Title: An Awful Thing, Chapter 7: Adventure in Ankh Morpork

By: Jedishampoo (Jedishampoo at aol dot com)

Rating: PG-13 overall. Averaged out.

Summary: Howl and Sophie get mixed up in magical and dimensional 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.

Some gooey-ness, and some action. If you're confused about any of the Ankh-Morpork characters, I'll be happy to clarify. :)

xxx

Well, Howl thought, here they were, it seemed. Ankh-Morpork, the 'greatest city in the world.'

It didn't look all that fabulous. Admittedly, they probably weren't getting the best possible view of the city, roaming the rat-warrens of back alleys as they were. Even so, the place was a bit more grimy and lived-in than any city Howl had visited in Ingary. The people on the street pretended to ignore them, but unseen eyes watched them from behind every pile of trash and every dingy-curtained window. They were eyes that assessed the strangers and wondered how much money they were carrying, how much their clothes might be worth, and how easy or not it might be to take those things from them. Yes, this was a city with teeth.

Howl wanted to get to this Unseen University as quickly as possible. He wanted to be rid of Dibbler. And he wanted a bath. Not necessarily in that order.

But he'd bespelled Dibbler to head for the University, so they had no choice but to follow the strange little man on his circuitous route. If Howl wasn't so confident in his own magic he would have thought that Dibbler was deliberately trying to get them lost.

Sophie didn't seem to care. She had a firm grip on Howl's hand, and was tripping along beside him with a smile on her face and a jaunty step that sent her silvery hair bouncing about her shoulders. Howl tried to see what she might be seeing, to see what was so wonderful about the smoky-grey walls and laundry and the shuffling, evil-looking denizens of this place, and couldn't fathom it. Really, if she wanted to see other worlds, he knew of some better ones they could visit.

And he suddenly remembered that he'd never offered.

She looked, happy, though. When she'd burst back into the castle there had been murder in her eyes. Now might be a good time to find out why.

"Soooo..." he said, drawing the syllable out very carefully and tentatively. "What were you going to say, before the...uhh...spell went wrong?"

Sophie didn't even look at him, only shook her head. "Nothing. Don't worry about it right now."

That only frightened him more. Howl strongly suspected she was aware of this fact.

"So. Do you like it here?"

She shook her head again. "It's awful. But I'm glad I saw it. It's different. The sky is even different, I think."

That would be the pollution, thought Howl. They didn't seem to have motorcars or those little flyers here, but a shroud of humidity mixed with greasy fire-smoke hung over the city like a wet, stinky blanket. Howl coughed.

"Um," he began again. "I wasn't going to leave without saying goodbye."

"I know that. Let's just finish this and get home." Her voice was almost sing-song-y, and yet hard-edged and spooky at the same time. This Sophie was one he'd not yet seen. It was mysterious. He decided he liked it. It was kind of exciting.

Howl slipped his hand from Sophie's to curl his arm around her waist and pull her close to his side. She didn't object. And she felt great. She squished against him in all the right places. He also discovered that if he leaned over just so as they were walking, he could sort of see down the front of her green dress.

Howl decided that he'd had enough of being completely responsible for one day. He was on an adventure, and he had a pretty girl at his side. An increase in noise, the chattering of hundreds of voices, signaled that they were reaching a more populated area. Sure enough, ahead he could see the alley oozing through a narrow gap into a crowded market-type square. But there was nobody right here.

"Wait a bit," he said, and slowed his pace. Sophie, glued to his side, had to do the same. He took a couple of steps backwards until his rear end hit a wall. Oh well, he was already filthy. "We'll finish this business soon enough."

"Not if we lose him."

"We'll find him again. He'll be all right," Howl told her, and circled her waist with his other arm. She smelled wonderful, a little circle of fresh air in the nasty atmosphere of Ankh-Morpork. And she was all warm from their walk. He found it terribly erotic. So he leaned his head down to kiss her.

Sophie gave him a chaste little peck, then looked up at him with narrowed brown eyes. "Two alleys in one day," she said in an odd voice. But she didn't pull away.

"I'm a lucky man," he told her, but it came out sounding more like "ma morf mn" because he hadn't even waited to speak before kissing her again. And this time she didn't stop him, but freed her arms from her sides to wind her little hands in the hair at the back of his neck. Her fingers tickled. It was marvelous.

And this kiss was decidedly less chaste. Her lips were open and Howl could taste her breath and the inside of her mouth. His heart was a frightening thing sometimes. It was stretched so tight he thought it might burst, but it did cause such a lovely rushing of the blood through his ears whenever he kissed her.

Sophie's fingers in the collar of his shirt were magic. His arms and legs didn't exist; he might as well slide down the wall, boneless, taking her with him. Well, not entirely--

"Help!" a cracked voice cried from somewhere, trying to intrude upon Howl's ecstasy. "Watch! Help! I bin kidnapped!"

That was Dibbler, one part of his brain said. So what, said another.

But Sophie jumped back, hair flying as she whipped her head about, looking for the voice. "That was Dibbler!" she said, then set her hands on her hips and gave Howl an accusing look. Her cheeks were pink. She looked amazing. "Howl! Pay attention! Didn't you silence him, at least?"

"I…" Howl shook his head to surface from his haze. "I-- well-- I didn't think it would matter if he talked!"

Sophie rolled her eyes and grabbed his hand. "Come on, before we do lose him!"

They ran, soon reaching the end of the alley. They stopped for a moment, and Howl surveyed the crowded square with some dismay. Dibbler had stopped yelling and at first Howl couldn't-- wait, there was a bit of his own magic, right there. Howl waved his finger, trying to use his most inconspicuous spell. The crowd parted slightly, and Howl saw Dibbler's back, his feet flapping behind it with surprising speed. He was heading for a-- well, it sort of looked like a man-- wearing a battered metal helmet and breastplate and a pugnacious expression. Howl took off after Dibbler, flicking a silencing spell on him for good measure.

At first Howl thought the spell had gone a little wild, because the ambient noise level in the square dropped considerably. But as he and Sophie ran, he began to realize that people were just turning about, trying to see what was going on.

Dibbler reached the man and looked like he was trying to stop, but he only slid, veering off in another direction. He ran away slowly, like he was underwater.

That would be Howl's other spell doing its work, the directional spell he'd put on Dibbler when they'd arrived in the city.

"Throat?" the sort-of man, the watchman, called after Dibbler's back, pulling something small and damp from between his lips and sticking it behind his ear. "Where you been? Where you goin'? Oo'd wanna kidnap you?"

Howl sighed and flicked a confusion spell at the… man, then swerved to follow Dibbler.

"Whass goin' on? Was that Throat Dibbler? Where am I? Watch! Help!" the watchman yelled, running in circles. Howl realized that he'd probably not chosen the best spell to use at that moment, but there was no time to worry about it. Now people were standing and staring in earnest. They had to get out of here, find Dibbler--

And Howl suddenly he realized he was running straight towards a stone wall. He skidded to a stop, but Sophie wasn't so lucky. She kept going. Howl winced, and his heart stopped. The wall caught her.

"'Ere! Wot's all dis, den?" the wall asked.

Howl saw the massive rocky arm about Sophie, and looked up. And up. And up. A regular mountain of a thing was glaring at him with unreadable onyx eyes. And it was wearing a massive breastplate, and holding the largest crossbow Howl had ever seen.

"Nuffink to see here, move along," the mountain said to the crowd, which ignored him completely. Then it turned back to Howl and said, "You! Halt! In de name of de law."

"Izzat Sergeant Detritus? Help me, you stupid troll! I'm over 'ere!" Howl's earlier victim was still spinning and yowling.

A troll? Howl waved a hand at it, trying to get it to drop Sophie. Nothing happened.

"Why you wavin' your hand like dat? What you do to Corporal Nobbs?" Its eyes narrowed to hard, dark jewels. It lifted its arm, taking Sophie with it. Her brown eyes were frightened, and she let out a little yelp, of pain or fear, Howl couldn't tell, he was so panicked. The market area froze in a crystal moment; the odd clothing on the people and the strange statues with the heads of animals popping up through the throngs like mountains above the clouds. Everything was picked out in utter, terrifying clarity.

"Don't hurt her! I give up," Howl said when he could breathe again, and raised his hands.

xxx

End Chapter 7

Thanks for reading! Please comment, tell me if you like or hate it. I can take it.

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.