In Which Everything Is Rather Full of Kittens

By: ChocolateEclar

Disclaimer: I sadly don't own Howl's Moving Castle or Castle in the Air, but I am excited for the characters' appearances in the upcoming book House of Many Ways!

Summary: "What do you want to be when you grow up, sweetie?" The boy's face lit up with pleasure. That was a simple question to him and Sophie dreaded the response before he had given it. "A cat," he answered. (In which everything is rather full of kittens and Sophie and Howl raise their children.)

A/N: I'll admit that I was bored and waiting for the new book House of Many Ways and what better thing to do than to return to my very first fandom and try to do it justice this time around?

Please, please do not read my old 2002-2003 HMC fanfics. They are only still online because I'm sentimental. Instead, read this, enjoy, and review. Thanks. Also, this is a one-shot for now, but I may feel up to writing more eventually. If I do, it'll probably be more like vignettes.

They had only been there an hour and a half and Sophie hated the party already. She did not know what had possessed Megan to invite them, except for momentary insanity possibly brought on by an urge to show her neighbors that her brother had settled, thank you very much, but here they were at Mari's ninth birthday party in the Parry backyard.

Howl was clearly trying to play the part in some strange impulse to impress Megan, although the mysterious piece of cake icing that had hit the back of Megan's husband Gareth's head led her to believe that he may have had ulterior motives. Still, he was wearing this world's version of a suit, or so she surmised. Howl looked a little odd without the long trailing sleeves.

Morgan had gotten bored of sitting on the swings with some of the other kids and come to be pulled up into his mother's arms. It was difficult because he was getting heavy and Sophie was well on in her third pregnancy at this point. It was another reason why she hated the party. It was hot out and the air felt gritty and she was still a bit in shock that her second child had managed to put a hole through the ceiling that morning. It was surprising, but the little girl with the red-gold mop of hair and an alarming tendency to drag herself up onto the sink in the bathroom and yell words of power as she gazed at herself in the mirror had done it. Howl had assured her that they would not work like that until Rhian had made a particularly funny facial expression at herself that very day, while Howl was trying to put some face cream on his chin around her happily flailing limbs, and a big chunk of ceiling had come down with a clap of thunder.

"Howl!" Sophie had screamed from her place not a foot away from the incident and backed up near the fireplace.

Calcifer was leaning out of the grate and cackling. "That was fantastic," he said. "Look what you've started, Howl."

At the moment, said child was chatting animatedly to her cousin Mari, but Sophie's eyes were drawn away when, like magic, one of Megan's friends in the wide-brimmed hats and the flowered dresses came bustling up like an aunt in a park full of chubby-cheeked toddlers.

"And who's this?" she cooed at Morgan. The four-year-old stared up at her with wide eyes. Sophie noted that Megan had come with the woman, although she was shadowed by the enormous hat on her own head. As a former hat maker, Sophie wondered if there was a strange new trend to wear hideous hats here and if someone was using magic to get people to buy the things.

When it quickly appeared that Morgan was not going to answer, Megan supplied, "This is Morgan, my brother's son." The flower print woman clucked over the boy for another minute, in which time Morgan mostly just nodded and looked puzzled and Megan kept insisting that normally the boy was so talkative. Sophie had a feeling the speechlessness in Morgan had something to do with the ridiculous hat the woman was wearing. Some hat maker had trimmed it with yellow, plastic orchids and pink ribbon and an over the top fake golden bird.

Finally, probably as a last ditch effort to get the boy to respond more, the woman asked, "What do you want to be when you grow up, sweetie?"

The boy's face lit up with pleasure. That was a simple question to him and Sophie dreaded the response before he had given it. "A cat," he answered and there was no doubt what he had said, even though he was four and sometimes words were a little garbled. It didn't help that Howl kept teaching him Welsh words when Sophie was not paying attention and generally refused to tell her what any of them meant.

("But this is much too much fun, cariad. He can romance some girl one day with his lovely, flowing foreign vocabulary."

"Did that ever work for you?" she had asked him.

Sensing dangerous territory, Howl had smoothly lied that it had not, but Sophie had shaken her head at him and demanded that he teach her a few more words. He had tried once, earlier on in their marriage, but Sophie's tongue was clumsy in the language and he had spent most of the time laughing.

"Then, just a few to satiate your inquisitiveness, Mrs. Nose," Howl replied and Sophie was still positive that Morgan knew more of the vocabulary than she did.)

Sophie smiled at Megan and her friend, who both went away muttering something, and then calmly turned to her husband, who had appeared midway in the conversation and was nonchalantly looking at the gold button of his suit's sleeve. "This is your fault," she told him.

"I take full blame for the ceiling," he replied, grinning a little, "but I refuse to acknowledge any guilt in this."

"And why is that when it was your spell that caused him to experience his first days as such?"

"You are stubborn enough that you could have convinced him to wait a little while longer until we could sort everything out and he could be born," Howl said.

"Yes, because you know so much about childbirth, Howl," said Sophie.

"Now, now," Howl said. "I was there… The second time anyway."

Morgan, who was still in Sophie's arms, chose that moment to loudly say, "Why can't I be a cat, Mam? If Rhi can do stuff, so can I!"

This brought the attention of Megan and several of her friends, as well as all of the children playing on the swing set, Neil and his friends over at one table, and Mari and Rhian by the big tree by the fence surrounding the yard.

It was only Howl's experience that caused him to grab the boy out of Sophie's arms and bring him inside before the transformation could go much farther than making Morgan's hair a little longer and smoother.

Sophie appeared a moment later to find her husband crossing his arms and staring up at the black kitten on top of the cabinets.

"Come down here, Morgan," Sophie sighed. To Howl, she said, "That just proves your guilt in this."

"I have the situation perfectly under control, my love," Howl said. But when the kitten refused to come down, he removed his suit jacket to clamber on top of the countertop. "I'm not the only one with magic here, you know," he added.

Sophie could see Megan trying to laugh the whole thing off with her friends through the big, white patio doors. Turning back to Howl, she laughed and said, "Yes, but I tend not to use it for the dramatics."

Sophie was not sure, but she thought that Howl muttered, "Weed killer anyone?" But before she could ask, he was saying, "C'mon now, Morgan. I know it must be fabulous being able to jump up on your aunt's cabinets, but if you scratch the wood, she will know somehow, no matter how well I fix it up."

The kitten made a mewing noise and tried to jump from the cabinet to the large, white box that Sophie could not remember the name of. It held food, in any case, and Megan had insisted that Sophie help her unload it in an overly friendly, false way when they had arrived. It was very clear to Sophie that Megan just wanted to shout, "See? See? Everything's normal here with my brother and his family."

Unfortunately, Morgan missed in his leap and had to be plucked from his freefall by a spell flicked in his direction from Howl. Howl hopped down from the countertop with the kitten still hovering in the air, tumbling over and over, and when Howl came near, the kitten had changed back into a struggling, black-haired boy. Sophie wondered if one of the billions of children-rearing books she had seen in the bookcase by the sitting room in Megan's house said anything about the possible future issues a child could have who wanted to be a cat.

"Mam!" Morgan yelled.

"No more magic from you today," his mother said, although she could not quite keep a smile off of her face.

She went to gather Morgan down from the air and into her arms when she felt an unpleasant feeling in her stomach and then a sharp pain. She paused and stared down at her bulging abdomen. She remained calm though. It was clearly going to be one of those days.

"Howl, what would you say if I told you that I think the third is on the way today?" she asked, gazing at her husband. Morgan continued to spin in the air, although he did not seem to mind much anymore. He was making little swimming motions with his arms and legs and circling the two of them.

"Third kitten?" Howl serenely asked.

"Human would be nice," Sophie replied and then wrinkled up her nose at the next pain.

Howl nodded and kissed her forehead. "I'll get the other one. Your job is to tell this new one to wait a bit."

"Howl!"

There was then a lot of commotion in which time four of Megan's friends bustled around trying to be helpful and giving all sorts of suggestions. Sophie and Howl made their exit from Rivendell with a lot of yelling and Rhian thrown over Howl's shoulder.

Naturally, about two minutes later, Howl came back and raced into the kitchen to pull a giggling Morgan down from the light fixture.