AN: I do not own Howl's Moving Castle, the book nor the film. This is strictly film-verse. Enjoy!

Howl, the people who were important to him and a few that weren't. Introspective.

Heart of Ashes

.

.

.

I

My chest is a cavernous hole in which dwell thousands of swirls and whirlwinds of emotion. On most days though, it is hollow, empty as I am.

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I feel nothing, but the things I do feel burn me from the inside out, leave me hollow and cold and silently screaming for someone – anyone – to hear me.

No one ever does. No one ever comes for me.

I am alone.

Always.

Ever since my father died, and my sister moved away with Mother because of her illness. I was left alone to pursue a career as a sorcerer, just like my Father and his brother had been, my Uncle as my guide.

My Uncle didn't have time for me though. He gave me a house in a secluded valley and all the books I could read, but he rarely visited. There was hardly ever any distraction from the haunting loneliness that followed me everywhere, still grieving as I was and now utterly alone – forgotten, abandoned.

Did anyone even want me in the start?

Maybe I should just disappear...

These thoughts hurt and tear at my being, so I bury my nose in some book and read until I know every passage word for word. It's a good enough distraction and keeps my mind occupied on most days, even though my thoughts stray every so often.

I watched the sky on the night that would change everything in awe, standing in the middle of the valley as to be in the center of the spectacle.

It was raining.

It was raining fire.

The stars begun to descend down on the earth, and it sparked a feeling in my chest, one that reminisces of nights watching the sky explode with fireworks along-side my family. A pang of longing is promptly ignored.

From the corner of my eye I see a star shooting towards me, and for a moment I was frozen and in the next my hand had reached out on its own. The star had fit in my palm as if I were always meant to hold it, as if it were made solely for me.

Its heat had diminished since its fall from the heavens, and now it is simply a tempest of colorful light, a candle's flame that waits to be extinguished.

I knew I shouldn't prolong the inevitable, but a part of me hadn't wanted to drop it, to just let it fall to its' death.

It proposed a deal.

Caution whispered in my ear that accepting this deal would only end badly for me, because so many things could go wrong, but the searing needles in my chest overruled my wariness.

My chest feels a little lighter now, if a bit hollow.

.

.

.

II

She is a wizened old lady, dressed in brightly colored gowns and lounging in a chair like royalty. She is my teacher. She is my tormentor.

I show promise and she would have milked my talents until there was nothing more I could give her. She is calculating and aloof, loyal to the Crown just as every student chained by the oath of the Magical Academy.

She gave me books and words of encouragement, then of power, then of sweet deceit and hidden wisdom. She wore a warm expression I had almost forgotten existed, that I'd always craved for, but her smile never quite reached her eyes.

Madame Suliman has the eyes of a hawk and I am a defenseless mouse doing its' best to keep away from her sights.

She is the first person to notice that I'm worth something, and I spend the next decade running away from her clutches.

.

.

.

III

There's a boy on my doorstep, which wouldn't be unusual for most days – I do own a shop (two, and both magical), after all – except this particular little street rat was sleeping on my doorstep. And the boy didn't look any older the four!

The situation was so disconcerting that an actual minute passed before I truly registered that yes, there was someone sleeping on my doorstep and no, the kid definitely wasn't a customer judging by his age and choice of clothing – if anyone can call such atrocious rags cloths.

A run-away, maybe? Nah, too young and too dirty – anyone would have found him in the small sea-side town like this. An orphan, then.

Something twists uncomfortably just beneath my throat and I swallow reflexively.

The boy's eyes snap open. Before I can even open my mouth to ask him anything or just utter a bemused "good morning," the kid was sprinting across the street into an alleyway. I could only blink as the sound of trashcans crashing to the cobblestones, something ceramic braking and some sort of animalistic cry (that could only be described as someone stepping on a cat's tail) followed not three seconds later.

Well, this was an odd way to start a morning.

I stepped out of the shop, closing the door behind me and then freezing as the motion registered, my hand still on the handle. What was I doing? Was I truly going to try and do what I thought I was? Would I actually attempt to... help this kid?

Another crash, this time accompanied by the shouting of the butcher's wife.

I'm not entirely surprised when the answer is yes. I'm not sure what to make of it exactly.

I chases the kid down, not that it's much of a challenge, seeing how the boy seemed to be a natural talent of breaking everything within arms-reach. I found the little troublemaker pressed into a corner at the back of a fisherman's house, half-hidden by a crate filled with cargo.

He was shaking, knees drawn up to his chest and fat tears running down his grimy cheeks.

I just stood there, staring at the little boy hiding from the few people who were walking down the side-street. I heard two women talking as they passed me, both watching the boy as I was, though their expressions showed the wariness and pity I didn't feel. "Poor thing, wonder how 'e lost 'is parents?"

"You 'aven't heard? After 'er 'ousband died last year she just up and left! Took anything worth somethin' with 'er and made for the 'ills." A disdainful sniff "Didn' even take 'er own with 'er."

My head felt light all of a sudden, a nauseous feeling seeping into my mouth and my head a void of thought.

I honestly don't know what happened after that, just that by lunch, two people were sitting at my cramped dinner table and Calcifer was being his sardonic self.

It felt like it was meant to be that way.

.

.

.

IV

Markl is a small boy, though his skin is no longer stretched tight across his tiny bones.

However, Markl treats his lessons on magical creatures like they're fairy-tales and this does not escape my notice. I tell my childish apprentice of Pegasi and basilisks, giants, trolls, nymphs, dryads and the like.

For some reason, I remember the lesson about the Phoenix, one of the rarest magical creatures for not even I had ever seen it, with the utmost clarity.

I remember the widening of brown pools sparkling with wonder when I told the little boy of the creature that births itself of its ashes.

.

.

.

V

I like women. I like to look at their pretty faces and colorful cloths that cling to their bodies. I like to kiss them, to smell their sweet perfume and taste their cherry red lips. I like to feel their warmth, to feel heat fill my belly so I don't feel as empty as I always do.

The Witch of the Waste was once famed for her otherworldly beauty. Her skin was ivory pale, nicely contrasting her long, ebony hair. She was tall and curvy, her eyes sharp and icy, but I found I didn't really spend so much time looking at her eyes as I did the rest of her.

She was vain and cold and clingy.

She reminded me of myself.

That's why I left her.

.

.

.

VI

The girl in the alley is nothing special, with her plain appearance and worn, threadbare dress, but I am a gentleman and she a damsel in distress. I enjoys playing the chivalrous knight anyway, and the gratefulness and wonder in her eyes… it's nice.

She's nothing special really.

But then she calls me pretty even though she's seen me with my hair both in that awful ginger color and dreadful, hideous black.

She called me pretty even though I threw a tantrum and oozed slimy despair and let my magic do whatever it wanted to me because I'm already ugly and pitiful and how can Markl even look at me, let alone look up to me? How can Sophie still be here, even after she saw how hideous I truly am?

She calls me pretty even though I'm really not.

My heart had fluttered, like a bird in a cage, making me uncomfortable and sending phantom pains pulsating through my chest.

The next morning, I decided that I wasn't going to try and pretend that I'm something I'm not. I left my hair the same hideous black I was born with and wore the plainest cloths I own. That same day, Sophie looked at me like she had every day since we met.

There's never any disgust in her eyes.

It takes me a long time to notice that my chest isn't as hollow as I remembered it being.

.

.

.

VII

I've never been a morning person, mostly because "morning" considered of waking up and forgetting all my dreams, meant facing reality head on and marching into a new day. Too bad I've always been a coward. No, the main problem I have in the morning is that all I wants to do is cling to oblivion a little while longer, to be senseless and light where no one can hurt me, which is quite silly but no one could argue that I was quite childish in regards to some things. Calcifer called me out on that more times then I care to count.

I wake up one day – sun-rise, by the pale fingers caressing the sky – to find myself between a rock and a hard place. Literally.

I've woken to some pretty strange situations before, don't get me wrong, but this definitely took the cake. A Prince, which I am pretty sure had been a scarecrow (Pumpkin-Head, Sophie called it) not a day before, was hopping away on a stick atop the mountain range. Sophie was a young girl with silver hair waving goodbye and gently holding her hand atop Markl's shoulder like a mother would. Markl looked like the kid he really was, with a grin that lit up his face as though it were the sun. Grandma Witch was mumbling something about handsome men (which I had grown used to by now, but still prayed it wasn't directed at me).

Calcifer was nowhere to be seen... as was our house – because I'm pretty sure my home had had a ceiling (and a second floor as well!) last time I checked.

I groaned, my face pulled into a slight frown. Too many questions too early in the morning.

I shift, trying to prop myself up by the elbows. The sound drew Sophie's attention and she turned back to look at me, her eyes filled with relief and happiness. My chest suddenly feels tight and heavy, like the entire fireplace Calcifer sulks in had settled atop of me, pressing and crushing me beneath its' weight.

I relayed these strange sensations to Sophie, but she just grinned, saying:

"A heart is a heavy burden to bear." Ah, so that's what happened. Wait, what? I can't help the dumbfounded expression that crosses his face. Because I have a heart that flutters and beats and races and is a jumbled mess of hurt and confusion and loneliness it had always been.

But somehow, the weight doesn't deter me as much as I thought it would as Sophie helps me stand up – it steadies me, grounds me in a way it never has before but still manages to feel like it might soar out of my chest at the sight of Sophie's beaming face. Markl's babbling something excitedly in the background and Grandma Witch shushing him saying he was ruining the moment.

I feel the strangest sensation in my rib-cage. My heart is heavy and light and fills me to the brim so that I feel like the contents might spill over any moment now. I don't mind the pain anymore, just as long as there's something to fill all the holes I've torn into my own chest.

In this moment, Howl the Horrible may have been the happiest man alive.

.

.

.

The End

AN: Drop me a review and let me know what you think about this! Please?