The ups and downs of living with Howl
by MoonSerenade
Happily ever after was the stuff of fairytales - that much was obvious. Surely in the fairytales, the heroine wouldn't be faced with her home (which happened to be a castle) having turned into a pigsty after only being gone for a couple of hours to visit her sister and then being expected to be the one to clean it up again. On top of everything, the house had been spotless only this morning.
Sophie Hatter took in the mess before her, calmly placed her hat and shawl on a chair, tucked a few stray strands of silver colored hair behind her ear and straightened her back.
Calcifer, the fire demon residing out of free will in the hearth, quickly scrambled down underneath a log and braced himself. He knew what was about to come and he was not wrong.
"Howl, you pathetic excuse for a wizard; you lazy, vain, good-for-nothing, goddamn bastard, get your overly bathed ass down here at once!"
The shriek came close to rattling windows.
Upstairs, the door in the far end of the hallway opened slowly and hesitant footsteps could be heard walking towards the staircase. Then a pair of shiny black boots came into view on the first step, soon followed by a pair of legs clad in black pants and the hem of a silk robe in brilliant gold and red. The person wearing these clothes had jet black hair and very handsome features. He also had the most beautiful blue eyes you could imagine but right now they were tightly shut and the man wore the expression of someone heading for his execution.
He walked down the stairs, carefully avoiding the large piles of books on the floor, pieces of food that had probably been part of the lunch meal, some potions ingredients and equipment and a huge stack of robes in similar fashion to the one he was wearing.
He came to a halt in front of Sophie, his eyes opening.
"Uh, hi Sophie, dearest. Um... How was your sister?"
In a second, her hand had grabbed the collar of his robe and pulled him down until they came face to face; his terrified blue eyes meeting hers enraged brown ones.
"The castle was clean and shining when I left this morning," she hissed. "How, in the name of everything magical, did you succeed in turning it into a complete dump in only four hours?"
He swallowed visibly and decided to at least try to explain.
"Uh, you see; I was looking for a potion in my books – a very important one I may add – and then I had to try and make it of course and thus all the ingredients and equipment and the table didn't have enough space so I kinda used the floor… And then I made some lunch for Markl, the Witch, Heen and I and I must have done something wrong with it because it tasted horrible and so Markl and I had a little food war because obviously the food had to come to some use… I meant to clean it up before you got home! But then I kind of forgot it when I realized that most of my robes were dirty and I was about to wash them just now when…"
Throughout the explanation, her eyebrows rose higher and higher on her forehead, her mouth turned into a thin, white line and the look in her eyes spoke clearly of the pain that he was about to endure.
Howl flinched and closed his eyes again, awaiting the inevitable. When nothing happened, he felt it safe to take a quick peak at her and was completely caught off guard when he saw she had her face buried in her hands and that her shoulders were shaking. Was she crying?
He suddenly felt ashamed with himself. He hadn't meant to make her cry with his thoughtlessness.
"Sophie, I'm really sorry. I don't know what I was thinking and I…" For the second time, he cut himself off.
Because when Sophie lowered her hands, he realized she wasn't crying. She was laughing.
He stared dumbfounded at her while she desperately tried to draw a proper breath and at the same time wipe away the tears that were streaming down her cheeks. At last, she managed to get a little air back into her lungs and, still chuckling, threw her arms around his neck.
"Oh, Howl! I really, really love you!"
Howl shared a surprised look with Calcifer, who had crept out from underneath his log when Sophie started laughing, and hesitantly patted her back.
"Uh… I love you, too, Sophie. Are you… not angry with me?"
She smiled and kissed him softly on the lips.
"I will be if you don't clean up the mess in this instant."
Anything to avoid another angry outburst, Howl swept out with his hand towards the various objects scattered across the floor. Within a few seconds, the ingredients and equipments had found their way back into cupboards and drawers, the books put themselves back in the shelf, the leftovers drifted off into the trashcan and the robes floated back up to Howl's room for later washing.
"Just out of curiosity," Sophie said when he was done. "Why didn't you do that to begin with when it only took you a couple of seconds?"
Howl opened his mouth to answer, frowned and then closed it again.
"You know, I really have no idea. I guess I didn't think about it."
Sophie laughed again and pulled him close for another kiss, successfully making Calcifer return to his hiding place under the log, silently muttering:
"All this endless snogging! It's so gross…"
At that exact time, somewhere in the endless fogs of the Waste, a man (more of a boy actually) came to a breathtaking conclusion. This world was supposed to be his! He was supposed to conquer it!
Now, don't ask me how he figured that out. It might have something to do with the fact that he had recently graduated from the Royal Sorcery Academy with top grades and the headmaster's voice still echoing in his head, telling him that he was made for great things with talent like his, or maybe the unbelievably large amount of alcohol he had just devoured were to blame.
Either way, in this moment everything became crystal-clear to him. Or at least a little less foggy. A White wizard, a good wizard, would never get anywhere with his life. Dark powers were required if you wanted to achieve greatness and the only way to get your hands on some dark powers were to join forces with a demon. So all he had to do was to conjure up a demon with devastating powers, merge with it, train to handle all the new power he would get, eventually kill all great wizards in the world so that no one stood in his way, challenge Suliman and then the world would be his. Piece of cake!
He stumbled to his feet, tripped over the chair he had been sitting on and accidentally sent several empty bottles crashing to the floor at the same time as a throbbing pain exploded in his foot, limped over to the bookshelf, pulled out a book titled "Evil demons and how to conjure them" and tried to read the table of contents through bloodshot eyes.
One name immediately caught his eye. Listed beneath "Evil demons with powers greater than you or anyone else can imagine so please don't conjure one of these for the sake of mankind" was among others the name Lucifer.
He vaguely remembered that was the name of a god of evil and were supposed to be the ruler of evil demons. Therefore, Lucifer just had to be the most powerful.
The boy-not-yet-a-man uttered a horrible MWOHAHAHAHAHAHA with the deepest and most evil voice he could manage but only succeeded in sounding like a dying witch with tummy ache. Not wanting to admit failure, the boy snapped his mouth shut and quickly turned the pages to the chapter about Lucifer, grateful no one were there to see the blush on his cheeks.
For a spell to conjure up a demon, these instructions sure seemed strange. He would have expected something along the lines of sacrifices or bloodshed when conjuring the most evil demon of them all, but this…
Oh, well. If this was what he had to do, he would do it like a man. First, he went down into the basement to search through his late mother's old belongings. It didn't take long for him to find what he was looking for. Next, he rushed out into the lovely garden in front of his house and fetched another thing he would need. Lastly, he searched through his records until he found the CD he was looking for, naturally lying in the bottom since he would never listen to this under normal circumstances. He hurried to get everything ready and at last he could begin.
Taking a deep breath, the boy-not-yet-a-man summoned every last bit of power he had and unleashed it in a single soundless cry calling out to the demon he had chosen. For a second, everything remained quiet and he felt his insides turn to ice. Had he failed? Despite the headmaster's praise of his talent, had his powers proved to be too weak? But then the ground beneath his feet started to shake and he was momentarily blinded by a white light. When he was able to open his eyes again, he couldn't believe what he saw. Before him, clad entirely in deep red, was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
The demon studied the room with a curious gleam in her dark green eyes. She raised a hand to her brown hair to make sure it lay as it should and straightened the red dress that left very little to imagination. At last, she turned her eyes to the wizard who had conjured her and immediately started laughing.
"It was centuries ago someone conjured me!" She managed to choke out between silvery giggles. "I had forgotten the hilarious instructions!"
Meanwhile, the boy-not-yet-a-man was not amused. Sadly to say, this time someone was actually there to see the blush on his cheeks. He had found the instructions odd, but eager to conjure the demon he had followed them well. He was indeed wearing a flowery summer dress (once his mother's), held a bouquet of beautiful flowers in his hand (freshly picked from the garden) and Celine Dion's Have you ever been in love played in the background (how could anyone listen to such horrible music?).
He hurried to get out of the dress, dropped the bouquet in the trashcan and turned off the stereo. Then he turned to the demon and said with as much dignity he could muster:
"I'm going to take over the world. Will you help me?"
A wicked smile appeared on her full lips. She leaned forward, her hot breath mingling with his.
"You mean you will give me your heart?"
Any normal person with the slightest bit of brain and at least some idea of what it actually meant to make a pact with a demon, would here answer: "No, I'm sorry to have bothered you, good day" and send the demon back within a blink of an eye.
Unfortunately, this boy-not-yet-a-man wasn't as bright as someone with his high grades should be. He might know a lot about magic but pacts with demons were something they refused to teach about at the Royal Sorcery Academy in case the students would get any ideas.
Being as inexperienced as he was, the boy-not-yet-a-man eagerly nodded.
"Well then," the beautiful woman smiled. "This is what you have to do…"
Chaos. No better word could describe the ongoing event at Howl's castle. Sadly to say, chaos often raged in the castle and any lesser being would probably have killed itself months ago. But not this fire demon! This demon could put up with anything! Though, a window-shattering screaming match accompanied by Heen's out of breath barking, the Witch's low cackling and Markl's happy humming was pushing it…
Calcifer didn't even know what they were arguing about this time and frankly, he couldn't care less. Nowadays, Howl and Sophie always seemed to argue. The odd part was that somewhere in the middle of it, when you began to fear they would kill each other, they suddenly started kissing instead with big smiles on their lips. Maybe it was some kind of game…? Humans sure could be strange sometimes.
Obviously the Witch and Markl had learned to ignore them and go about their business, merely bending their heads to the side if something happened to come flying through the air intended to hit Howl. No flying objects ever reached its target, though. Howl was after all one of the most gifted wizards in the world. He knew full well how to put up a protecting shield, making the objects simply bounce off it. Sophie knew this of course but she seemed to enjoy the throwing either way. Perhaps she hoped to catch him off guard one day.
Calcifer cried out with surprise as a glass full of water smashed into the wall above him, making water droplets rain down on him in the hearth.
"Hey, people! Fire demon! Fire demon! Water could kill me!"
Neither Howl nor Sophie paid him any attention. Calcifer sighed tiredly.
"Honestly, it's like having a freaking world war in your own living room…"
A/N: Hey everyone! Hope you liked the story a little bit at least. It was something I just started writing one day when I was bored and it kinda grew on me. Don't really know where I'll go with this but decided to give it a shot and find out along the way. Please R & R! Oh, and by the way: I do NOT dislike Celine Dion. Actually I like her a lot. The opinion about her music expressed in this story is that of the boy and not me. Thanks, love you all!