Feather After // Chapter 57 // The Royal Society

Aria's POV

"You see life is nice?" He said and spun me around, his hands never leaving mine. Did I tell you that this was a total bliss? I mean I couldn't think life could be any better, that things could change and become any better.

"Yeah only if you're with the right person," I told him genuinely, don't know where it came from, but I said it anyway.

He turned to me and smiled, I guess it was more of a smirk, "are you flirting with me, Miss. Rhett?"

I looked at him and tilted my head towards the left, "do you want me to flirt with you, Mr. Hudson?"

His eyes twinkled when he heard me say that. He came closer to me and pulled me towards him, "well let me tell you something, Miss. Rhett," he let go of my right hand and pushed me away from him, and pulled me towards him again. It seemed like we were dancing but to me, I felt like a potato sack who was being rotated in circles.

"What is that?" I asked him as my body collided with his. I put my hand on his chest and he smiled.

"Well it's time for you to go home, considering it's time for school to end but before that, we'll eat," he said and pulled me towards his motorbike.

The whole day was beyond amazing, the way that we rode the Ferris wheel twice and the way he never let go of my hand made me melt into a puddle. He was so beautiful and I guess he was rough around the edges but he was amazing, I know I have said that a million of times before but he made me feel like no one had ever made me feel before.

When I met Ignatius for the first time, he kept on hurting me, he was unstable. I don't know the reason why it was like that but now, he has changed, the guy who I poured the orange juice on out of frustration and the guy who I had slapped in the janitor room because he had asked me to share him with Misty, I wasn't sure about him then, but now I knew what I wanted; and it had everything to do with him. My happiness had everything to do with Ignatius.

I climbed in to his bike, and put on the helmet, it was the fourth time I was sitting on his bike and as much as I hated to admit it, although I didn't know if I would get off the bike alive, I was getting used to it now, and I liked it.

"Can I-"

"Can you?" He asked and looked at me through his rare view mirror. He adjusted the helmet on his face and then looked at me, again.

"Can I sit here without you know the helmet?" I asked him and he raised his eyebrow at me.

"What the fuck. Do you want to die?" I was taken aback by his comment and when he looked at my face, his expression softened. He gulped and continued, "see, what I meant was this is not safe. What if something happens to you?"

"Yeah I get that, but once, like I really like it when I feel the air against my face, it makes me feel alive," I hoped that he would understand and would let me do what I wanted to do.

"Not now? How about some other time, okay?" He said and waited for me to put on the helmet. I looked at the time again and muttered a please, but he just gave me that put on the helmet before I myself put it on look.

"Okay, okay, grand-dad," I raise my hands up in the air in mock surrender before grabbing the helmet which was lying on my lap and putting it on.

He looked at me and then smiled, "that's more like it," he starts the bike and before I knew it I could feel the air on my hand.

I couldn't help it smile, it felt nice this way. No matter what people said, the jewelry, pretty stuff in my house, couldn't give me the happiness that these little things did. I was in love with Ignatius and being with him didn't make the situation any less difficult than it already was.

"So where are we headed now?" I asked him and I put my hand in his shoulder.

"Somewhere nice," he replied beak which was muffed. I was even surprised that he had heard what I had said and I had heard what he said.

As we passed cars and different buildings around us, I couldn't help but notice that people around us, some were happy, and some sad. Some in office dress rolling by some in casual clothes. Nobody gave a damn about anyone else. That was more like it.

I noticed that Ignatius had left the busy main road and now we're now on a narrower pathway, god know what he was up to. There were a few houses at one side of the road, and the other side was just covered up with trees, trees, and trees. The wind was blowing at it made everything look so nice and warm.

He parked the bike at one corner of the house and later when I looked closer to it, I found out that it was a small tea shop. He removed the helmet and said, "They serve the best tea, Seattle had to offer here, it's also popularly known as masala chai."

I got off the bike, taking my chance and looked at him, "what did you just say?"

"Masala chai, it's an Indian name for Spice Tea. You pronounce it as ma-sa-la cha-ye, the owners are Indian as well. They serve all kind of very spicy stuff, but chai is fucking great," he took my helmet as he started moving inside.

The owner had seemed to know Ignatius; she smiled at him and offered him a table at the very end of the room. The decorations were very bright with loads of elephants, lions, and flowers, the table was brown in color and so were the chairs. When we settled down, Ignatius asked for two chai glasses and we sat, staring at each other.

"How is your mom going?" I asked him, in hope that the not so awkward staring would stop.

"Well, the shop was ruined so she is still not over it," he shrugged as if; he didn't want to talk about it. It wasn't his fault; nobody would have wanted to, the whole bakery shop was ruined.

"I'm sorry," I told him and put my hand on his. He eyes fell in his hand and then in my face.

"You don't have to. It wasn't your fault you know? Like they came in did some stuff they shouldn't have, but the insurance has it all covered, so she'll back on track real soon," he squeezed my hand in return and I smiled.

"What I really want to know was why was your mom you know, why was she banned from the Royal Society, she is so sweet," I looked up to see the expressions of his face. He didn't seem to be taken aback from my question.

He cleared his throat and removed his hand from mine, "the Royal society doesn't work that way, it doesn't want you to have things, I guess mum's dad kicked her out, I don't know what exactly happened, but it was more than twenty-five years ago, mum-"

"I hate to interrupt you but how will I figure out who are you referring to when you say mum and whom you're referring to when you say, mom?"

Ignatius threw his head back and laughed, he squeezed his eyes shut and his torso shook, I enjoy per seeing him like that, happy carefree and joyous. It was nice when he was not running his hands through his hair out of frustration and nor was he biting his lips to stop the curses coming out of his mouth.

"Well, let's keep it this way, right now, I'm talking about the woman, who owns the bakery, she is the sweeter one and is allergic to tattoos, the other one is the principal one who can curse like shit, and has shit loads of tattoos. Got it?"

"So the badass mom is the school's principal huh? That's so cool."

"Not as cool as you think, so anyway, the bakery mother who I call as mum was supposed to be the part of the Royal Society, I guess she was part of the Royal Society for twenty-five year of her existence. Her father, that is my grandfather to whom we have no fucking connection now, was supposedly the so-called leader of the Royal Society and apparently his great grandfather was the one who had you know made the rules of the Royal Society," he took the sip of the tea which I hadn't noticed was there till I saw Ignatius taking a sip from it.

"So what is this big deal about this Society, I mean I know that I became famous overnight because of it but why?"

"It's a massive thing, a fucking big thing, if you even attend like a small tea party related to the Royal Society you know, it's like you're a king here. And you?" He pointed his teacup in my direction and continued, "You're introduction there, which is a massive thing, you're the debutante of the most famous and biggest night of the most famous society in Seattle, so yeah it's a big thing. But seeing that you hate attention so much how did you agree?" He asked me.

I raised my eyebrow at him and said," what makes you think that I knew like even a small bit about it? I thought it was a small event, where my mom wanted to make me and Zachariah official, I didn't know it was that massive deal, I didn't even know what Royal Society was until you told me about it. I moved to Seattle a few months ago," I took a sip of the tea, the masala chai and it tasted delicious.

"This is nice," I told him and took another sip. I waited for him to process the information that I had told him. But he didn't say anything so I looked at him and said, "Go ahead, what happened then?"

He nodded and cleared his throat and continued, "so there was is war in 1856 between the Native Americans that are the Red Indians and you know Americans the white Americans. It was a serious war, a lot of people lost their lives, it wasn't supposed to happen. After loads of inquiry and everything, it was found out that, one of the Americans had leaked the information to the Native American people and thus the war wasn't supposed to happen, nobody from the American's side was prepared, so a Royal Society was formed."

"So the Royal Society was formed after the attack of the Native Americans? I mean I know that Americans did torture a lot of red Indians and they even made their children you know to go to the normal school and made the girls cut their long hair and everything like that," I added on, what happened wasn't fare.

"They did, the Royal Society which was initially known as the People's Society was a peasant and rich society, it was known as the most secular society of all times, it had representatives of all the society and different people. But after the attack, my grandfather's great grandfather lost his two sons in the war. So he flipped, he abolished the whole society," he shrugged.

"How do you know all this? Then what happened?" This was indeed interesting and the way Ignatius was telling the whole story it made things even better.

"Well, Mr. Maple that is our school founder was also part of the society. There are few books in the forbidden section of the library which are not exactly books, but just you know, journals of people who were there that time, so yeah, so my grandfather's great grandfather made a new society which was known as the Royal Society and it had all the pure rich Americans, and everyone who did not follow the set of rules were usually banned from the society."

"That's crazy but-"

"The most important part is left right now," he said and smirked at me, "are you ready? It's going to hit you hard."

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Q. Do you ship Aria with Ignatius or Zachariah?
I hope you liked reading it, let me know what you guys think!
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