The inn at the top of the cliff was carved into the white stone itself—arched windows, balconies of polished silverwood, and a soft waterfall flowing through a central channel of the floor. Lightstones glowed gently on sconces. The name carved above the doorway in delicate script read:
The Waystone Hearth.
Inside, there was peace.
Elves sat at tables sipping wine and herb tea. A bard played something mournful on a six-string harp. The air smelled of lavender oil and warm grain bread.
And then—
The heavy doors of the Waystone Hearth Inn slammed open like a thunderclap.
The warm tranquility of the cliffside inn shattered instantly. Conversations ceased. A harpist froze mid-chord. The gentle clinking of porcelain fell silent.
Two figures stood framed in the light.
The first was tall, broad-shouldered, draped in coarse gray robes and wild hair. His eyes were alive with the kind of unblinking fury only ever seen in prophets or drunkards. His beard looked like it had been grown in a straight line from the chest of a lion.
The second was smaller and twitchier, dressed in brown. He was carrying a half-eaten bundle of pastry and berries in one hand and a pinecone in the other. His hair was wild, his feet were bare, and there were feathers in his collar. He looked like someone who had gotten lost in a hedge maze for twenty years and decided to stay.
The elves stared.
No one recognized them.
No one moved.
And in that moment of hesitation, Gandalf mistook silence for submission.
He stepped forward, boots hammering into the polished marble.
"Out of my way, knife-ears."
The line at the front desk parted automatically, not from fear of title, but from sheer uncertainty. He looked like an angry noble, maybe—a mad one. Or a drunk sailor with a god complex. Either way, he was big. And so was his voice.
Radagast bumbled after him, chirping, "B-b-behind you, big brother. I f-found b-b-blackberry tarts!"
He tripped slightly, then righted himself with a squeak.
The receptionist—an elf with pale blue robes and the tired eyes of someone who had spent four centuries managing entitled pilgrims—slowly folded his hands.
"May I… assist you, traveler?"
"I require a room," Gandalf said, already untying his cloak. "Your best one. I am weary from my divine mission and demand comfort."
"I-I'd l-like a window!" Radagast added helpfully.
The receptionist blinked slowly.
"Sir… all of our suites are currently booked. We may have space at another inn nearby—"
"Did I ask for directions?" Gandalf snapped, leaning forward. "Or did I ask for the best room in this miserable city of whispering vegetables and sky-music?"
"I—I suppose the eastern suite is our finest. But it is occupied."
Gandalf turned away mid-sentence and began marching up the stairs.
The elves murmured. An old noble couple by the fireplace clutched their goblets. A child whispered, "Why is the old man yelling?"
His mother replied, "Because someone forgot to spank him three centuries ago."
Radagast lumbered up behind Gandalf with a loud creak of the stairwell.
"B-best room! Goat hair towels! R-r-real soap!"
Meanwhile, outside, the city guard had gathered.
Thirty elves stood in the courtyard, helms shining, spears raised—not threatening, but alert. Word of the pastry assault, the slapped scribe, and now the inn invasion had spread.
From among them, a captain issued orders in clipped Sindarin:
"No swords drawn. Not yet. No sparks. They could be insane… or divine."
"How do we tell the difference?"
"Divine ones don't usually demand rose oil and window seats."
Inside, the guards posted at the door watched helplessly as Gandalf vanished up the stairs, their hands twitching toward hilts they were forbidden to draw. One tried to step forward.
"Sir—please. You are disturbing the peace."
A wooden bench exploded into splinters as Gandalf kicked it aside.
"I AM THE PEACE!" he bellowed. "I am the breath of Valinor! The whisper of creation! I do not ask for rooms—I declare them mine!"
Radagast nodded enthusiastically, pulling a crushed bouquet from his pocket. "W-we'll even l-leave a tip! I—I have th-thistle!"
No one stopped them.
Not because they were respected.
But because no one had yet decided if confronting them would make the situation better—or unwinnably worse.
And so the tall one with the fury of a drunken god and the small one who smelled like rabbits stormed the staircase of the Waystone Hearth, uninvited, unwelcomed, and completely out of place.
The gods had sent no message.
But madness had arrived anyway.
The upstairs hallway was quiet, the walls gently curved with ancient cedar, glowing with enchanted sconces and lined with soft floral trim. A painted mural of the Valar dancing beneath stars stretched along the ceiling.
Gandalf stomped past it without looking.
He stopped at the far end of the corridor, in front of a rounded wooden door inlaid with blue-glass runes. He kicked it once. It didn't budge. He kicked it again. Still no movement.
Radagast caught up, panting. "M-m-maybe i-i-it's magically—"
"MOVE."
Gandalf stepped back, raised his leg, and kicked the door clean off its hinges.
The crash was deafening. The wood splintered inward. The door hit the floor inside with a thud—and revealed a startled elven couple mid-embrace in the bed, limbs entangled, hair tousled, eyes wide in disbelief.
The fire crackled in the hearth. The room smelled of crushed flowers and mint oil.
Gandalf pointed.
"Out."
The elves blinked.
"Wh—"
"OUT!" Gandalf bellowed. "You are lying in my bed. My linens. My suite!"
He charged forward, seized the elven woman by the arm—ignoring her scream—and tossed her bodily toward the shuttered window. Her momentum did the rest.
CRASH.
Wood shattered. Glass exploded outward. Her naked body flipped once in midair before vanishing with a shriek down toward the cobbled street below.
Radagast looked at the male elf—eyes wide, voice squeaking.
"S-s-sorry—s-suite policy."
He lifted the elf in both hands like a sack of leaves and hurled him after her.
CRUNCH.
A flower box exploded as he landed, and startled elven citizens in the street scattered in panic.
Down below, the guards snapped.
From the courtyard below, the voices of the Lindon city guard rose—not shouting, but projecting in that formal, ironclad cadence only used when things had gone well beyond polite.
"STOP right there, traveler!"
"You are in violation of civic conduct and inn property statutes!"
"Lay down your staff and return to the street in peace—by order of the High King!"
The commands echoed up the stairwell, cold and sharp.
Inside the room, Gandalf stood at the broken window, his chest heaving, his robe half-off one shoulder like a drunken stage actor at curtain call.
"You dare… point weapons at me?" he boomed, flailing his arm dramatically toward the window. "I AM… I am tired!"
He turned to the hallway, stomping toward the doorway just as the first guard burst into the room, shoulder-checking the splintered frame.
"For justice and order in Lindon!" the elf shouted, spear leveled.
Gandalf panicked.
Instead of casting a spell or preparing to dodge, he simply screeched and slapped wildly, his hand connecting with the elf's helmet with a loud clonk.
The guard stumbled—not because of pain, but sheer confusion—then was promptly body-checked by Gandalf's shoulder. The elf hit the ground and rolled into the corner with a groan, knocking over a stool and a jug of scented bathwater.
"Y-you're doing great!" Radagast squeaked, then turned to the second guard entering and hurled a chair at his legs.
The elf dodged easily, sidestepped a half-hearted tackle from Radagast, and shoved the smaller wizard into the fireplace grate with a clang.
"I—I tripped! M-my foot slipped on soup!" Radagast cried.
Then the rest poured in.
Five, six, seven more guards surged into the corridor and crammed shoulder-to-shoulder at the doorway, pushing into the already-crowded suite. There was no space to fight, just elbows, boots, and tangled robes.
Gandalf flailed like an angry goose, trying to swat spears out of his face. He managed to slap one elf so hard the helmet spun sideways—but the elf punched him cleanly in the ribs, and Gandalf yelped, stumbling backward onto the bed and snapping it in half beneath him.
"You dare strike a messenger of—!" CRACK—another guard slammed him in the thigh with a wooden club.
Radagast was curled under a table, kicking at ankles and mumbling apologies.
"I d-d-don't want to fight, b-but he s-said I h-had to!"
One elf tried to tackle Gandalf from the side. The wizard instinctively lifted him and threw him sideways—straight through the thin inner wall into the next guest room, where two elderly elven poets were calmly playing cards. The intruding guard landed on their table. No one spoke.
In the hallway, more guards shouted:
"Secure the suite!"
"Drop your limbs and submit!"
"You are not being detained! You are being removed for public harmony!"
Back in the room, Gandalf staggered to his feet.
His hair was a tangled mess. His mouth bled from a chipped tooth. His robe, now more rags than garment, hung from one shoulder like a drunk's toga. He raised both fists in the air—shaking them like a tantruming toddler—and screamed with all the power of someone who had never been hit in his life.
"I am GANDAA—!"
Three guards tackled him mid-roar.
He disappeared beneath a wall of silver-and-blue armor.
The impact cracked the floorboards.
Radagast let out a squeal and threw a blanket into the fray like a net trap, hoping to "help." Instead, he wrapped Gandalf's own arms tighter around the elf pinning him, causing the two to roll awkwardly under the bed.
"I-I-I got him! Wait—n-nope, that's h-his—OH NO!"
More guards poured in through the narrow hallway—ten, fifteen, maybe twenty. The room wasn't big enough, but they forced their way in, shoving and ramming, dogpiling Gandalf and Radagast with years of elite elven training and pure, civic fury.
The two wizards fought like animals. Not trained warriors. Not sorcerers.
Just raw, angry idiots.
Gandalf bit someone's wrist. Radagast kicked a shin and headbutted a dresser. Gandalf slapped wildly at an armored shoulder. Radagast flailed like a raccoon trapped in a pantry, punching and scrambling in every direction.
One guard took an accidental elbow to the mouth.
Another was thrown against the ceiling beam and dropped like a sack of grain.
The elven formation broke into a brawl. The spears were abandoned. The polished boots were stomped. The shields fell to the floor as fists and clubs were drawn. The air filled with screams, grunts, and the crunch of wood, glass, and bone.
One elf shouted:
"HOLD THEM DOWN!"
Another yelled:
"SWING LOW, THEY'RE SLIPPERY!"
A booted foot smashed into Gandalf's ribs.
A club slammed into Radagast's back.
The fight devolved into chaos.
By the end of it, the inn suite looked like it had hosted a barroom brawl between drunken oxen and a furniture factory.
Feathers floated like ash. Furniture lay in splinters. Smeared blood glistened on the walls and floors—none fatal, all humiliating.
Half the guards lay groaning or crawling. The rest sat gasping for breath.
And in the center, buried under a mound of broken chairs and torn linens, were Gandalf and Radagast.
Bound in thick rope, arms tied behind their backs, faces swollen and bruised.
Radagast had a black eye and two broken buttons.
Gandalf was missing his shoe and a good chunk of his beard.
"I-I think I saw a star…" Radagast whimpered.
"It hit me with a mop," Gandalf groaned. "I think it had a mustache."
The elven captain stepped forward, his helm bent, one eye bruised, his lip bleeding.
He looked down at them with quiet satisfaction and said:
"You are under arrest... for assault, property destruction, unlawful room seizure, public indecency, theft, inciting panic, and being very loud."
Gandalf spat out a tooth. "I demand a lawyer."
"This is Lindon," the captain replied. "You get reflection time."
He nodded once. The guards heaved the two up by the ropes.
And so the two divine freeloaders were dragged through the smoking ruins of the Waystone Hearth, past horrified guests and splintered balconies, down the marble steps of the once-peaceful inn, and into the cold, silent street.
Elves watched from windows and rooftops. No one spoke.
Except one old elf who muttered, "Well... that explains the thunder."
The guards didn't even look back as they carried the bound pair toward the city's civic holding chamber—a windowless marble vault known as The Stillroom.
Gandalf groaned as he was dropped onto a cart.
Radagast rolled next to him and whispered:
"D-d-did we l-lose...?"
"No," Gandalf said hoarsely. "They just... cheated."