Title: Roulette
Summary: Where everything is a game of chance and the Witch is the one calling the shots. More than two years after HMC, Howl and Sophie have a fierce opponent to face. Kidnappings, wagers & magic feats follow, as well as unexpected news.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this piece, except for the Witch. Howl, Sophie, Calcifer, etc. are all marvelous characters but, alas, they are © to Diana Wynne Jones, not me.
Author's Note: Well, as you can see, I've decided to write a fan fiction story based on Diana Wynne Jones marvelous book, Howl's Moving Castle. I have been a huge fan of DWJ for a bit now (maybe 5-6 years) and, apart from the Chrestomanci books, HMC was the first I read. It is my favorite DWJ book and probably one of my favorite books ever. I love the plot, the characters, the setting, the style, everything. However, after watching the anime movie, I appreciate the book 10x more now. And, as I've recently re-delved back into the world of I decided to try my hand at a HMC fic. I'm still trying to get the characterizations right; I much more adapt at writing Newsies, I'll tell you now. But, I've been researching this, and I think it might become an interesting, if not long, piece. I hope anyone who finds and/or reads this enjoys. Come on, we need some more HMC out there, no? -- Stress.
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I. In which Sophie is upset and Michael goes on an errand
In the land of Ingary, where castles can be seen moving across the countryside and an eldest daughter can find happiness with a vain slither-outer, it was quite a misfortune if one ran afoul of powerful magics. A wizard could send you to another world if you failed to pay him for a simple charm. A witch could curse you to live the rest of your life as a tea cozy should you slight her appearance on May Day. It just wasn't a good idea to cross the magic-users.
If one was smart, as many of the citizens of Ingary were, they treated all the sorcerers with the utmost respect. They were careful to keep the mages and warlocks, witches and wizards, as well as the apprentices – it was always a smart move to be kind to an apprentice; they could be very useful years on when their training had completed and they remembered the grocer that gave them a free apple – in high spirits. It had now been nearly two and a half years since the dreaded Witch of the Waste had disappeared, thanks to the Wizard Howl; those in Ingary were glad to be rid of such a nuisance and, more now than ever, made it their purpose to keep those with magic appeased.
All citizens of Ingary, it should be said, except for one fledgling witch. Sophie Hatter-Jenkins, at the moment this story begins, was preparing to do everything in her newfound power to make life miserable for one wizard. But, of course, that was to be expected. That wizard, the famed Wizard Howl, Second Royal Wizard to the King of Ingary himself, deserved every harsh word that Sophie had – many of which her youngest sister, Martha, had taught her. As her husband, Howl should have known better than to have upset her. After all, she was a witch in her own right.
Sophie stormed from the bathroom, wearing a towel over her hair and an apron over her simple dress. She had heard her husband enter the castle and hurried out towards him. She headed straight towards the workbench where her yellow-haired husband was now discussing something with his apprentice. "Howl–" she began but stopped when she saw that he was pointing something out on a piece of paper. She waited until Michael had nodded his understanding and had hurried out the door, before starting again. "Howell Jenkins," she said warningly, hands on her hips and a frown marring her delicate features. Howl kept his head down, folding up the piece of paper he had shown Michael. He knew he was in trouble; Sophie never used his Welsh name unless she was absolutely furious with him. While the pair of them quarreled – granted, more than the average married couple – his young bride was never that angry.
Howl picked up the folded square of paper and slipped it inside the large sleeves of his blue and silver suit before jumping up from the workbench and spinning around. "Sophie, cariad. How lovely to see you so early this morning," he said happily, spreading his arms out around him in a gesture of surprise that she had appeared behind him. His eyes lingered on the white towel that kept her red gold hair out of his sight but, in true Howl fashion, he neglected to say anything to his wife. She was angry enough and he, of course, didn't like to be disagreeable.
Her frown turned into a scowl and she removed her hands from her hip. She used her right one to steady the towel; she had caught his glance. "Howl, it is well past noon," she noted, using her other hand to point out the door Michael had left open in his haste to leave the castle. Sunlight streamed in delicately indicated that it was, indeed, midday rather than morning. "Which you would know," she continued, trying not to notice the sad expression that Howl had exchanged his earlier smile for, "if you hadn't spent the entire morning in the bathroom before running out and leaving me behind to clean up your mess."
Howl's glass green eyes, natural in comparison to his heavily dyed hair, sparkled lively though he kept his pout. "But Sophie, I had to. There was another rumor abound that the sweet little princess was in danger. Suliman and I had been summoned to Court this morning and I needed to look my best. One must always present themselves to his Majesty looking their best," he added, watching her expression carefully. Sophie wasn't buying it.
"Well, you can tell the King next time that he'll have to pardon your appearance. You left in such a rush this morning that the bathroom was covered with your spells and I had to spend a good hour cleaning up after you," she said, still annoyed – and even more so now that he had made up such an obvious excuse. She shook her head in disgust, but, with that action, the towel slipped down. She tried to catch it in time but was not quick enough. Long dark hair cascaded around her shoulders.
Howl understood now. Sophie was not mad at the mess he had left behind; while it was true that his bathroom time had cut down considerably since they had married nearly two years ago, he still spent much of his time keeping up his appearance. He was vain – he knew it, she knew it, Michael knew it, Calcifer knew it. He needed to be handsome like Sophie needed to clean, and their individual quirks were what made the pair of them so happy with each other, regardless of what the snarky fire demon quipped when he caught them fighting. No, Sophie was not upset at the mess he had left that morning. His lips curled upwards in a genuine grin. At least there is no sign of green slime, he noted, but knew better than to say that aloud. His infamous temper tantrum was still a matter of great fun to discuss when the household had nothing better to talk about over supper.
Though he said nothing to her about her new hair color, Sophie could tell exactly what was going on in his head. "May I just say, Howl, how thankful I was that you mixed my shampoo with your hair color spells," she said with a shake of her head.
He couldn't hold it any longer. His angular face looked past Sophie and searched out the bluish-green fire demon lurking in the hearth. "Calcifer? Have you seen how beautiful Sophie looks with such fine, dark hair?"
Calcifer poked his head out from behind a stack of logs. "See, Sophie? I told you so earlier," he said, though his orange eyes danced.
Sophie spun around and, despite wearing a blush at Howl's compliment, stared at the fire demon. He flickered before growing large enough to see Howl from across the room. "All I heard from her this morning was 'I need hot water, please, Calcifer,' before she came running from the bathroom, screaming like a banshee. I told her it was becoming on her fair skin but all she wanted to do was find you, Howl. She was about to run straight out of the castle to find you when I asked if she was going to bother dressing before streaking through Kingsbury."
Howl started to laugh at the idea of Sophie running out of the house without wearing any clothes. Sophie's blush only darkened and she turned to face her husband. "I was wearing a towel," she said, sending him a message with her eyes that he better stop laughing at her expense. He chortled once more and stopped.
When both Howl and Calcifer had stopped talking, Sophie pulled at the ends of her hair. She still looked as angry as she had before but she also seemed very embarrassed. Howl took a few step forwards and wrapped his arms around her. He placed his chin on top of her newly dark hair and breathed in the scent of honeysuckle. So, he thought, she used my perfumes today in her bath as well. She normally preferred her own simple soaps and shampoos when compared to all of his spells. I wonder what this is all about? But, again, Howl kept his thoughts to himself. It would do no good to question Sophie when Calcifer was resting in the hearth within the castle. He would wait until the fire demon took one of his nightly reprieves and left the young married couple alone for a few hours before he asked her about her behavior. For now he would settle for a bit of her gratitude at helping her. "Would you like me to restore your natural tint, Sophie?" he murmured into her hair. He rather wished she would let him; as fickle as he may be, he preferred Sophie to look just as she did when he first met her. Though, of course, he would still love her if she was a cranky, old woman. It was such a Sophie that he had fallen in love with, after all.
She shook her head slowly, gently so as not to cause his chin to move from its position. "No," she said quietly, "I can do it myself. I was just so…so frustrated this morning when I saw that my hair had gone dark. I mean, my hair was white for so long. I didn't want it to be anything but my normal color."
"Hello? Do you guys want me to leave or should I stay and watch the show?" Calcifer did not like to be forgotten. Although he was able to go where he pleased whenever he wanted, he made his home in the castle with Sophie, Howl and Michael. When he was set in the hearth, he did not like to be ignored. Michael had already gone on an errand. All he had left was the Jenkins' to keep him company.
Howl pulled back from Sophie and laughed. "Don't worry, Calcifer. When I want you to leave, I'll be sure to let you know," he said cheekily before walking to the work bench. He cleared a stack of spells away to the side and sat down upon it. He gestured to Sophie, who had bent down to retrieve her forgotten towel, and clapped his hands. All at once he was the impressive wizard that she knew him to be. "Alright, Sophie. Let me see you turn your hair color back," he said, and she could hear that there was a bit of a challenge within his tone.
She placed the towel down upon the old chair that faced Calcifer's grate. She turned to him and noted that the fire demon was watching as well. Though her magic was quite different than the types that either Calcifer or Howl possessed, Sophie felt that she had to show what she could do. She knew the pair of them liked to watch her work her strange brand of magic; it was her gift of talking life into inanimate objects that had given her the ability to break the contract that had kept Calcifer and Howl tied to each other for so long.
Sophie turned her gaze from Calcifer and, instead, focused on her hair. She held thick strand between her fingers and began to murmur to it. She was well aware that she had a captivated audience and she refused to give them the satisfaction to hear her plead with her own hair. But that's exactly what she began to do. "Come on now, you know that you aren't supposed to be this dark color. Why don't you just let go of that nasty old spell and go back to your regular color, hmm? A nice red gold, wasn't it?" As she spoke, the heaviness of the hair tint spell began to disperse. By the time she was done, the color had all but faded right out of her hair.
She dropped the ginger strands of hair and looked over triumphantly at her husband. He clapped his hands at her success but his applause was accented by a set of laughs. Her eyebrows rose and his laughter ceased. "What's so funny?"
Howl didn't seem to want to answer. She spun around to look at Calcifer; he had begun to laugh as well. She could see his purple tongue within the blue flames as he sniggered.
It was at that moment, as Calcifer continued to laugh, Howl smiled and Sophie grew madder than she was before, that the door to the castle opened and Michael entered. He was out of breath and, though tall for a young man of seventeen, seemed to cower in the doorway. Once he had caught his breath, he turned around and shut the door behind him before turning back and addressing the odd scene in front of him. Before Howl could stop him, he looked at Sophie questioningly. "Why are you standing in a puddle of black ink, Sophie?"
Sophie's mouth dropped open slightly. She glanced down and saw that Michael was right. Surrounding her, on the floor, was a rather wide pile of a dark liquid. But it was not ink as the young apprentice had assumed. She knew it was the hair color spell that she had assumed disappeared. Her face grew even redder before she grabbed at the towel. When she started to clean it up, Howl stepped down from his workbench, his smile still firmly plastered on his angular face.
Howl made sure to side-step his wife – he knew better than anyone, except, perhaps, Calcifer and Michael and the spiders that lived in the master bedroom, how manic she could be when it came to cleaning – as he approached Michael. Before he could ask, Michael produced a small package from beneath his jacket. Howl accepted it and patted him on the back. "Good man."
Sophie glanced up in time to see Howl slip that up his sleeve as well. "What do you have, Howl?"
"Nothing that is your concern, Mrs. Nose," he said, playfully. Even after two years of marriage, Sophie still maintained her insatiable curiosity. He saw that she was prepared to argue, as she usually did, that anything that was his concern was her concern as well; before she could even begin, he bowed with all the regality he could muster. "When the time comes, cariad, I'll be more than glad to show you what I have in this box." And, before she could reply, Howl had flounced up the stairs.
Sophie watched as her husband disappeared with the package. As curious as she was known to be, Howl was that secretive when he wanted to be; it was another of their quirks that kept them evenly matched and happily married. If Howl did not want her to know what was in that box, then he wouldn't tell her.
Howl wouldn't tell her.
A grin came to her face. She stood up and, pausing only to fold the soiled towel and placed it back on the chair, she approached Michael. The apprentice, sensing what was coming – after living with the pair of them so long he knew exactly what to expect when the Jenkins' were quarrelling, especially when the subject of the quarrel, however minute, concerned him – tried to make it up the stairs to his room.
But Sophie, much faster now than she was when she was cursed to wear the body of a ninety year old woman, made it to the staircase faster. "So, Michael," she began, and he could see in her eyes that he wasn't getting past her without any sort of answer, "what did you just give Howl?"
Michael just gulped. Young Sophie Jenkins was much scarier than old Sophie Hatter.