Bon Voyage! [Ace x Reader x Law]

[𝖋𝖎𝖛𝖊]

"I have heard of what happened from my mother, you poor thing," she quickly approached your seat and stood in between you and Christensen.

"Thank all the Gods, I heard she was resurrected from her deathbed," you wanted to sigh at that comment, but at the same time you did not want to insinuate anything through your reaction.

"Here, my mother has packed you some food, I assume you must not have been in the mood to be eating in the crowd,"

Oh, that was remarkably prescient of her.

"Yeah, you should at least eat something, Egret," that boy Christensen finally spoke up again. Hanna, who stood in front of him, sighed dreamily at their proximity. It went unnoticed by the male in the room, though.

However, Hanna's rosy moment was quickly cut short, as Christensen went around her to take a seat in front of yours. He then proceeded to put away his paper bag and put whatever Hanna brought with her onto your desk.

"B-but I-" you hesitated towards the gesture. You know Hanna was a part of your family, but to be very honest if you had to choose, you were more reluctant to accept anything given by her than a stranger.

You could not help but noticing that Christensen, for some reasons, was not really shy towards Hanna. In fact, you were in disbelief as you witnessed him taking Hanna's tiered lunch box from her hands and opened it without her permission. You know Hanna was besotted with him, but was he aware that she was the twin sister of Hansen, the campus bully?

"Wow, these are all my favourites. You must try them Egret-" his voice broke your passing trains of thought— what did he say?

"Eh?" And it seemed, one look from you managed to drain whatever confidence was left in Christensen.

"I-I was saying that I know how these dishes taste like. I-I assure you th-these will taste great!" You half zoned out to what he was saying afterwards, but now it clicked with you.

It was too good to be true that your dear cousin Hanna would actually care for you. Of course, this food had been meant for Christensen all along!

Being in the cafeteria, instead of here, sounded a lot more appealing to you now.

"Ah, is it? I have to thank Hanna and Aunt Anasthasia for their kindness then," you remarked, trying to bear with the situation. Very quickly, Hanna took this opportunity to flaunt herself even more.

"Our chefs would be very flattered. But don't worry about it, we are family after all. When I heard that Aunt had passed-"

Ugh, not this again.

"-my heart shattered. But then, when we called your manor again about it, the staffs had refuted the news. Nevertheless, it was so weird no matter how you think about it. When the maids had first called us, they had been claiming that they did not feel any pulse and heartbeat in her-"

What? This is the first time you actually hear anything about this. So, Countess Anathasia's household was also informed about this then? But not your father?

"-so, it had felt like a miracle when we heard that your mother was actually alive and well. You know, like magic... like a Witch-" Hannah spoke the last part very softly that you thought you had misheard it.

What?

"-and speaking of magic, do you know that since long ago the Crown has banned all forms of sorcery and witchcraft? Right! Fred, since you are related to the royal family, you must have heard of it,"

"Ah, there isn't really much. I have only heard that at one point my ancestors had... found out that the alliances of priests and their acolytes, who helped govern the kingdom's religion then, were abusing their authorities to take advantage of the poor. According to the existing archives, the priests had been secretly planting curses to crops and the citizens and making poor families pay for these damnations to be lifted from them. It was eventually revealed that they had also been planning an underground coup to overthrow the authority of the Crown. So yeah.. the Imperial Army under the orders of the Crown purged those people. And the use of magic has been banned by the royal edict ever since,"

"It was tragic. The priests who had been taken in by the kindness of the Emperor decided to defy against the hand that had fed them-"

Where is Hanna going with this? Please make it stop!

"-and it makes you scared to imagine if there are still such people living among us... hiding their abiliti-"

You abruptly stood up from your seat, cutting Hanna's absurd claptrap. You knew you were in no position to undermine the accuracy of what they were saying—you remembered reading something similar in one of your many trips to the library—but you were not stupid. You knew precisely what Hanna was trying to suggest through the conversations, and whatever gibberish she was about to spit next could have been the last straw for you. You had initially thought that she was trying to make you leave her with her crush (that could have also been the case), but her slyness was always beyond you.

"I'm sorry," you ducked your head as you quickly gathered your stuff from your desk. You wanted to go home, and with your current emotion, you couldn't care less for the remaining classes. Your mental capacity could no longer take any more of this form of absurdity being thrown at you. You were drained.

"Is there something wrong, Egret?" Christensen asked you worriedly

"Yeah, is there something wrong?" Hanna continued. She hid it very well, but your current defensive stance caught the condescending tone she was using. Oh, how you wished to retort back but you didn't think you could bear being in her presence any longer, so you were only glaring back at her in response.

"I apologise, but I don't feel so good..." you tried your best to calmly answer.

"No... I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned something so grim while we were about to eat," Christensen apologised. You felt bad for having made him feel guilty for something that had not been his fault. He had only tried to be polite by answering Hanna's question.

"Excuse me," you muttered before taking off without hesitation.

The school field was empty as lunchtime was nearing its end and everyone was seen walking back to their respective classrooms. As you ran past the sea of students walking in the opposite direction and bumped some of them in the process, you could feel their heavy stares on your back. Even after you had heard the bell rang, you could see their heads turning at your leaving form near the school gate. Every one of them.

And no one had stopped you.

The stares were still there even as you were running outside to the square; the people in the market, the guards in the security posts, the citizens walking about—you could feel all of their eyes on you. But no one said anything to you. Those people just looked at you and whispered among themselves. It was very suffocating to you, to say the least.