The wind howled, whipping around him a frenzy that snatched at his trousers and pulled his hair, fingers winding it into knots and tugging him along like a vengeful attacker set on dashing him to the ground. It curled round him and pulled up to the sky in the direction of the mountains on the horizon to the North where the snow silhouettes were just visible on the horizon. Namir stood firm despite the gale seeking to throw him down onto the cold stone of the steps. His skin pale from lack of sunlight and littered with goosebumps from the storm chill. His long dark hair, long enough that it reached the small of his back after years of captivity, writhed around his head like snakes with the breeze. His sharp cat's eyes were fixed up, up high to the very top of the tower looming above him. Around him, the storm strengthened. 

Saruman was a white figure against a dark sky. Cat eyes picking him out easily as the wizard shook his staff. The air was thick with foul enchantment as the White Wizard's voice rung with thunderous echos off the air. It made Namir's skin prickle with unease. The foul magic unclean on his senses in a way that he would never grow used too, no matter how many years he was kept here. It stunk and coiled with darkness. It was magic that the wizards should never use. Saruman was too far gone. Namir had watched the white wizard become further and further enraptured by the palanthir. The more time he spent with the evil thing, with the being behind the glass, the darker and more cruel he became. 

The words picked up volume and the storm responded in kind. Namir was almost knocked off his feet where he stood at the steps of the tower. The wind was cutting and his trousers did nothing to stop the shivers. Out there in the mountains where the storm was directed, he knew that the fellowship was struggling. The bruises on his cheek still throbbed from where the staff had struck him when the white wizard had learnt of the plan to destroy the one ring. He had learnt late and the rage at this news had not been kind. This storm just the beginning of his efforts to foil Gandalf's plan. Yet there was no mercy in the sky. Thunder rolled and the voice boomed. 

A huge gust swept up and Namir shrieked as it almost lifted him off his feet. The shriek turned into piercing yowl as he crouched to lower his centre of gravity. He turned hateful eyes up at the figure of white as his nose registered the faintest trace of a familiar scent on the air. The wind was billowing between Isengard and the mountains round in a loop as Saruman built it's power. Hundreds of miles away it swept through the fellowship, whipping through cloaked and hair. The magic in the wind keeping it fast and free from interference. It pulled the barest hints back, the lingering essence of a scent. A scent that Namir longed for, that he yearned to smell and missed so terribly it ached. If he had the senses of any other race then it would be lost to him, but his nose was sharp and that scent was achingly familiar. It stung his chest with realisation and sudden knowledge. With widened eyed, he turned his gaze to the distant mountains then the slitted pupils narrowed as he turned his gaze into a loathing glare up at the tower above.

There was rage in his chest. It had bubbled for twenty years, silent and biding it's time. Cats could be patient, they could wait to strike. Yet it rose forth now, strangling his throat. How dare he. How dare he! How dare Saruman seek to take more from him. There had been enough taken from him, not Legolas too. He screamed in anger, voice mixing with the wind. The collar round his neck kept him from harming the man, but it didn't render him mute. He screamed with guttural fear and rage. Panic and worry mixing with the rage that coiled in his chest. He screamed and shouted at the sky in an effort to drown out the dark magic echoing above. How dare he! 

Cats could be loud. The could wake a forest and Namir wanted to be loud. He raged, shrieking, yowling and screaming so hard that his lungs ached and his throat burned. The cries were sharp and loud, echoing off the stone and the earth. He stomped his feet and raged, the storm no longer unsettling him and overwhelming him. Now it was his anger, his power. It echoed his words, not Saruman's. He jumped and waved his arms in an almost dance, a wild and vengeful dance that moved with the wind rather than stood against it. His agility allowing him to lift his feet in time with the storm so that the air lifted him higher before he was landing again. The thrill of it only gave him more energy to be louder. Louder until his voice was echoing over Isengard. 

As a child, Beorn had taught him the culture of their lost people. There wasn't much left, only what the bear could recall, but there was dances. Dances and ceremonies for the seasons. Wild and animalistic dances which were used in war just as much as they were used in peace. The true dances had been lost with their race but a bastardised version remained. This was one of them. A memory that Namir had never needed to make us of before but the rage was overflowing in his chest and he did not have any other outlet. No weapons and no orc to rip to pieces for the creatures had all retreated down into the quarries dug into the earth round the tower. They hid there from the storm but Namir wasn't like them. He did not fear the earth and her storms, not even ones tainted by foul magic. 

His feet hit the stone as he flipped through the air, the landing punctuated by a sharp growling hiss than picked up into a roar. How dare he! It echoed through the grounds and over Foghorn forest. The wind carrying and amplifying it with the Wizard's above. High in the sky, Saruman's voice faltered as the echo reached him. The staff lowered slightly and he looked down with a cold gaze to the prisoner below. Namir stared right back and howled. The cry echoed over them, bouncing out across the trees and over the mountains. He screamed so hard that he tasted blood. The wind caught it and carried up and off. 

Saruman's voice had stopped now. The wizard was watching him as Namir yowled. The man staring right back even as his collar burned and pain spasmed through his body. His knees gave way first and he collapsed to the stone, one hand scratching at burning metal. Yet his glare didn't falter, even as his body slumped and the strength left him. The wind died and the storm clouds cleared to let in watery sunlight. Namir slipped on to his side on the cold stone, form curling up as his body spasmed with the pain. It stole the breath from his lungs and the screams died to whimpers. His eyes flickered from the wizard to the mountains in the distance, peaks lit by weak sunlight and he sighed. Powerlessness a horrible weight on his chest. He could rage all he wanted but in the end, there was nothing he could do. 

--------------------

Far off on peaks of stone and snow, a blonde elf shielded his face from last remnants of the billowing gale that had so quickly overwhelmed them. He dug himself from the snow trapping him, the avalanche overhead having buried the fellowship entirely. Fingers pale in the cold yet still agile as he brushed the snow from his clothes and turned round to help pull the others from the snow bank. Gandalf emerged next with Boromir and Aragorn. Both men reaching to drag the Hobbits up with them. Gimli managing to unearth himself just enough that there was a peak of red beard in the white. Legolas grabbed the dwarf and tugged him out by the shoulder of his tunic. 

"Get yer hands off me". The dwarf struggled. Legolas let him go and hopped up onto the snow bank to stare at the sky and listen to the air. 

"The voice on the air, it's gone", he cried.

 Something was nagging at him. Just before the wind died, as the snow buried them, he thought he heard something else. A fainter voice. Not chanting magic but a scream, angry and painful. It sounded like a wounded animal and it made his chest ache. He wanted to ask if anyone else had heard it but it held tight on his tongue. Hope and longing held his throat. It might be wishful thinking but it was something else to drive him forwards. Something else to keep him going. Legolas turned back to his friends, the sword a reminding weight on his back. 

unedited 

I want to give Namir a hug. He needs a hug.