Ithilmírë rose from his comfortably worn black leather seat before the fire to look more intently at the landscape, his heavy black silk velvet robes and knee-length silver hair trailing behind him. The cold wind blew through the autumnal trees, ripping the leaves from their branches without mercy or care. The moribund conflagration that autumn offered him seemed more intense this year even in this low light as Ariën set; every pop of vermillion, flare of gold, and blaze of orange, the leaves alive in appearance, yet dying in condition, a clear sign of the shifting world around him. The silver rune-embroidered trim and the elaborate belt accentuating the mage's powerful waist caught the dying light of gloaming, giving him an eldritch aureole.
Autumn. It had truly come in all its fiery glory. His former master's season, his former master who abandoned him for the paltry light of the Valar, whose conscience finally "got to him", who foolishly forsook the power and position he deserved after Melkor had been cast out. But…The Maia smiled, turning from the window and pacing the length of the dark wood book-filled study that was now his. Mairon had trained him well, and his teachings would not be soon forgotten. He knew what he had to do. There was a perfect opening, a power vacuum, gift-wrapped just for him, and he would take it since his master did not. Yes, Middle-Earth would be his and his alone.
