After reading two "sequels" to Howl's Moving Castle, I was so disgusted I had to write my own. I'm using the book characterization, not the movie ones. Please let me know what you think.
"Sophie, will you marry me?"
Sophie looked down at her hands, then back up at Howl, speechless. Howl quite nimbly avoided looking straight into her piercing eyes.
"Well, what do you say, Sophie dear?" said Howl, managing to keep his voice level.
Calcifer cackled in the fireplace. "You see, Howl, I told you she wouldn't do it! You'll be jilted in love, for once!" Sophie could not bear this nonsense any longer.
"What is wrong with you?" shouted Sophie. "Just how many times do you plan to propose? Isn't once enough?"
"Look here," said Howl. "I know it sounds strange. Getting married once is quite enough for me. You know if it were up to me I would skip to the happily ever after part." He gave Sophie a dazzling smile. "But, you see, it's not up to what I want. Especially since I have nosey family members ogling for a glimpse of the Mrs. Jenkins-to-be, telling me it would be improper to deprive them of the pleasure of finally seeing me married. It seems Megan in particular gave me up as a lost cause years ago."
"I shouldn't wonder they did, knowing your reputation," said Sophie. Then she paused, thinking back to the first and only time she met Howl's family. That ended in her practically insulting Howl's sister Megan and storming out of her house in indignation, with Michael and Howl in tow. "I hope they don't recognize me."
"Ah yes," said Howl, eyes aglitter, "that performance of yours elevated you even further in my affections."
I expect you think flattery will get you the results you want, Sophie thought. She simply took up her sewing again, leaving Howl still in a very awkward kneeling position on the floor beside her chair. Howl, unabashed and still smiling, turned to Calcifer for moral support, which he did not find. Calcifer started cackling again in a very wicked manner. Howl tapped on the fireplace. He leaned his head on his hand, elbow on the fireplace ledge, a faint smile still on his face, and gazed at Sophie. It did not take long for this new nonsense to become unbearable as well for Sophie.
"All right, fine!" Sophie yielded. "You win! Have one here in the morning and the other with your family in the late afternoon. It's bad enough having two weddings. Making them on different days would be even worse." Howl gave Sophie another of his dazzling smiles and threw his arms around her.
It was then that Michael opened the door to see Howl still kneeling, with his arms around Sophie's waist. This was not something Michael particularly wanted to either see or interrupt, but there was a spell the king needed. Royal Wizards like Howl did not get to slither out of commissions from the king very easily. So Michael and Howl went to work on the spell. They were not at it long when Howl poked his head inside the castle, calling to Sophie.
"Sophie, shall I wear white at the wedding? We could match!"
"No!" said Sophie. "I've nearly had it with your vanity, so I've already started making you a blue and crimson suit." She held up her sewing, still in some pieces.
"Ah, well, as long as you don't end up dying my hai…" Howl dodged a piece of wood and hastily shut the door on a furious Sophie, who was reaching for more ammunition as Calcifer edged her on.
"Botheration! Any hint of the green slime incident and she's quite murderous," Howl remarked offhand to Michael with a consoling look. "Make sure to keep your Martha away from blunt objects. I'm afraid Sophie's arm runs in the family."
It was in this way that the days before the two weddings flew away. A wizard's wedding was something of a novelty in Ingary after all, for wizards do not get their reputation as devils and witches as crones if they all have happy, cozy families at home. Sophie was showered with more gifts than she had when she was suspected to be an old witch come to live with Howl. There was scarcely a moment after the announcement of their engagement that the castle did not have visitors, well-wishers, or spongers looking for a handout, as Sophie dubbed them. It got so troublesome that after seeing the dark circles under Sophie's eyes, Lettie persuaded Sophie to stay with her until the wedding day. Lettie followed this with a stern lecture to Michael, Calcifer, and Howl—in that order. Howl bore the brunt of the wrath with a vague detachment. It just would not do for Sophie to collapse before her wedding day, Lettie droned.
Through the torrent of abuse, Sophie wondered whether Howl was that much better off than she was, given the increasingly complex spells the king was requesting of late. There were spells of every shape and kind, most of which took hours of preparation to cast. In fact, since the day Howl had given his second proposal, Sophie had not seen him except at meals, where he seemed as lighthearted as ever. It was only a few persisting frayed ends on the long sleeves of his scarlet and golden suit that betrayed his fatigue. He still took hours in the bathroom, coming out looking resplendent and smelling of lilacs, but Sophie began to suspect the spells cast there where to hide his exhaustion.
Lettie was thus allowed to bear Sophie away, like a prize pig in need of fattening up before a feast. Sophie spent the last few days before her wedding despondent, missing Howl and Calcifer and the castle—in that order. She finished Howl's suit, tried on dresses, got fed, and gave up trying to sleep much.
Sophie found she was much more nervous about the wedding through Howl's inky black door than the one with her family. It was not until she saw Howl standing, waiting for her in his blue and crimson suit, that all such thoughts melted away. They did not return until Howl led her by the hand through the castle to the door turned black-down. He opened it to shadow, and Sophie stepped into it, looking back at the last second to catch a glimpse of Calcifer hovering in the doorway, looking a trifle dejected.
On the other side of the door, Howl went to work, reaching for his keys and turning their clothes from wedding dress and suit to a suit with less voluminous sleeves and something dreadful. Sophie looked down to find the majority of her leg was bare.
"How are these clothes?" squawked Sophie, trying to pull down what was clearly not long enough to be a skirt at all and pull up at the top what might have been a blouse.
"Those, Sophie dear, are what young ladies wear in this world," replied Howl, his eyes sparkling as he examined her exposed skin. "Last time you visited it was at a more, em, advanced age."
"Somehow, I get the feeling not all young ladies wear these sorts of clothes," moaned Sophie.
"Don't be absurd, Mrs. Pendragon. You are quite respectable looking," Howl replied with such a wide grin that Sophie began to melt again. She then remembered something that had caught her eye before her clothes had melted away.
"Why did you use the key to change our clothes?"
Howl, wanting to stem the inevitable questions that would follow if he did not answer, explained: "In this world, I can't do magic. Here, magic is only theoretical, so I could study it all I wanted, but couldn't cast a single spell." Sophie opened her mouth again to ask another question, and Howl quickly added, "The only way I can is to enchant an item while in the castle," he held up the keys, "and store a bit for when I need it here."
Sophie turned this over in her head, and realized she had never actually seen Howl do any magic in this world. The image of seeing him through the window of the castle chasing the Witch of the Waste came to her mind. Even then, when his family was in danger, he could do nothing but run after her. He must have felt helpless, Sophie thought.
"Sophie dear, look at me," Howl said in a soft voice, guessing where Sophie's thoughts had turned. Sophie looked up into his eyes as Howl took her hands. "Magic or no, I will always protect you," he breathed, kissing her on the forehead and leaving the smell of lilies on her skin. Sophie wanted time to stop at that moment, there where she knew for certain Wizard Howl loved her more than anything else in this—or any—world.
Time, however, would not stop because of Sophie's demand. And so, they walked hand in hand towards their second wedding party. Megan took Sophie away almost immediately to fawn over, and dress in a another wedding dress. Howl had slithered out of telling them much about Sophie other than she lived far away, so Megan interrogated Sophie questions about all manner of things while Sophie's estimation of her slitherer-outer husband grew by leaps and bounds as she tried to deflect them without much success.
"Where is my brother taking you for your honeymoon, Sophie?" asked Megan as she did up the buttons on Sophie's dress.
As Sophie could not say she was under the impression that Howl was going to have Calcifer take them and the moving castle around the countryside, her mind tried to fix on what was at least partially true.
"I believe," faltered Sophie, "that we are going somewhere near my family."
"What?" said Megan, looking shocked. "Why would Howell do that…unless…" She trailed off, leaving Sophie to moan inwardly that she had somehow made a terrible mistake in her answer. "Sophie," Megan continued, turning Sophie to face her, "are you already having sex with Howell?"
Sophie did not know what to say to this, as such a word was not what a proper young lady should know in Ingary. However, Megan looked so earnest Sophie decided she needed to find out what it was.
"What does 'having sex' mean?" asked Sophie.
Megan's earnest look became shocked. Oh fiddlesticks, I've made a mess of it again, thought Sophie. Megan's shocked look was replaced by one of cool resolve, and she began—in a voice quite like Mrs. Fairfax—to tell Sophie what was to happen on her wedding night. After Sophie recovered from raging that no one in her family had seen fit to tell her about these wifely duties, she thought there was no way all that was going to happen in the same place Calcifer could hear or (heaven forbid) see. It was pondering these disturbing thoughts that Sophie approached her second wedding of the day.
It turned out that this wedding was very much like the one in Sophie's world, or at least it was to Sophie. She was still in a daze after meeting so many people and having to talk just the right amount of time to them, that she did not so much as hear Howl announce to the guests that the happy bride and groom were leaving. The catcalls and whistles of the guests showed they attended, and this made Sophie remember her conversation earlier with Megan. Howl led his beet red wife outside, back toward the door to the castle.
"Won't they mind that we're not staying?" asked Sophie, becoming increasingly nervous. "They just met me after all." Howl gave her a half smile but only strode faster towards the house with the castle door. With Sophie trotting to keep up, they reached the door. Giving her hand a comforting squeeze, Howl opened it. Or rather, he tried to open it.
"This is curious," mused Howl, using both hands, then shoulder to open the door, but all to no avail. Although he had been to Wales and back many times, this was the first time the door refused to open. Howl then tried the key, as a last resort, yet even before this magic the door stood unmoved and decidedly solid. Putting one hand through his hair, Howl stood, puzzled. Sophie stepped closer to him, and he reached out to catch her hand. This also he was unable to do. He turned towards Sophie and tried again. Though he could get a breath away from her skin, he could not by any means touch her. Sophie's wide eyes stared up at him.
"Horror! Shock! Damnation!" said Howl, adding a few other choice words nice young ladies should never know. As Sophie was not such a lady, she ignored Howl, added a few well aimed kicks to the door, and then joined him in cursing the general universe after hurting her foot on it. The one comfort she felt was the fact that Howl, now muttering on the ground with his legs drawn up to his chin and his arms wrapped around his legs, could not use green slime in Wales to express his utter despair.
Howl's character, I realized, is very much like Tamaki from Ouran: very prone to emotional outbursts.