Everything seemed to be going smoothly, at least that's what he'd assumed. Bartleby wasn't exactly experience in, well, anything at all. Now he was a judge for the "First Annual Olympics", his qualifications included that he knew exactly 33.33% of what that name meant. If he had been more experienced, and several inches larger, he might have considered participating in any of this trials. Instead he was probably going to end up squeaking himself hoarse to be heard.
"Welcome to the First Annual Olympics! I don't know what that means either, but I know that you should try hard to win it! " He hoped to the rocks up high that people could hear him squeaking. "The rules for this challenge are easy! Just be creative, or impressive, or both! You can use anything in the area to help with your spells, but please remember this is not a fight, and don't directly try to harm your cocompetitors okay? The order is as follows, Thanatos, Carni, Imperia, Zevruu, Tukluk, and Albeon. I have no idea who any of you are!"
"And that was Thanatos everyone! That performance really behooved some more practice." Normally this would be were a speaker paused for the chuckles in the audience but Bartleby immediately went into full squeaky toy mode with his own laughter. "Get it, behooved? Because.. he's a... Never mind. Well, what a tough act to follow right?" Hopefully the next competitors successes would be less ambiguous.
This was silly. Goodness, this was very silly. Fun, though!
Terrifying and a horrible waste of magicka, in his opinion, but fun!
Carni sat, dignified despite his nerves, off to the side as the tiny bat announced the event. Comically, he might add, with how little the tiny guy seemed invested in his task. First up, though, was Thanatos- and as the (huge) colt stepped up to perform, Carni settled in to watch with rapt attention.
He watched as the black horse turned a chunk of rock into obsidian, shiny and smooth and black, and mildly impressive. The obsidian shattered from the ground moments later and flew up into a glittery stone rain. Cringing, Carni lifted his wings to shelter as a few pieces rained down around him. And that was that.
His turn.
As the tiny bat made a half-hearted attempt at calling around the next round, the Bone King leapt from his perch and trotted into the center of the crowd, looking pretty and clean and confident. He was young, and less trained than he'd liked to be for such an occasion, but he knew plenty of different spells. Time to put some to good use.
He stopped and stood still for a moment, wings arched over his back in a fancy display as he willed his magicka forward, stone lighting up with the charging magic...
...and with a subtle hum of energy, a breeze kicked up in a spiral around him, sending the previous competitor's obsidian dust back into the air in swirls of glittery black. His wings parted and spread slowly with the effect, and he let the spell fade as most of the dust reached high above their heads. As the wind died, the glitter rained down again- but his stone was already buzzing with the start of his next spell.
His focus shifted from the winds to the water running nearby. This was a harder spell. One less practiced, and he hoped to attempt something entirely new with it. If he could just focus...
...but just as he found his hold on the water, the strain became too much. With a gasp, he released the spell, sending only a spray of water from the river in his direction as what he'd been holding up came crashing down prematurely. It sprayed his fur and feathers and he stiffened uncomfortably at the sudden cold.
But he wasn't done. Despite the ringing in his ears from the failed spell, he had one last trick up his sleeve- and that hadn't been a complete failure. He could work with this. He just had to... improvise.