Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
Author's Note: I just watched the movie this past Sunday for the first time and I fell in love with it. Hopefully, this fic doesn't come out too bad.
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Man - a being in search of meaning. ~Plato
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The first time that Sophie sees him, she thinks that there's nothing wrong with him, despite rumors to the contrary. Pale skin, bright hair that only partially obscures the green dangling at his ears and something that's not quite right with those blue-green starfire eyes. They're human in shape and almost in color, but in the way that they observe the world…no, there was nothing of this world in that.
Howl glides when he walks sometimes. Other times, he dances. And Sophie watches him light a candle with a soft kiss of flame from his slender fingers. Sophie thinks that she should be afraid of him, should be afraid of this person in front of her that is both brilliant, a little scatter-brained, and sometimes entirely too innocent despite the occasional mischievousness in the soft upturn of his lips.
Sophie can only think of one time that she was honestly a little afraid of him. A fierce storm had been raging outside the castle, the kind that makes window panes rattle and the earth shake. Sophie had gone upstairs to call Howl for supper and she found him on the balcony, arms extended like a child with snowflakes, like the child he was when he caught a falling star. Howl had turned at the sound of her calling his name and she could see clearly what was in his cupped hands. Blue lightning flashed from fingertip to fingertip like through the clouds, casting a pale blue light that made his face glow eerily. Howl had smiled crookedly, the joy of a child fascinated with some new wonder coloring the expression, and held out the lightning. Sophie wasn't sure she was quite brave enough to touch it.
The storm faded as quickly as it had come and Howl's holding up the lightning, the electricity disappearing back into the sky. Sophie thinks that it looks a bit like someone releasing a dove from its cage.
Howl is like a wildfire, a whirlwind. Impossible to predict and so dangerous. But then Sophie thinks that even if that's true, Howl is kind and sweet in his own roundabout way. He's charming and brilliant and is as lovely as life and death.
And sometimes, there's something broken in the picture that is Howl. Because he's a child in an adult's body, with some childishness still in his mind, but even with that, he'd been through a war and now the pieces of his puzzle don't quite line up anymore.
Sophie's long since learned that Howl was a reader. If he found a book he hadn't read before, whether the topic was on theoretical magic or an interesting piece of literature, he'd sit down right where he was and crack the book open. His fingers would tap out impossible melodies on the page while he read sometimes and other times, he'd twirl a lock of his hair around one of his clever fingers.
His kisses are slow, sweet and make no demands, although Sophie sometimes wishes he'd make some. He's fond of giving her easy, casual kisses and brushes on the forehead. She thinks that this new family that she's been adopted into is so odd because Markl is growing in leaps and bounds, though Howl and Calcifer never cease to tease him about his clumsiness with his longer limbs, and Howl will be arguing with Calcifer one moment and defending him in the next breath.
Howl is brilliant and scatter-brained and lovely and Sophie's in love with him, for better or worse, though she's hoping it's the former, but there's no denying that his blue-green starfire eyes are one of the most human things about him.