In the morning, Sophie woke up to the sun shining bright and warmly on her face, and the lovely sound of birds chirping. She got up to find an empty bed. Howl had already hit the showers leaving Sophie in the room by herself. It wasn't unusual. She yawned and stretched and laid back down under the warm covers again, smelling a mixture of hers and Howl's body scent which made her heart calm down. A few moments later, Howl came in the bedroom with only a towel hanging on his waist with hair still damp and water droplets falling down his well-kept body.
"Sophie? Are you awake?" He asked. Sophie pretended to sleep by not answering him and hiding her smiling face under the sheets. Then, she heard a whoosh and a swish like a loud gust of wind at the end of the room. Suddenly something heavy was on top of her. "AAAH" she struggled to pull her covers down to find Howl, already dressed in his suit, on top of her laughing.
"You know you can't lie to a wizard, honey." Howl continued laughing. Sophie felt like she lost and pushed him away. "You were suffocating me, don't do that again." She sulked as she got out of bed and started walking towards the door. Howl grabbed her wrist and pulled her which made her sit on his lap and hands around his neck. "What happened to my 'good morning'?" He asked. "What happened to being gentle to a lady?" She snapped back.
Howl could tell that an argument was just around the block, and to prevent from damaging the house with a few rotten spells, he decided to take back his temper by closing his eyes and opening them back again at her. He kissed her on the forehead and it made Sophie's heart weak again. "Oh, the devil you are. Good morning, Howl." Sophie blushed and looked down. Since they were so close to each other, she could only see his chest through his unbuttoned shirt that made her blush even more. Howl saw her expression which made his chest-thumping louder and harder. He quickly helped her up before she found out that his chest was doing flip flops because that would make her laugh and him embarrassed.
"Good morning." Howl gently smiled at her. Sophie let go of him and started her way to the toilet. He ran his hand through his hair and let out a small sigh. "I can't make her angry just because of my reckless actions." His expression held a reason for his statement that was crystal clear. Nope. He promised himself from the start to make her as happy as possible, and since there was a chance that he wouldn't be able to fulfill his promise in the near future, he had to make sure that up till now, Sophie would only have good memories of their time together, even if he's not going to be by her side anymore.
Howl went to the kitchen and grabbed some toast and shove it into his mouth which he switched the portal by the door to red. "Hey! Where are you going in such a hurry Howl?" Calcifer asked. "I'll get back before dinner. Tell Sophie that I promise her." As he opened the door to a loud and busy city, he turned back to Calcifer again, "And be prepared, my friend. There's a lot of loud magic that's going to happen." before he closed the door behind him. "Oh, you have no idea, Howl." Calcifer replied to himself and chugged down a log he found lying beside him.
"Howl, I've cleaned up the toilet. Could you please not make such a-" Sophie stopped halfway when she saw an empty breakfast table. "Calcifer, where's Howl?" Sophie turned to Calcifer, who was busy stuffing logs into his mouth. "Hm? Ah. Oh. He went out. But he promised that he'd be back before dinner." Sophie rolled her eyes and continued her daily chores around the castle. Suddenly, a Markl hustled passed her that almost pushed her over.
"Oh dear, Markl, what's the rush?" she put her hand on her pounding heart. "I'm off to see Rose! I'm going to be late!" he shouted across the room as he snatched a toast from a nearby tray. "'Adorable' and 'Alluring' Rose?" Sophie teased. Before even answering, Markl had already slammed the door before him. She giggled as she realized how Markl had grown up to be a fine young man. Almost as tall as Howl himself and a nearly-full wizard, Markl has been seeing a young lady somewhat of his age who is working at a bakery in a store downtown. "Ah, young love." sighed Sophie as she reminisced her first encounter with Howl.
***
Howl was flying above seawaters for over an hour. The sky was grey and there was a strong scent of the salty seawaters, coal, and blood. He squinted his eyes to take a clearer look at metallic ships with multiple canons on it. The ship was huge, probably about 10 stories high. There were 5 other ships sailing beside it, each approximately 3 stories shorter than the mastership, and each ship had a flag with the same symbol on it. Howl flew lower and quieter, making sure that his enemies weren't able to detect him.
He circled around the ships for a few times, and when he memorized the details of the ships and detected where they were heading to, he dove lower to until he was at about the same level as the mastership. Howl then murmured a spell which was able to transform himself into the size of an ant and flew inside the ship to see what his enemies were up to.
Inside, there were huge machines at every corner with meters on it. There were lots of rooms with automatic doors. Since Howl was so tiny, the detector wasn't able to detect his presence, so whenever he wanted to enter another room, he had to wait for someone who was going to enter the same room as he was. There were many underlings who were working for his still-unknown enemy, and they all had to wear the same tacky green-and-yellow coat with a pink bow and white long-johns uniform assigned by their master. And considering that Howl was very particular in fashion, he'd cringe every time he took a glance at the underlings. Finally, he reached a very peculiar room where everything was in white, and symbols on each of the four walls. At the center of the room, there was a diamond floating in the middle of the room.
Howl flew closer to the diamond but was careful enough to not touch it, fearing that it might alarm his enemy. He circled the diamond, detecting if it was guarded by any source of magic. Sure enough, it was, but a type of magic that Howl has never encountered before. After trying to decode the spell a couple of times, Howl thought that he may need greater concentration, for this spell wasn't ordinary. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, and that that very same moment, one of the underlings opened the door. Howl quickly flew to a corner of the room. The underling walked around the room, seemingly trying to find something. Howl thought it was weird for the underling to search the room when clearly there was nothing but the floating diamond. Howl thought it was time to call it a day. Risking to decode the diamond right now wasn't good timing. He quickly found his way out of the ship, returned to his original size, and returned to the castle, hoping to find answers in his magic library.
