Closed Ready? PV ONGOING

"Yeah, I eat," Draven blinked, taken back by the question. "A lot of the stuff in the Great Hall isn't wrapped, so I can't touch it. You know how it is."

Draven squirmed under her gaze. She had a way of looking right at him, unnerving eyes digging. underneath his skin and pulling it apart to stare at the wreck he was hiding with too-small clothes and dirty nails. "I've- got a lot of allergies," he lied.

Picking a spot near the back, Draven set his bag down. It gave a dull thud as it hit the ground, as if something was too heavy and large inside to be held by the worn leather. Deimos scurried out of his hair, happily jumping off and landing on the web he'd started across Baird's window the day before. Draven suspected the spider was weaving the pattern so weirdly because he intended to spell an obscene word, but he'd be doing the same if he was a spider, so there was no room to judge.

Turning to Griffis, Draven gave an embarrassed smile. "Sorry. About earlier- I'm a bit jumpy." Griffis hadn't known him before. She was a second year. To her, Draven would have appeared out of the blue at the beginning of the year. A lot of people didn't know him now, which was a strange sort of comfort. Juniper. Aurelia. Cain. Regina. He said their names like a mantra, a way of keeping the dead alive. His friends were gone now. Some part of him was glad they were.

Griffis hadn't known him when he was elegant and dignified, and kept his back straight and his skin clean.

Draven sat down, nearly imperceptibly turning his chair towards where Griffin sat. "Thanks. For asking. I appreciate it."

Marietta would nod up and down vigorously. "Of course. I-I don't have a lot of friends, or people close to me, or much of a family." She'd mutter that last part, then clear her throat. "But I try to, at the very least, help out people who walk into my life. Since that gives me something to do. Makes me feel like less of a waste of space. " Even though you are, honestly Marietta stop babbling. Her inner voice would curtly prattle.

Marietta would give a slight wince and fidget. Giving room for the words to air before she continued, she'd hate for the conversation to end before it had to. "So, I take it you only eat packaged food since packing has allergy explanations and stuff? What allergies do you have? I-I mean if your okay with sharing them, you c-could even write a list if its so long you don't want to say them all." She'd give a very awkward 'please let this be going okay' smile.

Marietta would briefly look longing at her usual spot. She only really sat in the back when she hadn't done her homework well and felt guilty... which happened to be a lot; But not this time. Although if she didn't sit next to Mirador, the conversation would end. What if he had other people he liked to sit next to though? What if by sitting next to him she caused a disturbance in his usual routine so his friends would have to sit elsewhere and then he would just see her as annoying? Just ask him! That should avoid those issues, dummy. "Oh uh, would you mind if I sat with you?" she'd ask nervously
@Draven Mirador

Merlin.

"Gluten," Draven said, reaching desperately for the only allergy that made any sort of sense. Could one even BE allergic to gluten?

His head hurt.

His head hurt, and the classroom was loud, and he could feel the exhaustion gathered by several sleepless days catching up with him. Merlin.

For a couple ridiculous seconds, Draven Mirador wished he could climb underneath the desk, pull his knees to his chest, and sleep until he grew to be covered in dust. Until spiderwebs had enveloped him, and cracks in the floor had grown over with ivy.

Hogwarts would have looked beautiful ruined. With plants exploding across the old windows, undisturbed for years. With pixies hiding in the nooks and crannies, and lunar moths making their nests across chandeliers.

Did lunar moths even have nests?

The girl was still talking. Draven swallowed, returning his attention to her. He hadn't caught anything that had slipped from between her lips. From the look on her face, it had been a question though.

"Uh-" he said, forcing himself back into his body, wishing he could tug on his eyelids and keep them open. "Yes?" if it hadn't been a yes or no question, she'd think he was crazy. But half the people in the blasted school already thought that, so he wasn't sure it made much of a difference.

His body had grown numb, the noise around him morphing into a strange hum.

Tucking away the fact Mirador had suggested that he had multiple allergies where all the other things she denied went; Marietta would grin and take the desk next to him. "Thanks!" She'd say dropping her bag on the side closest to him. Now what to talk about? Marietta would think, suddenly at unease. Had something sounded off about his voice? She would think on it for a moment and then look him over. Only briefly of course, she didn't want to startle him. He seemed alright though.

"So gluten? That's like, uncooked stuff with milk right?" Marietta would ask, squinting at nothing. "That doesn't seem like it'd be in most stuff-Is it though? I wouldn't know. I like baking but I don't really pay attention to the terminology stuff." Marietta would say trying to keep it brief. Good, im nearly positive that wasn't a ramble. She'd think to herslef.

Marietta would patiently await his answer. It wasn't even a second before her eyes wandered elsewhere. First to the ceiling with it's inky, comforting darkness. Then to the windows. It wasn't what was outside the windows that Marietta was looking at, but the windows themselves. They were glistening and shimmery. For a moment she even thought she saw a small spider in a web across one. Marietta's thoughts would continue on, browsing the room in her own little world, until Mirador possibly woke her from this reverie.
@Draven Mirador

"Um-" Draven's head spun with the questions. He was becoming more and more aware of the fact he should not have started talking with Marietta. The girl was a human tornado of words, blowing whatever sentience he'd managed to gather into smithereens.

"Yeah-" He echoed. "Uncooked milk."

Maybe. He didn't know. Didn't even know what bloody gluten was.

Getting up, Draven dusted himself off, grabbing his bag. The room had become too small, as they talked. Windows growing, doubling, trippling in height. Walls closing in on him, stealing the breath from his lungs.

He would have said 'excuse me', if he wasn't certain he'd black out as he spoke, the lack of oxygen getting to his brain. Instead, he threw the bag straps over his shoulders and ducked out of the classroom, closing the door with a click behind him.

He needed to shower. That was it. The clothes on his back were pressing against his skin, the tag on his shirt stabbing into him, driving him mad. He needed to shower, and he needed to cut his hair, and he needed to be far, far away from the classroom driving him mad.

Before the professor could yell at him, Draven slipped down the nearest corridor, disappearing behind a corner. He'd add Astronomy to the list of classes he hadn't been able to make it through.

Marietta would come out of her reverie only to see that Draven was gone. She looked around and he wasn't anywhere in the classroom. I-is he alright? Marietta thought as she desperately looked around the room [while remaining in her seat of course]. What if something bad had happened while she was off in lala-land? 'Oh, I hope hes okay.' Marietta would think as she attempted to take notes during the class.

Marietta wanted to ask around and see what had happened, but class had started. She wanted to, at the very least check if he was okay. Even if she wanted to though, she couldn't leave. Maybe he was fine and just needed to use the bathroom? Yeah, that could be it. I'm just overreacting, She thought, reassuring herself. As class wore on though, it became obvious this wasn't the case. If he had been injured she would have heard him right? Or-or maybe it was a bloody nose and he was one of those people desensitized to blood and he just left quietly. If that were the case then wouldn't there be blood on the table? There wasn't so much as a spec though. Not that Marietta could know for sure. She couldn't exactly get up and examine the desk. All while she worried, there was a quiet nagging voice in the back of her head, one she was doing her best to ignore.

Maybe he moved seats because he couldn't hear well enough? Marietta looked around the room, hoping this was the case, but she didn't see the boy anywhere. The voice seemed to grow louder. She would go back to 'focusing' on the class. Marietta would try in vain to write down all the new terms she heard. She felt like she was going to explode as she ran out of excuses for why he could be gone. Other than the one the the voice was so insistent on. The words on the page became even more blurry than usual. Marietta would briefly wonder why as she felt the warm liquid slide over her cheeks. 'Oh'. She thought, 'I'm crying'. Thankfully, the tears didn't make much sound as they hit the paper, thanks to how buried her nose was into the book. She watched as the ink ran into a completely illegible mess. Not that it was very legible in the first place. She mentally sighed as she accepted the fact that the boy had disappeared, because he didn't want to be around her.

Marietta knew it was an awfully self centered thought. It was the only one that made sense though. She had annoyed him. Failed, yet again, at making a new friend. 'Dang it pumpkin head! You annoyed him with all your pestering questions! Honestly can't you just keep to yourself?! Why are you so stupid?' Marietta's inner voice seemed to go on. After that, she gave up on trying to understand the lesson and just held her head in her hands for the rest of class.