AN: Saotoshi thank you soooooo much for the brilliant beta job on my fic. *bows humbly*. You've certainly got a great eye for details and a genuis with grammar: the two EXACT qualities I lack. :D
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5: Hope
Hope; it died a quiet death when the castle door groaned open.
The Wizard's first nimble and graceful step into the castle had the impact of an earth-devouring tremor. Every featherlike foot fall a fatalistic boom.
Calcifer's eyes tapered to fine slits of scrutiny, at the lithesome Wizard.
Markl squatted on his heals plucking up the scrolls, sneaking a peek through his lashes, feverish with guilt, tingling with boyish trepidation. He was positive his Master wouldn't be too upset he had conspired to free Sophie. After all, he had been studying his spells really hard, as instructed. Nevertheless, his body's self-preservation instincts kicked in and it crawled under the table of its own accord, crushing the parchments to his chest.
Sophie jumped through her skin into the rafters: though her body, sapped bone dry of strength, couldn't follow suit. She felt Howl's eyes feeling over every inch of her skin, though they were not. She felt his lips grazing over hers, though they were not. She could feel his long slender fingers creep along the nape of her neck, though they were not: her mind bound by him. There was naught left of her for him to plunder: forcibly or otherwise.
Howl sported his ecru harlequin overstated jacket that twinkled with lavish silver threads, competing with the sunshine blond mane on his head that gleamed, despite the din of the castle. The Wizard daintily pressed the door closed behind him with the palm of his hand. His mouth set in a serene curve. A softness exuded from his alabaster skin, was it confidence or bravado that bathed him? His head hung coquettishly, veiled by the curtain of hair.
One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
Then Markl's heart stalled with the footsteps behind Sophie. His chocolate eyes grew bulbous, forgetting to breathe, taking in the tableau of Sophie hunched while his Master stood sophisticated, soaring and domineering, behind her. Both figures silhouetted in a gold aura from Calcifer. His Master turned, seemingly with exaggerated slowness, and shot Markl an indolent, boyish masterpiece of a smile, that permanently tore any girl's heart out mid beat. Yet to Markl, the smile was an alarm clanging resoundingly in his ears, signalling peril.
"Markl, my faithful apprentice. Pray tell, do you seek to be a foot stool that you cower under the table on my return?" Howl's voice was a romantic autumn night's breeze, pleasant and chilling.
The lad sprung to his feet, heaping the bundle of spells on the table to brush himself off. "W-Welcome home, Master Howl. You surprised me and I dropped the spells on the floor. I'm sorry," Markl literally squeaked, his lob-sided smile twitching with mortification.
"Leave the kid alone, Howl." Calcifer cut the potential abuse of power between any Master and apprentice. "He knows how precious those outdated things are to you," Calcifer chided with familiar contempt. "Home early then today, eh?" Calcifer queried feigning innocence, lapping flames on to his top log.
"My hand was forced, Calcifer. I must safe guard my belongings, if my trusted companions refuse to abide by my wishes during my absence. And confound it, why is my abode in the same state as when I departed this morning?" he asked aggravated, striding demurely past Sophie, and stoked Calcifer's fire with the iron poker. "Where is the cleaner I acquired?" he persisted with condescension to no one in particular.
"You know perfectly well where Sophie is, Howl. What's gotten into you? You drag the poor thing home, and then pretend she isn't here?" Calcifer seized the opportunity to defuse the confrontation before it ignited. "If that's how you woo the ladies, god help us all!" he slipped in a joke, adding a backhanded compliment for good measure, delivered with a dose of heavily coated cynicism.
"A girl of no significance doesn't warrant my attention, my friend. My wiles are reserved for well designated muses of consummate taste, conversation, charm and wit." Howl's diatribe rolled off his tongue, with precise and hurtful eloquence.
The rain of insults; the downpour of ridicule, the mindless, maddening, endless gratuitous attacks split Sophie's fragile, throbbing forehead. Her fingers punctured through the aged grey material in her lap, exposing the white pantaloons. The very idea of him made her seethe brimstone. "I'm guileless and bland with no conversation or blessed with wit, because my designation in life was to be a hat maker in Market Chipping. Not here! That's my designation due to my breeding! What's your designation, oh mighty Wizard Howl?" Her words were retaliatory and acerbic. "Pray tell," Sophie mimicked his words, her tone thick with derision and enmity. "Explain why a cave dwelling Neanderthal boasts more appeal, decorum and goodness in his dung infested, filthy mud caked toe nail than you?" She sprang up to her feet, glaring venom up at the arresting figure dwarfing her. Her mind braced with steel, her heart a drum with fearlessness. If only the frail voice that delivered her verbal blow, rang as formidable.
Markl retreated to the safety under the table (his make shift bomb shelter) and slapped his over his eyes (that peeped through his fingers), that he he couldn't tear from the giant five foot four cleaning lady and diminutive six foot Wizard towering over her: intrigued. He couldn't help himself, beaming appreciatively – slipping in love with Sophie. He really did like her. Other women clamouring after his Master always acted giggly and stupid, but not Sophie.
Sophie's definitely got more sparks than a fireworks explosion, Calcifer esteemed in chorus, observing the mental battle between the striking Herculean mouse and trounced prodigious Wizard.
Again, the lazy boyish masterpiece that stopped hearts in their wakes spread to Howl's thinning lips. His eyes boiled to a malevolent smoulder of emerald.
He stepped forward. Sophie's feet nailed themselves to the ground. Her toes curled in her boots rooting herself to the floor, while her body swayed backwards – her spirit valiant, her body yielding.
"You weren't as defiant last night," Howl's velvet voice was horribly rich and provocative, reminding Sophie of the trauma that had kept her crushed to the one spot since this morning. The enunciation, intimation of 'Sophie' made her name reek of a heinous, immoral crime. The self-loathing of her body washed over her. Tears brimmed in her bruised heart but not from her eyes. The only sign of weakness were her quivering lips. Stoically, Sophie held her breath to quell the hyperventilation pressing against her ribs.
Her eyes cut through his oily and slick mental manoeuvres, lightning flaring between them. If I don't accept what he did, then it NEVER HAPPENED! Sophie reassured herself bravely. Her fists whitened in the folds of grey material. He can only hurt me if I allow him. "I want to go home. You can't keep me here," her eyes threatened, incandescent in the gloom.
Howl's eyes rolled from her ashen cheeks to the shivering, partly askew lips. Like any predator, he could smell the weakness of his prey. For some reason, her pert nubile mouth drew him – an exotic fruit, succulent and remarkably tempting.
The split second Sophie suspected the pornographic thoughts behind Howl's eyes, she gulped in much needed air, and struck the licentious insinuation off his face. The force of the blow cracked across his cheekbone.
Markl "eeped!" His eyes watering from the mere resonance of the strike, his Master was sure to exact retribution.
Sophie shrieked in disgust, "How dare you regard me so shamelessly?"
Howl kept his face inclined at the position Sophie had struck it to. A sinful, blood-curdling chuckle erupted from his chest. His blond strands hung over his half cast lids, his pale, luminescent jade eyes sliding back to the lips he owned, along with the rest of Sophie's body. Flipping back his hair like a fashion model, Howl rubbed the balls of his fingers over his reddened cheek. He titled his chin high in order to look further down on his property, his eyes continuing their assessment of Sophie's every curve, stripping her naked.
Her wall of defence crumbled against psychological brutality. Sophie retreated to the railing, her eyes reduced to pin pricks: speechless at the inhuman, profligate Wizard.
"Typical female: acquiesce one day, play coy the next." He stoked at the hearth, the broad expanse of his back to her. "So why not leave during my absence, then? Or possibly, you stayed to bid farewell to your Master?" he prodded reprehensibly. "You cherish being in the service of a well heeled and powerful Lord. Am I not correct?" he lilted with a snide, sinister smile lighting his face.
Sophie pried her bound fingers off the railing, her knees shaking at the Wizard's presence. An acidic heat stung her eyes: tears, once upon a time Sophie's, now the Wizard's, closest ally. Don't cry! He's not worth crying about, Sophie! "You're nothing to me BUT a heel! You're nothing BUT a bloodless, heartless cretin, a walking corpse! As for last night…l-last n-n…" she wheeled from him, the salty streaks all-consuming, her body bent over the railing. She wiped viciously at them with the hem of her sleeve. I can't defend what I don't remember! Where did that night flee to in my mind?
"…Oh gracious golly, touchy aren't we?" Howl snorted with merry satisfaction, victorious. He swivelled on his boot heel, and leant on the side of the hearth, arms crossed over his chest. Through the heady shadows, his words gutted a wound from her ribs through to her stomach. "Needless to say, I've sampled more succulent a… morsel."
Sophie clutched at her stomach, clamping her mouth closed. Terrified the meager contents of her stomach would escape. He didn't! NO! She denied hopelessly, shunning her own misery. However, the back of her mind steadfastly acquiesced to his allusion.
"Sophie?" Markl's anxious voice asked from under the table, touching Sophie with shards of hope through the Wizard's darkness. It's only my body, just…my body… "You'll never be able touch me," she murmured repeatedly, the chants coming to a crescendo as she prayed for might to confront the Wizard face on. However, her mind was stronger than her heart of glass, shattering in on itself. The idea of casting eyes on him sickened and incapacitated her.
"What's Sophie talking about, Howl? What did you do last night?" Calcifer leapt high on his logs and glowered suspiciously around the hearth to his pretty friend.
"A gentleman never kisses and tells," Howl leered unhelpfully, sashaying to the front of the hearth to throw a few logs onto the fired up demon.
"A. Gen-tle. MAN?" Calcifer spewed more flames on his blaze, roaring with contempt. "Don't try to bribe me with logs, Howl! What did you do to Sophie?" Calcifer slapped the offering of logs, sending them bouncing to the floor with a dull thud.
For an instant, confusion surged over Markl's face, seconds later shifting to a child's rose coloured interpretation of the conversation. "Master Howl kissed Sophie?" Markl blushed (at the idea a kiss) crimson at his Master, stomping his feet. "I knew it! You ARE his girlfriend!" he flustered to Sophie, bouncing with fervour and delight from his vantage point. He bound over to Sophie and hugged her around the waist, tight. He couldn't control it. His Master had a girlfriend. Moreover, HE Markl, had a friend, too, now. They fought and that's why Sophie is crying! He congratulated himself on the revelation, and promised to cheer up his new friend.
Sophie spun around in disgust – expecting the Wizard- ready to pounce and slash him to shreds. Instead, she jolted violently to discover huge, tender and true shimmering eyes pleading ecstatically up at her. The vision of Markl's saintly face, sparkling bliss and affection mollified the rage scalding in her veins. How could such a naive cherub live...here? With his simple gesture, Markl had firmly patched a bandage over her battered emotions.
"I'll keep you safe here, Sophie, I promise. Please don't go, Sophie. I don't know why, but I like you so much. Please." Markl implored, nuzzling his face into her stomach. "You're in my heart now. You can't go."
"Markl…sweetie," Sophie sobbed, torn. Shimmering silver streaks mingled bitter hatred for the boy's Master with fondness for the apprentice. Markl was the supreme escape from the older, malicious slick enigma before her, hell bent on tearing her apart — flesh to bone— physically and mentally.
"Why am I here?" she suppressed the unearthly weariness in her voice, pressing her cheek into the mop of Markl's hair, imagining strolling carefree, through floral pastures with him. He shouldn't have to bear witness to this altercation. Surely, the Wizard, his Master would appreciate this fact, and shield Markl from his evil ways.
"You're a mere business transaction, my little mouse. I was slaying a few birds and pandering to an upstart fire demon. Calcifer injured my tender disposition referring to my cosy abode as a 'pigsty'; your mother was laden with a stepdaughter; you were merely spoiling time with your existence. Your absence will not be missed, rest assured. The ideal candidate for my employ," Howl expounded in a clerical tenor, Arctic and unfeeling.
Chortling, strangled noises of disbelief echoed in the hearth. "Diddums Howl, I never knew you were so sensitive. There, there," Calcifer quipped patting Howl on his forearms with mock empathy. In all their years together, the fire demon had yet to witness this sinister manifestation in the Wizard. Something had bubbled and stirred in his friend: for the better or worse. Whether it was due to the ageing curse, he wasn't sure. He really liked Sophie's spark. But it would be corrupt to confine an untainted girl here. "Maybe you should let her go if she doesn't want to stay, Howl?" Calcifer wiped his undulating brow, hissing mournfully at the idea. "Poor Sophie—"
"I did not pay for an emotional 'pauper' or otherwise, Calcifer. Nor did I pay for a 'slap happy vixen'. I paid for a debt, and received a cleaner, a discarded daughter, in return for my generosity." Howl oozed pedantically, flicking the bangs fringing his eyes.
"I won't do it, you can't make me!" Sophie interjected icily, fixing animosity to his unflappable gaze: ice on ice, shuttering her ears to his indomitable slurs, hugging Markl harder to her. The Wizard wouldn't crush her spirit this easily.
Howl exhaled, agitated with impatience at the flow of the conversation. "Very well, go if you will," he gestured his hands dismissively towards the door. "I can't make you stay. Nor should I have need to encroach on an unwilling little chit."
Sophie's jaw unhinged, eyes looming beacons of disbelief. A knot of gratitude twisted with rile, choking in her throat. Maybe he did possess a grain of humanity.
"Lettie is by far sweeter on the eyes, a perfect substitute. She will take your place. Out of the fountain of decency within me, I compensated dearly, munificently, for a cleaner. I wiped your family's monetary burden with my charity; freed your mother and sisters from a life-long and beyond death debt. My contract will be honoured by a Hatter."
Sophie choked on her very breath — and misplaced appreciation— at the conniving Wizard's ingeniously cloaked conspiracy. The Wizard was cunning incarnate. Cajoling her, flaying her to slithers in front of Markl, and the lad was none the wiser. The young apprentice revered his Master's facade of integrity, respect and charity. To Markl, Howl's subversive offer to free Sophie set a halo on the Wizard's head.
Howl brushed a non-existent hair from his sleeve, inspecting his nails with equal apathy: dramatizing his tedium with Sophie's defiance and temerity. "Otherwise, there is always Martha; I believe that's her name? She seems a very capable young lady, doesn't she? Disappointing really, that some lack the courage to uphold an uncomplicated, undemanding duty: to clean this humble abode." Howl swept his lithe arms in an arc around the tiny living area, elaborating his words. "Scuttle back to your little hat shop, then: be gone and out of my sight, my rat," he injected his tone with a lethal dose of poison.
Swivelling on air, Howl's back ended the conversation with his captive audience. He strode tall and blue-blooded. "I'll need some hot water for my bath now, Calcifer. It has been a rather trying welcome home this evening." He continued up the dusty stairs, pointing his elegant profile to the hearth, cool and triumphant. "After all, I can't make you stay. Can I, Sophie?"
AN: AH! Got an update up. Happy new'ish year everyone. I've been sick and just got back to work today. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Makes a huge difference and gives me a warm fuzzy glow. Anyhoo, love any feedback especially on Howl. Calcifer yells out 'She likes my SPARK!' in the movie and I loved that line to no end - just had to add it in. :D C ya everyone.