February Breath

Disclaimer: If I owned Howl's Moving Castle, trust me, you'd know it.

A/N: This chapter's longer than the ones before (finally) which I personally like better. A little funny stuff comes from Calcifer's end of things—the rest is Howl doing some explaining (as well as some slithering-out) to Sophie and some dramatic emotional stuff by Howl at the end—gasp!—a little something unexpected too, I'm hoping. Oh, and the song that inspired me along the way light make more sense. You know what to do: enjoy and comment!

You take the breath right out of me

And left a hole where my heart should be

You gotta fight just to make it through

Cause I will be the death of you

Breath – Breaking Benjamin

Chaper 3:

I gasped, shaking my head uncomprehendingly. Me? Magic? A different world…

"It was the year 1693…" Howl began.

I groaned. "You're kidding. The Salem Witch Trials? Really?"

Howl gave me an odd look. "How do you know that?"

"I don't know, I just have a good memory with dates and stuff. I probably learned it in U. S. History or something."

"Well, I was around during that time, too, but I was safe since only women were being targeted. Someone actually saw you doing a spell—you were the only one accused as far as I know that was actually a witch during the entire time of the trials. We were acquainted and were kind of forced to spend time together considering the circumstances, but when you were—" he swallowed hard, "burned at the stake, I decided I'd seek you out in your next life and tell you that I was sorry."

I frowned. "That you were…sorry? For what?"

He sighed. "We lived here in Ingary, in the same town. We knew each other because we were both very gifted with magic. One day we were trying a very delicate and complex spell that was my idea, and something went wrong. We got sent, without a warning, to what's now your world. So we tried to live quiet lives but we couldn't make our friendship too publicly known—it simply wasn't acceptable—yet we needed each other if we were to preserve our powers. You got caught eventually, and…well, I blamed myself for having the idea to do the spell that went us there in the first place. Your death was violent, unjust, and most definitely premature, so yes, you are a witch with no knowledge of your capacities and a broken soul. And you were born into the world that we were both sent into, although I was reborn here. I suppose it was because of the damage to your soul. And you didn't come back for a few hundred years so I kept worrying that I had missed you."

"…Well then." I cleared my throat and tried not to start hyperventilating. "That actually sounds possible, but I'm going to need a little more concrete proof than your word."

Howl gave me a look of mock offense. "What, you don't trust me?"

I crossed my arms and glared at him out of the corner of my eye. "Would you trust a vain, uppity teenage wizard who just suddenly appeared one day to convince you that magic is real with no warning, explanation, or proof to speak of?"

"Saving you in the process—"

"I can most certainly take care of myself—"

"—Hey! Vain?!"

"Absolutely. Did I mention your immediate aura of "I'm a total player"?" I made air quotes.

"Kids these days," Howl grumbled resignedly, obviously looking to annoy me.

"They get more perceptive all the time!" Calcifer cackled.

"Excuse me! I'm eighteen next month! What are you, like, nineteen?" I needled his ego.

Howl made a face. "Twenty-two."

We glared at each other for a minute before he continued. "Alright. You wanted proof, right? Do you still have that scar on your left upper arm?"

My eyes got big. "How do you—"

"It looks kind of like a 'W,' right? For 'witch.' They branded you when you were convicted and the scar carried over into your new body."

All I could say was, "Wow." Our brief argument vanished from my mind as I got tunnel vision for a second and swayed slightly before regaining my composure. "So to summarize, that's the reason for you showing up," I said faintly.

Howl looked at me worriedly, his attitude taking a sudden turn. "I know it's a lot to take in."

I shook my head. "I'm alright. But…me? A witch? I'm just about the clumsiest person on earth, probably not the best for handling spells and whatnot."

Calcifer snorted, reminding me of his presence. Their arguments were always like that, he thought to himself. Usually followed by Howl attempting to kiss Sophie when her guard was down and her hitting him with something.

I glared at him. "No comments, if you please."

"Sure, sure…" Calcifer muttered, suppressing laughter.

"Well, if you're really alright." Howl stood and walked to a flight of stairs at the back of the room. "Hot water, Calcifer?"

"Yeah, I know," he grumbled back. I looked at the fire demon quizzically. "I pretty much run this castle yet Howl treats me like I'm his slave," he complained. "It burns me up!"

"Yet you can't clean?" I looked around.

"Hello. I'd burn anything I touched. And besides, cleaning usually involves water." He shuddered, at least I guessed that was what he did because he flickered and made a face.

"Well, since I have nothing better to do and I'm still not done talking to Howl, excuse me, I mean his ego…" I shrugged.

At this Calcifer laughed outright. "Finally, a girl who can see straight through Howl! I love it!"

"Thank you?"

"No, it's just that," he snorted, "all the girls are usually falling all over themselves for Howl and all they care about are his looks, and here you are talking about his vanity only ten minutes after meeting him!" He cackled and I'm sure would have been rolling on the floor had he not been…well, you know.

"Hmph. Well I'm not falling over myself for anybody, much less him, so it's perfectly fine." I marched around the room looking for something remotely resembling cleaning supplies.

He narrowed his eyes slyly. "Noooo one?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," I said tightly. I wasn't going to think about that now. "Love is just another way for people to get to you and hurt you and make you think that it was all your fault all along. Friendship is a much better alternative except when someone wants it to be something more, and then it's just weird, but if you're lucky enough to completely skim over that issue, later the one person, they might…" I faltered slightly. "With no warning… No rational incentive…" I took a quiet, shuddering breath. "It's an unnecessary complication that no one needs, at this age anyway."

"I see." Dammit, Calcifer was too smart. He just got me to vent my past issues to him without hardly saying anything to me.

"Hey, a broom!" I said, mostly to drop the painful subject. "Alright, Calcifer. Move it."

"What? What are you doing?" he yelped as I went after the log he was hanging onto with a pair of tongs and deposited him in a bucket. I threw a new log in with him. Didn't want him going out or something like that. "Ahhh no help help help! You crazy lady with tongs!"

"Oh, hush." I swept out the ashes and plopped him back in a clean hearth. "See, isn't that better?"

He huffed, which I took for a yes.

When Howl came downstairs about an hour later, he had a small brown-haired boy in tow. "Sophie, this is Markl. He's my apprentice. Markl, this is Sophie. I've already told you about her."

"Hi Markl," I smiled. He was cute. About ten years old and a little mischievous-looking, almost like Howl. Let's hope he isn't teaching him any tricks quite yet, I thought.

"Hi, Sophie," he said shyly.

"We're going into Porthaven," Howl announced. "We'll be back in a couple hours." He walked to the door and turned the knob, also spinning a dial on the wall by the door so that the blue section of it was facing up. I was wondering what that meant when he opened the door onto a street in what looked like an old-fashioned coastal town and walked away with Markl, the door shutting behind him.

I looked at Calcifer, my brow wrinkling. "We're not in the Wastes anymore?"

"Well, the door has four portals, hence the four colors on the dial. Howl has them set so that the red one goes to Kingsbury, the capital city of Ingary, the blue one to Porthaven, what you just saw, the green one to the Wastes, and the black one…well, no one but Howl knows where that one goes."

I stared at the demon for a second before grinning and bouncing off across the room, pushing up the sleeves of my sweatshirt. "That is so cool!" I squealed uncharacteristically.

"Um, glad you think…so…?"

Sophie had been sweeping (no pun intended) through the living room cleaning everything she came across, for once actually getting some gratification and happiness out of the work. As she worked her dancer instincts won over and she had been starting to hum to herself as a song popped into her head. Calcifer was taking a nap, and she reveled in the temporary solitude to let her thoughts wander and autopilot take over her actions.

She became so absorbed that she didn't even notice when the door opened and Howl started up the steps into the room. He froze, halfway up, when he saw Sophie.

A contented smile was on her face as her bare feet whispered across the wooden floor. She still had a broom in her hands and was nearly dancing around the room doing the last of the cleaning. She pivoted towards the door and her large gray eyes lighted on Howl.

All Howl could think was how beautiful she was. She had always been that way; it just seemed that in this life she didn't know it yet. However, she had also always rejected his love and had a tendency to get violent about it when he got too persistent. This Sophie tended to have a little more self-control, though, he thought.

She had stopped, breathing a little fast, just staring at Howl. She shook herself. "It's not polite to sneak up on people, you know."

"I wasn't sneaking anywhere, you just don't pay enough attention," Howl retorted, snapping out of it. "And besides, it's my castle. Which is actually hardly recognizable." He looked around in wonder.

"Erm, speaking of unrecognizable…" Calcifer popped up in the hearth. "I was thinking a minute ago. What happens when someone from Kingsbury picking up a spell comes in here and sees Sophie?"

Howl laughed. "She's just a girl, Cal, what's the matter?" Sophie bit back a snappy response.

"Go outside, Howl, and tell me if you see any teenage girls wearing…whatever it is you're wearing." Calcifer directed the last part at Sophie.

"What, jeans and a sweatshirt? What's the big deal?" Sophie thought for a second. "Oh. Oh. Oh, jeez, don't tell me they all wear dresses and all that here."

"Different world, my dear Sophie, a different world," Howl sighed dramatically, confirming her thoughts.

"So, tell me then, oh wise wizard Howl, how do you propose I fix this? I can't exactly magic myself into new clothes," she scoffed, struggling out of her heavy sweatshirt to reveal a simple green t-shirt.

Howl looked at her pointedly and she realized what she had just said and gasped. "Oh, you're kidding."

"Well, you've only just awakened to your powers today, but the exposure to magic so far should have helped a little. Maybe you can pull something out of your past memories. Try it."

"Alright, but I thought you said that only the really good people got their memories of other lives back," she narrowed her eyes suspiciously.

He ran a hand through his hair. "You caught that, huh? Hmph. It's worth a try anyway, just see if you can come up with a place, a name, maybe some words…" He wasn't going to tell her quite yet how amazing they'd been together in their past lives; enough to gain their old memories back. He still remembered the first time they met, thousands of years ago.

She bit her lip but nodded, sinking to sit on the floor. She closed her eyes and forced herself to think back. Way back. She became younger in her mind slowly. She was thirteen; nine; six; two; before that, not much came except for faint images that danced just beyond her reach, as if a translucent veil covered the paths through her mind… Then something stirred. She felt smaller but knew she was older than eighteen, even though she knew she was remembering before she had been born, somehow…and she was terrified of blood.

That gave her a shock and her eyes snapped open to see Howl's cerulean ones staring at her concernedly. "I was scared of blood," she whispered. It was strange. In this life—funny as that sounded—she didn't think she'd ever minded blood. All the kids had done the needle-prick blood type test in biology, and all she ever feared was actual needles, like for a flu shot or whatever. Maybe that was the just the interpretation of the fear that this day and age had taken.

"Sophie?" Howl still looked worried. "Was that all?"

"I…don't know," she said quietly, forgetting for the moment how much Howl annoyed her. "Is that even accurate, or am I going crazy?"

"Oh, that was very accurate. You were absolutely petrified of it. Ironic that you were burned," his voice broke slightly in an unusually potent wave of emotion.

Sophie shuddered at the thought. I'm glad I don't remember dying. That's horrible. Then she had a slightly off-topic thought. "Wait, if you got through to…my world…and brought me back, then how come we stuck around there when we got there by accident in the 17th century? Jeez, that sounds weird."

Howl chuckled briefly. "We were close to figuring out the spell and all to do just that when you were taken." He didn't want to think about why and how the people had caught her working her spells. He knew he was responsible for that, too—another thing he hadn't mentioned to Sophie— although he couldn't seem to remember any of it. Not tipping someone off, not showing them where to find her. Only watching her die through cold eyes. To this day he wondered why, through his memories, he hadn't seemed to care for the girl he'd realized he loved. In every life after the first, he sold his heart to one demon or another, like Calcifer. Sophie always returned it to him, usually unknowingly, and always just before her premature death. It was always early. And it was always, in one way or another, Howl's fault. But he could never remember the details of what he did to cause it. He thought his subconscious must have blocked the memories, disgusted with himself for his unforgivable and repulsive actions. Now, in this life, he was trying so hard to unearth real emotions for Sophie from within himself, even though he had no heart.

A/N: Awww Howl's such a mess. There's some more explanations for ya. (And the song should make some more sense now, yes?) I'm warning you now: what Howl tells Sophie is almost never the complete truth so the same stories may seem to contradict each other at times! Comment and ask me what's going on if you're just altogether too confused. (But I think it gets clearer.) Actually, you know what? Comment anyway!!