the heavens' lord .

𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐋𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐈𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐑 𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐑𝐏𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐓𝐘

REIGN SENTENCE STARTERS | accepting.

     GOOD, BAD — IT all seems so subjective to her now, where not even a matter of months ago, it would have been so much simpler. Whether she likes to admit it or not, HOWL has confused things for her, in that spectacular way that only he seemed to have of getting so thoroughly under her skin. Before this new life, before getting swept up into this CURSE, she would have been content not to wonder about such things too deeply. She’d burrowed herself as far down into her work in the hat shop as sewing and fabrics would allow, and hardly dared to wonder if people out there in the real world could be so much more multifaceted than all that.

     BUT OF COURSE, she’d crossed paths with Ingary’s most infamous wizard, and one can’t so much as breathe around Howl Pendragon without wondering how one person could possibly be so many things all at once. He’d taken her in when she had nowhere else to turn, shown her remarkable kindness, rescued her from guards who’d tried to get just a bit too friendly — but sometimes, in the span of seconds, he could be breathtakingly selfish and cowardly. The more Sophie gets to know him these days, the more it’s come to seem to her as though there’s two warring sides to Howl: the self-preserving side ( the part of himself that he’d retreated into as a CHILD and refused to depart from ever since ) and something far more human, something — dare she even say it — quite GENTLE and lovely, that wants so desperately to break free.

     SHE SEES NONE of that in Muska — but does that make it any less possible for it to be there, deep down? The thought of it makes her head spin. Oh, how she missed the days when her life was free of such melodrama!

     ❝ AND WHY IS it that you want to give me your advice at all? ❞ Sophie asks at last, grateful that her voice sounds much braver than she feels. She’s hardly scared of Muska — she’s seen far worse in her time with Howl, particularly among the king’s ranks. But he KNOWS things about her curse, such specific details about the way it might be BROKEN, that it makes her uneasy. Can she even trust his counsel? ❝ We hardly know each other. Why should I believe that you really want to help me break my — ❞ she can’t get another syllable out before the witch’s magic does its work, and prevents her from talking any further about her curse.