But a butterfly emerges from her hair and flutters vaguely in their direction.

...A kid tries to catch the butterfly.

It somehow manages to always stay just out of reach.

Eventually he gives up.

The butterfly continues to flutter around while her vampire works.

Said vampire starts drawing a circle around the whole settlement on the ground.

Reds distribute their things. Some of them watch her from a polite distance.

Every now and then she places a candle somewhere or leaves a couple of herbs and dried leaves there. She works methodically and precisely and doesn't look up from her work.

Nobody interrupts her, although a couple people wonder to each other what she's doing.

Eventually she finishes the circle, and then zips around to each candle to light it up and set the various herbs on fire. She returns to the spot she started drawing the circle and starts muttering things in a different language, slowly enough for it to be recognised as such.

They continue to wonder things to each other and catch up on food.

Eventually she stops talking and there's a—change. It's like the air vibrates around them, or like they're briefly underwater, or like light decides to waver very slightly around and inside a dome that contains their little village, or a number of other metaphors. It only lasts for a second, and then the feeling's gone.

There are some confused noises.

"I warded the place. It's much harder to physically harm anyone in this place, now, and everything's less lethal."

"...okay..."

"If you don't need anything more I'm going to think about magic. If you do, please ask."

They think they are okay for now.

Then she will sit there, still as a statue, and think.

And the butterfly will perch somewhere nearby.

They leave them alone.

She will spend the next few hours sitting there, not moving, unless someone bothers her.

Eventually someone asks what the poles are going to be like.

"They're going to be just livable, at first—not too cold, no recognisable seasons, the ground will be fertile. I'll need to develop the ritual to make it better than that, and then it'll be like anywhere else—I suppose you guys could decide on what exactly the weather's going to be like and stuff."

"Buildings or internet or anything?"

"Eventually—before the seasons, for sure. We just bought the land, we'll be building the infrastructure soon—I might just do it myself if that saves time and money."