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Unsatisfied	By : IncessantDarkness29 Category: G through L > Howl's Moving Castle Views: 4946 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Howl's Moving Castle. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Unsatisfied
- 2-Of Unanswered Questions
- 1
- 2
Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't sue.

AN: Enjoy.

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“Michael, wake up.” An all too familiar voice cut through the sleepy haze that Michael had fallen into.

“Do I have to?” Michael whined, forestalling the moment when he would have to leave the warm comfort of his bed.

“Well, no …if you don’t mind getting left behind.” Michael shot straight up in his bed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he did. “Actually just stay in bed, at this rate I’d be better off leaving you behind anyways.”

“No. I’m up. I’M UP!” Michael stumbled out of his tangled covers and ran out his bedroom door, ducking under Howl’s arm, which was outstretched across the doorframe, as he did.

Michael winced guilty as a double take revealed that Howl was in fact fully dressed and prepared to walk straight out the door at any moment. Brushing his teeth hastily Michael ran a comb through his hair in a careless manor and was rushing out to pull some fresh clothes on when he ran into a very tall and painfully solid form.

Rebounding to his feet to continue on he saw that he had bounced not off some strangely placed inanimate object but instead the scowling form of Howl.

“Sorry Howl, I didn’t see you there.”

Howl huffed rather showily but didn’t express any other visual signs of displeasure and so Michael was about to run off again when the wizard opened his mouth.

“You might want to have a quick shower.”

“I had one two days ago, I’ll have one when we get back.”

Howl rubbed the back of his neck in a frustrated sort of way and spoke up again.

“That may not be for a while.”

“How long?”

“Well-”

“Wait, where are we going?”

“Look, either hurry up and get ready or don’t come at all, alright?” Howl stomped away looking rather agitated. Michael realized that Howl had yet again avoided answering his question but the apprentice found that he couldn’t bring himself to care very much at all. Instead he rushed into his room grabbed a towel and ran back into the bathroom to take one of the quickest showers of his life.

After he had managed to pull together a decent set of clothes to wear for the day, Michael grabbed a traveller’s bag and threw in some change of clothes and a few other essentials before high tailing it down to the main room. Howl was standing there, a black, bulky bag in one hand and a rather ordinary cloak folded over the other.

“Come, we’ll eat on the ride.” Michael felt the burn of curiosity but held his tongue in favour of catching up to Howl who had disappeared outside the castle entrance. As he was jumping the small gap between the castle and the gently passing hillside Michael saw something that took him entirely by surprise. Two beautiful mounts, a roan mare and a black stallion. The black steed was almost two hands taller than the roan but both horses were a wonderful sight.

Then suddenly Michael was filled with dread. Surely they wouldn’t be riding these. After all they had several pairs of [seven and half] league boots in their closet.

Howl cleared his throat with the purpose of snapping Michael out of his daze. Michael’s glance shifted from the two mounts to Howl who wordlessly handed him the reins of the roan. Michael hadn’t ridden a horse since his childhood, since before…Michael tried not to think about it but failed miserably as a sudden stream of images of himself and his father riding side by side flashed through his mind.

“It would be best to avoid any and all connections to magic when it can be helped. The place we’re headed does not welcome it and even a magical journey may put us in jeopardy.” Michael took the offered explanation mutely and tried to quell the storm of questions that roared up in his mind. Where on earth were they going that would condemn magic? And what business did Howl have in such a land anyways?

Michael secured his stuff to the saddle before warily mounting the mare, which fidgeted under him but did nothing to buck him off. Secure in his position atop the mount he turned to Howl who had begun to urge his horse towards a beaten dirt path. Michael realized warily that this was the opposite direction from which the Castle usually floated, in fact the giant fortress rarely came out so far in this wayward direction.

“We will be riding hard for the first little bit, I want to make the most of our fresh horses so we can eat a little later in the day.” Howl didn’t waste another breath, digging in his heels he urged his horse first to a trot then to a full out gallop, not looking back even once to notice how Michael was faring.

Fortunately for Michael, his roan was well trained and it easily kept pace with Howl’s stallion without much effort on Michael’s part for which he was glad. The apprentice was having a hard enough time staying in his saddle to be worrying about keeping up with Wizard Howl.

It was a while past noon when they finally came to a stop at a spot where the forest they had been riding through for the past while cleared away to provide a grassy plain of either side of the path they had taken.

Howl hopped down from his horse, and after taking a leather pouch from one of the saddlebags, let it wander of to seek a tuff of grass to munch on. Michael silently followed Howl’s example, simply glad to be off the saddle for a moment (riding for such a long while after so long a time was sore work).

“You still in one piece?” Howl asked, his voice holding such a throwaway tone that Michael doubted that he even cared for an answer. He was proved wrong however when Howl fixed him with a steady stare and didn’t look away until Michael bothered to mumble a quiet ‘I’m fine’.

A little while later, Howl was nestled in against the roots of a rather large oak tree, the light from the noonday sun trickling in from the canopy above to highlight the tan of his boots and Michael was seated on the bare grass in front of him munching on a spare bit of jerky when at last his back and bottom stopped throbbing enough to allow him to sort through the endless questions that ran amok in his mind.

“So where exactly are we headed?” Michael asked, trying to sound only casually curious though in all reality he was dying to know where they had to go that had Howl riding off on a horse.

“Hmmm…well…”

Michael waited patiently until Howl munched through the entire slice of bread that he had in his hand and took a sip from a bottle of water he had with him. Finally he opened his mouth once again as if only a moment had passed between Michael’s question and his answer at that moment and said,

“I think I’ll keep you on a need to know basis and as of now you don’t need to know.”

Michael’s jaw nearly hit the ground in response to Howl’s answer and he barely restrained himself from jumping the wizard who was lounging against the tree before him. Gritting his teeth and try to be at peace with the fact that Howl would tell him if the need arose Michael decided to move on with his questioning.

“I don’t suppose you’ll tell me why we’re headed wherever we’re headed then?”

“It’s safer if you don’t know Michael.” Howl replied snapping up a shoot of grass and placing it in his mouth, nibbling on it for a moment before tossing it to the ground with a thoughtful look on his face. “For now all you need to know is that I have a job to do and that you happen to be coming with me.”

Michael nodded and shut up, knowing that he would get no more answers from Howl. It was rather difficult when a wizard got it in his head that all those around him were simply being pesky and doubly so when the wizard in question was Howl and yet over the years Michael had learned to deal with the evasive behaviour of his teacher and learned never to take anything at face value.

The fact that Howl wouldn’t answer any of his questions lead Michael to think that wherever they were headed it was a tad more dangerous than what he was use to on a daily basis. His suspicions were confirmed a while later while they prepared to mount their horses once more.

“Michael.”

“Yes.”

“Look at me Michael, this is important.” Michael turned from where he was strapping the now empty lunch bag to his saddle and watched Howl’s expression with care. It revealed nothing in its neutral mask but Howl’s words were telling enough to compensate.

“Promise me that if I tell you to do something you will do it without question.”

“Howl, what-”

“Michael.” The boy in question flinched immediately as he recognized the no-nonsense tone that Howl had adopted.

“Fine, I promise. Howl what is this about?”

“Hopefully nothing.” Howl answered vaguely and mounted his horse and kicked it to a trot before Michael could ask any more questions, leaving the poor apprentice struggling to stay on his hastily mounted horse as it attempted to follow the black steed as it had been trained to do.

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AN: This isn't my top priority fic at the moment I'm sorry to say but when I get a spare minute here and there I do try to whip up a paragraph or two in favour of this fic. That however means that the updates will be rather sporadic which isn't too great. So if there are any readers out there who really want to see this fic do, leave your email in a review and request to be notified of updates and I shall make sure to do so.

Other than that I would just like to say that I have a vague idea of where this is going and therefore I can garuntee that the characters won't be too drastically changed which is always nice and hopefully I can with the help of some encouraging or just 'hi I'm hear, I'm alive and I'm reading' reviews I can get into a more regular routine of updating.

For the moment I would just like to say thank you to those who reviewed and sorry to any and all readers for the fact that I'm only reading over the chapters once and this fic is unbetaed which is how it chall remain until I'm done with the other fics I have going.

Thanks again for the reviews. If you read and like please do leave a review, they really do make me happy.

- Incessant_Darkness
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