Teddy Girls
A quaint little town. Disturbed with the timely passage of a train and its smoke trail of hopes and dreams. There, outside of the hub and main townsquare where the fancy, rich and influential showcased their importance, stood a charming hat store. Many of the ladies there shopped because, some said, if you bought a hat from the Hatter's shop something fairly good will happen to you, why, marriage proposals happpened a lot while using the prettiest atire completed with the colorful headpiece!
Sophie Hatter, despite being the creator of many of those self fulfilling amazing hats, is strangely uncharming herself. Plain. Quiet. Unobstrusive.
Unfortunately for her, she got in the middle of a whirlwind romance and her cute rat like features got the attention of two of the most powerful beings.
While being bravely saved from entitled soldiers in the small alleys she used to avoid the crowds, Sophie met one of those people. Handsome, blonde, with cold as glass and equaly as unfeeling blue eyes, gentleman that made her fly, in the quite literal sense of the word! And walk like she could step on clouds. Sophie Hatter had irrevocably lost her heart in that moment. But since she was such a character that didn't intend to pursue things so fickle like romance and prefered a much reliable sense of self and duty... back she went to her family shop after a little visit to her sister.
Whenever she returns from the vivid, beautiful and chaotic aura of her sibling, Sophie tried to emulate her confidence, her smiles, gestures and what say you that would get her more than a passing glance. It wasn't ever possible: her eyes too normal, hair color too boring and styled practical as ever but not really flattering; and whyever would she care for her hats, shoes or dresses when she would just spend the entire day in the workshop confabulating with her creations?
That was, indeed, until a fantastically beautiful woman came to her shop after hours, gliding like she owned the place, covered in furs and a scandalous black tight dress. Why! It was the WItch of the Wastelands! How could have Sophie known? Aditionally, how could she believe a lady would be so jealous and full of envy to track down her supposed rival for robbing her of her man? That was one little heart the Witch wanted and would have for herself no matter where and for how long the Wizard Howl would dare to evade her.
She knew her self worth. She was a reigning queen on her own right and power.
But...
It isn't as if a leader needed a spouse to rule. And it wasn't even love that drove her to outskirts of whole worlds looking for the one male hiding away from her attentions, she doesn't like to lose her toys, and Howl's fugitive heart is definitely a prized item to her collection.
Loving men, dear! It is such na strange notion, illogical, unfulfilling. And settling with just one is a miserable idea if she ever saw one! But owning men and whatever made them passionate and oh so interesting? That was splendid! Such a groundbreaking twist to inverting sociopolitical stylish fiends. Some may call her a libertine, a loose woman of morals, dirty in mind but not in appearance,
slut may have been shouted bravely from mouths she didn't care about.
The little girl, on the other hand, barely a slip of womanhood and already with heaving shoulders of responsabilities, she can be someone of interest to such a distinguished lady witch. She can be the bearer of the curse of enlightment, of women's magic and pleasure and to look at mankind in a way unbefitting to what they were taught to do but ultimately would set them free of such shackles.
A pale rosebud, shut tightly, shying away from attention, is Sophie's mouth, unremarkable, quiet, that with enough attention of a bee's kiss, stingy, unappologetic infringes upon. The Witch of the Wastelands has kissed the eighteen year old, fingers grasping the girl's chin in the correct placement and sure as one would need to be in order to hold a rose with a stem covered in thorns. The feminine gasps and breathing made fine mist appear in the otherwise quiet location.
The shock, the rush of blood surging in the fragile unsuspecting girl, that has never received such attentions, was enough to have her guided to one room with a bed, covers and some needed privacy, how she couldn't catch her breath, how her muscles were uncooperative, the way her mouth hungered for more of the fine lady was surely under the guise of a spell! The evilest of them all, Sophe could not wrap her head around anything else other than soft skin glowing under moonlight.
And, before morning came, silently and as mysteriously as the Witch showed at a simple hat shop, she left. With a second parting gift to beloved Sophie, that way she would have a harder time seducing Howl Jenkins again, wearing a 90 year old husk of a body, living as outside of people's imagination as she had in her youth.
It was a solid plan from a super villainess enshrouded as she is in luxury and lust. Strange, however, how the apathy hasn't brought quiet Sophie down to her early grave. Now, she had a passion for life, for everything, even if she realizes her past life wasn't so bad and it was okay to let go. Having the burden of caring for her looks taken away just made her happiest and eager to experiment in the things she actually cared for. Both curses from the Witch were actually blessings! She knew pleasure, she knew life, she has no more fear or anxiety and her heart is tempered with a wizen mind.
The entire packaging made her more attractive to Howl than when she was a teen.
Saves him from all that inane and insipid giggling quality of younger people in love, desperate and off-putting, as engaged as a cobra that tries to strangle every bit of attention it posssibly can before the end.
Nevertheless, this crude decision of ignoring sweet sighs does not deter women from falling for the crafty wizard, not even the lady witch! Despite Calcifer, being integrated to Howl's heart, giving off the prettiest sparkles and flames of energy, seducing her enough to protect it, being taken by a shiny heart isn't enough to hold the Witch of the Wastelands. As a self confessed sensualist, however, she could ignore most of Howl's otherness and focus on making Sophie Hatter forget about wily old fools running away from their problems.
Demanding, obssessivley taking every bit of fire from Sophie's no longer as supple body, the Witch finds herself again...
The skin of the younglings may be nicer but the experience of someone who wants another and not just a fantasy makes for raw reality to invade this scenario. No more simulacrum of happy town and deaths in an obscure war that kills humanity but joy, lust, alternatively better living when they had to just take a step sideways from the rest of society.
Mousy, cute, feisty little girl. Blossomed into a fierce woman that could show most impudence by simply walking faster than her rival and old lover when climbing the palace's multiple stairs.
May be a clash of impossibility between Witch and Wizard, only this unambitious quaint Sophie manages to create a nice point for a triangle.