Disclaimer: I don't own Howls moving castle. Hayao Miyazaki does or rather Diana Wynne Jones does.
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Chapter three: In which Morgan reveals a habit that was once his fathers'
Howl stood with his ear pressed against the bathroom door, listening to the conversation of his fire demon and sister-in-law.
It was amusing to think that he was using the bathroom door as means of eavesdropping on a conversation. Usually, he would just leave a listening-in spell. If the circumstances had been different, he would have laughed. Carefully, he weaved his magic that would make Martha ask whatever question Howl had for his fire demon without getting caught. Talk about manipulation.
"' Don't,' she said." He heard Calcifer say. He breathed hard. 'If you do, he will get sad and I don't want to go remembering him sad. I want to remember him being the idiot he is.'"
Howl gulped back the fresh wave of tears that came, his throat feeling as if he'd eaten uncooked cookie dough in huge quantities. With a careless wave of his hand, he removed the spell just in time to hear Calcifer shout to the chimney, "That's not fair! You never get any privacy in this castle!"
Oh, how true.
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Morgan smiled at the girl. What was her name again? Ah, yes. Krysta. Odd name.
"Morgan, darling, do you think you can come again tomorrow?" she asked huskily. She twined her hand in his palm and Morgan did his best to give his most charming smile. He didn't know how like his father he was acting.
"Of course, love." He answered. Time to ditch this girl, he thought. She's starting to act like such a nuisance. Anyway, I had no plans of courting her. Why did I come again? Ah, yes, to make her fall in love with me. No challenge with this one. She only took two days.
Morgan talked with her again and threw hints that he should be going home already. Sly and careful, he made sure that their parting was sweet and sincere. For her anyway.
When he got home, he would visit Wales. That way, he wouldn't get caught when she would try to find him. Wales. That was always his escape route. A place to run to when someone was chasing him. Ah, Mari, his beloved cousin. She wouldn't notice him for shit. But one day, she would. She had to. He was going mad.
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"Where. Have. You. Been?" Martha exploded, making each word into a sentence. "Did you know that your father has been looking for you?"
Morgan backed into the door, exhausted and not the least intimidated by his aunt. He gave her a baleful look that he knew irritated her to no end.
"Young man!" she shrieked. "I asked you a question and you are obligated to answer it."
"I was with that girl. She was really hard to shake off. I think she gives new definition to the word 'love'." He groaned. He stalked past his furious aunt and went in the bathroom. "Calcifer, hot water please?"
"Well, he said please." Calcifer muttered.
Martha waited until the sound of surging water in the bathroom was heard, and then she turned to Calcifer. "Shit. Did he just say that the girl already fell in love with him?"
Calcifer grimaced. "He didn't exactly phrase it that way but yeah, he did."
Martha gave a deep and sincere groan. "What do you think will be the whiplash? Aunts or Mothers?"
"I'd go for aunts. They usually are more violent."
"Hey!"
The argument would have lasted longer had it not been for the arrival of Michael. The door opened, green blob down and Michael stepped in, his brown hair blowing around in the wind. He looked whipped.
"Welcome home!" Martha called.
"Yeah. It's good to be here. Anything new in this part of the world?" he flung his cloak on the table and Martha caught it before it landed, folding it neatly. She handed him a mug of steaming milk and he gulped it down eagerly.
"Morgan strikes again." Martha said. "We better be prepared to go off into the Wastes before somebody has the sense to come after him-slash-us."
"Strikes…..again?" he asked horrified. Then he added urgently, "Who is it this time, the Governors daughter?"
"No idea. He usually goes for someone famous, a much more dangerous twist to Howl." Calcifer replied darkly.
"That boy has got to fall in love already. He does have a heart, right? Unless you ate it, Calcifer. " Michael teased.
"Me? I don't eat hearts, I own hearts! Except that I don't want to go back to that stupid contract again."
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That night, Howl set off to Wales while everyone was asleep. And he came back a few hours after, with a girl that was the spitting image of Sophie, right down to the red-gold hair.
Did you guys know that the I had a hard time uploading this coz my sister was watching me and she was hungry? She was waiting for me to finish coz I had the key to our house. You dont know how uncomfortable that is.