Title: An Awful Thing, Chapter 2

By: Jedishampoo (Jedishampoo at aol dot com)

Rating: PG-13 overall; may get saucier later, but I ain't promising nothin'.

Summary: Howl and Sophie get mixed up in magical doings, and Sophie is just mixed up. Humor/Adventure/Romance thingie. Crossover between Howl's Moving Castle and Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

Author's Notes: This is movieverse!Howl and company. I've read the books by Diana Wynne Jones, and so a little bookishness may creep in here and there, but the movie is what made me fall in love with the characters. Comments, constructive criticism eagerly welcomed.

Chapter 2

Sophie sat, arms crossed, in one of the kitchen chairs and watched as Howl and Markl alternately flipped through books and tossed pinches of various magical powders at the little change purse she'd bought in Kingsbury. The kitchen was going to be a mess when they were finally done, and she'd have to be extra-careful when she cleaned, or else risk growing pink fur or something equally horrible.

And she'd thought it was such a cute purse, too. Yet there they were, eyeballing it like it might explode at any moment and doom them all to a fiery death.

Of course, with Howl, that flaming end was entirely possible. She watched him as he bent over the table, black hair falling over his handsome face, long fingers curled beneath his chin. She loved him. But for someone who claimed he'd only ever wanted to be free, Howl had managed to collect some very dangerous enemies. She'd already had experience with some of them; in fact, one of them lived here.

Then, of course, it could be just as Howl had insinuated-- the purse could be dangerous merely because it did not belong here. They'd had that discussion before. Even the most innocent of trinkets, carried across dimensional borders, could infect a new world like germs. It could happen surprisingly quickly, too. In her mind Sophie pictured half the women of Kingsbury sporting bleached-platinum hairdos and white dresses, proliferating the style like a disease in the scant few hours or days the trinket-seller might have been here.

So perhaps it had been a good thing she'd bought it? Somehow, Sophie didn't think so. She had a sense of being deliberately misdirected, and it upset her. It was just that Howl, never one to really worry about what did not affect him directly, did not strike her as being completely altruistic in wanting to discover the purse's origins. And everyone wondered why she hadn't married him yet! Or even... well, never mindShe'd thought that by waiting-- for everything-- she'd give Howl time to learn what it was like to have a heart. To be sure that this was what he wanted.

Was love supposed to be like this? Sophie wondered. How could something that was supposed to be good and happy make her heart squeeze and ache alternately with euphoria, sympathy, pain, or even-- as now-- mistrust?

Calcifer, if he knew what was going on, stayed surprisingly silent on the matter. He merely hovered among his logs, sleepily watching all the activity.

"It must be for you, Master Howl," Markl said, blowing out a breath in frustration at their lack of progress. "Else you'd have been able to trace the magic by now, right?"

"We don't know that."

"Should I get Granny?" Sophie spoke up. She'd taken to calling the ex-witch Granny, because the old lady had never divulged her real name. Howl called her Wilhelmina as a joke, but never to Granny's face. Sophie had tried to cure him of that habit, especially in front of the impressionable Markl. "Maybe she can clear this up. She's had experience with this sort of thing, after all."

"Not necessary," Howl said hurriedly. Too hurriedly, Sophie thought. "Wilhelmina needs her beauty rest, you know. And besides, I told you."

"You're incorrigible," Sophie told him. But he'd turned his intense blue gaze on her, and his mouth held that perpetual and sensual little half-smile. The girl part of Sophie sighed inwardly, but the rational part of her gathered its wits. "Why don't we just go find that man again? I'd recognize him anywhere."

Howl sighed and dropped into another one of the kitchen chairs, limbs going loose with a whoomph. Then just as quickly he straightened. "Hey!" He'd seemed to have reached some sort of brilliant idea; his smile widened and his eyes narrowed. "You know, it's really not our problem. If he's in the city, then it's something the city needs to deal with, don't you think?"

"What a lazy way to think. I like it," Granny said as she waddled into the room, wrapped in her robe. She patted Markl on the head and leered at Howl. "I bet Madame Suliman would love to have a look at that thing."

Howl's cheeks went a little pink as he seemed to realize that he might have been overheard calling her Wilhelmina. But he looked thoughtful. "You know, you just might be right."

"You don't really want to go to her, do you?" Sophie asked. She shivered at the thought of facing that formidable old sorceress once more. She'd never blamed Howl for avoiding her.

"No. But it's exactly the sort of thing she would want to handle. And then I can stop worrying about it."

Sophie felt her heart clench and ache again, this time with profound relief. If Howl was willing to see Madame Suliman, then this little magical item couldn't have involved him at all; he really hadn't been hiding anything. She smiled. She knew it was a girly, besotted sort of smile, but she didn't care. Oh, how she loved him! She should never have doubted him. These ups and downs were somewhat exhilarating, she decided. "I'll go with you!"

Howl turned the full force of his grin on her, and Sophie felt her ankles tingle. "Am I a lucky man, or what?" he said.

"Be sure and tell her hello from me," Calcifer said, and went back to cuddling his logs.

"And from me too," said Granny.

End Chapter 2.

Disclaimer: HMC characters owned by Diana Wynne Jones and/or Studio Ghibli; Discworld characters owned by Terry Pratchett. I made no money writing this, it is purely for fun.