Sophie had been at Howl's castle for nearly three months now. On this particular evening they were lounging in Howl's office, sitting on the couch. Sophie sat between his legs sitting up straight while he leaned back against the couch, running his fingers through her brown hair. When she looked back at him for a moment, Howl leaned over to Sophie and kissed her forehead tenderly, letting her shiver from the frozen sensation his lips gave her.
"Why can't you just let me go, Howl?" She asked.
"You know why." He responded, not growing angry with her for basically repeating the same exact question over and over again. His patience was never thin when it came to the ones he loved.
"I want to leave though." Sophie told him. "I don't belong here." She said, turning her back to him.
"Yes you do, Sophie. You know where you belong, and it's not just here." He said, nuzzling the crook of her neck and licking it.
"Don't," She pleaded with him not to finish the rest of his thoughts, though highly enjoying the way he treated her neck. "Please, don't."
"You belong with me." The ends of his black hair slid across Sophie's shoulder.
"I don't suppose the next line is that I belong to you, is it?" Howl smirked at the brunette girl and ran his fingers through her hair again.
"Not just yet." Sophie scrunched her nose as if an unpleasant scent filled the air, though the only thing she could really smell was Howl's masculine aroma.
"What do you mean by that?" She questioned the black haired vampire.
"There are some things that are just too complicated to explain. This is one of those topics. All in good time, Sophie, don't you worry, love." Sophie stood up from where she sat and turned around to look at Howl. She was angry and confused.
"Alright, this is how it's going to work, understand? You're going to admit that I'm not this Eternity girl, you're going to let me go, and I am going to pretend like this was just all some kind of sick, highly fictional dream due to the trauma Maria's death brought me, thanks to you, Howl." She finished with her arms across her chest and nearly out of breath.
Howl got up at well and walked over to her. Sophie panicked and started to back away. "Don't come any closer!" He wouldn't listen. "Howl, keep away from me!"
Just then there was a knock at the door, followed by a familiar voice, and a familiar figure, who opened the door.
"You heard the girl, don't you dare touch her." The feminine voice commanded.
"And who are you to tell me what I must and mustn't do?" Howl said cockily. A small, blonde, and feisty woman came out of the shadows furiously with a pointed a menacing finger at Howl.
"Look here, buddy, I don't care how powerful you are. You do not go near her when she doesn't want you near. Understand? Good." She didn't even wait for a response, only looked Howl in the eye furiously.
"M-Maria?" Sophie stuttered. Maria turned around casually with a caring smile.
"Hello, Sophie." Maria pretty much looked the same way she did when she was still alive, aside from the fact that her skin was three times paler than it had been the day she died.
"You're…you're alive?" Sophie asked, utterly stunned. Maria shrugged and chuckled.
"Well, more or less, I suppose. I just spent the last few weeks roaming the cemetery. It was the weirdest thing." She explained, but Sophie was much more interested in the fact that Maria was standing up on her own, talking, moving, scratching her nose!
"You're here? But you were dead! I saw your corpse, I felt for your pulse. You didn't have a pulse!" Sophie shouted. Maria chuckled sheepishly and extended her flawless wrist to her friend.
"Still don't have one actually." When Maria smiled, Sophie saw the last thing she wanted to see. One pearly set of fangs.
"Oh, Maria, you too?" She said nearly woefully. Maria went over to Sophie, as Howl stared at both of them, and cradled her for a moment.
"Now, now, it's not as bad as you think. Certainly isn't as bad as I thought." Maria smiled again, trying to get Sophie to lighten up.
"How did this happen?" She asked Maria, and her smile faded and her skin seemed to take on a bluish tint.
"I was afraid you'd ask that." Howl commented. "This was entirely my doing, with a bit of persuasion, of course." Sophie looked at him with astonishment clear in her eyes.
"Persuasion?" Sophie asked, deathly curious. Howl nodded once.
"You, Sophie, persuaded me into this without so much as asking." He said, and Sophie's eyes went wide upon hearing this.
"You mean, you could have brought her back this whole time?" She semi-shouted, and he nodded again in response. "You never told me?"
"I couldn't. It was already bad enough that you were begging to go back to a town you clearly didn't have a future in. To have you barking at me to bring Mary back, that would've surly been hell."
"Maria, her name is Maria, Howl." Sophie stated curtly. "We're going back to the town, whether you like it or not." Sophie grabbed for Maria's arm and started walking away but Maria was planted firmly to the ground as though she were a tree. "Maria?"
Howl laughed devilishly, smirking while doing so. Sophie gave him a short-lived glare before looking at Maria's frowning face with concern. "Maria, what's wrong?" The blonde vampire picked her head up slowly to look at her former employee.
"I can't go back to the town, Sophie. It was part of the deal." Maria informed her shakily.
"Deal? What deal?" She asked Maria.
"I'm a vampire now, and if I go into that town, I'll kill people. Probably the very people I called my friends. Not only would I kill them, I'd eat them, too. I couldn't do that, I could never." She was on the verge of tears, at least it looked that way. "I'm sorry, Sophie."
Sophie hugged Maria close to her. "Don't apologize, Maria, I know it wasn't your choice." Sophie tried her best to calm her undead friend.
"Not entirely. I'd go with you back to the village if I could, but…I'm not permitted to do so." Sophie watched as Maria pulled out a lacy white apron from the pocket of her black dress and tied it around her waist, then folded her hands in front of her with her head bowed.
"You see, Sophie, Maria is now under a contract. I brought her back to life under a few certain conditions." Howl stated as he put his hand on Sophie's shoulder. Sophie's fists and jaw clenched in unison, continuously tightening.
"And what might these conditions include, Howl?" She asked through gritted teeth.
"Nothing too serious. For starters, Maria is now Charlotte's assistant, meaning she's your very own personal maid. She is not to set foot off of the castle's perimeter. Lastly, she is to report if you plan to 'rebel', so to speak. If she doesn't, she'll be starved." Howl nearly snickered at his own genius. Now that he knew Maria and Sophie were actually friends, he could use that to his fullest advantage.
Sophie turned around, her brown hair practically whipping through the air.
"You're sick!" She spat, and everyone in the room and peeping from behind the door could hear the venom seeping through her lips. "You're evil!"
"Sophie, I did it for you." Howl said apologetically, starting to feel guilty. "I brought Maria back because I thought you'd find living here more tolerable, or even enjoyable, if you had a friend living with us." He was frowning.
"Us?" Sophie asked in a serpent-like manner. "Us? So you had yourself in mind. Us, I can't believe you have the gall to say that." She looked down, unclenching her fists slowly, trying hard not to ignore the stinging sensation in her palms. "You know what, forget it. I can believe that. Killing my best friend, kidnapping me, holding me hostage, you'll just do anything for yourself, won't you?" She whispered more to herself than to Howl. He still heard her, though.
"Maria, leave us." He instructed Maria coldly. She nodded and went to join Charlotte and Jonas behind the door. Howl stood still with his back against the wall and closed the door behind Maria. "I did it for you." He said casually. "I've done all of this for you, Sophie."
"You didn't do it for me, you did it for your stupid Eternity character! Don't even try to pull a fast one over me, Howl. I'm not as stupid as I look, and I don't even look that stupid to begin with!" She shouted, getting more frustrated by the second. "You don't care about me. You care about Eternity. You don't care about mortals, you care about witches. One witch."
Howl froze on the spot. Was she right? Was that all she was to him? Just a replica of his loving, double-crossing Eternity? His eyes narrowed into slits, and he walked over to her slowly, but confidently. He stood in front of her, and lifted Sophie's chin up so they could look each other in the eye.
"Sophie, if I didn't care about you, do you think I would've kept you here for three months? Kept you alive for three months?" His hand fell back to his side. "Do you think I would've let you ask the same four questions over and over again day after day for three months, and probably more? But you think I don't care about you."
Sophie rubbed her forearms, shielding herself from Howl. "Keeping me alive and having patience doesn't mean anything. You still think I'm Eternity. What choice do you have?" She said, becoming less angry and vicious, and more dejected.
With the cheerless look in her eyes, Sophie's head began to droop. "You can say it. Just get it over with. The only reason you want me here is because of the fact there's a possibility in your mind that I'm Eternity, or that she's me. Just say it, Howl." The vampire breathed through his nose and held Sophie's face between his freezing fingers, and made her look up at him.
"Sophie," He said softly. "I genuinely care about you." He kissed her, softly, carefully, warmly. Sophie thought vampires couldn't kiss warmly, but the king of vampires was doing that very thing just now. He was kissing her warmly, instead of the normal frost-bitten peck he usually gave her.
Howl let go of her lips, much to her dismay. "To say otherwise, is positively artificial information." He kissed her forehead, and she practically shivered from the incredible cold.
"I-I don't understand." She stuttered, and he smiled and spoke softly, running his fingers through her hair again.
"If I only cared about the fact that you could have possibly been Eternity, I would have tried to test it out two months ago. But now, I find myself caring less and less for the world, and for Eternity. All I can see," He breathed, reaching out a glacial finger to her cheek to stroke it. "Is you, Sophie." His hand stayed on her cheek, and the vampire and the human girl stared at each other with meaningful gazes.
She took hold of his hand on her cheek, and nuzzled against it, not caring for the bitter chill gnawing at her skin. It was at that moment, Howl knew Sophie had somehow managed to care for him this entire time. She stepped toward him, letting his hand fall to her lukewarm shoulder. She kissed him in her own way, soft, tender, affectionate, with a hint of angst as well.
Howl's arms circled around her waist as he brought her closer to him, not wanting to ever feel what it's like to not have her by his side again. She broke away from him, and looked into his eyes with pain-staking caution. "Give me reason to trust you again, Howl. Please, I want to trust you again."
She begged him, stroking his cheek with her thumb. She bit down on her lip while she traced her thumb over his lip, and revealed his fangs. "Bite me." She commanded absent mindedly. Howl's eyes widened a little and he grabbed her wrist.
"No." He protested. She looked up at him and begged.
"Please, Howl, bite me. Let me trust you again." She said quietly. For the first time in nearly a century, Howl hesitated.
Behind the door, Charlotte and Jonas were talking to Maria while waiting to see what exactly was going on with their master and Sophie.
"So how long have you been undead for?" Charlotte asked, quite chipper about the grim subject.
"About a week, give or take a few days." Maria responded quietly, refusing to put her hair up into a pony tail or bun like Charlotte had insisted earlier.
"It's not so bad!" The more experienced vampire maid exclaimed. "I mean, at least now you don't have anything to fear. You'll never have to stress about death either because, well, you've already dealt with it!" She smiled brightly and Jonas just sighed.
"Charlotte, if you have failed to previously note, is quite the optimist. She can wear you down from time to time." Jonas explained to Maria, who stared at the vampiric butler with wide brown eyes, red swirling around them.
"And I take it you're the pessimist in this?" She said, not showing how being a vampire was currently affecting her physical and emotional states. Jonas nodded, smirking. "I thought as much. So, when can I tell when I'm hungry? Or thirsty? Empty? I don't even know what it is." She hated being a vampire. They were things of evil and temptation and seduction. She was a clumsy hat shop keeper, and would've preferred to stay one.
"When you're hungry, trust me, you'll know when the time comes." Jonas chuckled humorlessly.
"That doesn't help me at all." She snarled. Charlotte put a finger to her mouth in an attempt to warn Maria to watch her volume.
"Don't mind him, he's just arrogant. Anyways, what he's trying to say is that when the time comes for you to feed, you'll know it. It's a combination of instinct and self-observation. Like, your breathing will get deeper, maybe quicker, but much, much deeper. You'll play with your fingers a bit, too. At least I do, I don't know about you." Charlotte laughed at her own signature hunger alert.
"So, it just depends on the vampire?" Maria asked.
"Sort of, yes, I suppose. There are main signs as well. For example, your eyes will get bright red, both when you're about to attack or when you're ready to feed." This made Maria go stiff and silent. "Maria, is something the matter? Maria?"
All Maria could see was the look on Howl's face, and the piercing red in his eyes on the night he killed her. She started shaking, and her fangs felt like they got slightly longer, as did her nails. Charlotte felt for Jonas behind her and started to panic.
"Jonas, she's going into attack mode!" She shouted as quietly as she could. "Get her out of here!" Jonas snatched Maria and jumped down the stairs, Charlotte quickly following behind. "We've got to get her something to drink, Jonas! You know what'll happen if she doesn't get blood soon."
"I'm quite aware, Charlotte, thank you." Jonas remained calm throughout the ordeal as Maria thrashed about and screamed in his hold. "Calm down, young one. I believe this will be her first feeding. Let's start with something small, shall we?"
The three were outside and in a forest in a matter of seconds. Jonas set Maria down and held her by her shoulder. "Maria, find two small foxes for your dinner, and come back. If you don't come back, we'll go looking for you and bring you back to the master. Am I understood?"
Maria's vampire form shrieked with an agonizing thirst, and that's when Jonas released his grip on her. Then Maria was gone in a flash of pale black, crisp white and bright blonde.
"Charlotte?" Jonas called to her quietly.
"Yes, Jonas?" She answered him quite happily.
"Keep watch over the village. I'll track Maria down. Ensure she does not harm a single human being." Charlotte nodded once, clearly in a very good mood despite everything that was going on.
"Consider it done." With that said, Charlotte leaped into the air and landed somewhere in the village, unspotted by all but Jonas himself.
"At a girl." Jonas said to himself and to Charlotte, smiling proudly.
Back with Howl and Sophie…
On the sofa, Sophie lie asleep with a smile on her face. Howl stood over her and brushed the strands of hair out of her face. She looked so peaceful, his Sophie, even though her blood soaked the shoulder of her dress. The marks on her neck were hideous, yet they barely marred her innocence and radiance.
"Forgive me, Sophie." He kissed her cheek, making her smile grow.
"Howl…" She muttered in her sleep. This made Howl smile himself. He wiped the blood from his mouth and sat on the opposite side of Sophie on the red couch. Then he decided that he didn't like that. So he picked Sophie up, sat down, and held her in his arms as she laid her head on his chest. It wasn't until Sophie snuggled against his chest, that Howl's smile brightened and he held her even tighter as she slept.
"Sophie, please, don't ever leave me alone again." He begged the sleeping girl in his arms as he stroked her hair. "Please."
Sophie's red ring began to glow, and Howl began to feel at ease again. Then, he feel asleep peacefully, knowing that Sophie was never going anywhere. Not without him anyways.