AN: A shorty chap.

Chapter 28: The Boy and The Stopover, Part 1.

Harry was fortunate in that in the when he popped out of the Gateway and finally returned to his own world, it wasn't in any place that was truly dangerous or awkward for once.

But it was very, very cold.

Harry shivered as he frantically dug out his winter gear from his pack, and when he was relativity protected from the harsh cold wind whistling right through him like a frigid blade,, he finally really took in his surroundings.

He was surrounded in jutting rolling rock with the thinnest of soil, frozen into a brittle blanket of permafrost grasping Igneous stone of pale tans, pinks, russets, tans, greys even a few gleams of blue here and there. The treeline was relatively sparse, and did nothing to cut down on the wind, which explained why he was so cold. There wasn't much in the way of shelter in this barren landscape, and judging by the climate, wherever he was, must be fairly Northerly.

The upside to his new predicament at least was he needn't be to worried about food and drink. Now that he was back, his magic hummed reassuringly under his skin, and he had his magical Peach Pitts and a magical cup that could give him all the hot chocolate and healing food he could consume.

He eyed the inhospitable ground, frost crackling under his boots. He wondered if Xi Wangmu would necessarily approve of him dropping a pitt in such a harsh climate? Then again, she had said it could grow pretty much anywhere, and he had seen his trees growing in the middle of city streets. Shrugging, and trusting in the tree's own proclaimed durability, he reached into his neck pouch and tossed a pitt onto the ground a bit of a distance from hm.

Sure enough, after only a few minutes a healthy looking glowing magical peach tree, with roots some how magically lodged deep into the thick bedrock, stood out like a supernatural sore thumb in the vast empty tundra.

Harry quickly harvested as many of the peaches as he thought he would need, pulled out his magic cup, called himself a few helpings of the sweet rich liquid, moaning when the warmth slid down his throat, and warmed him from his belly to his toes.

Gods Harry loved Magic! and best of all, he loved being home where he could do magic!

He interspersed his drink with bites of a peach and felt instantly better and rejuvenated.

When he was done, he put away his supplies, hitched his pack securely, and took to the air, picking a random destination and continued his journey into the literal unknown at this point.

ooo ooo ooo

A few days into his travel he had come up with a theory as to his location.

He had spotted a heard of Carabou lazily stripping bark from the base of trees in a sparse treeline as he flew overhead, and he was relativity sure, and given his surroundings, that he was likely in one of the Northern Provinces, the very Northern provinces, of Canada (at least according to the book he had pulled out of his pack on the animals).

Harry's hopes to find some sort of clump of human civilization though had yet to bore fruit. In fact, the further he flew, the colder he became, and the more lost he felt. He soon found himself in a vast jagged mountain range that had a great thick gorge running down the middle interspersed with rivers, water falls and small lakes. Vegetation was even more sparse here, and the winds soon begun to to be hazardous in navigating, forcing him to fly lower and closer to the rock faces to avoid being torn to shreads.

When Harry woke up in a shallow rock lee the next morning, it was to the first flakes of puffy white snow, and Harry realized with dismay that it must be fursther into the winter season then he had thought. He just hoped that he found a better place to shelter before the bad weather really hit.

Of course, only an hour into picking his way through the gorge, the world was swallowed up in white.

The harsh blizzard that had slammed into him had forced him to land and take the rest of the way on foot, looking for shelter. The Entire area looked to unstable, to exposed, and the wind to strong for his enlarged bird house he used for harsh weather. Though to be honest, he tended to avoid being this far North for reasons specifically such as this, and had never really had to prepare for such conditions as a blizzard in the Canadian Arctic before.

He managed to create a bubble, despite his exhaustion and numb extremities, and groaned when his head pounded and his ears rang in the sudden buffer against the elements. Harry pulled out an old oil lamp, sent a small spark of flame from his fingers inside, pulled out his staff, and began carefully making his way forward to look for a place to shelter and wait out the storm.

The bubble may be protecting him from the worst of the storm but it didn't help his visibility any. He prodded his staff into the ground before him as he walked and was able to avoid a few pitfalls and sink holes hidden by the snow.

At one point in his wandering, Harry thought that he'd seen a figure up a head in the blurry white.

It moved towards him swiftly, and as it came closer and closer, it gave off an odd guttural high pitched cackling sound that raised the hair on the back of his neck.

"MAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Harry let out a hollar when something smashed into his shield, for a moment bringing a figure of a tall emaciated human-like body with ice blue skin, that looked putrid and badly frostbitten, long, brittle and frozen stiff hair, empty crazed eyes that were white without irises. Long, sharp fingernails scrambled against the shield, which held fast (1).

Harry raised his staff protectively and called fire to him, directing it from his fingers and outwards through the shield where the creature was plastered against while at the same time muttering the first exorcist chant he could think of.

The double duty attack seemed to do the trick, as the...whatever it was, flung itself backwards, its rags and hair set aflame as he ran off, screeching.

For the next few tense hours, Harry occasionally saw a few figure-like shadows in the snow, but whether they were more of those creatures or simply a trick of the snow, Harry was left unbothered.

ooo ooo ooo

Eventually Harry did find a place to shelter, but certainly not what he had been expecting when the edge of his bubble suddenly met a solid surface and he found himself suddenly blinking dumbly at the side of a man-made worn stone wall in front of his nose.

Letting out a cry of relief, he circled the modest sized sturdy building until he found a set of thick looking oak doors painted a dark weathered grey.

Harry cancelled his Bubble, gasping as he took in a face full of snow carried on frigid screaming winds, his face going instantly numb, before he scrambled for the latch, to desperate by this point to be cautious. He strained against the immense weight, and the force of the wind, until he managed to successfully worm himself through a large enough gap.

The door closed behind him with a resounding slam and a tinkle above his head where a cast iron bell dangled merrily above, announcing his presence.

Harry took in his surroundings wearily.

He appeared to be in an old worn tavern of some sort. There was a large roaring fireplace in the middle of the room, a staggered mattering of small tables and mismatched chairs, all looking that they had come from other sets in better times, worn, chipped, scratched and broken.

The bar itself gleamed in the low light of a large central roaring fire, unusual as it appeared to be all one large carving out of Tiger's eye, the colors of the agate gleaming in shifting bands of browns, golds, and amber. (2)

The bar would have looked out of place if it weren't for the tiger's eye paneled floor, and what looked like various people, some in what looked like Halloween costumes, in pictures covering every inch of the wooden walls, framed in the same material.

There was a smattering of other people who turned to look at the latest newcomer. One was a rather decrepit looking fellow with stringy ash blond hair and close set brown eyes in a cape and hood, nursing a drink that had something that looked suspiciously like a rat's tail sticking out the side. He was muttering to himself as he bent diligently over a crossword puzzle after giving Harry only a brief look of disinterest.

There were two elderly people in the back covered head to tow in grey fur arguing heatedly over who got the last shot of vodka before switching over the merits of shipping SnowQueen over SwanQueen whatever that was. (3).

It was the blue scaled Fishman chatting up a skinny brown haired woman with 6 sets of eyes over a large bowl of boiled eggs and large mugs of steaming mead, the former pleading "Please Asibikaashi, you have to see that I am being sincere! I swear I'm good for it!," the woman sneered, "right! like I haven't heard that a million times before!" that lead Harry to realize that he was definitely not in a place catering to your average Normal. (4)

It was definitely larger on the inside then it had seemed on the outside, and the giant razor toothed scull of some nameless animal, its jaws open and framing what appeared to be the swinging door into the back kitchen, were certainly intimidating, and the place was relativity sparse of customers. Though given the location and weather that perhaps was the least surprising of the whole scenario.

Then from down the stairs the largest (out of those who looked relativity human looking) man that Harry had seen yet came tromping merrily with a laidback gait.

He was large and hairy with silvered wirey hair that was pulled back messily in a high ponytail displaying a long oval face of oddly ageless dark bronze laugh lines and crows feet over a hairless face. The man, as he spotted Harry and approached, was easily a towering 7-8 foot tall, broad shouldered and for all that his face was smooth, his bulky arms sticking out of his rolled up sleeves of his red plaid shirt were exceedingly hairy and bulky.

"Well, Well! A new face! and in these parts no less! and s youngn' to!" the man boomed and held held out his hand, which harry took hesitantly, surprised that his hand wasn't crushed in the enthusiastic but surprisingly gentle shovel handed grip.

"Urm..." Harry muttered intelligently.

The man let out a bone rattling guffaw as he, carefully, slapped Harry on the back and lead the shivering boy to the fire, "Goodness lad! No need to look like I'm going to eat you! No worries, no worries now, take a load off by the fire and I'll bring you a hot drink to warm your insides!"

Soon Harry was sitting in a comfortable roughly hewn wooden chair near the fire with his bag by his feet, a blanket around his shoulders, and a mug of something warm and sweet wit ha slight spicy edge that made it hard to identify, even with his developed palette, but warmed him from head to toe and relaxed muscles he hadn't realized were tense until then.

"Now then youngn'," the man cheerfully spoke, sitting in a chair beside Harry's, "the name's Paul Bunyon, and before you get excited, I'm the seventh Paul," the man chuckled again, then leaned forward and down slightly, "Now then, who might you be little stranger, and how did someone your age end up all the way out here, and what are you after?" (5)

Harry was so relaxed, comfortable and warm that for some reason he thought it perfectly reasonable to speak frankly to this nice giant man that had invited him inside.

"I'm Harry, I arrived by accident from a place of dreams where a talking pink pony lead me to a doorway back, only instead of being where I was, I ended up all the way here. I was wandering around in the blizzard looking for shelter when I found this place by chance. I'm not after anything except a place to stay for a bit."

"Och," the man nodded sagely, "I suppose you wouldn't be the first unfortunate soul to wind up here by some magical accident. Most folk don't tend to mind where they step, is my experience."

Harry shrugged, taking another sip of he amazing drink, and found himself relaxing further...and nearly into the fire as his eyes drooped closed.

"Whoops!" Paul exclaimed, and quickly caught the scruff of the softly snoring boy's jacket, "perhaps overdid it with the drink. Well, off to bed with you then!"

Paul swooped the boy and his bag up easily into the cradle of one beefy arm and carried his new guest up stairs and settled the sleeping boy into one of the small, but warm, rooms for rent. He removed the boy's boots and gear, tucking him in under a mound of quilts and left him to sleep through the rest of the blizzard, muttering a soft "Welcome to Stopover."

1. The creature that attacks Harry in the blizzard is called a Mahaha, its from the myths of the indigenous peoples of Northern Canada.

2. Tiger's Eye in its meaning is usually tied to the element of fire, it is used for the metaphysical properties sometimes for protection, resolving problems/mental clarity, releasing tension, and is a harmonizer.

3. SnowQueen is the Ship name between Regina Mills and Snow White and SwanQueen is the ship of Emma Swan and Regina Mills in the TV Show Once Upon A Time fandom.

4. The Fishman is your standard generic Black Lagoon/Shape of Water fair and Asibikaashi is a Spider Woman from the Ojibwe people (Chippewa) of southern Canada and northern US mythos that is a helper of the people, and inspiring female family members to weave protective charms in the shape of spider webs.

5. Paul Bunyon, the tavern owner's ancestor, is a giant lumberjack in American folklore that is accompanied by a giant blue ox, Babe, often performing super human feats of labor.