My Heart Gone Missing (Howl's Moving Castle)

Chapter 18

"You were gone for awhile." Marius declared the moment you entered your home, "did you get lost?" he smirked.

You didn't immediately respond, you didn't want him to know that you did get lost. In your defense, The Waste looked the same wherever you were, and you had no idea how far you had traveled when you were in the plane. "I was in the plane for awhile." You answered.

"Yeah, for a long time." He crossed his arms, "you're still here though. And I'm still here. So that means this whole plan of yours didn't work out."

You sighed and de-transformed, "that's true. I guess I may as well go out and disable as many bombs as I can while I'm at it."

"Why waste time on that?" Marius grumbled, "when you could be finding what really makes you happy."

"Why are you so upset all of a sudden?" you demanded the water demon and turned to glare at him, "like yeah, I get you hate my guts. That was established the first time I met you, but now you're angry at everything I do!" He didn't respond and a staring fight commenced. After an uncomfortable 10 seconds you threw your arms up in the air in frustration, "fine, be like that! It's not like either of us ever cared for each other, so why should we let each other know what's going on inside our heads. It's fine." You retorted and stomped up the stairs. You didn't understand, you thought the two of you were starting to be on somewhat amiable terms.

That went on for weeks. The atmosphere between you and Marius was no longer fiery and angry, but frigid and scathing. You were honestly surprised Marius hadn't completely turned to ice do to the cold relationship the two of you had. You wanted the old Marius back. Yes, he was really mean, but at least you had a conversation that lasted longer than two sentences and you weren't pointedly ignoring each other.

Within that time, you figured out a much more efficient way to disable bombs. It was all thanks to the chalk. You were able to draw a simple spell on each of the bombs and with a quick incantation they all disappeared. It was definitely quicker than your first attempt at trying to disable a bomb.

It was just another normal day. You exited your house without a farewell to Marius. After he stopped replying to your farewells, you decided that it wasn't worth it to waste your breath trying to talk to a water demon impersonating a brick wall. Things were going well: you snuck into a plane, drew out all the spells, said the incantation, the bombs disappeared. Then, the floor gave way from underneath you. You shrieked and frantically flapped your wings to stop yourself from plummeting to the ground. You looked around you and saw fire dropping on a city. Frankly, you were surprised you hadn't gotten caught in an air raid before. Now that you were caught in it...you didn't know what to do.

You were just hovering in the air and your common sense came back when a bomb fell inches away from you. Once again you were thrown into a panic and your steady flapping quickly became more panicked as you tried to keep yourself out of harm's way. Unfortunately, all the flapping in the world didn't help you when a bomb just barely grazed your wing. You screeched and clutched your arm to your body, but that caused you to fall to the earth like a rock. Well, a large feathery rock. A large feathery boulder.

You attempted to right yourself in the air but ended up crashing on the steps of a building. You let out a groan and tried to pick yourself up. At least you didn't fall through the roof of some poor person's home. You squinted up at the sign above you. The sun had already set, but the fire that was coming from the surrounding buildings had lit up the area fairly well. "The Great Wizard Jenkins." You read aloud, "oh. Great." You added sarcastically. The last time you were here you broke through a window.

You weighed your options. Your wing throbbed with pain, so there was no way you were going to be able to fly back home. From your past experience you knew this building somehow led back into The Waste, but, everyone in that building probably hated your guts. The last option was to just walk back home, but that was going to take way too long.

There was the soft sound of a large mass coming to the ground next to you. "What are you?" the mass questioned.

You looked up at the mass and quickly pushed yourself back up to your feet, "I, uh, a human." You spluttered as you tried to answer his question promptly. It was the bird person from before, except unlike you, he was covered in dark blue feathers.

The face lifted an eyebrow dubiously, "really? Because humans don't come in bird forms."

"I used a spell." You answered hurriedly, "I really need to go now. Bye!" you spun on your heel and started to waddle away. Unfortunately, you didn't get very far.

"Wait!" you stopped waddling, "are you the person who broke in a couple months ago?"

"Psha," you waved your uninjured wing around in an attempt to wave away suspicion, "no. Who would do that? That's ridiculous."

"Do you need help getting back to The Waste?" you froze.

He totally knew. He saw right through your lie. You hesitated, you really did need help, and you weren't about to let the perfect opportunity slip through your fingers again. "I," you sighed in defeat, "yeah."

He pushed open the door to the shop, "come in. I've got a portal that goes to The Waste." He also knew that you were a witch/wizard. He wouldn't say that to any normal human.

"Thank you." You told him gratefully and followed him into the building. You were immediately met by a lot of screaming.

"Why did you let another witch/wizard in here!" the fire in the hearth screamed.

"Are all element demons like this?" you wondered.

"What do you mean all element demons." The fire demanded, "I'm the only one here!"

"I know someone." You answered vaguely.

"Don't mind them," the man waved off their concerns and detransformed. You nearly screeched. It was Howl. How did you not notice that earlier? Everything already pointed to the fact that it was Howl. You blamed the smoke in the air. "I'm just helping them get back to The Waste." He noticed that you hadn't detransformed, "are you going to stay like that?"

Your cover was already blown, so what was the use of staying as a bird. You laughed nervously, "no." You quietly muttered the incantation and the feathers surrounding you disappeared.

"It's the witch/wizard who broke in before!" this time it was the kid who yelled it.

"So you figured out the spell." Howl's face showed his surprise.

"Yeah." You didn't want to elaborate. You turned away from him and frowned, he still hadn't recognized you and it was starting to get annoying. You were about to shout in his face who you were.

The dial on the door spun around and pointed to The Waste's exit and he opened the door, "there you go. Sorry it's not anywhere closer to your home."

"Oh no, don't worry about it. You've already saved me hours." You told him and exited through the door. "Thank you again." You called through the door and walked through The Waste back to your home.

AN: We're getting close to the end! Initially there was going to be another mini arc sort of thing, but I wrote the plotline like over a year ago and I can't really remember what I was trying to accomplish. ^^; Also, I feel like this story has dragged on for a really long time. Plus, this is the only story where I'm frantically trying to stay a step ahead with the amount of chapters I have and have posted. (So a lot of this was made up on the spot and then posted half an hour later ^^;) Thanks to everyone who's stuck around and supported this story!