The fiery cat hurt to look at - fire-breathers and their combustion... it was beyond Svartis why one would want to set themselves on fire. He was much like his mother in that regard: averse to most forms of heat. It was why he was sequestering himself to quite a bit of personal space in a darker corner of Polaris, marinading in his idle casting of cooling magic. Keeping his internal temperature low was surely key to making sure his own attempts went well - unlike the poor few before him.

Temperantia went back to the sidelines, and the icy dragon was suddenly hyperware of the radioactive eyes boring into his being. A good chunk of the chitinous plating on the Alpha's face was... gone. It assured him, in a way, knowing that it wasn't so invincible, yet - who did that? Svartis turned away, and shook himself out.

Wing-waddling to the center of the arena, the serpent dipped his head and projected as best he could for the judge and the crowd: "My name is Svartis!" Oh, the judges said their groups - "- of the dragons!" His tail lashed once, he took a calming breath, and swept into the sky.

Svartis made sure to fly low and visibly, taking sweeping circles around the edges of the arena. The tip of one wing fell maybe five feet above the ground with each beat. Then, he climbed - climbed, and climbed. Up towards the roof, as far as he could go. A few more circles, and the black dragon tucked his wings in, his fins - streamlining into a full-faith dive towards the earth. He called on his magic as he dove, trying to conjure a thick plume of sparkling-white snow floating about thirty feet above the center of the arena.

There it was, suspended in the air by it's lack of density: the very spectacle he was hoping for. A glittering cloud that was screaming closer with every second. Svartis stopped adding to it with his magic, and started to count down the time it took to break "cloud" cover. The moment he felt the tip of his nose pierce the coolness of it, he cast towards his skin.

Up-close, it was easy to see the way the dragon's dark hide started to shift into hyper-reflectivity. It crept from the tip of his nose to his tail as he dove through the cloud of condensation, wings still fast to his side. To the audience, it would seem like the massive beast had just dove through the icy cloud and disappeared.

Svartis snapped his wings out, caught the air with them with a few massive beats, and swept around the area again - still near-invisible except for where his wingbeats ruffled fur and feather.

For his last trick, Svartis took to focusing back on the center of the arena. He completed another "hidden" loop, icy eyes firmly fixed on the air. There, he tried to draw the moisture into a cloud of fine mist, puffy but not quite so white as the first act. It coalesced, not all that impressive but - he could work with it.

With a booming whumpf! of either wing, the black dragon spun through the mist. It caught on his horns and his scales, trailing after him. His scales steadily regained their full visibility as he wheeled around for another dive. On the second go, Svartis was completely visible again, heading upwards with gathered momentum. Finish strong - ! he urged himself, and gave his loudest, most triumphant roar.

Then, the moment had passed, and he landed on the ground. Svartis grinned awkwardly, dipping his head briefly, "thank you..." and wing-waddled back into the crowd.

@Akaari

She wasn't here to win (although that would be a very welcome bonus) but to watch everyone show off their skills so that she might steal learn from them. There were two already who she noted down in her mental journal, the quill frantically trying to remember their names. The first guy, was it Sabastian? Ah well, the name is unimportant, had set himself on fire. Oh she definitely wanted to try that! What would happen if she threw him at someone whilst he was like that (because it was perfectly reasonable for a half grown leopard to think she could throw a puma)?

The others were less exciting, that was until she could breathe no more. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart pounded excitedly as she watched a great winged beast, more wondrous than she had ever seen before, bring white flakes of beauty and invisibility. Now he is cool! It was not hard for her to tell that she could not beat that, he was definitely going to be the one taking home whatever the prize was and yet, she felt as if she had already won. Watching these creatures use magic in ways she had never even dreamt about before was better than some measly congratulations.

Then came her. Breathe deep. Slather on that smile. And go!

She was prancing! Shooting out in front of her was a vibrant green wisp, though not as bright or as large as she would have liked it wasn't bad either. The wisp was to announce her presence, lighting the way for her path before it did an arc in the air and came to settle back by her, resting under her chin to light up her face. "Hello! I am Akaari, the Potent! You may have heard of me, I like secrets and knowledge!" As she spoke the girl pranced in a circle, legs high and head held up, the wisp a constant glow under her chin.

Her most practiced magic was useless here, the one she enjoyed the most because it let her know so much! Probably more than she was actually supposed to know but try and stop her. The thing is she could go up to something, touch it, and then tell everyone its secrets because they could tell her she was lying and she was definitely not a liar! That meant that she was left scrambling for other ways to show off how amazing she was, the wisp was a comfort but it was easy and simple and just a floating light, it was not cool like setting yourself on fire or going invisible!

After doing a circle in front of the judges the girl grinned at them before moving down into a false bow. There was one thing caves were good for: stone, rocks, and stone. But that would do well for her now, or at least she hoped. Without taking her face away from the judges her eyes moved to the side where she had almost stumbled and fallen over a long piece of rock when she was watching the other contestants, wide at one end (by wide it was probably about the same diameter as her wrist) and gradually moving into a point at the other end. She remained in a bow as she looked at the pointed rock (about the length of her leg), head facing one way and eyes facing to the side, and then she tried to reach out with a more difficult magic. One that barely ever wanted to work for her.

She lifted it slightly off the ground, dragging it (literally) towards herself, the pointed end remained on the ground whilst the wider end was lifted up and being pulled towards her with her mind. A headache was beginning to set in but she had to finish this. The end on the ground was drawing a line towards her, scratching the ground, before the rock stopped in front of her. Her eyes moved with it, not letting it leave her sight for she knew that would end in disaster, but she didn't rise from her bow.

With a lot of strained effort she heaved the stone so that the wide end was against the ground and the pointed end was facing towards the sky, she could feel the effort of trying to push it up into that position, her head pounding with the few seconds, but she eventually got the stone to balance so that she didn't have to hold it like that.

Ah, the finale. With a green wisp under her chin and a pointed stone in front of her the girl wanted to finish her gift to the judges. This wasn't exactly what she wanted, she had wanted the pointed end to be pushed into the ground so that the wider, flat end was towards the sky, she could have then tried to climb atop it and balance for her finale. That would have been impossible with how hard it was to get the stalagmite shaped stone over to her in the first place.

She took a deep breath, trying to think through the pounding headache and continue on, she wanted everyone to know that she was awesome and knew things.

With a last ditch effort the girl conjured one more wisp, this one was so much better than the last, a brilliant, toxic green light emanating from the arcane object. She conjured it at the bottom of her miniature tower and made the wisp spiral around the stone as it rose higher until it hovered above the point like a brilliant marker, letting all know that she was here, this was her place and her effort. The wisp that was under her chin, looking dull and small compared to the new one, now circled her makeshift glowing, tiny tower, like a ring. She was panting hard though at keeping the wisps maintained, thank the spire the pointed stone was balanced as she would not be able to hold that and the wisps as well.

Her effort: In front of the girl, now stood and no longer bowing, was a balanced, leopard-made stalagmite stone with a bright, large, green wisp in a perfect circle hovering over the tip. A much smaller and duller wisp was circling around the centre of the stone like a ring. She was proud! "Isn't that green great? I got the idea of the colour from a vision, I see things! I can find secrets out if anyone wants to come find me after, I like finding out secrets! All your magic is so cool, we're awesome. Go us!" She spoke quickly so as not to take up too much time from everyone. With another quick grin at the judges the girl no longer maintained her wisps, for she was growing too tired, and they blinked out of existence, and, before running off to watch the next contestant, she pushed down her artificial stalagmite like stone and watched it roll away. Happy as she took steps back so she could see what the next person had in store.

@Wilder

Deli

Deli continued to make some commentary on the magic performances while they happened, although they were already started to lean back a bit, bored with the failures that just wouldn't stop coming. Temperantia, briefly, caught its attention and then failed so Deli almost turned their attention away. Good thing it was almost.

The bounce thing was quite interesting and the sparkling dirt was definitely a step up. "And after a slow start, out friend Temperantia has finished on quite a high note, with a display of unique jumping that only a gembound without legs could pull off and some sparkles! Pretty! Give it up for Temperantia!" Their clapping was more enthusiastic now.

The dragon that appeared had Deli squeaking with surprise and instinctively backing up a pace. Raheerah?! But wait, no, Raheerah had legs and he was much bigger. And this one introduced itself as Svartis. Well, a dragon! Better have some more impressive fire magic!

But Deli was enamored by the dragon's performance, eyes wide and awed as he swooped high and then low, glittering ice and sweeping into invisibility. An incredible display that had the dog jumping and whooping. "At last! At last, we have a contendor worthy of a top spot! Would you look at that, Svartis of the Dragons has given us a beautiful display of ice magic! Wow, look at him swooping through the mist! We can't see him, but wow, look at it trailing after him! Wonderful work! Fantastic, worthy of an artistic impersonation! Give it up for Svartis!" They howled as they clapped this time - that had been their favorite performance so far!

They watched as the next one came up and barked out their name. "Aaaan its Akaari, the potent, she calls herself! Lets see what potent magic she has in store!" They were confused for a moment when she just dragged stones around, but it came together at the end - a nice little pile of rocks before her with a glowing green wisp. "Oh! Well, isn't that very nice! A little pile of rocks, how fascinating!! Akaari has surely wowed us with such potent magic as moving things around and making wisps! Fantastic! Give it up for Akaari!" They clapped, although it wasn't obvious if they were being sarcastic or not.

---

Excited for her turn to be in the spotlight, Wilder bounded out to the center stage, tail held high and ears erect. She remembered doing this last year - it had been fun, but she might have gone a little over the top. Perhaps this time, instead of going for a blazing wow factor, she'd go for something subtler - more beautiful. With wow, of course! It wasn't Wilder if it wasn't extra!

She stood in the middle of the stadium, vibrating with excitement, her happy purr audible from all the way up on the judge's stand. "Hello!" she chirped, voice buzzing. "I'm Wilder! Of the Bonebound! I'm gonna do some pretty magic!" She looked up at the space above her head and focused, willing a wisp to appear from thin air - which it did. A sparkling blue and pink wisp danced to life a few tail-lengths above her head. I cast a lovely little light in the area around her.

She smiled and watched the light for a moment before focusing again. If she could get an ethereal bird to appear, then it would truly look beautiful, dancing next to the little wisp! The familiar she conjured, however, didn't glow the way she wanted it to. It was pretty, but it didn't have that ethereal nature to it. And it was. Kinda small. But that was okay, she could work with this.

The small bird familiar began to fly around the wisp - not getting to far from Wilder, but it sparkled in the magelight and when its wings passed through the magical fire, it scattered little sparks in the air, only causing the light to dance more. It wasn't a grand effect, but Wilder thought it looked quite pretty!

She felt her heart skip a beat when she realized it was time for the finale of the show. She was a little nervous for this one - if she got it wrong, she could hurt herself, or others as well, but she convinced herself to be confident enough that, if it went wrong, she would be the only one getting hurt.

She picked a small pebble of the ground and tossed it up, a little beyond the wisp. As soon as she let go, she whipped around and sprinted as fast as she could, only glancing back when she thought she was a safe distance. The familiar had only just turned around to follow her when she focused intensely on the wisp, just as the pebble passed by on its way down.

With a bright flash of light, the pebble exploded. Not spectacularly or dangerously, but it was blinding for a moment and the wisp merged with the supernova, scattering sparks and little candleflames to the edge of the stage, but it was small, and contained enough, to not hit any of the bystanders. The familiar disappeared with a quick cut of magic and the plasma burned itself out almost immediately.

Once the light was cleared, all that was left were a few licks of flame and sparkles that quickly died out, but leaving a lovely little aftertouch. She smiled wide and purred again, giving the judges a small bow. "Thank you!" she chirped again. "I hope you liked it!" With that she turned and pranced off the stage, happy with how she'd done.

@Mercuriues