Free The Locket by Elise Koepke Page B

slippers hurriedly put on.
    “Your Highness!” Lance exclaimed, throwing himself onto the ground, bowing as the man started down the hall. A small silence followed as the king and Savannah held each other’s gaze. One’s eyes were full of calm question while the other’s were full of stupor.
    Noticing that she had not moved, Lance tugged roughly on her pant leg. “Savannah!” Lance hissed. “Savannah, bow down!”
    “It is all right Lance-a-lot,” the king raised his hand in protest. “She is not from around here.” As Lance stood up, he examined his newcomer for a moment. “So you must be the person who traveled through the portal, hmm?”
    Savannah nodded. “Yes, that’s correct sir,” she said, and then bowed her head down to show her respect for royalty. To her surprise, the king placed two of his fingers under her chin and carefully lifted her head up.
    As her attention was brought up to his face, she observed that his eyes were a little glossy, but still appeared warm and brown. They reminded her of two cheery cups of hot chocolate. They also held a certain level of wisdom that she guessed came with age. “You have beautiful eyes,” he told her.
    “Thank you,” she answered, not quite sure if she should have. What did people say when a king gave them compliments? She wished she knew how to act the proper way before royalty, suddenly feeling inadequate and intimidated.
    “What did you say your name was?”
    “I didn’t, but it is Savannah, Your Highness. Morgan.”
    “Gwen’s daughter,” Lance cut-in, still in shock to see the king act so amiably toward an unfamiliar visitor.
    The king seemed to mull over this while he scanned her for a second time. Savannah couldn’t quite tell if he was more intrigued or saddened by the way he looked at her; his eyes were too difficult to read. They bore through her as if she were a criminal on trial, even if his mouth did spread into a smile. “You look a lot like her.”
    “Thank you, sir. That’s a compliment to me.”
    Then, he switched his attention back over to his dumbfounded dwarf. “You may go now, Lance-a-lot. You are excused.”
    “Yes, Sire,” he bowed, and then asked, “Shall I check on dinner?”
    “That would be lovely, thank you.” With no hesitations, Lance left down the hallway behind them. “Now, I would like to talk to you about … where you come from.” The king announced, beginning to stride down the corridor.
    “Whatever you wish, Your Majesty.”
    “Oh do not be such a suck-up like Lance. You may call me Frederick, or even Fred if it fancies you, but please, when it comes to friends and family I despise formalities.” Savannah nodded, surprised to hear such talk coming from a king. Though the more she thought about it, the more she remembered that he was a regular person just like anybody else.
    “Besides,” he added, leading her down another set of stairs, “people like Lance usually have no personality and spend most of their time trying to get ahead of the game by brown-nosing. The rest of their time is spent pushing around other people and figuring out new ways to suck up. It is a crime, really.” Again, she nodded her head and kept silent. “So, tell me about this world of yours. Is it interesting?”
    “Umm, well.” She hesitated in her response. No one had ever asked a question like that before. How do you know if the place you live is interesting, especially if you come from a world like this? “I suppose that if you have lived there your whole life, doing the same things day after day, then no. But if you’ve lived somewhere like here your whole life and traveled there for the first time, then yeah, it would be. Then again, I didn’t know that there were any dimension-traveling devices up until now, which may make life where I come from a bit more interesting.”
    The king laughed. At first she thought that he was laughing at her, but when he gave her a warm smile, she knew that he was simply agreeing