Darius / Brier

[Shava]

A feeling of impending tension, edges on the soul, someone playing on the strings with shredding fivers everywhere.

Darius gasped, sitting up in bed, covers falling to the floor as he came awake all at once. Eyes encrusted wit the sandman's work, he glared around and saw it, right by his right hand a spider. Whipping his hand back he reached for the top of his bed and grabbed a box, slapping it's open side down on the creature, then rubbing his eyes clear as he slipped from the bed, finding a piece of cardboard in his trunk and sliding it under the box a centimeter at a time. When he lifted the box and saw no spider, he checked under the cardboard to and then slid it onto the trunk top and left it there.

He stretched, feeling muscles giving off that pleasant feeling of relief. A scratch on his side above his waist and he stood, grabbing a robe and carrying it to the bathroom, not putting it on yet. While he was a very private teen, at this hour he had no paranoia about anyone showing up in the halls anywhere. It might be one of the few times in his day he had little fear, but it had taken time for him to get used to the early morning hours and despite his lack of fear, his wand was still tied to his arm with two strips of rags. He hadn't asked his brother for a sheath yet, not for his arm. In the bathroom he leaned on the sink and ran some water at it's coldest and plugged the sink, pulling his wand form the rags long enough to conjure some salt into the basin and mix it before sliding his wand back.

Nothing woke him up like the smell of sea salt.

Lowering his face down to it he took a deep whiff, his alertness going up with the seconds passing. Wiping his hands across his eyes again he closed his eyes and pushed his face into the water, bubbling out of his nose for a moment before standing up, using a towel to wipe his face dry. Looking in the mirror he looked at his babyface youth wishing he saw signs of age, something most adults would have traded with him in an instant. Releasing the plug, Darius slipped his arms in the robe and used the restroom before washing his hands and heading back to the fifth year dorm room.

Without any lights still he sat on the bed long enough to shake the sheets and make sure there were no more surprises, checking as carefully as he could with the light of his wand. Done, he pulled out some pj pants from his trunk, sliding them on and then wrapping his robe around him headed down with a book to the common room knowing he wouldn't fall back asleep easily anytime soon. In the common room he pulled a footstool over to the fire with it's green flames and put his back to it, feeling the warmth through his bathrobe as he turned slightly to read by firelight, the rest of the room fairly dark. The book, The Element of Murder by John Emsley (a muggle writer), was now into the theory that some daft muggle EMperor could have been poisoned by his wallpaper which he found dreadfully interesting...

[Shava]

Brier had never enjoyed sharing a bathroom with strangers. It just didn't feel right. Her sister was one thing, even her brothers or her cousins, but they understood her routine. She had dealt with the chaos of trying to prepare for the day in the chaos of several other girls vying for mirror space for all of first year before she'd written home to her mother about how unbearable it was. Her mother's response had been an ultimatum. Brier could choose between her beauty routine, and her sleep. Given that choice, she had of course chosen her beauty regimen. So it was that at 4 A.M., she rose groggily but resolutely out of bed. She padded softly down the stairs, across the empty commonroom and hallway into the bathroom. As with all dungeons, she suspected, those at Hogwarts had a tendency toward dark and damp, and the torchlight did little to aid her still sleep-fogged eyes. 

An hour and a half of meticulous work later, she slipped back into both pajamas and robe. She could dress and put on finishing touches in her room where it was slightly warmer. She gathered everything into the bag she carried with her every morning, and crossed back into the hall. The near-silence did little for the already eerie atmosphere, and she hurried rather quickly past what remained of the sleeping portraits and into the common room. Something near the fireplace caught her eye, a person with a book in hand. The changing colors of the firelight cast strange shadows, and when she turned her head it took her a moment to discern who could possibly be up at this hour. 

She recognized the hair without needing to see the rest. It was Darius Silver, she was positive. She exhaled softly, a bit relieved. Darius' older brother Vincent was marrying her sister Keela at Christmas. They'd seen each other around school, and even a few times outside with the getting-to-know-you things between families. She briefly considered making a dash for the stairs anyway, he was cute and she felt awkward dressed in her pjs. But, upon further glances, he was in relatively the same state of dress she was, and after a moment, she gave in. It wasn't as if he hadn't seen her, and at this point walking away might be more awkward. Offering him a small smile, she approaches and glances at the book, not quite able to catch the title. "Do you often read books in empty common rooms in the early morning?" She tilted her head at him, looking curious.  

[Shava]

It was, even for a kid, a very interesting fact that someone could be poisoned by wallpaper, just living in the room with it. Not enough to kill someone, but it was enough to make them very sick. However, Darius had inherited an extreme intellect in certain small fields and death was the one he grasped things in better then most. he saw beyond the fact it was slight, that when combined with other factors it could make a nearly untraceable death without lifting a finger at a person in public. And that was what he was deep into when his eyes caught from the side someone walking across the room to him.

Looking up quickly, he placed the bookmark without looking and recognized the person fairly quickly. It was Brier Summerby, the little sister of the woman his brother was about to marry soon. In an interesting twist, someone who he had considered questionable in his mind to be around by one stroke had been converted into someone he had to be nice to and protect. It was a jarring concept, knowing his brother was going to marry AND THEN realizing what that would mean.

As she approached and spoke, he blushed a tad in his upper cheeks almost invisible in the dimness of the room when he realized they were both in sleep clothes and met her eye for eye. "Actually I was awakened by a spider in my bed and then I could not go back to sleep so I came down to sleep without listening to whistling snores in the dorm." he pondered her look; her hair was all ready and her face too, although why girls liked make up so much he didn't have a clue. "Do you often do your hair before you get dressed for the day? Why so early? Don't you like sleep?"

Odd that someone would get up that early.

[Shava]

Brier wasn't sure how she felt about Darius Silver. While she considered Vincent a friend, his brother was very...different. While she had to admit he was cute, certainly, she found herself oddly intimidated by him, and that annoyed her. Still, he was nice to look at, and Keela's impending marriage meant the two would be seeing a lot, or at least a lot more of each other than before. Besides, she didn't actuallyk now much about him. He was quiet and mostly kept to himself, which wasn't so much the odd part as the fact that he always seemed to be reading something. Her lips quirked. Just like he was doing now. The difference, in this case, was that he was normally fully clothed while doing so.



Her eyes widened slightly in the semi-darkness. When he blushed, she blushed too, which was odd. Madden Jimenez had been trying to get to her for days, and yet she felt more disarmed by this boy, who wasn't trying and probably wasn't the least interested in her...She frowned a moment. She would have to wonder later why that was. He mentioned the spider and she wrinkled her nose. "I hate it when that happens" she nodded at him. "They get in at the farm sometimes too." She smiled in amusement when he mentioned the snoring. "Have you tried a silencing spell? There's one girl in my dorm we all have to take turns casting on." It was the only way any of them ever got any sleep .



For some reason, the question embarrassed her, but she nodded. "Have you ever tried to share a bathroom with a dozen other people?" She stopped, given what Keela had told her about his family, he probably had. She shrugged, "Of course I like sleep, but getting up this early is the only way I can have the bathroom to myself in the mornings, so I had to sacrifice a little sleep for that." She motioned to the book in his hand, "what are you reading this time?" She hadn't meant to tag on the end, but it had slipped out, and rather than be embarrassed, she simply looked at him expectantly.

[Shava]

It was hard to say much about Summerby; they had never exchanged a mass of words, something Darius didn't anyway. He preferred family and stuck by that though he was going to have to change some for her and her siblings. Though oddly enough she didn't feel so dangerous at the moment so maybe there was some real family traits there he could not detect. He'd have to think on that some, see if he could narrow down what that was. he had to admit however that seeing her even in her robes, she did look very put together for the day. She felt a bit off from her normal mode though, maybe due to the clothing?

He saw her blush and it somehow made him feel more confident. After all if she was embarrassed about something they were even right? He stood slowly, the green firelight flickering off the edges of his robe behind him, his robe parting above the knot as he bent forward showing he wore no shirt under his robe. "I hadn't looked to see what this one was, just boxed him and set him aside for later. I got the impression it was poisonous though." he paused something working at the edges of his thought. "You're not scared o spiders?"

In his experience many girls outside the family were.

A slight smile. "It's not a noise thing, not volume. It's the way he breathes through his nose it sounds like...well, whistling. I should ask him if he knows how to I guess." Another hesitation. "I wonder if I taped a harmonica to his nose..." The attempt at humor was a strict rarity for Darius, but the thought made him feel good. He was managing a conversation! Vincent would be proud of him! He'd have to tell him later today he had a conversation with a girl.

"Y-yes, though the bathroom I have at home I'm the oldest. My siblings in the later years have most of the private restrooms." A restroom by herself. Yes, he could imagine that would be nice, he'd just never experienced it. And apparently because her family was smaller and probably because she was a girl like Anne she had. "I wouldn't know. Except for being awakened in the night by nocturnal arachnids, I never have had one to myself." Emboldened, he added (not with any double meaning, but pure innocence) "if you want, come up the steps a moment and I'll open the door so you can hear it and judge for yourself."

A glance down at the book closed in his hand and he wondered if it was the right subject to bring up out loud. "A history book. It's, uh, I mean I'm reading about wallpaper right now. But the next section I believe is on peas." There, that was safely boring, right?

[Shava]

She couldn't say if asked whether Darius was shy or just didn't like people in general. It was hard to tell with her housemates. He was definitely cute, though she'd only just noticed with all this mess leading up to the wedding. Before then, it was almost as though she'd missed him entirely, a feat with that hair, but he just wasn't the center of attention...ever. After they'd met over summer holidays, she'd started paying more attention, and sure enough there he was, though generally in the background most of the time. He seemed to be observing, and Brier wondered what it was he was trying to learn. She'd talked to Keela, who had said merely that Darius was very shy outside his family and a bit akward to social situations. Her dorm mates though he was creepy. Still, Brier wondered if they said so only because he didn't seem to want to give any of them the time of day. The thought amused her, and so she wanted to judge for herself what his reasons might be, not to mention it would have made nice bragging rights in the girl's dorm if she could turn his head.

Her eyes went automatically to the bare skin as he bent forward, almost as a reflex. 'Nice' was the thought that immediately came to mind. He wasn't muscled the way Madden was, certainly, but there was something about him that intimidated in a way she couldn't quite put words to. Maybe she could ask Vin about it later. She blanched slightly, but shook her head. "Not afraid really, no, though I don't quite fancy getting poisoned" she joked. She wondered if he meant to show her the spider itself. She also wondered at someone who's interests ran to such things, but chalked it up to the fact he was a boy. Her brothers had often brought in creepy crawly things in years past in an attempt to scare her, they'd given up on scaring Keela quickly enough. She seemed a bit nervous about the whole idea, spiders, especially poisonous ones, gave Brier the creeps.

He smiled slightly, and she felt a mild feeling of success wash over her. See? She wanted to tell them. easy. He spoke of whistling noises and she wrinkled her nose. "Abigail does that" she told him. "Its annoying as--" The harmonica comment earned him a surprised giggle. The image was funny, and the fact he'd made the joke caught her off guard. "Never thought to try it really, let me know how that works for you." She's smiling now, seeming more relaxed. She'd have to tell Keela about this conversation later, get her sister's opinion. The truth was, she was starting to enjoy this conversation, and not the least of which because she was the only one she knew who could claim to have had one. The girls in her dorm would balk, and the thought felt good to her. She prided herself on being able to do things none of the other girls could. Pride was currency in her world.

She couldn't, for anything, have remembered how many siblings he actually had. She knew Ashlyn, Seth, and Vin, could remember vaguely his older sister Charlotte, but that was roughly it. "Does being the oldest give you special priveleges or something?" she wanted to know. Her house was a free-for-all when it came to private time. It had to be grasped where and when it was available. She nodded, "I don't get much time to myself at home either" she admitted. "Nocturnal arachnids or no." When he offered to let her come upstairs and listen, she blushed. "I...um...n-no that's all right." She wasn't sure why she was so embarrassed. "Believe me, I know what a boy snoring sounds like." Between her brothers and her cousins there could have been an orchestra.

She made a face, "you're reading a book about wallpaper and peas?" That didn't sound boring so much as odd. She tried to think of what book might combine the two. She couldn't come up with anything off-hand, and she made a note to ask Vin about it. 'Wallpaper and peas' she repeated silently, the gears in her mind working quietly. "You're not looking to go into some weird sort of interior design are you?"

[Shava]

Despite the makeup, she was pretty and he liked the way her hair was so perfect, orderly. His mother never wore the stuff and his sisters didn't really need it he thought, besides make up was really, at essence, a lie and Darius didn't so much care for lies. Maybe sometimes they were necessary, but he preferred the truth most of the time. It had been hard to learn to fib, to hedge the truth and he was sure he wasn't very good at it. Make up hid who you were and physically he didn't see much advantage of doing it. People were supposed to judge you by who you were, not your looks he had heard, though most people seemed to still judge a person on first glances. Stupid, in his mind.

Shaking his head, he smiled both softly and shyly. "No, I don't much care for them either. Beetles I like, but spiders are interesting in their own way. I only captured this one so I can see in the morning if it is a dangerous one or not. If there is one there might be more and the Head would need to know." It only made sense to report a spider if it was poisonous, after all. She seemed a trifle edgy about the subject so maybe she didn't fear spiders but creepy crawly things? Possible. "I guess I'm very sensitive to things like that." And truth if a spider could wake him up.

He nodded about how annoying those sounds were. "It doesn't wake me up because my mind has adjusted to it, but once I am it's hard to go back to sleep with it. Maybe if I toss the book on his face he'll wake up long enough for me to go back to sleep..." He was only half serious, but it was annoying. Conjuring a pillow and smacking him with a hard throw might work better. The giggle was however cute. Such an odd word, but it fit. His sister Anne was always trying to be cute sounding and it worked for her and the younger sibs, but not the older. Was it an age related thing? He pondered that, giving her a smile slight but there as he did "I will. It should be entertaining if not very musical."

Special status?

Puzzled, he thought about it. "Sort of. I am bigger so they don't try to move in on where I am much so I do get the bathroom mostly to myself. After Vin moves to another bedroom I might get a larger one for myself and then my own bathroom. Never really thought about it actually." he shrugged, slightly proud. "I don't take up much space I guess, my needs are few." Mostly because he had an order, a sense to his things unlike Char who lived with layers of things and Anne who spread her things out trying to take up as much space as possible. Her room always felt stretched to him. "I used to sleep in bunks with my younger brothers so it's an improvement having my own space. I'm just not sure I need more space."

"A dozen?" stopping and tilting his head as he clearly counted in his mind. A curious smile came to mind as he remembered a chaotic dash once on an early morning when his aunt surprised them. "Guess I'm lucky, I only remember six. But I was younger then," he shrugged. "I generally am up before others in the dorm just to avoid towel snapping. But with guys that's not saying much since most don't wake up till they are at breakfast." And about ten minutes is all most needed really, the only time most used was either in the shower playing with themselves or sniffing for clean shirts in a pile.

Darius did not have a positive outlook on those he was forced to live with. But Vin had spoken with him long and hard about how hurting people brought uncomfortable focus on a person when enclosed in a school so while he dreamed of which poisons he would like to use on them, he didn't do it.

There was no interest in hearing the snore then. Failed attempt at continuing and he waited for the excuse she would make to leave, but instead was tossed a chance to explain the book. Now he lightly blushed in his cheeks. "Design? Oh no. I've gotten really good at potions and the Professor signed for me to get a couple from the restricted section for reports. This is a muggle book he referenced and this about some famous muggle who was killed by a poisoned wallpaper. It's quite, well," there was no way around it really but to tell the truth, "fascinating that you can put a potion into something like that and have it still work. Makes you wonder if other types might work really."

[Shava]

Turning the corner, Darius walked to the door of his father's classroom with his bag over his shoulder and opened it, but froze looking inward. the room stretched away and he knew in a moment this was supposed to be some kind of test. Knowing his father's sense of humor and knowledge gave him and his older sibs an advantage here, but not by a lot. However what most people didn't realize about Darius is that he was a genius level intellect at figuring things out that fit patterns and orders; while a maze was a stretch, he had a much better organized mind for figuring things like this out. Stepping inside, he stepped to one side and looked carefully at the wall. A few other students walked in, stammered a second while he thought and then hesitantly began inside the maze, talking far too loudly.

Carefully, he put his feet on the small ledges and made his way up, only able to because of Vin teaching him so much about climbing the smooth walls of Hogwarts and he found that knowledge gratefully needed now. At the top he held the edge only long enough to look and peer around, getting an idea of what it looked like. Those heading inwards to the middle looked to be heading into the worst of the tangle, but the outside way looked like it went the long way around. Dropping back to the ground carefully, Darius dusted himself off and turned tapping the wall dead end to his right first and ducking to his left as he did so, missing the burst of spray which shot out of the wall to the right (a normal ducking spot) which turned the wall pink where he would have been standing. So, no secret door.

Rolling his eyes at his father's sense of humor, he turned and walked down the first maze part and turned left. he moved quickly and without hesitation following the outside wall as best he could at each intersection. The maze rocked and felt cold and clammy but he ignored these, his wand lit as he also knew his father; if there was something here besides traps, it was stuff even his youngest student could handle and avoid. A few times he saw wires he left alone and stepped over, but otherwise ducking as he passed corners seemed to do the trick. He only climbed the walls once more to peer over and see he was nearly along the wall of the central space. Good enough. Back down he continued (too young to have learned the point me spell already) and after what seemed like about fifteen minutes, he arrived in the center area, still hearing shouts and screams at the sounds of the shaking maze.

He was the first to arrive it seemed.

Seeing the leopard, Darius walked over without hesitation and said softly "Nice shaking effect, Father," and scratched him behind the ears before looking at the beast with a frown for a moment. Walking over to a table he sat his things down as he glanced over the board's directions. Tapping the teapot nearest with his wand, Darius pulled out his notes and laid them down with his book, stashing the bag below the table. Sitting down he poured tea and took a sandwich tidbit, eating while he thought about the beast. He'd wait till others arrived first so it didn't seem he got in just because he was one of his father's get. Sipping, he warmed his hands with the teacup; he had always thought the minotaurs were smoother somehow and not quite as ugly as this and it surprised him.

In a talk about Darius with his Wife's sister Brier, Vincent walked to their joint class and opened the door barely hesitating as he saw what was inside. Shaking his head he grinned at Brier saying "Dad's been playing again, nutjob that he is." A glance to the right automatically seeing the pink and wet looking patch of wall he pointed. "And it's trapped too. I bet Darius set that off. Dad knows we expect him to hide shortcuts for himself and he set a pink dye trap. So, no easy sneak throughs." He paused thinking for a moment then said "Mind if I take the lead? I've got an advantage here since it's dad and he does love tricks."

He walked down to the intersection and choose left without much hesitation. "Watch out for trip wires I think and anything odd on the walls which catches your eye. Most people choose right automatically when faced with decisions so I think we'll avoid those for a first choice and then choose right if we can for the next just in case. I remember him talking about how he had someone choose left every time and he had a special trap set up for the fools..." He was sure there was one for those who chose right as well. The next few turns he found himself following what felt like the limits of the outer wall. Wasn't their something about how some mazes worked best to follow the long way...?

"Anyway, I think Darius probably got inside first. He is often early to dad's classes and he has a mind for patterns and order. You already saw that in his Potions work, he's good-- Okay, he's brilliant at things with patterns, it's people he has the most issue with." He continued to choose ways that led away from the center, and they could hear other students in near parts of the mazes cussing over dead ends and such. "It might be because people are too random for him to follow easily. You may need-- oops dead end, backtrack." They went back to the last turn and repeated using the other option as they kept moving swiftly, stepping over a few trip wires she spotted along the way.

"What was I saying? Oh yeah, you may need to think of logic a lot with him," the path that he choose continued to follow the outside wall with only a few wrong turns all short dead ends easily fixed, "I think what ever makes the most sense to you in a social situation he won't end up picking. He's never been good with that stuff, but if you make suggestions that lead that way I bet you can steer him right a bit, you know?" He thought once about the fact he might be giving someone like Brier too much of a manual for running his brother, but he didn't hesitate long before giving it all to her anyway. Darius needed guidance. He was too easy to use for another purposes and despite the fact Brier was a Slytherin she still seemed solidly the right person to him at least. If his instincts were wrong, oh well, but he was willing to bet he wasn't.

Stopping her suddenly at the edge of one turn he pointed down and there was a slight line covered by some spilled sand. "There, knew it. Probably a pit into a trampoline trap, he gets a kick out of weird stuff like that. Here," he reached over and caught her around the waist and swung her way over it, at least four feet farther along past a second line and then put his fingers in the wall crack and swung himself over. "Means we're getting close. He would only use silly traps on kids, but having one of those right before the end would certainly-- Ah!" They stepped around a corner and there was the clearing at the center. As Brier went ahead and Darius' face lit up on seeing her Vin contained a smile and walked towards the gazebo saying softly "Trampoline traps dad? Really?" He shook his head without speaking directly to the feline but he did roll his eyes and then go choose a seat. His father the jokster.

And a minotaur. Well that was to be expected, right?

Raising his hand as he read the board he spoke out loud. "It is a minotaur, a creature often described in literature as a half bull half man creature first commonly known through the Greeks. Although it may have been known earlier by the Minoans a culture near Greece but their writings and culture are still being studied and not fully public yet. The Minoans were known to worship a bull like diety so the Greeks may have been describing the Minotaurs as being from there when they created the name originally. Their story about the Minotaur is based on a palace from that same culture."

Brier had taken the class mostly because she thought Professor Silver was hot, not that she'd have ever shared this information with anyone, much less her brother-in-law. She had been discussing Darius with Vin when they arrived, and she peeked past him when he spoke, noting the corridor and shooting him a look. "Playing...right" Playing, when connected to the Silvers or Silver-Moons could mean any number of things in Brier's experience. A good number of his siblings were Slytherins and near her age. It was enough to make her nervous, and grateful to have Vin around. She looks to the patch of wall and her fingers immediately go to her hair as a panicked look crosses her eyes. "Dye?" She wondered if she could get away with skipping class for the day. She glanced at Vin. Oh right, Head Boy and all. Salazar! She smirks at the thought of Darius with pink hair. "Hey, that's not fair, doesn't your hair resist things like that?" Not like hers which was light enough to take and hold whatever color got thrown at it indefinitely, especially if the dye had magical qualities. She nodded, stepping back to make way for him. "By all means" she agreed, "lead the way."



She followed close behind him, and when he mentioned trip wires her eyes went automatically to her feet. "Trip wires" she murmured, "got it." How exactly was she supposed to watch her feet and the walls? Still, she had to try right? "He's got an...interesting sense of humor doesn't he?" It was the polite way of putting it in Brier's opinion. This was bloody twisted! A glance down and she found a wire which Vin had missed but which she'd been about to step into. Stepping over it, she grinned to herself. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard after all. "Sounds good, you're definitely the expert here" she acknowledges. She'd have done cart wheels through the rest of it if he convinced her that was what it took to escape unscathed. She smirked and shook her head, "I don't want to think about what your dad would consider a special trap" she answered, noticing a patch of the wall that glowed an eerie blue color. "Um...Vin..." it started to glow brighter and rather than wait for Vin's judgment, she rushed past him, tripping over a wire as she went. She felt it snap, and as it did so a gold powder was released into the air. She sneezed, but other than the sudden difficulty seeing clearly, she didn't feel any different.



"Oops" she murmured, pausing long enough to let him get ahead of her again. She nods, glad for the distraction. "Right, because people don't follow patterns. At least...not logical ones." A small smile as she thinks of the last time she'd worked on potions with Darius a few nights before. "He is brilliant" she agreed. She was so focused on what he was saying that she nearly ran into him when the path cut off. Taking a step back, she eyed the walls around them. This would, she decided, be an awfully bad time to be claustrophobic. She followed him around, trying to keep track of her surrounding area and what he was saying at the same time. "So like, create patterns in social situations for him?" From a theoretical standpoint, it sounded easy enough, but in practice...tricky stuff. "I think so yeah" she'd have to give that some thought later. "People can be tricky no matter what" she allowed, "so he's probably got the more useful skill set anyway." If it was social things he had trouble with, Brier could help him with that. Moreso, she realized, she would enjoy doing so.



He stopped her and she froze on the spot, glancing down to where he pointed. "Nice catch" she complimented, only slightly startled when he grabbed her around the waist. It wasn't until she was going over the wall that she caught sight of her hair, which had gone sky blue in place of its natural blonde. She was still reacting to his realization when Vin found his way over. "Its BLUE!" she held it out in front of her eyes in disbelief. "As in...as in BLUE!" How in Merlin's name was she going to get this out before next class. She had Madden in her next class for Merlin's sake, what was he going to say? She was distracted briefly as they reached the end of the maze. She remembered then, a story Keela had told about having her hair turn a similar color on a visit to Vin's, but that had been an accident, not on purpose. She sighed, but managed a small smile for her brother-in-law. "Thank you for helping me get out in one piece." She spotted Darius and smiled, relieved, maybe he would know how to get the stuff out. "Hi Dare" she took the seat next to him. "You wouldn't happen to know anything about this.." She held up her hair, "would you?"

It was, in a way, interesting sitting here quietly listening to the sounds of people shouting, screaming girl sounds at the shakes of the maze, and not a few gasps at the minotaur's bellows. A few students entered in ones and twos and he thought the single ones looked a bit more pale from the ordeal. And then he saw Vincent enter and he was about to wave when he saw who was with Vin and his eyes turned to her lightening up. He had nearly forgotten she had this class as well! As one of his extremely few friends (okay the only one) outside of family, Darius had only recently managed a whole conversation with her.

He needed to tell Vin that; he would be proud of him he was sure.

As she came straight to him (and why did he feel proud of that? It didn't make sense he would be proud she picked him out of the group...), he could see she had fallen into one of his father's more recent practical joke powders and had gotten parts of her hair turned blue. His father, Ashlyn, and Seth were the worst of the practical jokers in the family always pulling stuff, not that the magical dye worked on their hair. Actually, she didn't look bad with copper flame blue for hair, but her reaction said she wasn't happy about it.

He nodded to her question and dug in his bag as he said "It's one of dad's tricks, it doesn't work on our hair, but it does on others. Here, I can fix it..." his father didn't know that Darius had found a mix which seemed to negate the effect, but then again Darius worked with anything which caught his curiosity and negating the effects his family pulled on each other was always going to be useful. "It will wear off in an hour, but there's a quicker way." Pulling out a brush and a lump of wax and his wand, he stood and stepped behind her.

Holding the wax and the comb together he muttered a jinx charm and began brushing her hair and where he brushed the color dissipated quickly and the wax turned sky blue slowly till he had almost all of it out. Sitting back down in his seat and setting the piece of blue wax down he caught his father's eye without expression and said "There you go, Brier, the last bits will fade out in an hour but that's most of it." He didn't offer to help anyone else in class, but then again it helped to have the right friends, didn't it?

He laughed silently. "Yeah, dad loves practical jokes and nothing works on our hair at home so last year he came up with this stuff for dyeing everyone else's. Oh he's a stitch," he said with sarcasm though he was smiling. "Darius would know about it and I only see a normal spray there so I bet he guessed the direction of it." Of course it wasn't fair, but he wasn't going to make exception for it either. "Don't worry about it, stuff is just temporary, doesn't like do it for a whole day or anything. But pink is just wrong." Her comment about sense of humor made him shake his head in amusement.

"Well if you know Ashlyn, she and dad share the same sense of glee in jokes. Mom was and apparently always was erratic about what she reacts to, but throw in the sense of humor and it gets pretty wild at home sometimes. I am expecting tricks more then traps, like things which would seem amusing to him." He led the way for a bit, stepping over some wires and watching when he could. She got too far ahead of him and got her hair colored which he found amusing, but didn't say anything since there was nothing to be done about it. Her sister would find the story amusing at least! "Bless you!" He nodded as she grasped what he was saying. "Yep, people can be weird and erratic. He doesn't get that easily."

A smile that she agreed he was brilliant; he was definitely getting a good vibe off her.

"Exactly, he just needs someone to point him the right way through stuff sometimes. Give him books and he's got it all under control, but people are hard for him to read." And he was likely to react the wrong way, say, paralyzing them in their sleep later or making them extremely sick in revenge, not understanding how bad it could lead to reaction wise. Vincent was a bit worried about Darius after he graduated, but there was only so much he could do to. As she reacted to her hair after the pit Vin smiled and said "Yeah, you fit in with us now in a way! It's not permanent though so don't worry about it much, really. I'd enjoy it while you can so dad doesn't get as much giggles out of it if I were you."

Walking into the center he saw her head off to Darius and chose his own place to sit and answer the question partly, carefully making sure he left plenty for others to get. A surprised look when Darius began combing her hair and then amused when he realized the little bugger had figure out how to end the trick-- and she had gotten him to do it for her! Thinking Brier had a right to feel smug right then, he nodded at Giana's answer and Cosette's, glad to hear he wasn't the only one paying attention.