Harry woke up on his third day in the Realm slowly, still a little drowsy and not sure he actually wanted to be awake. They had spent the last two days in Ash's house trying to get Fionn to trust them, and in Harry's case, learning some of what he needed to control his powers. Neither one of which had been at all easy. His Wizard magic had never been this hard to learn or to control, but his Demon magic seemed to be wilder and less willing to do what he asked of it. So far, the only thing he could get it to do was make a tongue of flame appear on the end of his finger. And that was something Fire Demon children were able to do, at least according to Ash.

Fionn was still shy and skittish around them, he barely spoke, usually only one or two words at a time, and always with hunched shoulders as though waiting for a blow to fall because he dared to speak. He would eat from a plate if Harry ordered him to, but that too was something he seemed to fear. The Fae wouldn't let Harry out of his sight unless Harry was in the bathroom, it was as if he thought that if he took his eyes off of him he would disappear. Though they had yet to catch Fionn actually looking at either of them, he still kept his head bowed and eyes on the floor. Harry was still sharing his bed with the Fae as well, though he had to invite him into it every night or Fionn would attempt to sleep on the floor at the foot like that first night.

Today they were going to venture out and buy clothes, both for Fionn as well as Harry. He was tired of cutting slits down the back of his shirts so his wings could fit, and Ash promised that they could get shirts in the Realm that had spells woven into them that would allow his wings to pass through without damaging the shirts at all. He briefly wondered how his friends were doing, he missed them, but since time moved differently here, they might not even know he was gone yet. Seven days in the Realm was only one day in the mortal world.

Stretching, he opened his eyes and crawled out of the bed. Today would also be a day of food he didn't have to cook, at least he hoped it would be. After the grilled cheese sandwiches of the first night, he quickly found out that Ash hated cooking and usually went out for nearly all of her meals. She kept very little in the way of food stocked, but had just enough odds and ends that he had been able to keep all three of them fed.

"Time to get up Fionn. We're going to get new clothes for you today, and Ash promised it wouldn't be as crowded in the morning as it will be later this afternoon and evening."

The lump at the far side of the bed stirred, and satisfied that Fionn had heard him, Harry went ahead into the bathroom to get ready while the Fae got dressed in the bedroom. Once he was out of the bathroom, they switched places and then met Ash in the hallway.

"Morning Harry! Morning Fionn! Ready to go shopping? I made some toast while I was waiting on you two to get up." She shoved a piece of buttered toast in Harry's and then Fionn's direction, practically bouncing on her toes in her eagerness to leave and start dressing them both up. Harry started to have a bad feeling about this, if Ash was this excited, he wasn't sure he was going to enjoy this shopping trip. But it was too late to change his mind, she was already hurrying out the front door.

By the time Harry caught up with her, they were already almost to the main shopping district. Fionn was sticking so closely to Harry it was as if he had been glued to his side, one hand was even holding tightly to the hem of Harry's shirt. Harry thought he saw a glimpse of one of the Warriors he had seen on his first day, but he couldn't be sure as the man turned and headed down a side street before he'd gotten a good look at him. When they finally entered a clothing store, Harry took one look around and knew Fionn was going to be overwhelmed. Harry himself was afraid he was in over his head. There were racks of clothes occupying most of the store, and a fitting room in the back. But there also seemed to be an area that looked as though you could get things custom-made. Ash had already disappeared into the racks with a happy little squeal.

"Well. I guess that means we're on our own... I don't know what kind of clothes you'd like to wear Fionn, but I'm sure we can find you something. Tell me if you see anything you want and I'll get it, if you don't, Ash is likely to come up with something and I'm sure you've seen enough of her by now to know why that's a bad idea." He let his voice take on a hint of a teasing tone as he spoke about Ash, and hoped that Fionn wasn't going to freeze up.

This was probably a bit soon to spring on him, but he really couldn't go on wearing Harry's clothes. As he maneuvered their way through the racks, picking up shirts and a few pairs of pants for himself, Harry realized they had managed to end up in the fancier area of racks. Dress shirts and dress pants, leather pants and jackets, suits and ties. As he turned to pick another direction, he realized that Fionn had reached out one finger and was lightly touching one of the white, long sleeved dress shirts.

"Did you want that? Is it your size and all?"

The moment he spoke, Fionn yanked his hand away and put it behind his back like he was going to get smacked for touching. Harry sighed softly and picked up the shirt. It felt like it was made of silk, and had tiny white buttons down the front, as well as two buttons on each cuff. He checked the size, then held it out towards the Fae.

"Try it on, it's quite soft and I know it will look good on you."

Fionn hesitated for a long moment, before finally taking the shirt. He stripped off the one he was wearing, and put the dress shirt on, doing up the tiny buttons with hardly a fumble. It actually fit him quite well, and Harry decided to pick up a few of them, and got another three in white then looked to see what other colors they had.

"Do you want any in red, purple, or green? There's a dark blue in your size as well." No answer came. "If you don't tell me, I'll just grab a few of each color..."

"J-just white." The voice was soft, barely audible, and carried a quality of long disuse, but at least Fionn was finally speaking.

"Alright then. What about pants? Jeans? Leather? Dress pants? Shorts? What would you like to wear?"

Another long pause as Harry gathered up an armful of the white silk dress shirts. Fionn seemed to be having an internal struggle about whether or not he should continue to speak.

"J-jeans...one leather?" The Fae cringed the moment he asked, but Harry pretended to ignore it and headed towards the appropriate racks.

"I don't know your size, so you're going to have to go through these yourself. And then use the fitting room to try them on, you can't take your pants off in public." Harry blushed to even have to mention that, but was sure if he hadn't, Fionn would have just stripped down.

Finally done with their selections, they approached the counter and Harry paid for it all with his Gringotts card. There was still no sight of Ash, and with the number of bags they had he didn't really want to wait much longer.

"Ash! We're done, hurry up, you promised us lunch!"

"Okay, okay already! So impatient!" She finally appeared carrying a tower of clothes and dumped them on the counter. "And please have these as well as their stuff delivered to my house. It's 1619 Cirrus Court." Snatching the bags from Harry's hands, she passed them over the counter to the clerk and then herded them out of the store.

"It's such a nice day, and we've been cooped up in the house so long, I think we should visit the park. You two can get settled and people-watch, and I'll bring us all back some food."

Luckily the park didn't seem to be far from where they were, just down a side street and a few blocks over. Ash left them sitting under the shade of a large willow tree and dashed off again. Fionn sat huddled against Harry's side, and he found himself absently petting the Fae's hair. It was strange how quickly he had gotten used to having Fionn around, as well as his strange reactions to the most normal of things. But he was making progress, hopefully one day soon he would truly believe that Harry wasn't going to harm him. As he was lost in thought, a childish squeal rang out over their end of the park.

A little girl ran past them, long red-orange hair, like a sunset, streaming behind her. A young man with cornflower blue hair, chased after her and caught her around the waist, hiking her up off the ground and swinging her in the air.

"Trist! Again! Swing me again!"

"Celly, I've already swung you more times than I can count! You're going to wear me out, and then what will I do when I have to go back to work?"

"Don't want you to go to work. You're always tired and mommy and daddy say you do too much." Her lower lip stuck out in an adorable pout.

Harry lost what the young man - her brother? - said in response as Ash came back carrying three bowls and forks. Setting a bowl in front of each of them, she flopped down in the grass on Harry's other side and started to eat happily. Even Fionn slowly reached for the food, but Harry couldn't get past the fact that it was bright purple and seemed to have lumps of something that were darker purple under the sauce. He poked it cautiously with the fork and when it didn't move on it's own, and didn't seem to be poisoning his companions, he finally took a very tentative bite.

The flavor burst along his tongue, it wasn't quite like anything he had ever eaten before, slightly spicy but also sweet. The lumps had the consistency of a potato and were quite good. It didn't take him long to finish the bowl.

"What was that? Is it something only made in the Realm?"

"Purple yams in a sweet pepper sauce Harry. I think it's made in the mortal realm as well, but it's quite popular as a snack here. Now that we've shopped and eaten, I think it's time for a nap. Then we can decide where else we want to go." Ash wasn't really tired at all, but Fionn looked like he needed more time to relax, and she couldn't think of an easier way than to have him sleep his nerves off a while. Harry glanced over at Fionn as well before nodding and laying back and staring up at the leaves overhead. The little girl and her companion had wandered off out of sight sometime during their meal, so it was once again just the three of them.