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With the weather warming up, and the melting snow revealing that a corrupted earth elemental - which Dani helped Amanda deal with before the snow fell - had done more damage to the area than she'd thought, Amanda arrives on a quiet day at the circus to try to help. It's nothing as dramatic as changing the weather to help the blighted forest area. It's more like… charging the soil and plants to heal more with what nature gives them. Get more out of the rain and sunlight. At least, that's the intent of the spell she casts, from the centre of her chalk power circle.
As ever, when Amanda is cooking up the magics, Danielle is not-quite-hovering. She's on guard, but relaxedly so. Bow in one hand, arrow slowly twirling in the other. Spear planted securely nearby. She moves almost silently in a wider circle, as if prowling for threats. She isn't a mage, obviously, but she knows that Some Things can sense magic being woven, and have a nasty hunger for it. Even for such calm, happy energy as this.
Amanda Sefton prefers calm happy magics. She's done offensive before, but that was purely out of the need to defend herself or others. After the magic-ing has gone on for a good twenty minutes, her eyes flicker open. "Well… I think that is going to do wonders for this place." If she was at the height of her powers, she could have probably forced the change. But even with the Winding Way at full, she's never been that sort of person. "Nothing showing up to eat me this time?"
"I can't even sense a nosy raccoon," Dani reports with a smile. The arrow slips back into her quiver, and the bow gets hooked onto its strap on her back. "Everything's groovy, as far as I can tell." She approaches to offer her hand, though even now she takes obvious care not to scuff the chalk circle in the process. "You're… sorta glowy, you know that?"
Amanda Sefton accepts the hand to stands and step out of the circle. Once she's out, she goes about removed the power circle the proper way. Afterwards she dusts her hands off. "Well, that doesn't surprise me. The whole area is a little…" She pauses, peering at Dani. "Glowy?"
Danielle fetches her spear while Amanda cleans up. "Glowy. Not a lot. But for a while after you do magic like that, your skin's a bit.. brighter. Or something." She fumbles for the right words, ending up with the useful hand-waggle instead. "Hmmm…. If we were doing this at night, you'd be almost like a bit of moonlight. It's rather .. nice."
Hand-waggles are, of course, the universal language. "Brighter? I never noticed." Not that she makes a point of trying to look at herself after casting, though. "So. Spell is cast, we have the evening free… now what?"
Danielle smiles, "We could toss on our coats, hop on Brightwind, and go for a lazy trot through the clouds?" It's a special thing. Any couple can go to dinner, or dance, or a movie. But how many get to ride a flying horse out wherever the mood takes them? "If you're nice to me, I might let you sit in front this time…."
Amanda Sefton makes a show of rolling her eyes in the most exaggerated fashion she can muster. "I am -always- nice to you," she huffs, playfully poking at Dani's shoulder. "Just try and name one time when I wasn't!"
Danielle gasps and dramatically clutches her shoulder. "That! Right there! So mean!" she huffily pouts, then grins and tugs Amanda into a close hug, for a quick smooch. "Buuut I suppose I can forgive such wanton cruelty. Even if it's all a cunning ploy to get closer to my featherbrained horse."
Amanda Sefton returns the hug and, despite herself, blushes at the smooch. "Now you're just being silly," she grumbles as she starts leading the way back to the circus. "…besides, Brightwind likes me best." Totally not because Amanda is always bringing him apples!
Danielle snorts, grinning as she follows Amanda back to the partial path leading home. "You both plot against me, trying to make me jealous," she mock-accuses, then relents with "I am one insanely lucky Injun." There's a pause, as she debates whether or not to make her girlfriend blush more. Unsurprisingly, she comes down on 'yes, yes I should'. "Certainly lucky with /this/ view…" she fills the words with an unsubtle purr, before making her expression one of pure innocence, lest Amanda look back.
Amanda Sefton doesn't look back, because she knows exactly what Dani's face is going to look like. She does, however, predictably turn bright red and reach back to swat (and miss) her girlfriend. "You are horrible," she murmurs. Still blushing. Not that she has ever, not once, demanding that Dani stop, of course. That would just be silly.
Dani just grins, not pushing it too far. Teasing, blushing, flirting, there's an art to it, to make sure it never slips into uncomfortable, or worse, unwelcome. "So we'll need to do a few more of these 'boost' spells over the coming weeks, if I understood the plan correctly. Same place each time, or..?" Not the most graceful of subject changes, but not the worst, either.
But it does help Amanda relax and lean into Dani as they head back. "Two more boosts over the next month. That should help." If the snow hadn't stayed so long she would have one this sooner. But here we are. "Hopefully it'll start raining sooner to start the healing process. I should have done something about that elemental sooner."
"Tsk. Woulda shoulda coulda. We dealt with it, and we're cleaning up the mess," Danielle reminds, comfortably snaking an arm around Amanda's hips as they tromp back through the woods. In the distance, the sounds of the circus start to creep through the stillness. "And if another one shows up, we'll smack it down, too."
"The sooner this place heals, the harder it will be for another to pass through," Amanda explains. "Blighting the land sort of… weakens the barriers between our world and wherever they come from."
Danielle grunts softly, nodding as she mulls that over. "Makes sense. Black Eagle had stories of when the old spirits walked the earth, or certain times of the year where the fabric between our world and the spirit world was stretched thin. And.. well." All things considered, she's not really in a position to hang onto her childhood skepticism.
"All true, I am certain of it." Now, granted, she only knows what Dani has deigned to share, but everything she has been told when it comes to those sorts of beliefs has been accurate to what Amanda herself has been taught. "And I know there are good spirits out there, but bringing them over here just opens the door for other things…."
"At least we know we're not the only ones trying to make sure bad things don't come through that door," Dani mentions. As they get closer and closer to home, her use of the spear to nudge branches and bushes aside becomes less and less necessary.
It's helpful that their vardo is on the edge of the circus. Still brightly lit, but attention is elsewhere. So the tall toned Native woman holding a spear isn't going to make the visitors (if any) panic and worry. Because these are suburban folk. Panic is in their nature. "Each time I repeat the spell, though, it'll take longer. So more of a chance for something to get too nosy."
Danielle gives her girlfriend's hips a warm squeeze of reassurance, and glances around as they rejoin so-called civilization. "Which is why you're /not/ doing these jaunts all on your own. We've handled everything so far, and I'll make sure you're safe and undisturbed while you work. That's the deal."
Amanda Sefton hmphs as she is squeezed. "You say that as if I had even considered sneaking away and doing this without you."
"Not at all. No girl of mine would be /that/ silly," Dani teases, smooching the other girl on the cheek as they reach the vardo. "Grab our coats? I'll check on Featherbutt, get him saddled up."
"All right. Tell him we'll get him a snack when we land." Because she always likes for Brightwind to know that she's thinking of his comfort too. Amanda's like that. "I'll meet you there!"