Art and Ben's Excellent Adventure

[Arthur Pettigrew]

October 4th, outside Winnipeg

Art was sufficiently bundled for this endeavor, but pretty sure that he was going to freeze to death anyways. He stood with his hands shoved deep in his jacket pockets as the man explained the concept of dog-sledding to them. He was pretty sure they would be fine - he had flown a flying carpet, how hard could dogs be - but pretended to listen aptly nonetheless.

After their previous night's adventure with The Letter from Trouble, Art was sure that this was going to be easy in comparison. Dogsledding never made anyone have feelings, at least as far as he knew. 

The guide warned them about turning back if there were blizzards, and Art nodded attentively. It was clear for now, with sunlight shimmering off of the snow, but he had zero intention of getting stuck outside in the frozen weather. Then he would definitely die of hypothermia, and Ben was not going to have a good time explaining that one.

"We've got it," Art said cheerfully to the muggle guide, who left. So they had two sleds, and two packs of dogs, and this was going to be great. He was absolutely going to beat Ben. 

"Ready?" Art asked, pulling a small bottle of (ew) Canadian whisky out of his pocket. He wasn't doing this sober; that was the point of going on an international bender.

  

[Reuben Crouch]

After last night, Ben had acquired several empty bottles of awful Canadian whiskey, half a dozen blotchy and mostly illegible partially written letters to Ellory Pendergast, and one hell of a hangover. The latter made it almost impossible to pay attention to the Muggle who was explaining to them how dog-sledding worked, so Ben really hoped he wasn't missing any important information. How hard could it really be, though? You sat in a sled and yelled mush and tried not to get lost in a snowstorm.

Only the man had said something about snow blindness and that seemed like the sort of nefarious lurking trouble that Ben ought to be aware of before embarking on an expedition in the snow. Before he could bring it up, though, Art was dismissing the man. Hopefully that bit wasn't important, because Ben's pride wouldn't allow him to admit that he'd missed something Art had apparently got a handle on.

His head was pounding but Art had a flask, which seemed like a good idea. Hair of the dog, and all that. "Hand that over," he said, batting a hand out to take the flask. "Then I'll be ready."

  

[Arthur Pettigrew]

Dutifully, Art handed over the flask. Best hangover cure, and all that. He stroked one of the dogs on the head, and briefly considered just playing with them over dogsledding - it would probably result in the same amount of snow in his boots. Ugh, Canada. 

"We can fly broomsticks," Art said, "We're going to be great at this."

Even if it was on the ground. 

  

[Reuben Crouch]

Ben took a long drink off of Art's flask and was disappointed to find that it was the Canadian stuff. It would do its job, though, and hopefully his head would start to feel a bit better. "Yeah," he agreed, though he was only confident because he was always confident, not because he actually had any faith in their ability to not-crash these dog sleds. Could you even crash a dog sled? Presumably the dogs would stop before they ran into a tree or something, right?

Capping the flask, he tossed it back at Art. "Alright--racing to, uh, the first landmark that isn't snow?" he proposed, settling in to the sled and eying the ties around the dogs critically. He didn't know what to look for, so they might have been about to run straight out of them for all he knew. Hopefully not--being stuck in a stationary sled while the dogs ran away through the snow would be embarrassing. "Mush!" he yelled at them, hoping he was doing this right.

  

[Arthur Pettigrew]

"Sounds like a plan," Art said. They could find a landmark, right? There had to be something outside of Winnipeg. But if he was ever going to beat Ben at this he was going to have to try, and that probably meant that he ought to stop petting the dogs and actually do something.

He settled into the sled. Shit, what was the word again? "Hike!" 

The dogs started moving; Art nearly fell off the sled.

  

[Reuben Crouch]

Ben was not at all sure what the difference was between mush and hike, but when Art called out the latter, he decided to hedge his bets and just yell out both and hope the dogs moved. They did start moving, so that was a good sign--but Art was marginally ahead of him, and Ben didn't remember how to make the dogs go faster. It wasn't as though they'd given him a whip, like carriage drivers used on horses--and even if they had, Ben wasn't really sure he would have used it to any effect. He was good with animals in the gentle, almost veterinary sense; he was by no means the sort of person one would pick to be a lion tamer or a carriage driver or anything that involved violence.

"Mush! Hike!" he yelled, and the dogs did seem to be getting faster, though he wasn't sure whether that was just because they were warming up and picking up speed naturally, or whether his commands were having any effect.

It occurred to him as the pair approached a grove of trees that Ben only remembered one of the commands to turn, and didn't recall which direction that word was supposed to take the team. So if he yelled it out, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he'd turn the way he wanted to go, and a fifty-fifty chance that he'd careen over into Art's team. Maybe he should just stay silent--the dogs wouldn't just run right into the trees, would they?

  

[Arthur Pettigrew]

The dogs were going too fast.

The trees were upcoming and the dogs were going too fast. On a broom, Art knew exactly when to turn - it was instinct at this point, a gut reaction tilt of the wrist. But in a sled he wasn't sure and the trees were approaching and fuck, what was the word for left again?

His dogs started to turn while Art stared at the trees; the turn came too late and the sled started to careen out of control in Ben's direction. Swearing loudly and inventively, Art bailed out, sailing through the air and landing in a snowbank.

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   Reuben Crouch

[Reuben Crouch]

The dogs did start to turn, much to his relief. Ben was too focused on watching their progress in this regard and wondering whether he was going to end up whipping around to run into the copse of trees to pay much attention to what Art was doing--at least until his friend's sled crashed into his. The impact unseated him and sent him hurtling through the air, but only for a moment. Then he took a tree to the gut, which stopped his progress immediately.

At least the snow was soft-ish. Things could have been worse. Things could certainly have been better, he thought as he sucked in breath and tried to get his bearings, but they could have been worse.

By the time he'd struggled to his feet and staggered out of the little group of trees, the only thing left of the dogs was a tangled mess of sled tracks in the snow and the distant sound of barking.

"Ah, shit," he mumbled, pausing to put a hand heavily on a tree. He wasn't exactly in fighting form yet, and the idea of having to chase a bunch of dogs down was not an appealing one.

  

[Arthur Pettigrew]

Arthur landed in a snow bank in a tangle of limbs. He disentangled himself from himself and sat up, finding that snow had sunk its way into his everywhere - scarf, boots, gloves, all of it. He swore loudly and inventively and dragged himself to his feet.

"Guess we have to get those back," he said, "You didn't break anything, did you?" He was going to feel very bad if he had broken any of Ben's limbs. Especially because he had no idea where the nearest magic hospital was, or how to get there, or if they knew anything about healing out here.

  

[Reuben Crouch]

"If I did, I'm too numb to notice," Ben said dryly before pushing himself up off the tree. He felt as though he'd had enough of a chance to catch his breath, though he had no idea whether or not he was up to the task of tracking down a pack of loose sled dogs. Even when he was at one hundred percent, he might not be up to that particular ordeal. There was probably a way to use magic to help, but Ben was struggling to think of anything he could cast that wouldn't involve some very unfortunate circumstances for the dogs – or result in the two of them getting arrested by the Canadian Ministry. The Statute of Secrecy was an even bigger deal over on this side of the pond than it was back at home, since they were just a stone's throw from the MACUSA, who went nuts for the thing.

"I don't suppose you have your carpet tucked into an expandable pocket, or anything?" he asked hopefully. He didn't really know where his broomstick was, except vaguely 'in the cabin,' and it wouldn't hold the both of them – which meant he'd have to wrangle all the dogs single-handedly, which didn't sound fun.