With the bright blare of the afternoon sun polishing Naomi's hazel gaze into a piercing seafoam sheen, the little witch sat on the deck of the boat to Cairo and idly watched the world float by. She had been distracted since that morning, ever since that stupid surfer boy offered to teach her a trick that she accepted with too little suspicion. Naomi definitely learned a trick that morning. After their lips met the morning was just a confusing haze, and after Naomi stuffed her things in her little python bag, threw the bag over her shoulder, wrapped herself in a sarong dress, and then quietly boarded the boat to Cairo with the thoughtless breeze of the afternoon.

A mess of crimp and twisted curls floated around her darkened face, a blank letter to Gracie Slant flapped around in her hand, as a prickle of straw and cloth scratched at her back. She didn't know what scratched against her back, probably the back of the bench she sat on, but she hardly cared to check it. So the poking prickles lingered as she counted boats, clouds, birds, waves... then she wanted some of her Uncle's cooking.

Naomi's head was everywhere except where it needed to be so she might notice other people on the boat, so she might notice someone creeping up behind her, or so she might notice that morning's trickster's Stetson hat loosely hanging on her back

Veronica wasn't necessarily boy-crazy, but she was experienced. She was very confident in herself, and carried herself as such. That being said, to see someone like Naomi, who had always struck Veronica as being equally poised, floundering around after a kiss, well... it surprised her.

Veronica had received her first kiss at age nine. Since then, she had practiced the art on a steady basis. It was old hat to her.

She sauntered up behind her friend and flicked the hat lazily. "Writing a love letter to your boyyyy-friiiiend?" she asked, her voice dripping with false honey.

Veronica's voice donned on Naomi's ears like an alarm prodding her out of a daydream. Instinctively, Naomi's hands lifted the blank paper with furrowed eyebrows, and then the other hand drunkenly reached back to wrestle the thing on her back that Veronica flicked, "What--"

Naomi's hand groped the brim of the straw hat and the witch grudgingly shut  her eyes and tossed her head back, while seeming to form her lips around the phrase 'dragon shi--', "I didn't mean to take--" she started as she pulled her head back up to look at her friend.

Then her features started to settle into her usual sharp and concentrated features with arched brows, "I mean," finally Naomi breathed through her teeth and gave a weak pout of her lips as she responded to Veronica's comment, "He--no. 'Less you t'ink I'm having trysts with Gracie."

She rolled her eyes as she focused on the waves again and leaned back on the bench, fully aware she might be smothering the hat, "I can't even pronounce his name--don't even know it--don't even know what to do with..." Naomi raised her hands by her head like she was throwing something over her shoulders, "this."

Veronica giggled and continued her motions rather fluidly- after swatting the hat she moseyed around to the front of her best friend, plopping herself down in front of her. She had dressed very appropriately for the day in a pair of shorts and a floppy pullover hoodie that had once belonged to her brother. Not the most Veronica Ward outfit in the world, but it was comfy and kept her warm against the sea breeze.

"Who doesn't want to get with Gracie?" she replied with a little grin. She herself didn't, but Huck followed the girl around like a lovesick puppy. It truly was her brother's destiny to live the rest of his life whipped like the family pig. "Why are you writin' letters to her, anyway?"

Basking in the sun and stretching, she squinted as Naomi floundered through her sentence. (Or lack thereof.) And she cocked an eyebrow. Although a good deal of Hogwartians had no idea what the hell Naomi was saying half the time, in truth she was generally speaking in very fluent and purposeful sentences. It was bizarre to hear her so out of sorts.

"Dear God, Nay, you and that Cowboy kid. I don't think I've ever seen you so hung up over a guy."

As the hat got swung around to her chest Naomi unhooked it from her head and carelessly let it drop in her lap, tired of dealing with it around her neck.

At the comment about Gracie, Naomi's gaze slid to Veronica as she smiled and hummed a few short strokes of laughter, "Either you tell her somethin' and let it tease, or shut it in and let it bite you in th' rear."And that was rule number one of being friends with Gracie, especially after a friendship was earned with a gaggle of duels and insults, landing the pair in such a state of injury that they had to put up with each other long enough to recover. Nothing had changed since.

Naomi wove the brim of the straw hat between her fingers as Veronica accused her of being 'hung up' over the cowboy, "I dunno," she replied reluctantly and flippantly, "Dere was th' week I strung 'dem Gryffindors from the ceiling, fer th' dungeon prank." She pretty much blatantly hunted them down for cursing a potions project, she and a few other girls had to work on, even after Professor Valliancourt fixed the issue.

No, it wasn't what Veronica meant at all, and Naomi knew that, but she couldn't bring herself to answer the question any other way. "I don't see what the big is wit' boys, Ronni..." she lazily lilted with as she continued to play with the hat while watching the waves. After a breeze whipped her hair at her voice, her voice dragged back to life, "or kissing. Don' seem very intriguing to me."

Veronica giggled a little and wriggled her bare toes. "Y'know she's like, one of my brother's best friends. So she's gotta be at least a little touched in the head. To wanna hang around with that moron." She and Huck were desperately fond of each other, that was true... but all the same, she often wondered why people would voluntarily spend time with him. He was a pervert, a loudmouth, cocky, and not very bright. And he had no faith in a lady's ability to take care of herself. "Doesn't that alarm you in the slightest?" she asked, her eyeteeth bared in a grin.

She made a frustrated clucking noise when Naomi misunderstood her. The "limited grasp on English" card was one Naomi played only occasionally, and only when she wanted to dodge an issue, Veronica felt. "Oh, come on, don't act like you don't know what I mean," she squinted.

Veronica shrugged. "I don't know," she conceded. "I don't really get it entirely myself, like. They smell amazing, though, even when they're sweaty and gross. It's just... natural, I guess."

She fiddled with the string that was used to tighten the hood of her hoodie and looked deep in thought for a moment, then peered out over the deck. "Who's on this trip? Anybody cute? I don't even remember."

• "Doesn't that alarm you in the slightest?"

"Your brothuh?" Naomi asked with a raise brow and a lilting question. Her eyes slid from the ocean scene back onto her friend, and with all the unwavering confidence of a meteor she simple said, "Yes."  But she quickly followed up with her more blatant honest, "Why? You play wit' your food too." Veronica was much more willing to indulge in the other gender than Naomi was, but her relationship with them was much more fleeting and casual than romantic.

"I guess she jus'..." stopped playing? Naomi twisted her lips together as she suspiciously eyed the sky. Gracie's concerning flaw felt like some impending fate once she thought about the situation like that. It was like it could be applied to anyone. She growled a hum of disapproval, and gave a grumpy pout as she began fiddling with the hat again.

Her friend just went onto explain what made guys interesting and Naomi just bent and messed with hat. Sweaty and gross came with a lot of things. It came with fun, it came with sitting around in the sun, and it came with Egypt. "Nothing wrong wit being raw[1]," The curly haired witch sighed and flipped the hat up above her head, "...fer boys, I guess."

She held the hat above her face now, covering the sun as it pierced glints of light through the cracks in the weave, "Define cute," she said matter-of-factly, "Wanting to climb a pyramid, or drive Ail--," Naomi blinked as she refrained herself from letting Abby's in-formality take hold, "Professor Reid nutty--" Naomi smiled lazily to herself, "'dats cute."

1.	natural, hardcore or gross, with how she's using it.

Veronica feigned insult and placed her outstretched fingers over her heart. "Playing with my food? Tch. Really, Nay, how vulgar." She couldn't keep the grin from playing across her heart-shaped face, however, and she instinctively covered her mouth with her hand as a giggle escaped her. "It's hardly that simple. I'd call it more... 'making things interesting.'"

She cast Naomi a sideways look. The way a pigeon would. Honestly, it surprised her that someone like Naomi would have thought about something like the way boys smell. She was a much more practical girl than Veronica, and the latter had always assumed that the former simply made sounder decisions. "Tough guys," Veronica agreed, grinning devilishly.

In appraising thought, Veronica stuck her lower lip out and nodded. "Abby is a cutie," she conceded. "I guess it's... I think it's an attitude. Right? Like... the way a person carries themselves. So many people in our year are so fake, I just think it's so ugly. That's why I like older guys."

Naomi loosened her grip on the straw hat, letting it fall on her face as Veronica rebuked her 'vulgar' comment. Like a sing-song splash of water, Naomi responded, "Hah!"

With a single sun-baked finger pressed against the scratchy brim of the hat, Naomi pushed the thing out of her view as she let a lazy stare fall on her friend as she merrily cooed, "'Making t'ings complicated, sounds more like it."

"Tough like a sack of feat'ers," she said with an innocent jest, as she wiggled her toes on the damp deck of the boat, "Yeah I lived wit 'em, still puttin' up wit' Demont."

Naomi let the hat fall back over her view again, and listened to the waves lap against the side of the boat. The sound of the ocean put her at ease as the breeze of the day and beat of the sun reminded her of Jamaica, and the turn in the conversation made her more comfortable. As long as the attention was away from herself, Naomi remained a more intellectual companion in the conversation.

Veronica's assessment was a comforting one though, for a witch who could change her appearance an attitude at will, it was an idea she was all too familiar with. "Carry 'demselves, huh?" She pat her foot against a puddle forming on the deck, "What makes older guys any less fake or attractive?" Maybe it was puberty or something, who knew? Naomi still wasn't quite sure how the admirable trait was an attractive one. Of course, the little raven-haired witch had yet to actually define what she found romantic or attractive, as far as she was concerned.