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Howl had planned the perfect lesson planned for his newest apprentice and friend, Kali. The perfect lesson, and nothing could have made it less than perfect. As long as the girl was actually coming; the wizard had his doubts. Perhaps she had been tied up with the children she babysat often. Or perhaps she was busy with that boy. He simply would not allow her to get away with that, skipping lessons to spend time with Lance.

The only thing that made the lesson a nine instead of a perfect ten was the fact that Howl's shadow, Puff was lurking about. "I've already cleaned my room, Puff," the wizard said. And it was true, to a degree. Howl's room wasn't exactly what one might have considered clean--but the dust was gone, and the books had been straightened. He had even made his bed.

He was clearly trying to impress a certain student of his.

Zee opened the door almost as soon as Kali knocked. He stared; Howl had made it seem like the girl he was teaching was younger than him. "You must be Kali," he said, as soon as he had recovered. He held the door open for her. "Howl's in his room, waiting for you," he explained. "He told me he's cleaned..." The dark elf looked slightly doubtful. "I hope you don't mind the mess." There was something in the man's tone that suggested he minded.

"Oh, Howl's room's just down the hall," the elf said, pointing. "First door on the right. Avoid the two doors on the left, if you would."

Not that there was anything deadly inside them--one was Devin's room, and the other was a spare doomed to hold all of Howl and Devin's stuff they didn't want in their own rooms.

"Dad, is she here yet?" Came Howl's voice. "Who're you talking to?"

Zee decided he rather liked Kali; he would leave them be. He flopped down onto the living room couch and turned on the television via remote.

"I'm not impatient, I've been planning to--mmphhcat," the rest of his sentence was muffled by Luka. He attempted to pry the shadow off with his hands. "Geoff." He held a magically summoned cheesy puff away from his face, which unfortunately, was grabbed by Puff. "Geoffme."

Puff shook his head at Kali in disapproval, though he was really quite pleased that he had another shadow to visit with. Perhaps they could prank his host? The dragon-like shadow wanted revenge; Howl had forced him to return his books, and worse, refused to let him clean his room.

Howl smiled at Kali once his face was free. "I was saying I planned on teaching you how to turn into one. You said you wanted to learn how to do that, right?" He looked slightly uncertain for a moment. What if she had said she didn't want to learn to turn into a cat?

"If you don't want to learn that, I could teach you something else," he added. Just in case his memory had failed him, and more recently, it had been.

Puff beamed at Luka before wrapping stubby arms around him in a hug. He whispered something into what he assumed was the other shadow's ear. "Pu?" he asked hopefully, pointing at Howl's hair. He knew how much his host valued his hair. This would be fun.

Howl beamed, so his memory hadn't failed him after all! That was a relief. He handed her a piece of paper, describing the gestures and how to go about reciting the spell. It wasn't a particularly difficult spell, Howl knew, though it had been useful to the wizard in the past.

"It's a really useful spell," Howl explained with a smile. "I've used it to escape witches, and to save Sophie from djinns and--" well, now wasn't exactly the time to list every time he'd used it. "It's not difficult, and once you master it, you can take any form. This is the base spell for all transformations."

Puff sneakily handed Luka a jar of purple paint. "Pu," he said, nodding and glancing pointedly at Howl's head. His mismatched eyes glinted with the tell-tale signs of a trouble-maker at work.

"Inside's fine," Howl assured her. "Nothing will happen, unless you say a word wrong or something. Then you might turn into another kind of animal. If that happens, I can turn you back. Don't worry."

Though Howl did not know it, he was much nicer than this Zak. He was a rather laid back teacher; in fact, sometimes it took him a while to realize his student was talking to him. "I used to--" he froze, feeling something cold on his head. He put a hand to his hair in horror, and went pale when he studied his now purple hand.

"Puff!" he whipped around, growling. His marble-like eyes glinted with anger.

The shadow disappeared into the floor with a squeak of fear. Howl sat onto his bed, looking tragic. All thoughts of teaching Kali had disappeared. Thoughts of crawling into a hole and dying there had taken their place.

Howl stared at her tragically. He either didn't believe she was capable of a miracle such as removing paint from his hair, or he had seen the smile and figured she was laughing at him. "No it won't," he said gloomily. "It'll take days. It's already stained my hair..."

He sulkily and reluctantly exited his room, and led Kali to the bathroom, two doors away. He studied himself in the mirror before burying his face in his hands. Shadows began climbing the walls of the bathroom, moans started sounding, and they weren't coming from the wizard.

They alerted Zee to the situation, and the tall dark elf made his way down the hall. He sighed when he saw Howl's hair, and shook his head. "I'll leave you to deal with it, then," he said, flashing Kali a grin before taking his leave. It was more like fleeing, but--

Howl paused in his sulking, surprised at the hug. Surprised, but pleased. He returned her hug and after a moment of cuddling, the shadows on the walls disappeared. The moans stopped, and the previously tantruming wizard stared up at her.

"You really think it looks good?" he asked seriously. His ghost of a smile faded into a frown. "Sophie will laugh at me," he whined as he was cuddled. "She'll think this is funny." He leaned against her gloomily. "But I won't slime... I won't. For you." Which showed how much Howl liked Kali, really. He wouldn't have stopped tantruming for just anyone.

Not even his wife.