drive-by pocket-sized four-day challenge
Thank you to everyone who voted in the poll and expressed interest in this quickie challenge! (Even if you didn't vote in the poll, you're still welcome to play!)
THE CHALLENGE / HOW TO PLAY
THE CHALLENGE / HOW TO PLAY
- Anyone participating can play: You can leave as many prompts as you want, but you MUST fill at least one prompt. Please don't leave a prompt if you don't ( Read more... )
Howl sighed also, and cracked one eye at Alden.
"It's the king," said Howl. "If you must know, Sir Nose, it's the king."
The pupil was slitted, Alden was startled to see, like that of a bird. Yet even as he looked, the shape slowly flattened out to something more like normal.
"The king?" said Alden. "What does the king have to do with anything?"
"I've been avoiding his summonses," said Howl. "But tonight…The war with Strangia…"
Howl slid a little further into the water, and his knees broke the surface. A last feather or two still clung and Alden, reflexively, brushed them away before he thought better of it and yanked his hand backward, uncertain.
Howl glanced up at Alden and smiled, then.
"Alden," said Howl. "Did you know you've stopped being old? I wish…"
Alden startled and looked, then, at the hand that had touched Howl. It was his hand, not old in the least. He rolled up the sleeve of his nightshirt and stared.
"But!" said Alden. "The curse!"
"I suppose you forgot to tell yourself how old and feeble you were, as soon as you woke," said Howl. "That is your magic, you know."
"Magic?" said Alden. "I should think I would know if I could do magic."
The Witch of the Waste had said something about magic, true, but Alden made hats, not spells. Didn't he?
Howl snorted, blowing ripples into the bathwater.
"Your spells are what you speak," said Howl. "You tell a hat 'youth' and the wearer looks younger. Tell yourself you are old, and, convinced by a needlessly dramatic performance by that useless old hag…"
Howl raised one red eyebrow at Alden.
"And I made myself old," said Alden. "Oh dear."
"Calcifer took off the witch's original curse as soon as you set foot on the back stairs," said Howl. "Can't have enchantments running around my castle, you know. They can interfere dreadfully with my work."
Howl raised an arm out of the bath then, and sprinkled the room with more bathwater. The drops flared red, orange, yellow, blue on the walls before fading into ordinary water. Alden was relieved to see that Howl's arm was free of feathers and back to its usual, shapely appearance.
Howl laughed, and Alden had the distinct feeling that Howl was laughing at him.
"What?" said Alden.
"No one who looks at another person as you have looked at me could possibly be dull and old," said Howl. "No need for an enchanted suit with you, is there?"
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Howl was completely feather-free, nothing but miles of softly steaming, wet skin, and that ridiculously bright hair trailing down his back.
"I ought to curse you to a lifetime of cold baths!" said Alden. "It would absolutely serve you right--"
Howl stepped out of the bath and enfolded Alden in his arms.
"If you did that, you'd suffer with me," he said.
His breath tickled Alden's ear and Alden shivered, struggling with goose pimples that wanted to rise. It had nothing to do with the silky timbre of that voice.
"I suppose it would be inconvenient," said Alden. "To have to encourage the taps at every bath I took."
Howl chuckled, and the vibrations gave Alden the most distinct tingle in his toes, curse it.
"I assumed that we would be bathing together, my dear Alden," said Howl. "I don't suppose you have any thoughts about the problem of the King's ridiculous war with Strangia, do you?"
Howl's hands drifted downward from Alden's shoulders to the small of his back.
"Only I'd hate for a good bath to be interrupted," said Howl. "It would be such a waste."
The hands, those sneaky, slithery, magic hands, went a little lower and bracketed Alden's hips, pulling him snug against Howl's body. Alden felt his clothes dampening.
"Remind me later to tell you a little about a place called Wales," said Howl. "Now how about this nightshirt of yours? It's a little old-mannish, don't you think?"
He smiled, bright and expectant.
Mingled fury and exhilaration rendered Alden speechless for the first time in his life.
"Why--" said Alden. "I--"
Something in Alden uncurled without further prompting.
The bath behind them, lukewarm, suddenly began to steam.
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(Three comments long, I know! *shakes fist at LJ's arbitrary limitations!*)
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