Morning light filtered through the barred window, pale and indifferent.
Gandalf lay flat on the floor, drooling into a pillow of bundled robes. Radagast snored softly beside him, one leg twitching, his arms curled around a rock he had named "Timothy" in the night.
Elven music drifted gently through the air again—somewhere between a lullaby and a hymn. Another bard had taken over at some point, her voice soft as silk and just as dull. The harp chimed quietly.
🎵 "Breathe now, o morning leaf, in sunlight's kiss you stir…" 🎵
Neither wizard stirred. They had stopped reacting five songs ago.
Then came the metallic clank of the cell door being unbolted.
Radagast stirred. Gandalf groaned.
"Is it lunch?"
"Is it… execution?"
The door creaked open.
They looked up—and froze.
Standing in the hall were Elves.
Not guards.
Civilians.
Dozens of them.
At the front stood a line of mothers—hair braided with judgment, sleeves rolled up with purpose. Their eyes blazed. And between them, a half-circle of children—small, well-dressed elflings aged perhaps three to six. Their fists were clenched. One had a tiny wooden sword. Another clutched a spoon.
Gandalf blinked.
"...are we under attack by a kindergarten class?"
Radagast whimpered, "I—I d-d-don't want to hit children!"
A high-ranking mother stepped forward, her voice clipped and professional.
"This is your first reeducation wave. Our youngest will be correcting your behavior."
She turned.
"Go ahead, darlings. Knees and ribs. Just like we practiced."
The children surged in.
Tiny fists pelted Gandalf's shins. One child headbutted Radagast's side like a determined squirrel. A girl no taller than a bucket began slapping Gandalf repeatedly in the face, muttering "BAD! BAD!" with the rhythm of a tambourine.
Gandalf screamed.
"THIS IS ILLEGAL!"
Radagast curled into a ball. "T-they have spoons! H-h-hard spoons!"
"Wave two!" shouted another mother from the doorway.
In came the next group—seven to twelve. Taller. Meaner. One had a slingshot. Another brought a flute and used it like a baton.
Radagast howled as a preteen boy stomped on his foot with a polished boot.
Gandalf tried to stand, but a particularly aggressive ten-year-old climbed on his back and began beating him with a book titled Civic Conduct and Emotional Harmony.
"IS THIS FOR SCHOOL CREDIT?!" Gandalf yelled.
"Yes!" the boy screamed back, delighted. "Extra points if you cry!"
The mothers watched approvingly. One braided her daughter's hair mid-beating. Another passed out lemon water and cheered.
The bards kept playing.
🎵 "...and your tears shall feed the soil of reformation…" 🎵
Radagast began sobbing. "I-I-I w-w-wanna go back to the mushroom caves…"
Gandalf flailed helplessly.
"WE ARE IMMORTAL BEINGS! NOT TRAINING DUMMIES!"
And from the hallway, a matriarch's voice rang out, calm and ominous:
"Wave three, prepare yourselves."
The footsteps of teenagers echoed into the cell.
And they were wearing boots.
The stomp of boots echoed louder now.
From the hallway came a flood of teenagers—dozens of them, all mid-adolescence, eyes gleaming with the righteous wrath of youth and barely suppressed trauma.
They were dressed in a bizarre hybrid of elven elegance and experimental rebellion: capes over cargo trousers, leather vambraces paired with bedazzled tunics, and runic tattoos drawn in what looked suspiciously like charcoal eyeliner.
The guards, standing off to the side and sipping lemon tonic, gave a silent nod of approval.
"Let them get it out," one muttered.
The boys went for Gandalf.
Because he was taller.
Because he had yelled the loudest.
Because he looked like their absent fathers and every unreachable authority figure they'd ever been told to respect.
"YOU THINK YOU'RE TOUGH?" shouted one gangly elf with a half-grown beard and a broken voice. "MY DAD'S IN THE NAVY."
He threw a punch. It bounced off Gandalf's collarbone.
Another teen shoved Gandalf's head back against the wall, shouting:
"My stepmother says I'm emotionally unavailable—IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED, MIRILITH?!"
A third boy sat down in front of Gandalf and began monologuing:
"You know, I used to write poetry. Before she broke up with me for that half-sylvan dirtbag with a pan flute. I bet you don't even care about poetry, do you?!"
He punched Gandalf again. Gandalf groaned.
"I AM A COSMIC ENTITY, NOT A GUIDANCE COUNSELOR!"
Meanwhile…
The girls surrounded Radagast.
Because he was smaller. Because he looked harmless. Because he reminded them of a sad substitute teacher who probably owned a pet snail.
The first girl stood arms crossed.
"Rate me. Right now. Be honest."
Radagast blinked. "W-w-what?!"
"On a scale of one to ten. With this hairstyle. And these earrings."
Another girl shoved her hand in his face. "Do my nails look feral to you or just... like... strong-feminine?"
A third sat cross-legged beside him and whispered, "My mom says I have your kind of energy. What does that mean?"
Radagast wept softly. "I—I—I don't even have energy. I—I run on moss and p-panic…"
Then came the questions:
"Do you think I'm prettier than her?"
"Would you date an elf girl if you weren't, like, divine or whatever?"
"Why did my ex ghost me after three centuries of bonding over rune-music?"
One girl, tearful and trembling, stared into Radagast's soul:
"Why do boys like mean girls but not weird girls? I collect moss samples. That's not weird, right?"
Radagast, tears in his eyes, whispered:
"I—I collect moss too…"
They hugged. She cried on his shoulder. Then punched him in the kidney.
"I—hate—this place!" she screamed as she ran off.
A tall girl in combat boots stepped up next.
"I wrote a scroll about systemic inequality in coastal trade unions. Want to hear it?"
Radagast passed out.
Meanwhile, Gandalf was pinned to the wall by three boys taking turns describing their worst breakups.
"She said I didn't communicate!"
"She said I was too emotionally intelligent!"
"She said I was just like my father!"
One screamed, "I JUST WANT TO BE SEEN!"
He headbutted Gandalf, then cried into his cloak.
At last, the teens began to filter out—some weeping, some throwing last-minute slaps, a few asking the guards if they could come back next week "just to finish venting."
Radagast was curled in a fetal position, whispering, "P-p-please don't ask me to validate your feelings…"
Gandalf groaned from under a pile of teenage poetry and half-written apology notes.
"Next time we get out of jail," he muttered, "we burn down the counseling office first."
There was a hush in the corridor.
Then footsteps.
Confident. Rhythmic. Rhythmless.
Heeled boots. Slippers. One barefoot with a baby tied to her chest in a sling made of military-standard cloth.
And then they entered.
Twelve Elven women of various ages, heights, and moods.
Some were visibly pregnant. Others carried babies in their arms, cooing softly. Some wore travel leathers dusted with flour or ash. One had an apron stained with blood and peach jam. Another wore ceremonial armor over house robes.
They did not look angry.
They looked tired. And done.
They looked like women who had spent all night listening to their husbands rant about two divine idiots punching their way through a cultural center with the grace of drunken cattle.
Radagast tried to sit up.
One woman gently sat her baby down beside him. The baby smiled, drooled, then whacked him in the nose with a rattle shaped like a singing squirrel.
"O-o-oh no. T-they're training the b-babies."
The mother leaned forward. "He's already more coordinated than you."
The baby giggled and poked Radagast's eye with soft, deliberate malice.
Across the cell, Gandalf tried to raise his head. A different baby, held on a mother's hip, launched a puffball toy at his forehead with surprising aim.
"That one," said the mother dryly, "was for my husband's broken tooth."
One woman stepped forward. She was tall, lean, and carried a ledger in one hand and a bottle of apple vinegar in the other.
"You assaulted my husband, made my cousin's child cry for an hour, ruined my best friend's honeymoon, and made a mess of our best inn."
She set the bottle down with a clink. "This is for your skin. It stinks."
Another woman—round with pregnancy and covered in soot—stepped up next.
"Mine spent his night pulling splinters from elven archers who slipped on jam. Jam."
She backhanded Gandalf with one quick, perfectly practiced motion.
"Apologize."
Gandalf wheezed. "I'd like to speak to your—"
WHACK.
"Wrong answer."
She turned. A third woman placed her baby gently on Gandalf's chest. The baby burbled something incomprehensible and started chewing on his beard.
Gandalf flinched. "No. No—stop—that's enchanted!"
The baby smiled and slapped him.
Another wife leaned down and hissed, "Your enchantment is weak."
Radagast, meanwhile, was being buried in scarves by three mothers arguing about child-rearing philosophies while gently kicking his shins.
"He needs firm discipline."
"No, he's clearly traumatized."
"Doesn't matter. Still stole fruit."
The baby beside Radagast let out a triumphant coo and spit-up directly into his hair.
"I—I th-think I'm dying," he whispered.
The women collectively ignored him.
One mother read from a scroll of citations.
Another measured Gandalf's foot with a ruler for some reason.
The leader stepped forward again and raised a wooden spoon.
"Do you understand what you've done?"
Gandalf opened his mouth—
"NO."
SPOON. TO. FOREHEAD.
thwack
"That's for thinking."
They left as quickly as they came, babies in tow.
Some smiled. Others didn't bother. One simply whispered, "Try something like that again, and we'll bring the grandmothers."
The door shut.
Silence returned.
Gandalf stared at the ceiling, a faint spoon mark forming between his eyes.
"Radagast… I think we need to leave the continent."
Radagast curled up in a ball of shame, spit-up, and blanket thread.
"I-I want to go h-home. To the moss."
They lay in silence for a while.
Then a small elven voice echoed from the hallway:
"Round two after lunch!"
Gandalf screamed into the pillow.
And then the door opened.
Not softly. Not slowly. No grace. Just click, creak, slam—and in walked Saruman, flanked by two elven guards who looked both annoyed and deeply over it.
He was dressed sharply in silver-trimmed travel leathers, a blade at his hip and a fresh white cloak across his shoulders. He looked showered. Well-fed. Victorious.
Gandalf groaned from the floor. "Oh no…"
Radagast moaned faintly. "D-d-don't let it be him…"
Saruman stood in the center of the cell, hands clasped behind his back, gaze scanning the devastation: cracked tiles, broken chairs, one still-damp blanket covered in baby spit-up.
He snorted.
"You know, when the messenger told me about the 'incident,' I assumed it was an exaggeration."
He crouched beside Gandalf, poking a spoon bruise on his forehead with one gloved finger.
"It wasn't."
Gandalf glared up at him. "You smug—"
"Smug? I didn't get beat up by a group of pregnant elven wives and a kindergartner with a toy mallet."
Radagast twitched. "S-s-she was strong!"
Saruman stood and began pacing.
"I've spoken with Círdan. Explained everything. He was… disappointed, of course. But understanding."
"Understanding?" Gandalf muttered.
"Yes. We told him the truth."
"What truth?!"
Saruman turned, grinning.
"That you're both insane."
The room fell still.
Gandalf blinked.
Radagast curled up tighter.
Saruman kept going, savoring every word.
"We told him you weren't wizards. That you were two lunatics we found clinging to the hull of our ship during the crossing—trying to swim to Valinor because you couldn't afford a ticket."
Gandalf's mouth opened, then closed, then opened again.
"That's not even—"
"And that you've been confused ever since. Wandering around in stolen robes. Thinking you were chosen. It was quite the story. Círdan called it poetically tragic. I nearly cried."
Radagast was now visibly shaking. "W-w-we're never g-going h-home…"
"Oh, you'll never leave."
Saruman stepped back and gestured toward the door.
Two teenage elven girls stepped in.
They wore silver tunics, carried notebooks, and looked like they had been personally selected by fate to destroy the patience of gods. One was already frowning. The other was humming a sad song while sketching a mushroom in the dirt.
Saruman gestured proudly.
"Meet Níriel and Sálariel. They're fourteen. Emotional, confused, spiritually volatile—and in desperate need of guidance."
Gandalf blinked slowly. "No."
Saruman smiled wider.
"Your punishment, gentlemen, is to become their personal therapists, mentors, and spiritual advisors."
Radagast squeaked. "W-w-what does that mean?"
Saruman raised a brow. "It means you live here now. In this cell. With them. Until they become emotionally stable, spiritually fulfilled, and 'ready to enter elven womanhood with dignity and balance.'"
The humming girl pointed at Radagast. "Do you think I'm too emotionally attached to birds?"
He burst into tears.
Saruman walked to the door.
"Good luck. This could take… oh, three or four centuries. Elves don't rush development."
Gandalf tried to lunge. The chains held.
"YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME!"
Saruman paused in the doorway, turned, and smirked.
"Oh, I already did."
He left.
The door slammed.
The two teenage girls sat cross-legged on the cell floor.
Níriel sighed dramatically. "My stepfather said I should focus on archery. But I think I have a calling in interpretive dance."
Sálariel stared at Gandalf.
"Do you believe in dream-sharing rituals, or is that just a masculine projection of unresolved grief?"
Gandalf slumped against the wall.
Radagast hiccupped.
"W-we're g-g-going to die in here…"
"No," Gandalf whispered, eyes empty. "Worse."
He looked at the ceiling.
"We're going to get certified."