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Jul. 26th, 2007 10:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talkstohats[After this:]
Two hours pass. And Howl isn't back.
Then three.
Sophie darns apparently endless pairs of woolly socks without looking at them, her glare fixed on the door.
The clock ticks to midnight; Michael tucks himself into bed, with an anxious look in her direction; Calcifer sizzles down into coals, and Howl still hasn't returned.
As three in the morning rolls around, Sophie looks down and realizes that one sock is now a good three feet long.
"Gah!" she spits, and puts it down, and considers her options. She's not going to go to sleep before Howl gets back. She told him she wouldn't, and she won't - she's far too consumed with worry even to consider it. There is, after all, a war on.
If Howl's not back by the morning, she's already decided hours ago, she's going to see the palace and demand to know what's keeping them. But seeing the King in the morning on no sleep whatsoever doesn't sound like a particularly delightful prospect.
And if Howl's still gone, then certainly they're both still awake . . .
And after all, what right do people have - even royal people - to keep one's betrothed out until positively indecent hours of the night?
So the plan is settled, she tells herself, and before she can remind herself of the further fact that the plan is absolutely mad, she sweeps over to the closet, fetches out the cloak of disguise that turns her into a forbidding-looking red-bearded man, and turns the door to Kingsbury.
*********
Sophie has forgotten one crucial fact: she has no idea how to navigate in Kingsbury.
Somehow, the palace stays tantalizingly just ahead as she wanders through the streets, aiming her most ferocious glare at the occasional drunk exiting from a tavern and hoping that it comes across as fiercely as she hopes from under her fake red eyebrows. There's one good thing, though: by this point, she's far too furious at Howl, the King, Prince Justin, and anyone else who can possibly be blamed for the situation to feel at all frightened about walking through the city on her own.
The sun is well up in the sky by the time she reaches the Palace, too full of adrenaline to feel as exhausted as she probably should. She marches up the steps, throws off the disguise cloak, and announces to the astonished guards, in her most imperious tone, "Witch Hatter to see the King!"
She's half expecting them to deny her entrance, but instead they nod, looking rather startled, and show her immediately in.
'Immediately' still means it takes half an hour to get through the maze of passages and drowsily bowing pages to the audience chambers. When Sophie sees the King, she suspects that he's used the time bought in order to dress - his regal robes look as if they've been put on rather hastily, and his crown is askew on his head - but he rises to his feet as politely as if she'd been expected for weeks. "Always a pleasure, Miss Hatter," he says, clearly doing his best to hide a degree of bemusement.
Sophie has no time or patience for politeness.
"Where," she demands, "is Howl?"
"Wizard Howl?" The King blinks at her, startled. "I - er - well, I assumed he'd have told you -"
"He told me," Sophie snaps, "that he was summoned to talk with you. That was last night. As he didn't come home, I assume he's still here, so - where is he?"
The King hesitates.
Sophie fixes him with her very fiercest glare, and attempts to convey, with her eyes alone, that if he resists she can and will drench him in her very best brand of weedkiller.
"Well," the King says, rather apologetically, "he's in Strangia."
It's a good thing that the Palace is so large, and that its walls are thick - otherwise Sophie's scream of "STRANGIA?" might well compromise all the secrecy of the mission.
A carriage takes her back to the castle at her terse request, and twenty minutes later, Sophie, armed with the red-bearded disguise cloak and a pair of seven-league-boots, is on her way to Strangia.
Two hours pass. And Howl isn't back.
Then three.
Sophie darns apparently endless pairs of woolly socks without looking at them, her glare fixed on the door.
The clock ticks to midnight; Michael tucks himself into bed, with an anxious look in her direction; Calcifer sizzles down into coals, and Howl still hasn't returned.
As three in the morning rolls around, Sophie looks down and realizes that one sock is now a good three feet long.
"Gah!" she spits, and puts it down, and considers her options. She's not going to go to sleep before Howl gets back. She told him she wouldn't, and she won't - she's far too consumed with worry even to consider it. There is, after all, a war on.
If Howl's not back by the morning, she's already decided hours ago, she's going to see the palace and demand to know what's keeping them. But seeing the King in the morning on no sleep whatsoever doesn't sound like a particularly delightful prospect.
And if Howl's still gone, then certainly they're both still awake . . .
And after all, what right do people have - even royal people - to keep one's betrothed out until positively indecent hours of the night?
So the plan is settled, she tells herself, and before she can remind herself of the further fact that the plan is absolutely mad, she sweeps over to the closet, fetches out the cloak of disguise that turns her into a forbidding-looking red-bearded man, and turns the door to Kingsbury.
*********
Sophie has forgotten one crucial fact: she has no idea how to navigate in Kingsbury.
Somehow, the palace stays tantalizingly just ahead as she wanders through the streets, aiming her most ferocious glare at the occasional drunk exiting from a tavern and hoping that it comes across as fiercely as she hopes from under her fake red eyebrows. There's one good thing, though: by this point, she's far too furious at Howl, the King, Prince Justin, and anyone else who can possibly be blamed for the situation to feel at all frightened about walking through the city on her own.
The sun is well up in the sky by the time she reaches the Palace, too full of adrenaline to feel as exhausted as she probably should. She marches up the steps, throws off the disguise cloak, and announces to the astonished guards, in her most imperious tone, "Witch Hatter to see the King!"
She's half expecting them to deny her entrance, but instead they nod, looking rather startled, and show her immediately in.
'Immediately' still means it takes half an hour to get through the maze of passages and drowsily bowing pages to the audience chambers. When Sophie sees the King, she suspects that he's used the time bought in order to dress - his regal robes look as if they've been put on rather hastily, and his crown is askew on his head - but he rises to his feet as politely as if she'd been expected for weeks. "Always a pleasure, Miss Hatter," he says, clearly doing his best to hide a degree of bemusement.
Sophie has no time or patience for politeness.
"Where," she demands, "is Howl?"
"Wizard Howl?" The King blinks at her, startled. "I - er - well, I assumed he'd have told you -"
"He told me," Sophie snaps, "that he was summoned to talk with you. That was last night. As he didn't come home, I assume he's still here, so - where is he?"
The King hesitates.
Sophie fixes him with her very fiercest glare, and attempts to convey, with her eyes alone, that if he resists she can and will drench him in her very best brand of weedkiller.
"Well," the King says, rather apologetically, "he's in Strangia."
It's a good thing that the Palace is so large, and that its walls are thick - otherwise Sophie's scream of "STRANGIA?" might well compromise all the secrecy of the mission.
A carriage takes her back to the castle at her terse request, and twenty minutes later, Sophie, armed with the red-bearded disguise cloak and a pair of seven-league-boots, is on her way to Strangia.
