Gilda's defiant grunt echoed in the sudden, profound silence of the town square. She stood her ground, a wall of stone between the guards and her friends, braced for a clash that never came. The guards didn't move. Their perfect, unnerving stillness made them feel less like opponents and more like some immovable, alien force. Intimidating them was like trying to glare down a mountain.

Then, with a quiet pop—as soft as a bubble bursting—the tension broke.

A new figure appeared between them. He was a short, wizened fairy with wings the color of old parchment, and he carried a clipboard almost as large as he was. He didn't so much as glance at the drawn spears or the defiant warrior before him. His entire attention was on the neat stack of papers balanced in his arms.

The effect on the two imposing guards was immediate. They seemed to shrink, lowering their spears a fraction in a subtle but unmistakable gesture of deference. FaeLina, who had been frozen in terror at the spears, let out a sound even more horrified now. She knew exactly what a clipboard-wielding fairy represented, and it was far worse than any weapon. The authority in the square had shifted. It now belonged to the small, unassuming fairy with the clipboard.

But the small, unassuming fairy didn't seem to notice. He just continued to study his papers, his silence somehow more intimidating than the guards' spears. Finally, after a long, tense moment, he tapped a long, bony finger on the page.

"Ah, yes," he said, his voice a dry rustle of paper. "The unscheduled delegation."

He hummed softly, the sound as thin and precise as parchment folding. "Now… what is the official procedure for an unscheduled delegation?" His finger traced a slow path down an alphabetized list, lips moving in silent recital. "Ah. Section U, subsection twelve. Unscheduled Delegations, Protocol For. Yes."

A faint checkmark scratched across the page. Somehow, it was louder than the spears of light. "You will be escorted to a preliminary processing chamber for assessment. Please form a single, orderly line—no weapons, no magic…" His gaze flicked once, briefly, to the yawning Pip. "…and absolutely no napping."

Without another word, he turned and floated towards one of the seamless towers. A long, white corridor simply... appeared in the wall before him, a silent invitation into the unknown. He entered without a backward glance.

The two guards lowered their spears of light in perfect unison and fell into step behind him. They paused at the entrance to the corridor, their impassive faces turning back to the team for one long, silent moment. It was not a threat; it was a simple, unspoken command to follow.

"We have to do what he says, Gilda," FaeLina whispered frantically, her voice a tiny buzz of procedural panic. "He's from Processing! Arguing with him probably requires its own special form!"

Gilda's hand twitched toward her axe, a lifetime of instinct offering a simple, direct solution. But she hesitated, her gaze sweeping over her team.

Zazu gave a slow, almost imperceptible shake of his head, his eyes full of quiet, ancient warning. This was not a battle of force.

Pip, now wide awake, studied the corridor with professional suspicion. "It's not trapped," he whispered, which somehow made it worse. "It's just… a hallway. A long, boring hallway. That's the trap."

And from his perch on Gilda's pack, Sir Crumplebuns puffed out his chest. "FEAR NOT!" he declared in a heroic stage-whisper that carried far too well. "I SHALL PROTECT US… FROM THE TEDIUM!"

Gilda looked at the impassive guards. She looked at the endless white corridor. She looked at the small, unassuming fairy with the clipboard.

Then, with a low grunt of pure frustration, she made her choice. This was a battle—just not one she could win with steel.

With a heavy sigh of pure, defeated resignation, Gilda led her team into the corridor.

The walk was long and silent. The white, seamless walls curved gently so they could never see where they were going, and the strange, humming quiet seemed to swallow the sound of their footsteps.

Pip's eyes darted from side to side, his rogue's instincts on high alert. He searched for anything he could use: a seam in the wall, a pressure plate on the floor, a shadow in a corner. There was nothing. A shudder ran down his spine.

"This is the perfect trap," he whispered to Zazu, who was walking beside him.

"Why?" the elf murmured back.

"Because," Pip replied, his voice barely a breath, "there's nowhere to hide."

His words settled over the group, a quiet, professional dread. Gilda said nothing. She had cleared out countless dungeons filled with filth, traps, and monsters. This clean, silent corridor was somehow worse.

They continued in silence until the corridor finally ended at a plain white door.

He gestured them inside. With a shared look of profound reluctance—a silent agreement that they were walking into a different kind of trap—the team stepped through.

They were not led to a jail, but to an office. A small, white, windowless room, furnished with a single uncomfortable-looking stone bench and nothing else. The air was stale and smelled faintly of old paper and quiet despair. The door slid shut behind them with another soft hiss.

The wizened fairy floated into the center of the room. "Please be seated," he said, gesturing to the single bench that could, at best, fit two of them comfortably.

Gilda, Zazu, and Pip squeezed onto the bench in a silent, awkward shuffle of shoulders and knees. Pip, in the middle, looked like he was trying to make himself as small as possible, while Zazu was doing his best to maintain an air of scholarly dignity despite the fact that his ear was currently pressed against Gilda's pauldron. Sir Crumplebuns sat heroically on Gilda's knee.

FaeLina just hovered nervously near the ceiling.

The fairy cleared his throat, a sound like crinkling parchment. "As per Bureau regulations, Section 4, Subsection 12, all unscheduled arrivals must be presented with the relevant preliminary documentation." He paused, eyes scanning his clipboard. "Let the record show that the delegation appears… confused."

With a flick of his wrist, a huge, glowing document appeared in the air before them with a soft thrum.

It was a form. The most complicated, terrifying form any of them had ever seen. A wall of glowing, elegant text, full of boxes, lines, and footnotes in a script so small it made their eyes water. The very first line, in neat glowing letters, read:

Section 1a: Please declare the emotional weight of your unscheduled arrival in kilograms.

"This," the fairy intoned, "is Form 115-C: The Petition for Unscheduled Testimonial Admittance and Temporary Inter-Planar Visa. Please complete all seven hundred and forty-two sections. In triplicate. We will return to collect it in one business cycle."

Pip, good with numbers, did some quick, panicked math in his head. "What's a 'business cycle'?" he whispered to Zazu.

"Approximately one standard week," the elf murmured, his eyes glazed as he tried to decipher a dense paragraph on the philosophical nature of Tuesdays.

"One week?" Pip squeaked. "That's over a hundred sections a day! Four an hour! We'd have to work through the night!"

The old fairy gave no sign he'd heard them. "A quill and ink will be provided upon the successful filing of Form Q-11, 'Request for Writing Implements,'" he added, voice perfectly flat.

And with another quiet pop, he was gone.

For a long moment, the team just sat in the silent, white room, staring at the glowing, impossible wall of text.

Gilda stared at the form, her hands clenched into fists. Pip stared at the form, already feeling a phantom cramp in his writing hand. Zazu stared at the form, scholarly horror etched across his face. And FaeLina—the self-proclaimed master of bureaucracy, the fairy who lived for the comforting certainty of a well-written rule—just made a small, broken whimper.

From his perch on Gilda's knee, Sir Crumplebuns puffed out his chest. "FEAR NOT, MY FRIENDS!" he announced in a loud, heroic, and deeply unhelpful stage-whisper. "WE SHALL ANSWER EACH QUESTION WITH THE UNFLINCHING TRUTH OF A HERO'S HEART! IT IS THE ONLY PEN WE SHALL NEED!"

"Right," Gilda grunted, her voice a low rumble of pure, helpless frustration. "Does anyone have a pen?"

__________

Author's Note:

And so, our heroes have survived their first encounter with the armed guards, only to be defeated by their true enemy: paperwork. I love that the standoff wasn't resolved with a fight, but with a clipboard. It's the perfect, most absurdly frustrating "Comfy Corner" version of a fantasy trial.

The team has faced ancient guardians and magical trials, but now they face their greatest challenge yet: Form 115-C. My favorite new detail is that first, impossible question. How do you measure emotional weight in kilograms? It perfectly captures the absurd, infuriating logic of this new world.

But the real star of this chapter is the clipboard fairy and his passive-aggressive "no napping" rule, aimed directly at our sleepy rogue. And of course, Sir Crumplebuns's heroic, unhelpful advice at the end is the perfect setup for Gilda's final, desperate question.

They've made it through the woods, but now they're prisoners of paperwork. How will they possibly get out of this one? And will they ever get that pen? Thanks for reading!

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