Hi guys, I'm back! I'm sorry for updating so slowly, and I'm afraid I'll have a kinda erratic upload schedule for a while. I went back to uni a while back and haven't had time to write, but I will write whenever I have time.

BIG HUGE GINORMOUS SHOUTOUTS AND HUGS TO EVERYONE WHO REVIEWED AND DOUBLE THAT FOR FOLLOWERS OMG I LOVE Y'ALL! You guys are what motivated me to sit down and write this. In fact, Juliastes, who wanted to see more of Sophie in Wales, this one's for you!

I don't own HMC.

"You're going to do WHAT with me?!"

"Look, Sophie, it's perfectly natural, y'see, sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do-"

"Now don't give me any of that, Howl Jenkins! I said no! I refuse to go!"

Howl sighed. "Pleeeeeeeeease? I'll do all the cooking for a week."

Sophie glared at him. She did enjoy his cooking. And with that, the Terror of All Spiders agreed to go to meet the Dragon of Wales, Megan Parry.

Perhaps it would be best to explain. Megan was Howl's sister in Wales, a woman so fearsome she had once given Sophie herself a run for her money. Of course, that time, Sophie had looked like an old lady. Now, oh yes, now, it would be different. Now, now would be when Megan Parry was vanquished, once and for all!

Or so Sophie wished. Unfortunately, things probably wouldn't go down that way. Howl had been-shall we say-forcibly informed that his books were littering the Parry house and he was to take them away immediately. However, Howl was rightly terrified of his sister, so he went to the bravest, sassiest, most amazing woman he knew of-Sophie.

Howl sincerely hoped Megan would be too preoccupied with Sophie to rip into him.

Sophie sincerely hoped she would get an opportunity to "burn," as Howl called it, Megan.

Michael sincerely hoped that the books would be interesting and that Howl didn't just stick them willy-nilly in the library in the mansion.

"How's this?" For someone who claimed not to care about what Megan thought of her, Sophie was trying very hard to look good, Howl noted. How annoying. Oh no, was that what he sounded like? He solemnly swore that he was going to be less vain from then on.

Sophie glared at him. It must have been the third outfit she'd tried on. For goodness sake, couldn't he pay attention? "Let's go," she snorted, and with a swirl of scarlet hair and periwinkle skirts she was in Wales. She looked down at herself. Her hair was pulled up tightly and tied into a kind of tail. Strangely enough, the ribbon seemed to have no ends and was stretchy. Her dress had turned to coarser, darker fabric with a white belt of some kind of shiny stuff. It wasn't glass, though, so Sophie was thoroughly confused as to what it was. She poked at it a bit before Howl stepped out behind her, looking basically the same as every other time he had gone to Wales.

"You're in the way, Sophie," he remarked nonchalantly. "Would you be planning to move anytime soon?"

Sophie growled back, "I'm sorry for wanting to know what these things are. How do women here get dressed? Stretchy ribbons! Flexible glassish stuff! Whatever you've done to my dress, which was perfectly fine before, thank you!"

"It's called elastic, plastic, and denim." Sophie sniffed indignantly, took a step, and promptly fell over. Howl caught her under the arms. "Also, you've got heels. Watch how you step." And so they proceeded up towards the door of the cottage, her wobbling every inch of the way and him snickering to himself about how every drop of the magic was worth it.

No sooner had Howl pressed the buzzer, which was apparently a Wales-knocker, than Megan stuck her head out the door. "Oh, it's you," she grumbled at Howl. "Come to get your trinkets out of this house at last? Or-" eyeing Sophie "-here to drop off another of them?"

"I'll have you know Sophie is a perfectly respectable girl who is with me because of our mutual love for one another and not because I am paying her," returned he.

There followed a short and slightly terrifying conversation in that strange language Howl spoke in sometimes, after which both Sophie and Howl were ushered in and quite suddenly separated. Howl went off about the house gathering up things here and there. Sophie was shoved unceremoniously into a chair in the room with the magic box. Sound seemed to be coming from it too, some kind of music, quite catchy, with very little structure at all. Some kind of advertisement, maybe?

Megan sat down in the chair next to Sophie with a smile-fake, apparently, because the next words out of her mouth were the exact opposite of the pleasant expression Megan wore. "So how much is he paying you, harlot?"

Sophie wanted to believe the real meaning had been lost in translation. She forced a smile of her own and in a quavering voice queried, "Excuse me?"

Megan sniffed, a look of revulsion on her face, but after a quick glance at the stairs out the door, started beaming again. Wales-women were so puzzling! Why was Megan switching moods so fast? Perhaps she was-no, she couldn't be! Surely Howl would have mentioned it if his own sister was bipolar? So that she wouldn't offend?

Actually, knowing Howl, that seemed very unlikely.

But it became apparent in the next moment that Wales-women weren't really different from regular women after all. Megan leaned forward and in a sickly-sweet voice, as if she and Sophie were sharing a very funny secret, whispered, "If my children weren't upstairs, I'd ruin you. But since they are, I'll simply explain. You are with my brother. You are clearly a harlot. A whore. A showgirl, prostitute, bitch, whatever you want to call it. Now get out of my house!"

Oh.

Wait, what?

"I-I'm-" Sophie was too angry for words. And then she wasn't. The words poured out of her, a river, a torrent, no, a volcanic explosion of Mount Sophie.

"You dare to call me a whore? Howl and I are in a perfectly sound relationship! If you can't even listen to him, you surely can't listen to children! Can't ruin me because your children are upstairs? I'd like to see you try! And your children have nothing to do with it! You're nothing but an old, unwanted woman who can't control her biased ways!"

Megan lept to her feet, Sophie following suite. "You have no standing in this house! Out with the rubbish, go on!"

Howl rounded the corner, whistling, a stack of boxes in his arms.

Sophie searched for words and found none for the first time in a long while. There was but one option. Steeling herself, she brought her hand down towards Megan's face.

Howl froze in the doorway as a Sophie-hand-shaped welt grew on Megan's side. Wordlessly, he snatched Sophie by the arm and, hands totally full, sprinted for the castle door.

Three hours later

"Hey, Howl. You, uh, haven't said anything at all since you and Sophie came home." Michael looked worried; rightfully so, since Howl was usually full of self-gratifying reminders of his greatness.

Sophie looked up from her sewing by the fire, horror strewn across her face like Howl's socks in his room. Signaling frantically to Michael, she prayed Howl wouldn't notice.

He didn't, of course. He was Howl. What else did you expect? One doesn't simply distract the Great Wizard Howl Jenkins.

But what he did do was every bit as Great as himself. Folding his paper, he rose, and looking at nothing in particular, walked past Sophie, dropping a slip of paper in her lap. With trembling hands, she opened it, not sure what to expect.

As so often with Howl, it was short. One sentence that meant so much.

I've always wanted to do that.

So that's that! It's really late here but I wanted to get this one out to you guys! It was great fun to write and I hope you all loved it, though my quality did go down a bit.

Don't forget to review, everyone! I think the only reason I stayed up to write this one was because I went and read the past comments. Constructive criticism is always welcome!

See you guys soon, I hope! Ja ne!

Sekky