Your heart was racing as you whirled around a corner to avoid the guards chasing you, in your arms, you clutched as many as 15 lemons you had swiped from one of the market stalls. Over your shoulder hung a woven cloth bag that was clinking and thudding as it bounced against you hip. Your hair was done in a tight twin braids that smacked against your back with every step.

You could hear the shouting of the guards, "HALT!" "Stop thief!" "You're under arrest street rat!" They came around the bend quickly, carrying sheathed long swords as they hurried to catch their breaths, realising you were now trapped.

You smirked and looked over your shoulder as you slid to a stop at the end of the alleyway.

"Am I?"

You quickly stamped your boot on the ground, activating a small spell which drew bright runes on the sides of your boots. You crouched down slightly and hugged the lemons into your chest so you didn't drop them, before leaping into the air.

You shrieked with joy, you hadn't used this charm in ages! Since you'd restricted yourself to only activate your Leaping Boots in emergencies since it bruised the bottoms of your feet. You dropped a few of the plump yellow fruits as you clambered with your arms to cling all of them as you floating up high into the air and over a building's roof.

As you looked down, clapping your heels together to activate the spell again before you landed on a rooftile and leapt off it, passing over three roofs this time.

"Ah!" You bit your lip as you landed back on the ground, several streets away from where the guards had tried to stop you. You fell back against a house's exterior wall and slid down to the ground, dropping the lemons into your lap.

Several of the sour fruits rolled away as you wrestled your boots off with your hands, cringing in pain as you clutched your sore feet through your cotton socks. Inspected your ankles to find them badly bruised, as were several of your toes.

"I shouldn't have done so many jumps" You frowned and pulled your boots back on before you stuffed all of the lemons into your satchel.

Climbing back to your feet, you fixed the bottom of your pants so they tucked into your boots, that way when you went up into the hills to get away from this wretched town, no bugs would get into your shoes. Stepping quickly but carefully, keeping to the balls of your feet and off your impressive bruises, you moved gracefully between the crowds of unsuspecting people towards the edge of the town.

"Oh! Did you see what came by through the hills early this morning! A few of the girls spotting Howl's castle moving about through the fog!" You heard a well-dressed girl talking to her group of similarly dressed friends as you passed by them.

"Howl?" You muttered to yourself, tapping your chin as you crossed over the last bridge out of town, "isn't he that dangerous wizard who eats the hearts of pretty girls?"

You ducked under a wooden board being carried by two men as you finally stepped out of the town's borders, and into the beautiful hill landscape beyond. Pulling a cardigan out of your bag, one that was riddled with holes, you reluctantly pulled it over your shoulders and hugged it closed across your chest.

"Jeez its chilly up here" Your teeth chattered and you rubbed your upper arm violently as you ascended up the first grassy hill, "but any where's better than that god-forsaken town" you sniffed.

After walking for about half an hour, your legs couldn't take it anymore, it was violently cold this high in the hills and you hadn't exactly expecting the rain clouds you could see rolling towards you. Shivering, you spotted a large stick poking out of a bush and ran over to it.

"Hang on, I can probably turn this into a flying broom" you tried to pull it loose from the bush, "although" you tugged harder, "my magic's pretty limited right now" you chuckled to yourself.

As it came loose you fell back onto the ground and looked up to the now up-right stick which you now spotted had a scarecrow attached to one end of it.

"Oh" you blinked a few times as the scarecrow seemed to smile down at you, "Uh well, at least your upright now". You brushed the back of your pants off as you got up off the dirt, the scarecrow seemed to stand perfectly by itself as you let go of it, "woah, how are you doing that?"

You poked the stick in the side and the scarecrow jumped, you squealed and it seemed very cheerful at your reaction as it jumped around and around you in a circle.

"You're welcome?" You giggled and it stopped in front of you again so you could get a better look at it, "you have a turnip on your head" you grimaced. "I'm not very fond of turnips, but if you want to tag along with me, your welcome to". 

You hugged your cardigan tighter as another gust of wind swept over your body. The scarecrow  jump about in front of you, then up the hill a little, encouraging you to follow it.

"O-okay... Tu...urnip Head... you win... I cant walk anymore" you stuttering under the icy winds and the scarecrow leant over backwards at an unnatural angle so you could climb up into a piggyback on its back. Your legs wrapped around it's straw-stuffed body, your arms around its wooden arms and head buried in its old coat. Your bag hung heavily on your back, thudding against your legs as the scarecrow bounded up the hill.

Your fingerless gloves were turning your nails blue so you pulled them back into your cardigan's sleeves, closing your eyes as the scarecrow went through the fog on a high hill. 

"Hey... Turnip Head" you began to feel sleepy as the air was making your thin frame feel numb, you were still a little malnourished after not being able to afford food without stealing it. The scarecrow continued to bound but at a little bit of a slower pace, it kind of felt like you were being burped like a baby, which was making you even more tired. "Do you think... you can find a place for me to stay~" You snuggled into the old fabric of the scarecrow's shirt, "somewhere warm please".

You woke up to the loud creaking metal sound of gears grinding above you. As you rubbed your eye with your fist and sat up higher on Turnip Head's straw frame, your eyes caught the enormous castle looming in front of you. "Th-this is... Howl's Castle..." your voice was shakly and you tugged on the scarecrow's coat as he continued to leap after the moving metal castle, "Turnip Head this isnt what I meant when i asked for you to find me somewhere to stay".

You slid down off his back, but when your bruised feet hit the ground with the added weight of your bag, you cried out and collapsed back onto the ground. 

Turnip Head jumped around you to check you were ok as the castle moved above you all, passing over you with large steps taken by its four metallic legs. 

"Bugger" you grumbled and rubbed you butt before getting back onto your feet, you stared at the castle's low door as it came past you, "mm... at least it might be warmer in there... and I dont think Howl would waste his strength eating my heart anyway, I'm not a pretty girl". You grabbed onto the railing of the front door and pulled yourself up, turning the knob and pushing it open.

You let out a gasp as the hot air inside trickled out of the doorway straight onto your face and body, it felt so good compared to the horrible weather outside. You glanced back to the hopping scarecrow and waved him over to you, "Come here Turnip Head! Its warm inside!"

The scarecrow simply shook its turnip face and jumped underneath the castle and out of sight. You pouted, but thought nothing much of it as you walked inside and closed the door quietly behind you.

Inside the gloomy room, you could barely make out much of what was there, what with it being covered in dust and grim and cobwebs, and every avaliable surface piled high with books and parchments and strange objects. 

"Hello?" You called out into the room, your melodic voice echoes up the stairs on the far wall, but after a moment with no reply, you disregarded the thought of going upstairs and hurried over to the fireplace at one end of the room.

You quickly found that a chair was seated in front of it and you dumped your weight onto it, grabbing a few logs from the side of you where they were neatly stacked and dumping them onto the glowing embers of the fire. Desperately pulling at your shoes to pull off your boots, you wiggled around in the chair until your feet were free of them. You gently set your heels down on the stone edge of the fireplace, sighing gratefully as the warmth hit the bruises covering your feet from your Leaping boots. You leant back, closing your eyes and hugging your chest in the darkness.

"How'd you get such bad bruises cutie?" A male voice asked, high and raspy like the demon's your mother used to talk to. You sat up quickly, frantically turning your head back and forth until you caught sight of a face in the luring fire.

"You're a fire demon?" You set the bottoms of your feet onto the ground, though the wooden boards made the aching skin feel even worse, and arched your head towards the fire.

The face chuckled, "course I am, but I'm not just any fire demon" he snickered and his face became larger and more menacing, "I'm the great and powerful demon Calcifer!"

You hummed innocently as you examined the grin the fire was displaying brightly, "well its... nice to meet you Calcifer..."

"What's that you've got in your bag cutie? It smells like zest!" The fire licked its own flaming skin around its mouth with a red hot tongue, you frowned and reached in to pull out a lemon.

"My name's not cutie, it's (Y/n), and they're just lemons, you can have one if you like" you offered it out towards the demon, who seemed even more ecstatic as he sped towards it over his log. However you pulled it out of his reach just in time, "but! In return you've got to let me stay here for the night, its far to cold outside, and I'll even clean for you".

"How about you stay forever?" The demon nodded and you tossed him the yellow fruit, he caught it between his loose jaws and began chewing loudly, spurting the spitting sour juice all over the ashes. 

"Not forever" You glanced absent-mindedly over towards the stairs leading to what you assumed must be the upper floors, "if Howl finds out I'm here, I'm sure he'll rip my heart out".

"Nah" The demon slurped as he licked his fiery fingers, "Howl ain't gonna hurt a pretty doll like you" He snapped his 'fingers', "Say, how about you give me the rest of those lemons, and in return I'll heat up some water in that tap over there and you can soak your feet in that sink".

"Now why would I soak my feet in the sink? It looks dreadfully grotty, when was the last time you cleaned up around here?" You pulled your knees up to your chest, shrugging your cardigan off and putting it back into your bag. Your feet were beginning to miss the heat Calcifer's heat had given, but you weren't feeling ready to ask a demon for help.

"Mm well probably never, but you said you'd do some cleaning, and I doubt you'd be able to do that without walking" The fire pointed to the souls of your feet, "those bruises look bad, and some hot water mixed with some lemon juice might help that".

You stared at Calcifer carefully, "why are you being so nice to me Calcifer? I could be a bad person" you picked some little stones out from between your toes, deciding it was best not to look directly into the eyes of the fire.

"Call it my instincts" he chuckles, "I don't think you're a bad person (Y/n), you got in here just fine didn't you? And my spell's on this castle prevent any harmful beings from entering, besides Howl of course".

You finally got out of your chair and walked over to check the water was still working in the sink Calcifer had pointed to, "Howl's really that dangerous huh?" You murmured, tucking a loose strand of your hair behind your ear.

As you ran the water onto your hand, you felt it began to heat up and you looked back to Calcifer sitting in his fireplace, he looked at you solemnly, "only on the magic side of things..."

Once the water was hot you stuffed a plug into the bottom of the old sink and let it fill until it was halfway full, then your turned the tap off with several squeaks and walked back over to your bag. You set several lemons on top of the log in front of Calcifer, and took the rest over to the sink without a word.

He watched you with his burning eyes, cutting each lemon skin off safely with a knife you'd found sitting on one of the overloaded desks. You crushed the de-skinned lemons and dropped them into the water, before lowering your feet in.

You exhaled instantly as your hurting toes were enveloped with an even better warmth than they'd had being laid out in front of Calcifer. You smiled and rested your hands on the marble bench you were sitting on to have you feet in the sink, tilting back your head in pleasure.

"Mmm you were right Calcifer, this feels great~" You hummed again, a sweet noise now that you were finally at bliss, the fire demon chucked from where he was leaning over one of the logs.

"Didn't I tell ya?" He said as he stuffed lemon after lemon into his face, "Now you just rest there till your feet quit hurting, then you can grab a blanket off the shelf and sleep here next to the chair. I'll keep you warm".

"That's awfully kind Calcifer, you don't have to" You opened one eye to peer at the demon, but he was too preoccupied wrestling over the wood to grab the last lemon, which had rolled down the ash a bit.

"Ah I don't mind, Howl's been gone a few days now so I haven't had much to do" He clamped his mouth around the last sour fruit and grinned at the taste, "guess I'm just bored".

You yawned and lay your head down on the marble countertop, drawing your numb but warm feet out of the water and up towards your body, "I see..."

That's the first chapter for my new story!! Let me know what you think!! I'm very excited to be writing this because I wanted to find a fanfiction for Howl x Reader but they're all very OC and don't stick to x Readers. So I hope you find some joy reading mine, I know I get a lot of joy writing it!!