Sarah regretted not being able to go back the same way she had gone
forward. Despite the chill of the water and not being able to breathe, at
least it was faster and less tiresome. The tunnel had obviously been
constructed for the path of water to cut through as it seemed to be on a
complete downward slant. The bad side of this was that in order to trace
their steps back along the tunnel, they were constantly walking uphill.
She was used to walking, but this was starting to strain the muscles in her legs. She knew that she would be very sore the following day from this climb. Boto seemed not to notice at all. He walked along smoothly, chattering from time to time about different celebrations that were held. Surprisingly, most of his stories were not of the Underground, but of her own world.
"You've been to....the Aboveground?" She asked him.
"Oh many times! They have some of the best celebrations. Some villages used to hold grand celebrations for me and my brothers." He grinned at her and helped her to climb up a series of small ledges before turning to lead her down another pathway. "All night we would dance and dine and celebrate, and the people would try to figure out which of us were Boto and which were not. And those that guessed correctly would receive a gift. IT was grand fun. They don't seem to hold those celebrations anymore."
Sarah nodded. "Most people don't believe in magic anymore, or in....people....that don't' come from our world." They had finally gotten to the tunnel where she and Jareth had gone in separate direction and they now walked down the tunnels instead of up.
"That's so sad. Many people used to be great friends of the people that now live in the Labyrinth. It seems less and less people call us to visit, and even fewer come here to the Labyrinth. That will probably change when Thanier takes control of this place."
"How do you figure that?"
Boto thought for a moment, weighing his words. "Thanier is part mortal, like you, and part fae, like Jareth. He can go between Aboveground and Underground without needing to be called." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I heard him saying that if he has control of the magic's of the Labyrinth, then he won't have to wait for someone to wish themselves here, he'll be able to take whoever he wants, and maybe, he can even get rid of the barriers that separate the Aboveground from us here."
"You sound as if you don't like that idea."
Boto stopped, motioning her to stop and rest for a few minutes. "We still have ways to go. Time to take a break." He suited action to word and sat down, waiting for her to do the same.
Sarah sat down keeping an eye on him. He really wasn't that bad, a bit flakey, but pretty nice. "So why don't you like the idea of this Thanier guy controlling the Labyrinth?"
"I just don't like him."
She smirked. "That seems to be the general feeling I get. If this guy is so unpopular, why does he want to rule here anyway?"
Boto looked at her, started to speak a few times, then shook his head. "I should let his majesty, King Jareth, answer that one. Come on, we better go if we're to find him." He stood up and offered her his hand which she accepted.
It took them almost another hour to walk to the area where Boto assured her Jareth was. She looked around and could see no sign of him. Ahead of them, she could make out a ladder. "Perhaps he went up there, I'll just go and check."
"No, you mustn't." He grabbed her arm and held her in place. "You can't go there, please, stay?"
He was so insistent, his eyes looked at her filled with worry. "Boto, what's up there."
"It's a memory catch. If you go up there, you'll find a door, and if you go in, you'll be stuck reliving a memory."
"That doesn't sound so bad."
"You'll be stuck reliving that memory, over and over again. For you, not much time will pass, but time will continue around you and you'll waste all of your time in there." He continued to hold her arms as if he were afraid if he let go she would go running for the ladder.
Sarah looked at the ladder and her stomach knotted. "Is that where Jareth is?"
Boto nodded.
"How do we get him out then?"
He looked down at the floor, taking his hat off and sweeping a hand through his hair. Sarah thought she saw something like a whale's blow whole on the top of his head before he put the hat back in place. "I thought maybe you would think of something. I've never heard of some one breaking out of the loop on their own. And you can't pull him out, you'll just pass right through him. And he won't see you there because to him, you're not there."
Her heart sank. "So he can't see me, I can't touch him, and he probably won't be able to pull himself out on his own?"
He nodded solemnly.
"We'll just have to find some other way to get his attention. Come on." She started to walk to the ladder again and once more was halted by Boto's hand on her arm.
"That's not how you get there." He said. He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. Standing next to her, he took her hand and began to pull her along with him, walking backwards.
As the ladder came to them, they were still alone in the tunnel. "Are you sure this is where he is?"
Boto nodded. "He's here. He went through the door, it's going to take him a few minutes to get back here, then he'll climb the ladder again and everything for him will repeat."
A few minutes later, Sarah saw a rushing wave of water coming at her. Not again! She thought. She braced herself as she expected the water to crash against her, but as it passed around her, it seemed to be merely illusion. The water wasn't that deep here, it did not fill the tunnel as it had when it had first carried her away, instead it seemed to barely come to her waist.
The she saw Jareth he was moving with the water, but he managed to get his feet on the ground and hold his place. "Jareth!"
She couldn't be sure but she thought that he might have hesitated a moment before moving to the stairs and starting to climb up again. Although she had been told it would be useless, she ran forward and tried to grab his arm. It was like trying to grab hold of mist, her hand passed through his arm with a cool sensation and he continued his climb. "Jareth, you have to stop!" There was no miniscule pause this time, he kept climbing.
He reached the top of the ladder and stepped onto a little ledge out of her sight. "Great now what?" she turned to face Boto again.
"We wait till he comes back and try again, and if that doesn't work, we try again. That's pretty much the only thing we can do."
The tried three more times to find someway to catch his attention and break the cycle he was in. Each time, he ignored them and continued his journey back into the memory loop.
After the third try they both sat in against the tunnel wall trying to think of other ways to get through to him.
"Well, you could always stand in front of him and remove all your clothes."
Sarah stared at her new companion. "You already said though that he wouldn't be able to see me."
"No, but I would, and it would definitely make sitting here more worthwhile." He gave her such a charming flirtatious grin that she had to laugh.
"Um, no, I don't think that will help us any." She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. "And I'm really thirsty right now and that's not helping me think either. I wish I had my bottle of water."
"A drink would be nice, but alas, the water that comes through here is about as real as everything else at the moment, just a memory."
At the mention of the water, the flooding tide came through the tunnel once more carrying Jareth with it. They did not bother to get up, as they were used to the fact that it would not actually touch them. The actual water was long gone. This time though, something did hit Sarah as she sat watching the water go by. One of the water bottles that she had packed.
She picked up the bottle of water and stared at it, not quite believing it was there.
"Oh good, some real water, mind if I have a bit, dearling?" Boto asked her as he noticed the bottle held before her.
"Where did this....how....This wasn't here a few minutes ago." Sarah's mind churned. She had wished for a bottle of water, and one had appeared. Earlier, she had wished to find a way out of the endless field and she had dropped into the oubliette. She had wished it.
Excited, she got to her feet. "I've got an idea." She watched as Jareth started making his way back to the ladder. "I wish that Jareth would come out of the memory loop."
Nothing seemed to change, he was still climbing the ladder and would soon reach the top. She tried again. "I wish that Jareth would come out of the memory loop and come back down here now." He reached the ledge and disappeared.
Boto, who had taken the bottle of water when she had stood up, now twisted the top back on after helping himself to a bit of the liquid. "It was a good idea though. Those are powerful words if you have the magic to make them work."
"Not powerful enough though." She took the bottle from him, took the cap back off, and gulped down half the bottle. "If only he could hear me, maybe I could get him to stop going up that damned ladder."
"I thought he heard you a few times, but it wasn't enough to let him break free."
Sarah thought for a few minutes. She had timed the cycles, each one taking about fifteen minutes. She had a few more minutes before Jareth would appear again.
As she handed the water back to Boto, her mind recalled the conversation she had thought of earlier in the evening before coming to the Underground.
"I wish, thems the second most powerful words in the Underground."
"What do you mean the second most powerful?"
"Once they were the most powerful, till yous came along."
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the next six words she would speak. "I wish that Jareth could hear me." The flooding waters appeared at the end of the tunnel and just to be sure that it worked, she continued to say those words until Jareth had gotten to his feet just a short distance away from her.
She took a deep breath, and then yelled as loud as she could. "That's not fair! That's not fair, not fair, not fair!" For good measure, she even stomped her foot on the ground giving into an adolescent tantrum.
Jareth wasn't sure how many times he had lived through the fall into the oubliette. Sometimes he managed to change small actions of the scripted routine, but most often he just went along with it. He had stopped fighting against the motions and instead went with them. He had to admit to himself, at least he also got to taste Sarah's sweet lips over and over again, the only disappointment being that he never got more than a mere taste before they were swept over.
As he stood outside the Oubliette once more, he thought that this time, when he made it back to the ladder, he would walk the other way down the tunnel until he found Sarah or another way out. This thought was followed by one that suggested that like everything else here, he had already had that thought and yet here he was again. It seemed when he got to that point in the scenario, his mind was cloaked in confusion and he acted without thinking.
Once again his moment of blissful connection with his mortal was shattered as the cascade of water crashed upon them. He weathered the current of the tunnels, trying to stay away from the stone sides and avoid crashing his already injured shoulder against the outcropping that was...
Right there. He slammed into it and was overcome with a sharp hot pain. He favored his shoulder as he continued to navigate the current until he could get his feet under him. He stood watching the water drain away from him still dazed from the pain. There had to be a way out of here. He needed to find Sarah, and then they would get out of these tunnels. First he had to see where he was under the Labyrinth to find where he needed to go. There was a ladder a little behind him, he could climb up the ladder and see where he was, then come back down and look for Sarah.
He started forwards, and watched as his destination receded. Automatically, he turned around and started walking backwards, knowing the ladder would come to him this way. The ladder was next to him and he was about to reach for it when he heard her. She was close, and obviously not happy. He grimaced in annoyance listening to her screaming "That's not fair." His mind reeled and the world seemed to spin out of control. He reached out and grabbed the ladder to keep from falling. His body automatically started to climb the ladder, but he forced himself to stay on the ground. This was an unaccustomed sensation for him, and he didn't wish to climb to such a height while dizzy.
Grasping the wrung of the ladder with both hands, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against his knuckles. Sarah's shouting seemed to be making the spinning in his head even worse. "WILL YOU STOP THAT RANTING YOU INFERNAL WOMAN!"
Abruptly the spinning stopped. He stayed holding onto the ladder though for a moment afraid that it would return. Instead he remembered being here before, many times before. Each time he would climb the ladder onto the ledge and....he would be back in the oubliette again and forced to relive everything back to this moment. He had lost count of the number of times he had been at the bottom of this ascent.
Both Sarah and Boto jumped as he screamed at them from just a few feet away from them. They grinned at each other before Sarah flung herself at the Goblin King and hugged him fiercely from behind. "Oh thank god that worked! I was afraid you'd be stuck here forever!"
Jareth jumped as he was attacked from behind. "What...?! Sarah? How did you get here?" He turned around and saw her companion standing only a few feet away. His eyes narrowed suspiciously at him "And who is that?"
Sarah, unaware of the glare being directed at her friend, turned to Boto and smiled. "This is Boto, he's the one that saved me from that....downpour. He kept me breathing underwater and then he lead me here to you. He knows these tunnels fairly well it would seem"
Boto swept his hat off as he made a deep bow to Jareth. "Your majesty, it is an honor." He kept his voice soft and held himself in the midst of his obeisance.
He was soaking wet, his clothes clinging to him in some places and hanging awkwardly in others from the water, his hair was slicked back and slightly tangled. He should not have looked the part of arrogant nobility, and yet, as he motioned for Boto to rise, he managed to convey that exact look. "You have my thanks for saving this mortal."
Boto smiled over at Sarah. "Thank you, your majesty, It has been a delight being able to accompany her."
Jareth regarded him for a moment. "Would you perchance know a...safer way out this part of the tunnels?"
Boto placed his hat back on his head, apparently looking at the floor. He kept his silence though, tossing a sideways glance to Sarah.
"Well?" His temper w as showing again, and Sarah placed a hand on his arm.
"He isn't able to help you, Jareth."
He shook her hand off him. "You said he knows these tunnels..."
Sarah shook her head. "He knows them very well, but he can't help –you-." She turned to her friend. "Boto, will you take me to a safe exit from these tunnels."
A bit of tension seemed to drain out of him and he swept a brief bow in her direction. "Of course, m'lady. It would be a pleasure to accompany you."
Sarah smiled up at Jareth. "He can't help you, but he can help me."
Jareth scowled. "Wonderful, I can not even count on my own subjects to listen to me, but once more, you Sarah seem to have them falling over themselves to do your bidding."
Sarah blinked up at him. He seemed angry but she couldn't figure out why. "Maybe it's because I actually know how to be nice to people," she spat back. She turned away from him and walked over to Boto, linking her arm with his. "C'mon Boto, let's get going, we'll let him follow if he wants."
Boto glanced back at hi king, then to the mortal on his arm. While he enjoyed having her to look at, the glare from his majesty made it clear that this was not going to be a pleasant journey.
She was used to walking, but this was starting to strain the muscles in her legs. She knew that she would be very sore the following day from this climb. Boto seemed not to notice at all. He walked along smoothly, chattering from time to time about different celebrations that were held. Surprisingly, most of his stories were not of the Underground, but of her own world.
"You've been to....the Aboveground?" She asked him.
"Oh many times! They have some of the best celebrations. Some villages used to hold grand celebrations for me and my brothers." He grinned at her and helped her to climb up a series of small ledges before turning to lead her down another pathway. "All night we would dance and dine and celebrate, and the people would try to figure out which of us were Boto and which were not. And those that guessed correctly would receive a gift. IT was grand fun. They don't seem to hold those celebrations anymore."
Sarah nodded. "Most people don't believe in magic anymore, or in....people....that don't' come from our world." They had finally gotten to the tunnel where she and Jareth had gone in separate direction and they now walked down the tunnels instead of up.
"That's so sad. Many people used to be great friends of the people that now live in the Labyrinth. It seems less and less people call us to visit, and even fewer come here to the Labyrinth. That will probably change when Thanier takes control of this place."
"How do you figure that?"
Boto thought for a moment, weighing his words. "Thanier is part mortal, like you, and part fae, like Jareth. He can go between Aboveground and Underground without needing to be called." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I heard him saying that if he has control of the magic's of the Labyrinth, then he won't have to wait for someone to wish themselves here, he'll be able to take whoever he wants, and maybe, he can even get rid of the barriers that separate the Aboveground from us here."
"You sound as if you don't like that idea."
Boto stopped, motioning her to stop and rest for a few minutes. "We still have ways to go. Time to take a break." He suited action to word and sat down, waiting for her to do the same.
Sarah sat down keeping an eye on him. He really wasn't that bad, a bit flakey, but pretty nice. "So why don't you like the idea of this Thanier guy controlling the Labyrinth?"
"I just don't like him."
She smirked. "That seems to be the general feeling I get. If this guy is so unpopular, why does he want to rule here anyway?"
Boto looked at her, started to speak a few times, then shook his head. "I should let his majesty, King Jareth, answer that one. Come on, we better go if we're to find him." He stood up and offered her his hand which she accepted.
It took them almost another hour to walk to the area where Boto assured her Jareth was. She looked around and could see no sign of him. Ahead of them, she could make out a ladder. "Perhaps he went up there, I'll just go and check."
"No, you mustn't." He grabbed her arm and held her in place. "You can't go there, please, stay?"
He was so insistent, his eyes looked at her filled with worry. "Boto, what's up there."
"It's a memory catch. If you go up there, you'll find a door, and if you go in, you'll be stuck reliving a memory."
"That doesn't sound so bad."
"You'll be stuck reliving that memory, over and over again. For you, not much time will pass, but time will continue around you and you'll waste all of your time in there." He continued to hold her arms as if he were afraid if he let go she would go running for the ladder.
Sarah looked at the ladder and her stomach knotted. "Is that where Jareth is?"
Boto nodded.
"How do we get him out then?"
He looked down at the floor, taking his hat off and sweeping a hand through his hair. Sarah thought she saw something like a whale's blow whole on the top of his head before he put the hat back in place. "I thought maybe you would think of something. I've never heard of some one breaking out of the loop on their own. And you can't pull him out, you'll just pass right through him. And he won't see you there because to him, you're not there."
Her heart sank. "So he can't see me, I can't touch him, and he probably won't be able to pull himself out on his own?"
He nodded solemnly.
"We'll just have to find some other way to get his attention. Come on." She started to walk to the ladder again and once more was halted by Boto's hand on her arm.
"That's not how you get there." He said. He placed his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. Standing next to her, he took her hand and began to pull her along with him, walking backwards.
As the ladder came to them, they were still alone in the tunnel. "Are you sure this is where he is?"
Boto nodded. "He's here. He went through the door, it's going to take him a few minutes to get back here, then he'll climb the ladder again and everything for him will repeat."
A few minutes later, Sarah saw a rushing wave of water coming at her. Not again! She thought. She braced herself as she expected the water to crash against her, but as it passed around her, it seemed to be merely illusion. The water wasn't that deep here, it did not fill the tunnel as it had when it had first carried her away, instead it seemed to barely come to her waist.
The she saw Jareth he was moving with the water, but he managed to get his feet on the ground and hold his place. "Jareth!"
She couldn't be sure but she thought that he might have hesitated a moment before moving to the stairs and starting to climb up again. Although she had been told it would be useless, she ran forward and tried to grab his arm. It was like trying to grab hold of mist, her hand passed through his arm with a cool sensation and he continued his climb. "Jareth, you have to stop!" There was no miniscule pause this time, he kept climbing.
He reached the top of the ladder and stepped onto a little ledge out of her sight. "Great now what?" she turned to face Boto again.
"We wait till he comes back and try again, and if that doesn't work, we try again. That's pretty much the only thing we can do."
The tried three more times to find someway to catch his attention and break the cycle he was in. Each time, he ignored them and continued his journey back into the memory loop.
After the third try they both sat in against the tunnel wall trying to think of other ways to get through to him.
"Well, you could always stand in front of him and remove all your clothes."
Sarah stared at her new companion. "You already said though that he wouldn't be able to see me."
"No, but I would, and it would definitely make sitting here more worthwhile." He gave her such a charming flirtatious grin that she had to laugh.
"Um, no, I don't think that will help us any." She leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. "And I'm really thirsty right now and that's not helping me think either. I wish I had my bottle of water."
"A drink would be nice, but alas, the water that comes through here is about as real as everything else at the moment, just a memory."
At the mention of the water, the flooding tide came through the tunnel once more carrying Jareth with it. They did not bother to get up, as they were used to the fact that it would not actually touch them. The actual water was long gone. This time though, something did hit Sarah as she sat watching the water go by. One of the water bottles that she had packed.
She picked up the bottle of water and stared at it, not quite believing it was there.
"Oh good, some real water, mind if I have a bit, dearling?" Boto asked her as he noticed the bottle held before her.
"Where did this....how....This wasn't here a few minutes ago." Sarah's mind churned. She had wished for a bottle of water, and one had appeared. Earlier, she had wished to find a way out of the endless field and she had dropped into the oubliette. She had wished it.
Excited, she got to her feet. "I've got an idea." She watched as Jareth started making his way back to the ladder. "I wish that Jareth would come out of the memory loop."
Nothing seemed to change, he was still climbing the ladder and would soon reach the top. She tried again. "I wish that Jareth would come out of the memory loop and come back down here now." He reached the ledge and disappeared.
Boto, who had taken the bottle of water when she had stood up, now twisted the top back on after helping himself to a bit of the liquid. "It was a good idea though. Those are powerful words if you have the magic to make them work."
"Not powerful enough though." She took the bottle from him, took the cap back off, and gulped down half the bottle. "If only he could hear me, maybe I could get him to stop going up that damned ladder."
"I thought he heard you a few times, but it wasn't enough to let him break free."
Sarah thought for a few minutes. She had timed the cycles, each one taking about fifteen minutes. She had a few more minutes before Jareth would appear again.
As she handed the water back to Boto, her mind recalled the conversation she had thought of earlier in the evening before coming to the Underground.
"I wish, thems the second most powerful words in the Underground."
"What do you mean the second most powerful?"
"Once they were the most powerful, till yous came along."
She closed her eyes and concentrated on the next six words she would speak. "I wish that Jareth could hear me." The flooding waters appeared at the end of the tunnel and just to be sure that it worked, she continued to say those words until Jareth had gotten to his feet just a short distance away from her.
She took a deep breath, and then yelled as loud as she could. "That's not fair! That's not fair, not fair, not fair!" For good measure, she even stomped her foot on the ground giving into an adolescent tantrum.
Jareth wasn't sure how many times he had lived through the fall into the oubliette. Sometimes he managed to change small actions of the scripted routine, but most often he just went along with it. He had stopped fighting against the motions and instead went with them. He had to admit to himself, at least he also got to taste Sarah's sweet lips over and over again, the only disappointment being that he never got more than a mere taste before they were swept over.
As he stood outside the Oubliette once more, he thought that this time, when he made it back to the ladder, he would walk the other way down the tunnel until he found Sarah or another way out. This thought was followed by one that suggested that like everything else here, he had already had that thought and yet here he was again. It seemed when he got to that point in the scenario, his mind was cloaked in confusion and he acted without thinking.
Once again his moment of blissful connection with his mortal was shattered as the cascade of water crashed upon them. He weathered the current of the tunnels, trying to stay away from the stone sides and avoid crashing his already injured shoulder against the outcropping that was...
Right there. He slammed into it and was overcome with a sharp hot pain. He favored his shoulder as he continued to navigate the current until he could get his feet under him. He stood watching the water drain away from him still dazed from the pain. There had to be a way out of here. He needed to find Sarah, and then they would get out of these tunnels. First he had to see where he was under the Labyrinth to find where he needed to go. There was a ladder a little behind him, he could climb up the ladder and see where he was, then come back down and look for Sarah.
He started forwards, and watched as his destination receded. Automatically, he turned around and started walking backwards, knowing the ladder would come to him this way. The ladder was next to him and he was about to reach for it when he heard her. She was close, and obviously not happy. He grimaced in annoyance listening to her screaming "That's not fair." His mind reeled and the world seemed to spin out of control. He reached out and grabbed the ladder to keep from falling. His body automatically started to climb the ladder, but he forced himself to stay on the ground. This was an unaccustomed sensation for him, and he didn't wish to climb to such a height while dizzy.
Grasping the wrung of the ladder with both hands, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against his knuckles. Sarah's shouting seemed to be making the spinning in his head even worse. "WILL YOU STOP THAT RANTING YOU INFERNAL WOMAN!"
Abruptly the spinning stopped. He stayed holding onto the ladder though for a moment afraid that it would return. Instead he remembered being here before, many times before. Each time he would climb the ladder onto the ledge and....he would be back in the oubliette again and forced to relive everything back to this moment. He had lost count of the number of times he had been at the bottom of this ascent.
Both Sarah and Boto jumped as he screamed at them from just a few feet away from them. They grinned at each other before Sarah flung herself at the Goblin King and hugged him fiercely from behind. "Oh thank god that worked! I was afraid you'd be stuck here forever!"
Jareth jumped as he was attacked from behind. "What...?! Sarah? How did you get here?" He turned around and saw her companion standing only a few feet away. His eyes narrowed suspiciously at him "And who is that?"
Sarah, unaware of the glare being directed at her friend, turned to Boto and smiled. "This is Boto, he's the one that saved me from that....downpour. He kept me breathing underwater and then he lead me here to you. He knows these tunnels fairly well it would seem"
Boto swept his hat off as he made a deep bow to Jareth. "Your majesty, it is an honor." He kept his voice soft and held himself in the midst of his obeisance.
He was soaking wet, his clothes clinging to him in some places and hanging awkwardly in others from the water, his hair was slicked back and slightly tangled. He should not have looked the part of arrogant nobility, and yet, as he motioned for Boto to rise, he managed to convey that exact look. "You have my thanks for saving this mortal."
Boto smiled over at Sarah. "Thank you, your majesty, It has been a delight being able to accompany her."
Jareth regarded him for a moment. "Would you perchance know a...safer way out this part of the tunnels?"
Boto placed his hat back on his head, apparently looking at the floor. He kept his silence though, tossing a sideways glance to Sarah.
"Well?" His temper w as showing again, and Sarah placed a hand on his arm.
"He isn't able to help you, Jareth."
He shook her hand off him. "You said he knows these tunnels..."
Sarah shook her head. "He knows them very well, but he can't help –you-." She turned to her friend. "Boto, will you take me to a safe exit from these tunnels."
A bit of tension seemed to drain out of him and he swept a brief bow in her direction. "Of course, m'lady. It would be a pleasure to accompany you."
Sarah smiled up at Jareth. "He can't help you, but he can help me."
Jareth scowled. "Wonderful, I can not even count on my own subjects to listen to me, but once more, you Sarah seem to have them falling over themselves to do your bidding."
Sarah blinked up at him. He seemed angry but she couldn't figure out why. "Maybe it's because I actually know how to be nice to people," she spat back. She turned away from him and walked over to Boto, linking her arm with his. "C'mon Boto, let's get going, we'll let him follow if he wants."
Boto glanced back at hi king, then to the mortal on his arm. While he enjoyed having her to look at, the glare from his majesty made it clear that this was not going to be a pleasant journey.