Disclaimer: Since I am writing this disclaimer, it should be fairly obvious that I hold no rights to any part of Howl's Moving Castle.

Sophie glared fiercely through dove gray eyes at that irrepressible and irresponsible wizard, willing her furious emotions to spear him and wipe that smirk from his too-perfect face.

"I have been quiet for way too long!" she shouted, spittle flying and fists shaking. "Do you want to know what I really think about your messy habits? No? What about your preoccupation with your looks? Or your flippant attitude towards danger? You are messy, vain, conceited, and entirely too flighty! I've had enough!"

She paused, chest heaving. She felt powerful, vindicated, righteous ... until she looked at his face. He didn't even have the decency to look taken aback or remorseful. Instead he just smirked. Again.

She screamed in frustration. She was about to threaten to wash that pretty head of his in her dirty mop bucket when she heard someone shout, "Sophie! Wake up!"

What? She wasn't sleeping. She turned around to tell them so, but all she confronted was darkness. That was when she realized her eyes were closed.

Oh, she thought. This is weird ... Maybe she was asleep after all. She turned back to the man and suddenly she could see again. He was still grinning at her.

Oh right. Him. Her ire rising once again, she prepared to give him another piece of her mind.

"Wake up! Wake up! Please!"

This time the frantic pleas were accompanied by a shaking of her shoulders. But ... his hands were at his side ... and no one else was there. Spinning around, she saw dozens of grinning faces, smirking at her, telling her that all her struggles and arguments were amusing rather than productive.

"Sophie! Please wake up!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying!" she yelled in frustration, or she tried to yell in frustration. It came out garbled because all of a sudden her mouth was filled with eggs, bacon, and soap bubbles. She tried to run, but she slipped on the wizard's beauty products and started sliding down the impossibly long side of the moving castle. Frantically, she searched for something - anything! - to hold onto, but it was no use. She kept falling, his infernal grin following her as spiders spun their webs in the sky.

"No - NOOOOO!" Sophie finally woke up with a scream, which quickly died as she started gasping for air.

She looked around the room, but no one was there. Then who had been telling her to wake up?

Her currently heightened senses heard feet pounding down the hall accompanied by Markl's high voice.

"Hurry, Master Howl! She won't wake up ... and then she stopped breathing ... and I didn't know what to d-doooo!" he wailed.

If Sophie hadn't been looking at the door at the exact moment when Howl ran in, she might have missed the look of near-panic on his face, so quickly could he pull that grinning mask back on.

"Oh hello, Sophie. You're awake," Howl said with a slight flair of his cape. "Thank goodness. For a second there, I thought I was going to have to perform mouth-to-mo..."

"Sophie! You're alive!" sobbed Markl as he pushed past Howl and flung himself in her arms. "I thought you were d-d-dead," he snuffled.

"Markl. It's okay. It's okay," Sophie croaked out comfort to the boy. She had to cough a couple of times before she could continue, her throat was so rough from the screaming. "I'm here. I'm right here."

Sophie was so focused on the young boy in her arms that she missed the look of concern that crossed Howl's face at the sound of her raw voice. When the boy's sobbing died down to a respectable level, Sophie gently grabbed Markl's shoulders and looked him in the eye.

"You did the right thing, getting someone."

"I did?"

"Yes, you were very brave. I don't know if Howl could have done a single thing to help, but then, miracles are happening every day. You never know," she said as she flashed a mischievous look at the wizard.

"Very funny, Sophie. I see you are feeling much better already. Come, Young Markl. Let us leave her to her interrupted and, dare I say, much needed beauty sleep."

"Hey!" Sophie cried indignantly as Howl swept the sniffling boy from the room.

Of course, Howl would not let her have the last word, no matter how insignificant that word may be. He poked his head back through the door.

"Oh, and this time, try dreaming of me - it always makes my night better!"

He took time for one last dazzling and utterly insolent grin before closing the door on a gaping and infuriated Sophie.