The crystal river certainly didn't help with the thickly-layered miasma of scents on the air, but Svartis worked around it - and found a subdued, dusty scent on the wind. Faintly warm, obscured some by a woody smell. It was completely unfamiliar, but seemed enough like a lesser to pursue.

It was in his hopes that it wasn't a particularly aggressive or disease-ridden one, such as any one of the rat species or those aimless sick bats in Monoceros.

Flaring out his wings and abandoning Circle (just for a moment! It would be there when he got back.) he took to the air, trailing that odor's general direction and scanning below for small, furry, innocuous shapes.

There - something glowy oddly against the rest of the oddly glowing landscape. It was a muddled steely-grey, certainly furry, with bioluminescent marks tracing its back. A lone walleye (though, Svartis didn't have a name for it) taking advantage of all the forage left behind. Where most Lessers would leave a dusty-looking gnarl of twigs alone, it was certainly enjoying that.

Svartis kept to the shadows, flapping his wings slowly to minimize noise and -

Damn! Those big ears swiveled first, strangely luminescent eyestalks next. The walleye found its predator, and kicked off into cover with oversized hind feet. Svartis growled lowly. Surely, it startling would've caused any other Lessers nearby to take cues.

Dread'd imparted quite a bit of his impatience onto his son.

Pivoting sharply on a wing once more, Svartis moved back to his circle - "hey!" The white - Pride? - figure glanced up and scuffled away a precious few feet through the growing puddle. In his haste, he'd forgotten to permanently freeze his precisely-built walls. Landing with bounding strides, he groaned without a second glance at the mistaken creature, "ugh, I forgot to forever-freeze that."

Hobbling closer to it, he shook his head, "you're good at magic, right, Pride? How do you do it so well -" Icy eyes finally peered up. "Oh, you're not... um - this is awkward."

It wasn't long after the town hall meeting that Azizos returned to Polaris to do - whatever it was that he did; flitting from one subject of study to another. He'd stared at the Spire for some time, well out of reach of those magical whips. A young gemsbok - from Jupiter (if I'm putting descriptions and Father's memories together properly...) - had told him that it was a thief, drawing magic from the planet. On one hand, the master was described as using the stones of the dead in her weaponry; and on the other hand, all things had to have a source. Water did not just simply manifest into a cover of mist at his bidding, nor did the energy to reduce something to pure plasma.

If life were being (carelessly, as Astraea believes the creature in the Spire to be...) converted to magic for the rest of them, then...

The lion-stag stood and shook himself. Moral contemplation could come another day. He had a new object to be fascinated by: a fairly large ring of ice on the ground that couldn't be melted by even magical means. Merely chipped away and broken. It was perhaps something of significance - or a miscellaneous Gembound's attempt at casting practice.

"Hey!" The latter, then.

As Svartis landed, Azizos made a quick assessment of the dragon, ears pricking. He'd been at the meeting as well, although cowering behind the others. Massive, but certainly young and a bit childish. The kirin put on a sympathetic smile at the forgetful laments, then furrowed his brow. His mouth'd just opened to correct Svartis when he came to that realization on his own.

Azizos shook his head - "I don't think it's too awkward; Pride is my father." Standing a little straighter, he introduced himself, "Azizos is my name." Silvery eyes flashed as he turned down to the disc - pausing so that the dragon could offer his own greetings - and quipped, "this is yours?"

Well... he felt a little better that he was thinking of the right familial group. Svartis glanced quickly at the lion-stag, wondering who the other father was. Given a polite opportunity to give his name, he took it hurriedly, "Svartis."

Fins smoothing as he crouched a little closer to eye-level, the dragon pawed at a puddle, "yes."

Pacing around the permafrosted disc, he continued with a frown clear in his voice, "I'm not sure what it was gonna be. Something to stand on, maybe, in the river." Svartis looked towards Azizos. "Or just something to practice being precise on. My aim and consistency isn't very good." Huff. "I'd show you, but... uh, I'm taking a break for a second."

Svartis. Much fancier - and friendlier? - than Dread.

Azizos listened raptly, silvery eyes widening as he gently bobbed his head - indicating that the dragon hadn't, in fact, lost him along the way of this apparently aimless magical practice piece. When he was done speaking, the kirin offered a mild, "ah, recovering from a lot of use, then?" The answer was clear enough to move along, "a plan might help with your... precision and focus."

He began to stride along the length of the icy circle, "we could draw one out, if you see the need? Brainstorm some ideas while you rest your stone." Already, his magicka was flowing, reaching out for a miscellaneous, hard-edged pebble and hoisting it in the air as an impromptu chisel which promptly clattered to the ground. "A float - a sculpture?" Hatch, scrape, mark with his teeth, then. Rudimentary drawings, at best, carved into the stone. They were barely visible except for at certain angles.

"Any other ideas?"

"A plan might help with your... precision and focus."

Asking Svartis to not look stupefied was far too tall of an order. Thinking... ahead? For purposes other than to discern where to aim and what trajectory to take? Icy eyes widened in that momentary blip of shock, before he shook himself and cautiously slunk closer to see the carvings. They were, simply put, absolutely awful and unrecognizable to him - but maybe Azizos was onto something.

Leave him to take notes, he concluded, and marched in a slow circle, thinking aloud as he went: "it could be... a perch, too? Or another den to live in - ice is solid and could take both. My dad wouldn't share it, but I don't see a problem with it - just as long as they know it's mine." Pause, to consider that. "Maybe a second Spire? Just to see how far I can go?"

Fins flared, eyes widening.

He thought for a moment that the massive reptile would shove off his suggestion to continue improvising, but Svartis came around; literally, squinting down at the chicken-scratch drawings and moving on.

A perch seemed relatively exclusive for winged beasts, but a den... would be nice and altruistic enough. Formed of ice, it may be a bit cold and prone to melting, but if Svartis was willing to share it - then, why not? Azizos could see himself residing in such a shelter while the dragon was away. They could leave a few shed scales or a carving in the wall to mark territory. Some Gembound might be willing to part with their dyes -

"... how far I can go?"

He seems genuinely interested in that, Azizos observed, and paused from where he had been crudely hatching down ideas (now with the benefit of arcane dexterity.) "A test of your skill, hm?" Silvery eyes blinked. "Certainly, you'd have to make sure it was strong enough to withstand its own weight. Build a strong base..."

He... had a roundabout way of producing ice, did he not? "Perhaps, we can compete for the tallest second spire? I'll go first, while you rest."

A large column of ice might be a problem as far as having enough energy for it, but Svartis saw no skill-based expense. If it was strong enough, he could make it as tall as he wanted to. A base? Withstanding one's own weight? The black dragon lacked the knowledge of basic physics and gravity to completely parse that.

But, this Azizos had telekinetic powers, and... apparently the ability to create ice of his own. Svartis narrowed his eyes, looking the kirin up and down before finally stating bluntly, "... you sure you have the breath for it?" For one, he wasn't a dragon! For two, even more obviously, he was so much smaller.

Curiosity won out, and the black dragon settled down to watch.

"I... do not need to breathe it?" Oversized ears pricked, accentuating the rare confusion on his face. Silvery eyes peered at Svartis, mulling over it - surely, he doesn't need to breathe this ice? Azizos turned away with an amused huff. He might get ideas from me.

Striding around the disc and into an open space, the lion-stag furrowed his brow. There were a number of methods he could employ for the construction of his rudimentary spire (including, but not limited to, shaping pure plasma while unable to look at it.) But, alas, he'd promised an ice-sculpture competition. First, he needed to draw the water from the air around him, make it tangible enough to grasp.

That... took quite a bit of energy.

Azizos closed his eyes briefly, and the atmosphere started to condense, a rolling fog forming and pouring outward, settling along the floor.

That first step said and done, Azizos exhaled slowly and peered around. The mist was covering a decent chunk of ground, but... it needed to come together if he was to condense it further and form ice with it. He recalled a brief experiment in air pressure, and swept a little further from Svartis - just in case.

Silvery eyes didn't close this time, if only to observe the product of his magic: a tight-fisted grip on the atmosphere itself and pushing it to become less dense, more porous, more susceptible to sucking in the fog and bringing it into one place in an attempt to balance the pressure.

His lungs felt exceptionally painful in the process, breaths gasping as he struggled to maintain his weak hold on the scaling pressures and driving the mist into one place.