, Nine-Finger, but there are some I yet must tell.

I hated many, but some I loved as well.

I love Melkor.

I loved the man whom I named 'the Mouth of Sauron'.

And I could have loved you.

I could have.

Remember Annatar when the wind is east.

Remember the Soul of Anna.

What do you dream now?

A woman, so fair, the wind in her hair, the sun gave a light so fiery and bright and her eyes were blue as the sky...Oh, the pain, the guilt. Is this how he was built?