Summary: This is a DIRECT follow on from the 'Ensnared' chapter. The sentence flows on from when Sophie is reduced to her knees by Howl's manipulations. Has Howl quite quenched his ego and ready to give Sophie peace? Read on and find out in the final half of the 'Ensnared' chapter. Can Sophie will her freedom from the Wizard?
AN: To my awesome beta Saotoshi, you rock - and you also happen to be brilliantly talented too!! :)
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7: Enslaved
Forced to her knees- irrevocably outfoxed and cornered into submission, Sophie supplicated to her Master, "I want to stay with you, Howl. I don't want to leave you. And I won't…until such time you see fit to be rid of me."
An aura of laconic disquiet clouded over the Wizard. Howl scowled through narrowed exquisite eyes, quite dissatisfied at the broken woman. The battle was his, yet the hollow victory chilled his already frost bitten marrow.
Sophie waited, her pulse stuttering in fear, for his reply. None came. Phobic the drawn out silence meant the Wizard would take one of her sisters, Sophie expressed with utmost humility, sincerity… and sadness, "I want to be here, in the castle, to fulfill the contract, Master Howl." Her vision of the weald floor wavered in a flood of tears. The droplets fell as Sophie irrevocably resigned her life and dignity to the Wizard. "Please, let me stay with you."
Involuntarily, the Wizard recoiled at the hurt steeped in her voice. Catching this unfamiliar and unwelcome weakness, Howl quickly recovered his usual demeanour. He ejected a sigh of one with the troubles of the world lifted from his shoulders. He protracted his brooding; hanging Sophie a tad longer on the noose, she'd slipped around her neck. "That's better. Well done, Sophie. Taming of wild a shrew is indeed challenging, is it not, Calcifer?" Howl demurred testily to the fire demon.
"For sure! How could anyone tame you, Howl? You shrew, you!" Calcifer disguised his anxiety with black humour, powerless to stop his friend's terrorism. This turn of events was beyond the demon's ageless comprehension. He surged and twisted his bonfire to the back of the blackened hearth, wishing to shut out the devastation the Wizard rained over Sophie. Nevertheless, his eyes simply rotated through his flames, to the depressive drama in his kitchen. Damn 360-degree vision! He cussed, hissing and spitting fumes. "Don't get me involved in your denigrate affairs, Howl. I want no part of binding Sophie here against her will!" Calcifer raged tendrils of fire, crossing his arms. "And people have the nerve to call ME a demon! Talk about a bad-rap!" He lashed his fork tongue at Howl, defiantly petulant.
"Ah, but Sophie is not bound here by any will but her own. Is that not correct, Sophie?" Howl leered indolently, drinking in the wreckage of the girl who had the audacity refuse him!
Bent over, lifeless as a worn down mountain, Sophie's disembodied voice replied, "Yes, Howl. I am here because I want to be."
"Sophie…" Calcifer's logs snapped, shocked and heartsick. "Howl, don't do this…."
"I want to stay, Calcifer. I stay here willingly," Sophie rasped through sobs, grief stricken.
"And there will be no more talk of leaving, fleeing or running away from your obligations to me, am I correct, Sophie?" Howl's voice threatened in a wondrous angelic, cautionary lilt.
Sophie nodded in compliance, unable to articulate the mandate she knew he demanded to hear. Why is he doing this me? Why me?
"What was that? I didn't quite catch your reply. Woebegone! Am I the only one in this place with manners?" Howl balked, slapping his palms melodramatically over his brow; watching every inch of Sophie for the declaration he yearned for, the declaration he needed to hear. But why? The lump under Calcifer's grate trembled, flitting shards of cerulean flowerets in the wake of the Wizard's private ponderings.
"Yes, Howl. I will not speak of leaving the castle. I stay of my own free will."
"And there you have it! See how simple things are, Sophie? Now we're all one happy household, and the castle will be spick and span with a well-behaved cleaning lady!" Howl expounded with triumph, as if completing a laborious task, clapping his hands approvingly. "Markl!" Howl hollered up to the boy. "Why have you not found my scroll?"
Stomping sounds paused at the landing of the stairs. "I'm sorry, Master Howl. I've looked EVERYWHERE but I can't find the 'Yoormine' spell." Markl's shrill boomed down into the tiny living area.
Sophie flinched at the words. What?
A log dropped from Calcifer's mouth. What a vulpine, artful, scoundrel his friend was! The Wizard had calculated the minutest detail to scourge Sophie with every method at his employ. Moreover, he wasn't above maneuvering Markl to inadvertently blight Sophie, with the boy screaming, "You're mine!" to remind Sophie of her imprisonment. There was no such scroll to find!
"Markl, that's what comes of dallying; no matter. I no longer need that spell…"Nor did I ever, Howl snickered, tossing his head back, guffawing at his flawless game of charade to stake down his pet rat. Of course, she's mine! "Come down here now. That's a good boy."
From the boy's position, the ceiling beams had obstructed his view of Sophie on her knees before his beloved Master.
As his scuffed boots hurried down the stairs, Sophie wearily picked herself up off the floor, every beat in her chest staccato with agony. Wiping the hopelessness from her face, she was beaming as Markl bounded to her. The shadows within her new prison were becoming good camouflage companions.
"Sophie, are you all right? Your face is grey again. Would you like me to make you some tea?" Markl scampered to Sophie, peering up at her happy face that somehow looked wrong. "Sophie?" Markl persisted anxiously, tugging on her limp arms. He would never understand why adults' words never matched their expressions sometimes: especially Sophie, his new friend.
She tugged a dry smile to the corner of her lips. Sophie cupped Markl's face in her palms, brushed the fringe from Markl's eyes. "T-That sounds lovely, Markl. A spot of tea would be perfect, if you wouldn't mind," she said, her voice a frail thread.
Markl scooted off, shoving an assortment of moldy things aside, searching for the kettle – its use long forgotten because of Calcifer's proclivities. "Calcifer, please please bend your head down. It's for Sophie! Okay?" Markl barked at the obstinate demon that refused to bow his head to anyone but the Wizard.
Calcifer pouted then stretched his thin lips into an obstinate line of rejection. However, one glimpse at Sophie persuaded him a thousand times over. "…A-All right…for you, Sophie. Markl, fill the kettle and bring it over here. Place it beside me. I'll put it on myself. I don't bow my head for anyone but that underweight turncoat! HOWL. GETS. NO. TEA!"
The Wizard sauntered leisurely to his little mouse. He peered down imperiously at Sophie, who preferred to stare at his dazzling polished black knee high boots. What festered behind his eyes, Sophie cared not, and could not bear to study his sublime beastly beauty.
Howl magically drew Sophie to him in the midst of the tea making commotion, her toes flitting over the ground as she sailed towards him. Instinctively, Sophie jerked her head sideways, choosing cobwebbed infested stairs to the splendid she-man before her. "Don't let me catch you trying to manipulate the boy's emotions, as you've toyed with that demon, Sophie." Howl stooped low, cooing intimately into her ear. Sophie jolted back, flinching as if burnt by fire. The sorcery bound her to him, their bodies parted by a thin shaft of vermillion light. "Leap and reap the percussions," Howl threatened in a tone that forbade contradiction.
Begrudgingly, Sophie inclined her face towards him, so close his breath caressed the apple of her ear with wintry warmth. Her heart turned over at his closeness.
Markl turned around to witness the enchanting sight of his Master bent over his sweetheart. Markl blushed and tittered with embarrassment, kicking his feet around the floor at the sight. His stomach tickled on the inside watching Sophie and his Master. He wrung his hands behind his back, spying on them through his lashes.
"Kiss me," Howl's simplistic command clotted Sophie's blood. She stared and stared at him, quite petrified. The rafters seemed to pulse in outward ripples in the aftermath of his words, as she stared past the Wizard's head to the crumbling rafters.
Sophie shook her head haltingly unable to breath, disguising her refusal from Markl. "You still dare to defy me? He does think we are lovers, Sophie," Howl's private abhorrent words slivered down her spine. "Why else would you be in my bed this morning, clad in my shirt and nothing more?"
Oh, please NO! He d-did…N-NO! Sophie choked, as if the Wizard held her heart in his palms and squeezed with malice. "I…c-can't…p-please, Howl. Please don't do this," Sophie begged exposing her vulnerability to his mercy. She swayed, feeling faint, helpless against the Wizards incessant assaults. He did! Sophie's mind screamed red with repugnant shame, the raw feelings aflame over every inch of her face.
For an instant, something foreign –regretful attrition – touched the Wizards face, vanishing from his features as he simpered, "You do want to stay here, do you not?"
"Yes," Sophie's voice quavered, dizzied with sickness. He did….
"Then show me…," he murmured, ever too tenderly. Sophie dared to imagine him capable of feeling- such was the intensity of his timbre. Her pulse- to Sophie's disgust- thrashed wildly at his summons. His vacuous glassy eyes of luminous green, like two hypnotic whirlpools sucking her into his world.
Markl watched spellbound as his Master beamed lovingly down at Sophie. "Is this what the fairy tales are like, Calcifer?" he hushed, leaning sideways into the hearth to Calcifer, who also watched mesmerized by the magnificent spectacle the Wizard had crafted.
"It's a stinking tale all right Markl, but the fairies don't want anything to do with it. Even a wicked warty witch wouldn't touch it with a ten foot cattle prod!" Calcifer bit out disapprovingly.
"Please let me stay, I'll do anything…," Sophie surrendered to the Wizard, weakened as the scorch of his body against hers began to melt her emotional resistance for him.
"And you will, my rat…," Howl reassured Sophie, tracing the tip of his index finger over shivering dry lips. "Kiss me…," his command now an impatient demand.
Sophie blanched; her mind a desert sapped of life-giving hope. Hesitantly, she pushed herself onto her toes and touched her hands lightly to the Wizards broad shoulders. Her lips grazed the hollow of his cheek; the split second contact electrified her. She pulled her face from his, repulsed by her reaction.
"Ah ah, Sophie. A valentine kiss must linger, the mere closeness and afterglow is what burns cheeks and sets bodies alight," Howl delivered his worldly advice with an amorous charm.
Sophie swayed, physically wasted and anemic. She was terribly exhausted. Why did this animal have this effect over her?
Howl, roped his arms around Sophie's waist to stop her fall (and further captivate his audience of two). He wouldn't have Sophie losing consciousness in front of the boy- he'd look barbarous and cruel then- and that simply wasn't part of his grand scheme.
Sophie's arms were pinned against the Wizards hard, lithe frame. Her eyes sunk at the horribly inappropriate intimate embrace he relished. Still, Sophie was grateful the Wizard had demanded no more of her. Until, in exaggerated slowness, he lowered his face to hers. Her nails dug into the velvet of his suit. Her dark amber eyes ablaze, staring from her ashen face. She bristled, aflutter with troubled anticipation for a kiss that didn't come.
Instead, Howl achingly pressed his cheeks to hers, his lashes feathering on her cheekbones. Sophie's eyes rolled into the back of her head, trying to starve off the blossoming sensations within her; the tease of his hair caressing her lips, the fever of his skin. What's happening to me? Sophie gasped in harried spurts.
Abruptly, the Wizard drew back and tipped her quaking chin up to him. A confusion of emotions battled across his features: scorn, vulnerability, and affliction. The first won over. His lips traced the lines of Sophie's face, descending to the nape of her neck. He purred possessively, "You belong to me now, Sophie. You're mine." His affinity stripped Sophie of her final fiber of freedom.
The magic bond gripping Sophie snapped loose. The Wizard blazed out the door in a streak of scarlet white. "Calcifer, behave and watch over the castle until my return!"
Sophie staggered disorientated to the divan under the stair well. The hands of forbearance finally embraced her, allowing her to pass out.
Enslaved to the Wizard.
AN: Ah, it seems everyone has fallen in love with Howl. LOL. Well, I did say in the summary Howl was out to make Sophie suffer.:) Anyhoo, many people are wondering HOW ON EARTH a relationship can develop between Howl and Sophie…hehe. Hearts are strange things and what we feel with our hearts, is usually disconnected from our heads. We're now only into 1.5 days of into the time line of the fic and a lot can happen. I'd love any predictions of what you all think Horrendous Howl will get up to next. I also wanted to get this published because I go on leave to Tokyo next week. I'm going to the Studio Ghibli Museum!! BOO YEAH!