As Others See

By Jedishampoo T (PG-13) for now, will change to M later (definitely). Some language, sexuality.

Summary: A magical misfire ends with the wrong Howls in the wrong worlds. Howl's Moving Castle (Movie) crossover with Howl's Moving Castle (book).

Author's Notes: This is mostly an excuse to play with the people involved and see how I might make the movie characters deal with Book!Howl and the book characters deal with Movie!Howl. WARNING: Most of it will be T-rated and lightly humorous but I'll switch it to M later for sex. And what I plan to do to the characters is not very nice in some parts. You may hate it. It's all so very, very, wrong, I'm sure, but I couldn't help it. You'll see. ;) Thanks to sakura haru and sharpeslass for their betas!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters in this story, Diana Wynne Jones or Studio Ghibli does. I'm just playing with them.

x x x

Chapter 1: Magical Mistakes

Howl laid the spell-page on the workbench, then set his hands on his hips and looked down at Markl.

"Well," he said.

Markl looked back up at him, smiling, silent and expectant. The morning Market Chipping sunlight streaming through the window picked golden bits out of the boy's red hair, making him look younger, almost innocent and angelic. Howl wondered if he was about to do something foolish.

The spell on the bench was an iffy one. But ever since Howl had discovered its existence he'd thought about it and thought about it, unable to extricate it from his mind. He'd found it last week in one of his uncle's old notebooks, but it was clear it had been culled from something older still. The leading edge of the yellowed page was torn and the rest ragged and showing signs of creeping black, as if it had been burnt and the ashes knocked off. Rescued perhaps, then; not culled.

And some of the typeset and spellings were the tiniest bit archaic. Earlier this morning Howl had finally shown the page to the old lady, wondering if she knew anything about the spell or had seen it before. She'd merely laughed, an odd little cackle.

"Tell me what happens when you try it," she'd said.

Howl had laughed at her in return. "I might not. Besides. You could just watch what happens, if I do try it."

"Hmm," she'd said, and had taken her coffee outside for her morning cigar.

It wasn't dark magic; Howl was fairly certain of that. The ingredients were rare but normal. He just wasn't sure what the spell would do. He had a pretty good idea, though.

A shower of dust motes swarmed, glinting, into the shaft of sunlight, set dancing about by Sophie's broom. Markl sneezed.

"Sophie!" Howl turned and said.

"What? I'll be out of your way soon," she said in her most no-nonsense voice. Her broom swished back and forth, back and forth, swaying like her dark green skirts, sending the dust motes sparkling and whirling into the air with every swish. Surely when she was done, the floor would be exactly as dirty as it had been before.

There must be a method to her madness, Howl thought, but he was damned if he knew what it was. So he watched her for a few moments, telling himself that he was not procrastinating the execution of this spell. Just enjoying the view, and the sound of her humming.

Watching her clean made him feel a bit warm, and swirly. He would have been hard-pressed to identify every individual feeling boiling around in his stomach, but there were a few he could pick out. Watching her clean his castle made him feel homey, secure. Watching her hips swing back and forth as she swept made him feel something else entirely. His thoughts crept inexorably back to last night, in his bed, and the swirly warmth edged up a couple of degrees, formed itself into a tight ball, and settled somewhere below his stomach. Dimly he realized that his expression had probably gone rather melty.

"What does the spell do, Master Howl?"

"I'm not sure," Howl said, coughing to erase the melty expression and banish the brief, erotic fantasies, and to re-focus on the task at hand. Still he watched her. Hadn't he read somewhere, a long time ago, that men spent at least one out of every ten minutes thinking about sex? Howl thought perhaps lately he'd exceeded that statistic. But how could he help it? Sophie really was amazing; she cooked, cleaned and sewed like any good Ingarian girl. She was the only one sweet and nice enough to put up with him. She also ran away from home, broke curses, was heart-stoppingly passionate-- another phrase he'd read at some point flashed through his brain. That the perfect wife was a lady in the parlor and a courtesan in the bedroom. Too true. He read too much. But she was perfect for him, in any case.

He eyed the engagement ring glinting on her right hand. Now he only had to nail her down to the "wife" part, and all would be right and tight. A month or so more, that was all, she'd promised. Wait until her mother and sister were resettled, and it could be done properly, knowing all along that it was not even remotely proper for her to be living here. Sophie chose her moments of propriety according to her own personal method. It was one of the few traits they had in common.

Right now she apparently found it proper to clean, as she did every morning after breakfast. The sunlight turned her hair alternate shades of palest gold and silver as she moved in and out of the beams, feet dancing to her own private tune. The melty feelings started up again. Howl turned resolutely back to the bench.

"Well, are we going to work it?" Markl wanted to know. His young voice held a note of impatience.

"I don't know," Howl prevaricated. But he had to be honest with himself, at least. There really was no doubt that he was going to do the spell. The future!-- who could resist a peep or two? All that remained was to start. "Yes."

"Awesome." Markl sneezed again.

Behind them, Sophie sighed. "All right, I understand," she said, and set the broom against something with a wooden click. "Calcifer, if you would please heat me some water, I'll clean your hearth outside. Those birds we passed through yesterday-- they made such a mess!"

"Sure," Calcifer told her, in a nicer tone than he'd ever used with Howl. Howl silently added "charmed fire demons" to his mental list of things Sophie had accomplished in the last few months. Then he stretched out his arms and cracked his knuckles. Something glinted on his blue sleeve, and he stared at it for a moment in horror. It was one of his own newly re-dyed blond hairs. He picked it off and reattached it to his head, and then cracked his knuckles again.

"All right, Markl, hand me the blue rose extract, would you? Careful! It's expensive. Do you remember what it does?"

"It's a medium for spells that have a time release. The base holds the time steady until you set it off."

"Wow, that's pretty good," Howl told him with some admiration. He tapped a few precious drops into a bowl. He made a motion over the bowl with his finger, spreading the drops to make a thin coating up the sides.

Markl stood on tiptoe to look at the paper and then held up a packet of dried rubber-leaf. Howl nodded at him and Markl dropped it in, then fetched the other ingredients, one by one.

To be truthful, Howl was glad of the chance to relearn some of this old book-magic. His contract with Calcifer had made those sort of basics moot, even after the contract had been broken. But the routine was comforting. He was becoming rather staid.

As Markl dropped ingredients into the bowl, Howl's thoughts drifted outside. He could just hear Sophie's singing, the soft words filtering through Calcifer's open hearth. It was an old song, one of those sad ones that elderly men sang in taverns after hours with tears creeping down their weathered faces.

"There," Markl said after a bit. "Now do you speak the incantation aloud?"

Howl shook his head and raised his hand, and looked at the words on the yellowed page. Artumnus elo forthum, he thought. And lo, lo, lo, the fair barmaid did go, go go--

The ingredients in the bowl flared like concentrated, captive lightning.

Ooops, Howl thought as he felt himself falling backwards, just before his head connected with the edge of the kitchen table.

x x x

Howell looked over at Michael, and then down at the book on the table, and then he crossed his arms and pouted. The magic was pointless and rather dangerous and Howell was not quite sure why he was going to perform it.

Go to the future, indeed! Past years were easy-- they'd already happened, and one could visit them at any time. Of course what he was doing now had already happened, for people in the future. But it was best left to those people to come backwards, not for him to go forwards. Or something. Thinking about it made his brain hurt.

But the King had commanded it. His advisors had discovered the old spell-book in the castle archives-- Howell thought he might sneak into those archives some day to see if there were any other such dangerous items laying around, if he ever got up the energy, that was-- and the King had wasted no time in finding a wizard to perform the magic for him.

Ben Suliman had only escaped the task by claiming he was not powerful enough to accomplish the spell. Howell wished he'd been half so intelligent, but he never could resist an opportunity to show off.

Oh, he'd told His Majesty no, at first, of course. One might have a peep when divining, but the King had wanted a spell to take him fifty, sixty years into the future. He'd wanted to see what had become of him, and Princess Valeria, and he'd also wanted to see the political climate of the future, to see if the Strangians were sincere in their current desire for everlasting treaties.

Howell, stupidly, had told the King that the spell was unworkable. That there wasn't enough blue-rose oil in the world to make such a thing possible. Five years would be the extent of it, he prophesied. So the King had said, well then, make it five years.

The King was a lot more savvy than most people gave him credit for. It was no wonder he'd railroaded Sophie when Howell had sent her to the palace all those months ago.

Thinking of Sophie conjured her. She and her sister blew in through the door like forces of nature, arriving for their daily co-chaperoned visit/cleaning session. Multicolored leaves swirled in behind them, some as red-gold as his fiancee's hair, others yellow or crackling brown. Sophie tsked in annoyance at the mess they made of the castle room, and slammed the door shut behind her.

Michael's eyebrows rose in hope as the girls entered, and then fell as he saw that it was only the lovely Lettie accompanying Sophie today. If there was no Martha to gape at, then girls held no interest for Michael. Even Sophie. He looked at Howell, matching his pout.

"Everything's ready," Michael ventured.

"I know," Howell whined. Still he hesitated to work, and instead watched as the girls removed their cloaks and hung them in the broom-cupboard. He felt rather smug and self-satisfied doing so. Sophie had turned out much prettier than he'd imagined she might, all those months ago. It was a lucky thing he'd picked her to fall in love with, once he'd had his heart returned.

Her face was heart-shaped and pale, surrounded by wisps of hair-- titian, he supposed he might call the color-- that looked well with her darkish-yellow dress. She was slender as a tree-sprite, wearing the colors of fall, as sunny as the outside. She was exactly his type.

He'd chosen the right place to settle, in Ingary, it seemed. In Wales it always rained. And Welsh girls tended to the dark, like Lettie. He'd used to like dark-haired beauties, he thought, but decided he didn't care for them any longer.

"Hello, Howl," fair Sophie said and walked over to where he and Michael stood at the bench. Howell leaned forward to give her a chaste peck on the lips. She allowed it for a couple of seconds and for a couple of seconds he enjoyed it, enjoyed the little spark of interest that jabbed at his belly when he kissed her. Then she swished off, her long, braided hair thumping him on the shoulder as she turned.

Howell coveted that hair-color. He might try it some day. Perhaps for the wedding in a few months' time; they'd make a fabulous pair.

They'd make a fabulous pair now, he thought, if he could ever get her alone. He'd taken her to Wales (accompanied by a sister, of course), shown her what life was like there, and hinted that not everything modern was a bad idea. She'd even met a few of his old girlfriends. But like most Ingarian girls, she was a tougher nut to crack when it came to the physical. So perforce, he would wait, and hope fervently that all there would work itself out in the end.

"Hello Sophie, dear," he told her back. "And Lettie," he added.

That young lady took her own look around, and apparently not spotting anyone she'd wished to see, sat at one of the kitchen chairs with an unladylike oomph.

Michael refused to ask about a certain person, though Howell knew he wanted to. "Are we going to start this spell or not?" Michael asked.

"You're awfully bossy today," Howell told him with a glare.

Michael colored. "Sorry."

"A-hem," Howell added for emphasis, and stretched out his arms to begin building the spell, being careful not to drip his long sleeves into anything expensive.

"If you're a-hemming to us, then don't," Sophie said at that. "In fact, don't mind us at all. I'm just going to do some cleaning and Lettie has promised to help me work on the suits. You can just do whatever you were doing before we came."

"That's exactly what we were planning to do," Howell told her with a sniff. "I was a-hemming at Michael."

"Keep on doing it, then," Sophie retorted.

"I will," Howell said. She was in a feisty mood today, he thought. He liked that about her. She was nice, but not too nice. But to make sure he had the last word in that little argument, he added, "a-hem, Michael."

Michael obediently pulled out ingredients, being extra-careful with the rare blue-rose oil, and handed them to Howell. Howell flipped them in turn onto the metal plate and said the appropriate words at the appropriate times. When the spell was finished, they'd wrap the plate and deliver it to the King. Well, Michael would deliver it to the King. Howell would take a bath, or try to make a little time with Sophie, or both.

"Elos," Howell said at the appropriate time, swishing his left hand dramatically. His voice thundered in just the right manner; he liked the way this one was going, and hoped the girls were suitably impressed.

"Oh, by the way, Michael. Martha said to say Hello," Lettie said just then.

"Really?" Michael asked, and turned away for a second. He lost the rhythm of the spell and dropped the pinch of livrous serum powder in front of Howell at exactly the wrong moment.

"Forthum," Howell said, and then, "Oh, shit." He briefly saw Michael's wide-eyed look of horror, receding as Howell fainted dead away.

x x x

End Chapter 1

Thanks for reading! PLEASE comment, if you would, even if only to say (1) you liked it, or (2) you hated it. I'd love constructive comments on the characterizations.