Howl's moving castle (fanfic) (oc)

5.

When Sophie opened the door, they both basically flew in and crashed on the floor. 

"Are you okay?", Naomi asked between coughs. Some dust managed the fly in her mouth in the process on getting in. 

"I'm fine", Sophie growled and Naomi helped her up. 

They both looked around in surprise. When Naomi heard about moving castle, she imagined some fancy elegant building with magnificent, expensive decoration but instead she was now standing inside the most dirtiest and nastiest building that she had ever been in. There was dust and spiderweb everywhere. Dirty dishes and some old looking books were laying all over the tables. There was also some magical items hanging on the walls and bookshelves. It looked like no one had cleaned there at least in ten years.

Sophie seemed very weak and tired. Naomi's eyes landed on a chair in front of a fireplace and she guided Sophie to sit down. 

"You don't have to help me Naomi, I can walk by myself just fine", Sophie assured and sat down. 

Naomi sat on a sofa some distance away from the fire. She was feeling cold from the wind but her legs were hurting so bad from the amount of walking that she rather sit on the sofa than stand by the fire. She started feeling rather sleepy but the feeling was soon pushed away when she heard a voice that didn't belong to Sophie. 

"Mind giving me another log?", the voice came from where Sophie was sitting. The old woman seemed as surprised as Naomi. Did the fire just speak. Naomi stood up and walked closer. The fire indeed had formed a pair of eyes, hands and a mouth on top of that. 

"Am I dreaming or did the fire just speak?",Sophie asked. 

"Of course I did and just so you know, I'm not just a fire, I'm also a demon", he snarled. Naomi looked at the fire, enchanted to it. 

"What are you looking at?", It fumed at Naomi as he seemed to notice her staring. 

"What's your name?", the girl asked without caring about the fires temperament. 

"I'm Calcifer, a fire demon like I said, give me another log now!", It demanded and pointed at pile of logs with his hand. Naomi sighed and grabbed one of them, trowing it to him. He seamed pleased now. 

"You both have a quite curses there", the fire remarked. 

"Do you know if wizard Howl is here?", Sophie asked, not caring about Calcifer's bluntness. 

"No he left some time ago", he replied. 

"When will he be back?"

"Next morning I'd guess", Calcifer answered. Naomi was still drawn to the fire.

"Can you break curses?", she asked and lifted her hand to show it properly to the fire who shrugged. Naomi's left hand was now fully covered in stone and she started to feel that she didn't have much time. How did miss Davis expect her to find some true companion in such a short time. Well she probably didn't care, this was probably some silly game to her. 

"What comes to her, it might be possible but I've never seen a curse quite like yours", Calcifer said implying that he only knew how to possibly break Sophie's curse. 

"So could you break my curse?", Sophie asked him and the fire let out a laugh. 

"Only if we make a contract", he announced. 

"What kind of contract?"

"I'll lift the spell of you if you break the contract between me and Howl", he said. 

"And how do I do that?", Sophie questioned sounding unsure about the contract.

"You'll have to figure it out", was all he said. Sophie looked at him in disbelief."I might also be able to slow down the nosy girls curse", he added, implying to Naomi who frowned. How was she nosy? 

"How can I be sure that you'll break my curse?", Sophie asked. 

"You can't be sure, I'm a demon after all", Calcifer cackled."But this might be your only chance", he teased. Sophie sighed frustratedly. 

"Fine, I'll accept the contract", she said, clearly giving up on the fire. 

"Great, it would also be great if you didn't mention anything about this to Howl", he said. 

...

It was next morning already.  Calcifer didn't have a habit of letting random people enter the moving castle but he had a feeling that those two girls who introduced themselves as Sophie and Naomi, would bring something good to this place. 

Sophie had fell asleep in front of Calcifer, on the wooden chair while Naomi was snoring on the sofa near by. 

Calcifer examined the sleeping girl on the sofa. Something about her seemed tragic, besides her literally slowly turning into a statue. Calcifer didn't know what it was though. 

"Calcifer, who are those?", he was pulled out of his toughs by Markl. Markl was Howl's apprentice and had lived in the castle for a good while now. 

"They are our new cleaning ladies", Calcifer blurted. He though they would need some excuse to stay so Howl wouldn't kick them out at least immediately. 

"Right", the boy mumbled and grabbed a book that he needed while learning different spells.