Quotes taken from Tolkien (The Fellowship of the Ring; 'The Council of Elrond'). Originally this was to be a part of my 'House of Cards' series, but it fought me out and decided it wanted a home all its own.

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The wizard, he is journeying, and seeks shelter beneath a low spread tree: a giant's shrub in days past and grown small. His load is light, a far cry from the burden he carries in his silent, roving mind; a burden he's been given but one that he has also been chained to and wrapped in and sunk in and buried under.

The wizard, he is master of both flame and colour, and beneath swollen fingers a fire brings forth warmth. He stares into the creeping flames, and he watches the light, and he watches the sky, and he watches the earth. One cannot be sure of the unknown or even of the known, and he is no fool, this wanderer clad in gray and in humble thought.

The wizard, he is journeying.
The wizard, he is both master of flame and colour.
The wizard, he is both foreteller and web weaver, and he feels with open eyes the play of light before him, and the colours shift and spread, springing apart until they stand separate and whole, as shafts of sound and movement suddenly stopped and rendered still.

He studies each: they tell him little, they tell him much, they tell him nothing: they tell him all.

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There; there! There is the first! It is brown, and it is rich, and it is well-molded and now hot, now cold, but never warm. It is not loving, but it draws one in, and the mere fertility of it shakes the mind. And there are smiles, and they are gentle, but as the colour darkens and grows rich, they fade (or maybe they hide beneath the crownless head, beneath the dark locks?)

It is the Steward, the wizard knows.

Yes, the Steward, and he is not honey-hued, nor earthen as the soil. He is a melting, freezing entity, and he shines, but he does not glisten. He is not malleable, but he can and does wrap himself about one's mind, until light, slender and white, is lost. The wizard, he is master, but he is also lover, and men are to be loved and pity is a form of love (she's not told him so; she's shown him in her halls with fingers clenched and tears made rivets). He thinks that this man will not understand such love, and he is right. This man is tapestries and halls and minds of men before him, and their words and thoughts are made his own, and there is little room for the youth he once was, back when his life was a shade similiar to the lithe hide of a roe; a hart, and not the consuming brown it has become.

Only the amber light seeps through now, and the world is seen through a tint and only the brown shines now out; now in.

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But what is this now? What is this corner that hums and thaws and sings? 'Tis white (the wizard decides, for he is master of both flame and colour) or is it? No, it is a sheer lining, and it should have been white, as pure as the blossoms of snow now resting in the wizard's beard and on the ground about him, but it is not. It hums, it dances, he thinks at first. But no, it only moans, and underneath the innocence, there are colours unknown and vicious.

It is her, her: Mother to some, and Beloved to only one. She is (why does he think was? he wonders) not pleased with the colorless world; she did not see, or chose not to see, that even white has shades of its own. She reminds him of another, and he does not know why, for the head of his order is, breathes, lives: White, and is pleased with his dress of note, but in the absence about him, the wizard he hears:

"White! It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken."

His own answer, spoken out loud and into the void: "In which case it is no longer white and he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom."

But to whom does he speak? He saves away both thought and words, and will use them soon again, in years to follow, though he does not know it yet.

Ah! And the colours still run in their discarded corner. She is still there, though he knows now that she has been gone these many passing Springs. She lingers, and she has left streaks of light across the walls; tangled, bitter webs, and at times men come across them, and step through them, and they are changed, and the world of their father's grows dark to them.

He hears her laughter, and it is the ringing of vultures, now thick and full with souls; the belly droops with sodden weight.

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And now the crimson tide appears. Dark, it mirrors the brown. The oldest son has cast his colours forth! Rich he is, and not molded of soil, or of light, or of rainbows but of sheaths of flame that strum against the watches of the night. But there is truth, even as in blood poured righteously and not in vain, and the wizard, he breathes in at last.

Still, the air is thick with unease, and it is heavy once more, and he strains to tear a line through, to let the sun in; to let a raindrop in to dilute the thick, pregnant mass.

But it is too late, he finds, and there is nothing left now: nothing more. The wizard, he turns to sleep. All hope is lost.

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And he thinks he is dreaming, for he dreams in colour (for the wizard, he is master of both colour and flame), and now he sees darkly through a glass, and light is on the far horizon.

Water. That is what he feels against skin. Water as it flows; water as it molds rocks over long years and in slow, patient waiting.

Not colorless, but in flowing shades of blue, and at times a reflector of the other tones about itself. Himself.

For it is a He, he sees now, a child---

No! Not a child, but a man (one who has still kept his heart? The wizard, he wonders), and he is good, and comely to look upon. And he flows through both Brown and Shades Unknown, and seeps into the Crimson Wave (he is the drop of needed rain! It is Him!). And he is true to form, though he may at times change, but underneath the colours and the ripples, the colorless tint-- dear grey! It flows through him, and it will change him with time and with light.

Oh, this child (the wizard, he will forever think him a child), this child!

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The wizard, he dreams, and upon waking, finds rain cloud high above the weathered plains. The drops are welcomed, and the grey pilgrim, as master of flame but also of colour, hides Himself within his cloak and the form that he has been given. Inside, he kindles himself anew, as he once was, and will one day be formed again, when the grey has settled against him for the last, the final, time.

The Grey Pilgrim, he is journeying, and makes his way to yonder White City, and they will learn; how they will learn! --- That grey is but a shade of white.

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