With her curls loose and winding around her shoulders and down her long back, a white coat pulled over a green dress, and her python bag hanging from her shoulders, Naomi decided to take the day to work on her Divination Affinity project thing. At the end of class she had been given an arm band, green for her house colors, that would help her identify what kind of Divination technique she was best at. When she attained any type of connection with something supernatural, it grew warm; when she was totally off base, it grew cold; and when she wasn't doing anything in particular, it just felt like a normal arm band.

It seemed easy enough to do, but after wandering the school to find weird magical niches or corners and "divining" them with salt, shells, stones, and sticks, her shoulder just went through a series of hot and cold flashes. Confusing. After finally making her way to the dungeons, Naomi decided to turn to something she was more familiar with, and after a quick flex of her hands a sharp growth of her nails, she was ready to use runes to mess around instead--then her arm grew warm again.

Green eyes fell on her shoulder, and then her makeshift claw. She changed her hand back and the heat in the arm band started to fall away. She then made scales appear on her toes to match the pattern on her flip flops and the arm band grew warm again. She then pulled out a pen from her bag and started drawing on her nails. The arm band grew warmer.

The young witch drummed her nails on her pursed lips, and changed her toes back to normal as she became lost in thought. She could go discuss this with Professor Cosmos, or try and learn more about it. Convenience overruled efficiency.

Naomi's wandered into an empty chamber with a few disorganized tables. She sat herself and her things at one table, snug up against the stone walls and pulled out a brush and some white, black, and clear nail polish and started to draw different things on her nails. Some were runes and some weren't really anything, but the armband continued to stay warm. After a few more minutes more polishes and brushes appeared on the table, the wall next to the witch was covered in scratches of various magical effects of the nail polish, and Naomi's toe-nail tips had been done with a base gradient of glittering black to silver that were then dominated by a hint of yellow and turquoise that faded into a dominant glean of green. The only reminder that she was still on-task for her Divination class was the warm band hugging her upper arm.

The Slytherin's fingernail tips were less uniform, having already gone through various winter designs, responsible for icy scratches on the wall; various metallic ones, responsible for some shiny scratches on the wall; and some other bright and colorful ones, responsible for any of the lingering green patches of nature and colorful and dark splotches of magic creeping on the wall. But now that Naomi had decided on repeating her toe designs onto her fingernails, she was undoing her fingernail art.

Then footsteps entered the room-- light, confident, and uniform, but with a peppy hint to the step. It sounded like a Slytherin, or a pureblood. Luckily, not Morgan (his approach was only ever indicated by a looming sense of foreboding) or any other professors. That of course only left her with the option to turn around to look at the familiar witch who had entered the room: blonde, petite, and blue-eyed Durmstrang. She seemed tolerable enough from the classes they shared.

Ignoring the messy magic scratched across the wall at her side, and her little setup at the table, Naomi nodded her head towards the girl,"Lost? Or curious?"

Emilija wanted to know everything about this school. Everything within limits. When she was not pestering the Obertails or studying, then she was likely to be wandering the corridors. There was no map of the school... like many magical places, it would not stay still. She liked this. It surprised her.

But sometimes, the foreign nature of Hogwarts did not feel very friendly-- and she would wander down into the dungeons where it felt less different, less of an affront to her senses. Emi liked the cold down there; this was where she found herself this afternoon. Dressed in a cardigan of dark furs and jeans as black as the stone floors, the Zufreiden witch almost blended into the surroundings. She might have, if not for the startling shade of blonde hair or her pale skin.

"Twinkle, twinkle, little bat..." she whispered to herself in a melodious voice while she walked down a passageway, fingers trailing against the walls. In trying to refine the coherency of her English, she had taken to reading classic children stories and singing nursery rhymes. More for her own enjoyment than the actual purpose.

"How I wonder where you're at..." Emi continued and then paused as she passed by the entrance to a chamber, door left ajar. Blue eyes glanced inwards curiously. Someone she recognized. She marched in gracefully, hands behind her back and then stopped as the other girl looked up.

Dark-skinned, a green one...what was it... ah, Slytherin. Emi did not mind the green ones. "Lost? Or curious?" the other witch asked and she smiled in response.

"I cannot be both?" she moved closer to the table, gaze darting from the table of nail varnish to the tarnished wall. A bright and thinking expression on her face, Emi turned back to the girl. "You are in my lessons, da? I am Emi. You must be... you are experimenting?"

• "I cannot be both?"

A dark eyebrow twitched into an arch as a smile curled between Naomi's lips, "It's a solid strategy, for sure." At least it was often the strategy Naomi employed, a favorite of hers, no matter how carefree or dire the situation was. Naomi turned her attention back to cleaning her nail art on her left hand.

• "You are in my lessons, da? I am Emi. You must be... you are experimenting?"

"I'm Naomi, or Ny for short, and yes, and yes--" After the Slytherin finished cleaning off her nails, she inspected them as she casually answered Emi's questions, "I t'ink I'm in most of your classes, unless you take muggle studies or attend Transfiguration," Naomi slid her gaze back to Emi with a sly smile, as she made no effort to hide what a joke or fashion faux pas she thought that class had become.

"But 'dis is for Divination," Naomi started to shake her now-clean nails dry as she sat up straight and curiously watched the other girl,  "communing wit' supernatural t'ings in th' castle--I was playing wit' runes but I decided 'dis would be more... interesting."

Naomi stopped shaking her hand and let her fingers lazily curl that showed off the narrow rounded tips of her nails as if they were claws, "Maybe later I can see how these fair wit' harsher treatment," whether it was her nails dealing the "harsher treatment" or undergoing it, Naomi left unconfirmed as she continued talking, "Or use it to help me wit' the runes project later, you're in 'dat too?" she said more as a polite statement than  question; the Durmstrang visitors stood out easily in the elective courses at Hogwarts, and so Naomi was familiar with the girl in Care of Magical Creatures and Ancient Runes.

Emilija's gaze swayed back and forth between the girl's unexpressive face and the nails,  their form and colour and strange shimmer. It was beautiful. Often, for her concerts in Latvia, there would be much of this; displays of magical splendour that was elaborate in application as their music in rehearsal.

"Maybe later I can see how these fair wit' harsher treatment. Or use it to help me wit' the runes project later, you're in 'dat too?" Naomi was like some of her classmates. No unnecessary niceties... a very comfortable feeling.

Emi blinked and nodded her head in a quick, birdlike manner. "Da, it is... different. Interesting." If she was more honest, she might have said that it was difficult but she would hardly say such a thing to her own kind, much less someone from the opposing school. The witch paused to looked around for a moment, and then charmed a chair to float a little closer so that she could perch herself on it.

"Your hands," Emi bit her lower lip with an expression of apparent curiousity once she was sat: "You do that yourself? It is commendable," she stretched her arms across the desk in between them. Her nails were long and shaped well-- it made the otherwise small hands seem unusually mature, womanly. A scintillating grey shade had been painted on. It glistened with depth, like shifting shades of molten stone. "To match your dungeons," Emi commented as she looked up at Naomi.

Commendable, that' seemed like a subdued vocabulary, or maybe it was just the language gap between them. Regardless,  the modest praise earned the Naomi's attention, with a raise of her eyes, a soft smirk, and an evanescent hint of pride in her lilt, "Thanks."

The Slytherin turned he attention back down to her own nails as she began to paint on the dark shimmering cosmic base coats on some clean and dry nails, "Yeah, have an aunt who is always pretty loud wit' fashion and style," and in every social aspect imaginable. Aunt Ire may have a new hair color every week, but she always knew what she wanted at any given moment, "She taught me how to do my own nails."

When Emi stretched out her own hands on the table, showing off the volcanic shade that polished her well-manicured fingers, Naomi arched an approving eyebrow, before she smirked at the Durmstrang girl again, this time with the white of her teeth peering through her lips, "Guess it's no mystery green works best down here," Naomi reached for a smaller paintbrush and a bottle of yellow and green with flecks of gold and emerald and began working on the yellow part of the green and yellow gradient, "Yours are nice too."

Naomi slowly and meticulously painted an even and straight coat of yellow and then pursed her lips and blew on her nails as she her mischievous green eyes caught Emi's icy blue gaze, "'They do anyt'ing or is 'dey just a warning flare?"

"Spasiba." Emilija thanked the girl with a small, impish smile. There was no harm in accepting compliments from the foreigners... and she liked this one better than the others. Not so superfluous and she thought, exactly the right amount of frivolous. At the question, her smile yielded to a grin that mirrored Naomi's mischievous glint.

"Da, subtlety is not my strength..." the little Zufreiden winked- with a fluid gesture, she quickly curled and then uncurled her fingers with a twitch. The scintillating shade shimmered, froze, and then a red glowing crack formed in each nail. She could almost feel the warmth in her hands as the cracks gapped, the hot red shade spilling out like liquid lava-- until all of her nails were finally that colour. Still shimmering, shifting.

Emi looked up, not without some pride. "I like umm...vulk-- volcanos? They are very powerful structures. Dangerous." There were none in Latvia but she adored them all the same and had visited active ones with her parents. She looked back up at the other witch and tilted her head interestedly. "You are from the powerful group, niet? The green. More like us, I think."

To her, the Slytherins were similar to Durmstrang and logically the best of the houses. She would not underestimate the other colours but bias was... inevitable.

 Naomi smiled when the girl showed of the burning cracks shining in her nail polish, that eventually  melted into a molten sheen, "Ah yeah, makes for 'di best kind of crops, and some of the best getaways from muggles," the Slytherin witch nodded her head in recognition to the other witch's admiration of volcanos.

"Though, I'm more partial to storms--'dey always are creepin' up on you," Naomi turned her nails towards her hand towards her to admire her handiwork, with a subtle yet bright jungle hue to her nail tips. Then the witch's green eyes settled back on Emi as she asked her if she was from the "powerful" group.

An eyebrow rose at this, she could mean her family, her friends, or.... ah, "Slytherin?" the word lightly rolled off the tip of her tongue as a sharp and curious smile pecked at her tan cheek.

"Well, 'dere's a lot to compete for when you're Slytherin--socially, academically, and personally," Naomi splayed her other hand out in front of her, baring her pink nails and their white tips, "'Di powerful ones take advantage of that, and the others..." Naomi let her gaze fall towards Emi as she dismissively hugged a shoulder towards her cheek. Then the girl went back to coating her nails.