"And now, the winners of the Year of the Dog Pageant of 2018 are..." Clara said with some short pause toward the end to provide some measure of drama that was intended to keep everyone "on edge" as it were. With all eyes and ears on her she then moved to provide the final answer. "...Beth and Luke."
There were a few gasps of surprise, from both the gathered audience and from the contestants as Clara made the announcement. To add to the drama in the announcement, the lights in the room largely dimmed greatly and allowed for spotlights to then focus on the Doberman Animalian and the Wolf Animalian as the two of them blinked in surprise at the two of them being named the winners for the overall contest that had been arranged for the "Year of the Dog." There was some quiet that then followed as Sun Tzu and Tara then moved to each winner and presented them with the crown as the crowd soon applauded.
The crowns were accepted graciously and there were a some general applause from even the other contestants which Clara felt to be a good thing, especially as all the votes for the winners were very close. Clara knew that there were a lot of close "rivalries" between many of those that competed, particularly when it came to those like Tiffany and Malice who had had some "rivalry" over some things, and there were some questions that went around over the fact that Luke was an uplifted Wolf and not a Domestic Dog, but there was no signs that anyone had taken the results poorly.
And from what Clara had been able to guess at from what was determined by the votes in the competition that there was a lot that was determined more by the strength of the competitors more than their sexual attractiveness than anything else. After all, just about all Animalians had the same overall building in that female Animalians were all very voluptuous and well endowed while males were all well muscled and obviously well endowed as well. In this, if the competition were solely about who was the sexiest, when looking at Animalians, you'd have a massive tie between them, as while Tiffany might have the largest breasts of any canine Animalian and the most curvaceous body for them, it wasn't as though Malice or any of the to other female Animalians were truly lacking in that department. This then meant that the votes soon came down to who could do the most with what they had...
Which in many ways for Animalians made athletics and scents far more important to them than how Animalians looked. It was partially why so many Animalians were comfortable with the idea of "if you've got it, flaunt it." Because while chest or penis size might be more important visual cues to Humans, that wasn't really what attracted Animalians to each other. And that was actually where Beth and Malice had done quite well in the show with Beth demonstrating that she could bend Aluminum and Malice at pulling sleds. Tiffany probably was the most beautiful, and that did go a long way in the voting, but in the end the votes that Tiffany and Malice won actually served to cancel each other out and gave Beth the win among the females, as many of the Animalians in the audience were quite impressed with her feats of strength.
"I... I never thought I'd get this," Beth said slowly as Tara placed the crown for "Year of the Dog" on Beth's head, and then raised an arm to waive to Eliza in the audience, who waived back, cat a dog show jokes aside.
"You all did very well," Tara answered, "but you won and you deserve it."
Beth managed a nod as Luke came up beside her. He looked well, though Beth still felt Eliza looked better. Even with the animal instinct issue that was making her and Eliza more bi-sexual than truly homosexual, Eliza was still the one that Beth had found herself truly in love with. Just because Luke was male didn't change that, and Beth was also fairly certain that he was also in love with a Wolf Animalian that was cheering from a row where Sarah was seated with Travis and the rest of Animalia Ambassadoria's crew sitting nearby.
"Yeah... you earned it," came Tiffany's voice from behind her, making Beth turn and saw the converted French Poodle stand there with a small smirk, "Kinda wished I'd won... for Riley and all... but you earned it..."
"And it was fun," Malice said from beside Tiffany, "and it's not like these abs are a bad thing."
Beth only chuckled at that and then made her way forward with Luke and enjoying some of the attention. Tiffany and Malice stayed back with the rest, as this was part of the overall show and they would have to wait for the full dismissal to step down. While both were a bit disappointed in not winning the competition, there was a great deal of truth in what Malice had said about it being fun. Even Tiffany agreed with that, and felt fine with it, though that might have been because Riley had found a lone rose somewhere and tossed it to her.
"So... what's college like?" Malice asked to Tiffany.
"Harder than high school... but if you focus and stay on track... it's all workable," Tiffany commented, "the big thing is figuring out what your major will be... but if you're interested in joining the police after High School, your best shot is with the police academy... And THAT I can't tell you about."
"I can ask Simon on that," Malice answered.