Title: An Awful Thing Chapter 8: Pseudopolis Yard
By: Jedishampoo (Jedishampoo at aol dot com)
Rating: PG-13 overall, averaged out I think
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.
Yet another chapter already. God I love Howl. And so for some more silliness. Hey, in Discworld, you can hardly avoid the silliness. If you're confused about any of the Ankh-Morpork characters, I'll be happy to clarify. :)
xxx
Sophie shifted her bottom and stretched her legs, trying to make herself comfortable in the Ankh-Morpork City Watch wagon as it carried them to the Watch headquarters in Pseudopolis Yard, wherever that was. But it was difficult to find a position that didn't make her teeth rattle. The wagon bounced and jerked as it rolled along the cobblestones, and her side still ached from running into their captor.
The interior was dim but Sophie could see Howl, sitting somewhat across from her on the hay-littered floor of the wagon. His arms were crossed against his chest and he was gritting his teeth.
"I could get us out of here, if it wasn't for the troll," Howl told her for the third time.
"I know you could." Sophie sighed and looked at her bound wrist. A chain fastened to the band around it ran through a window-slit in the side of the wagon. The other end was fastened to Sergeant Detritus, the troll in question, who stomp-jogged alongside the wagon. The watchmen had quickly deduced Howl's weakness-- Sophie-- and taken steps to be sure their sorcerous prisoner didn't escape. The enormous sergeant peeped a black eye through the opening now and then to make sure Howl wasn't trying anything wizardly.
One of the wagon wheels dipped into a particularly nasty rut. The wagon jerked and went airborne for a second, and then all four wheels slammed onto the cobblestones. Sophie flew into the air and crashed as well, sending her legs all askew and twisting her arm against the window. "Ow!" she said, trying to right herself.
Howl crawled over to help. "Are you all right?" he asked as he twisted on the chain at her wrist, trying to disentangle her. He examined it for a few moments, blue eyes dark and intent in the dimness of the vehicle. "I bet I could get this-- ah!" He sneezed. The contents of the floor had gone flying along with everything else in the cart, and a thin layer of dust and hay was floating down upon them.
Sophie sneezed as well.
"Hey, you in dere! Sit down! I's watching you!" Sergeant Detritus called through the opening.
"Is it okay if I see to my girl?" Howl asked in a somewhat smarmy voice.
The hole in the wall was silent for a couple of moments. Then the sergeant said, in a less rocky tone than before, "I don' want the lady ta git hurt, Mister. But I can't has you escapin'."
Howl sneezed again, and bits of hay shook down from his hair onto his face and into the neck of his blue shirt. "Rrrrrrr," he growled, and swiped at his face. Her vain Howl hated to be dirty.
"I'm all right now," Sophie called through the hole.
Howl plopped back down onto the floor and crossed his arms again with a huffy gesture. "Mud puddle," he said, and sighed.
"What?"
"Nothing," Howl said. His perpetually-smiling mouth was curled into a snarl.
Sophie wanted to laugh at the nonsensical statement, and at his petulant expression, but didn't. She could see Howl was working himself into a real snit. He'd work himself out of it soon enough.
She herself wasn't even angry anymore. A little sore, but not angry. Despite being arrested she was having an adventure. She'd have thought that being turned into an old lady and back and fooling around with missing hearts and fire demons would have been adventure enough for any quiet girl, but apparently that wasn't so.
No, the anger she'd felt at what she'd overheard was gone. Men were mostly idiots and that's all there was to it. Howl was perhaps smarter and more of a challenge than most, but she'd known that when she'd fallen head over boots in love with him. She'd been through too much on his behalf to ever not hopelessly adore him.
And the girly, besotted part of Sophie thought he looked really tempting with his hair all mussed and hay sticking out of it and his lower lip jutting out. All those back alleys, she thought dreamily. Some of that dreaminess must have come out in the grin she directed at him. Howl glanced at her and then resolutely turned away, but she saw the corner of his lip quirk up in a smile.
The Sophie she'd been earlier today would have gotten all flustered at that. But the Sophie she'd been earlier today seemed like ancient history, the nice Sophie who hadn't known what she wanted. This Sophie wanted Howl. And she wasn't going to give him up, not to any number of tramps.
The sounds of running feet and clanking metal began to filter through the slats of the wagon sides. The rocking motion stopped with a jerk, and a few seconds later that little Corporal Nobbs opened the back door.
"You come with me," he told Howl, watching him with a wary eye. "Sergeant Detritus will take care of the lady. Don't try nothin'."
Howl scooted out and shook his clothes out with a grimace, but watched carefully as the Sergeant unhooked Sophie from her shackle. Soon they both stood in a stone-walled courtyard, surrounded by-- Sophie couldn't call them all men, because they weren't-- beings, perhaps-- of all shapes and sizes. All of them wore those metal breastplates and helmets. Many were staring at Howl and Sophie and their captors. Sophie gawked right back at them. Some of the watchmen looked like dwarves. One of them wore a leather skirt and lipstick, so it seemed there were watchwomen dwarves as well. Sophie was impressed.
There was also a giant man made of clay, and what looked like a gargoyle, and was that an orange ape coming through the gate? In Ingary, people that looked like that had probably been bespelled, and they tended to go off and hide in the Wastes. Like she had. Here, they all worked together.
Sergeant Detritus nudged her in the back with his giant rocky fist, but gently. Sophie stopped staring like a yokel and walked.
They were led inside an old wood-and-stone building and up a stairway that barely accommodated the giant Sergeant Detritus, and soon they stood in an ordinary-looking office. A man stared at them dolefully from behind a pile of papers on a desk. Corporal Nobbs saluted.
"Report, Corporal," the man said, and sighed. He was about the age Sophie's father would have been if he'd lived. He had a little painting of a sturdy-looking, smiling woman holding a baby on his desk. His lined face was harried but not unkind.
Nobbs handed the man a crumpled-looking piece of paper. "Sir, I wanted to bring this to your attention, as it seemed like a special situration. We nabbed these two, that is, Sergeant Detritus and myself apprehended these two suspects in Sator Square, sir. Mr. C.M.O.T. Dibbler was running and yelling as how these two 'ad kidnapped him, if that ain't the craziest thing anyone's ever heard. I mean, surely as soon as anyone sane'd captured Throat Dibbler they'd throw him back."
The man at the desk closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Nobby, get on with it," he said.
"Sorry, Captain Vimes, sir." Nobbs straightened and took a breath, and then launched into something that sounded more rehearsed, as if he'd memorized it along the way. "We deduced male suspect, Mr. Pendragon, was wizard as suspect attempted to subduce me, Corporal Nobbs, by means of magic even though suspect did not appear to be wizard, i.e. as did not have pointy hat, was groomed, and accompanied by this woman of the female persuasion. Sergeant Detritus was unaffectated by the magic and suspects did surrender at that time. I asked male suspect whether he was wizard from Quirm and suspect said yes, though we do not believe him 'cause of him not having Quirmian accent."
"Is that it?" Captain Vimes asked.
Nobbs shuffled for a bit, then said, "yessir."
The captain looked at Howl. "Are you from Quirm?"
"No," Howl admitted.
"And are you a wizard?"
"Yes."
Vimes steepled his forefingers in front of his mouth for a moment, then seemed a bit horrified at his own motion. He flattened his hands on the desk. "Tell me your side of the story."
Howl put on his most innocent and earnest expression, and gave Vimes a somewhat more coherent version of their adventure, starting with the purse and their capture of Dibbler, and leaving out the parts about Madame Suliman and the spell Sophie had botched, as well as the little interlude that had caused them to lose Dibbler. For which Sophie was grateful.
Vimes leaned back in his chair. "And where is Throat Dibbler now? Why didn't you bring him in, Nobby?"
Corporal Nobbs looked somewhat abashed. "We couldn't find him, sir."
"That's because I-- ahem-- put a spell on him to head for Unseen University. He's probably there even now," Howl offered, trying to look contrite but helpful at the same time.
Vimes stared at them for a few moments. Sophie heard a thump at the door, and something that sounded like a muffled 'ook.'
"Wait yer turn, Special Constable Librarian," Detritus growled from behind Sophie. "We is busy."
"So," Vimes said, still staring intently at Howl. "Where are all these things Dibbler had-- the things you said you were bringing here with you?"
"Um," Howl said.
"They were sort of left at home," Sophie volunteered, speaking up at last. Why hadn't they realized that earlier?
"I've got this," Howl said, and pulled out the sparkly little purse. He showed it to Captain Vimes, girl side out.
"Oook!" Another thump on the door.
"Pretty gal." Vimes sighed again. Oddly, Sophie liked him. "Let the Special Constable in, Detritus," he said. "I think he's probably got something to do with this."
Sophie turned as the door opened and was only a little surprised to see the orange ape from earlier knuckle his way into the room. My, he's very large up close, she thought. It was very cramped with all of them shoved in there.
"Ook! Ook ook," said the ape. "Ook."
Vimes nodded as if he'd understood every ook. "And is Throat Dibbler there, too?"
"Ook."
"Well," Vimes said, turning to look at Howl and Sophie again. "It looks like you're off my hands, for which I'm grateful. Seems Archchancellor Ridcully up at the University wants to see you."
"Sir! These are criminals and furriners!" the corporal cried. Sophie figured Nobbs had probably wanted to see Howl in loads of trouble. He was holding a grudge over that confusion spell.
Vimes waved a tired hand. "Wizards aren't my department. And that's where they were headed, anyway. I think we can leave them safely in the-- er-- hands of Special Constable Librarian. I take it you'll go quietly?" This last was said to Howl.
"Yes?" Howl told him.
And so they were freed, at least into the custody of the orange ape, Special Constable Librarian. Who didn't try to shackle Sophie, which was a plus.
"I'm sure they've already forgotten their new rules about unauthorized magic. Wizards are like that," Vimes told them as they went out the door. "But I suggest you be careful, all the same. If you want to finish a job, you have to keep your mind on it." His voice held a smile.
xxx
End Chapter 8
Thanks muchly muchly for any comments:) They really do make my day.
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.