Welcome to Gaia! ::

Takamura smiled as he moved his gaze from the dragon-kin to Aniur and back again, his kimono rustling softly with every move. He smiled as he heard her speak to him, not a wry smile, or a smirk, not even a happy smile really. It was a smile of peace, a smile of a life long spent wandering through villages and towns with no one place to stay, nowhere to call home, until now.

Good first paragraph. Not a thing seems out of place. It's a good first paragraph, the commas are all in their right place, it adds to the creativity of the post. So no issues here.

Takamura's hair hid his expression, until the wind blew and exposed the warm smile on his face. Closing his eyes he lowers his head slightly and regards his words carefully, not worrying about what he has to say, or even how to say it. He let's his expression sink into his Sensei's mind a moment before replying, his voice warm and soft as a fleece quilt, or a gentle breeze on a warm day. "I thank you for your kindness Sensei, but I have one last request, fight me. Let us lock swords in combat and fight with all our hearts, as true warriors, not Sensei and pupil." He said as he turned to face her.

You're right, technically it's a good post. It's an interesting character development as well. You've pushed him towards being perhaps a bit sensitive and over dramatic. Don't take this as a bad thing. He's bound to stir things up as an agent of change. I really was hoping to see this a bit more expansion on your character. You did open up some new avenues for him to take, but perhaps some history of why hes like this would be in order, or why it took so long for his calm exterior to crack into this very dynamic character. Did he not want people to know?
Anywho, there are a few little picky things, but nothing that you won't be able to fix next time. I think you just might have rushed it a bit.

You Will Never Be A Man

Well now that's done and over with, let's see what you have here. Yet another rather short post, making it a bit hard for me to expand my own posts as well. Yet I still try.
Though short, this is a good post. Technically it's precise and to the point even if it breaks my own preference of adding in some character development. There are no real visible grammatical errors and it's a pleasure to read. Continue on with this, makes things interesting.

+ rank
Advanced, med

As you wish....

::Nodding, all traces of emotion fall from her face as she takes several large steps back and closes her eyes. She did not like having her hand forced in this way, but so be it. Her earlier thoughts of becoming complacent were more than apparent with her reservations towards the fight. The time she was to be spent teaching was also to be a time of learning for her as well though. It was the goddess' will. With a deep sigh, her eyes snap open and she sprints towards him, her sword falling to her side left with the tip just barely an inch off the ground. A quick succession of clanks and clatters mark each step she takes as she closes in on him.

She was only vaguely aware of the growing crowd that seemed to permeate the abbey with the echoes of activity. The dragon, scales and all, was more than visible out of the corner of her eye. There were more than just those whom were in the court yard before her though. Doors shut unaccustomedly hard. A soft whinny heard in the distance being uttered by a disturbed horse. There would be business to attend to after this bout apparently. There was no time for that now though.

When within blade's reach, she stops just as suddenly as she had started, digging her heels into the hard ground. The force of this swings her blade up, cutting a diagonal swath from left to right upward.::

Being helpless to the actions before him, the dragon-kin decides to back himself off of the battle area, to spectate the fight as it would unfold in front of his eyes.

Nice little sentence to open up your post and reassert your presence. I would say that you want to cut the "himself" out because the act of backing out will be immediately applied to your person unless otherwise specified. The phrase "as it would unfold in front of his eyes" doesn't sit quite well either. Something better, a bit less sticky would have been "to spectate the fight as it unfolded before his eyes".

Before this started, Aurak notices that around him, more and more folks from the abbey come to survey the barren field, seeing as to what's going on. Some came to stay, others came only for a few minutes, only to leave to go back to the path of where they were originally going.

Here we do have an issue. You got a bit sloppy with your tenses. Started should be 'starts'. Mr Dragon kin, you are in the present and must remain there at all times unless otherwise noted such as a flash back. Either that or you must stay with past tense through out the whole post. Make sure that you keep track of that. You seem to also be developing a love affair with the word "as". Watch that you don't put it where it doesn't belong.

Suddenly, he feels that another set of eyes was watching him, a common trait for kins and mortals alike to have. This time though, he felt a little more of that the person was, excited perhaps? Not being able to help though but look around in the crowd one more time, Aurak did not see the set of eyes that was watching him moments ago. Was it that woman there in the elegant blue dress with blond hair? Or even the squire by the door? How about that man that has short dark-brown hair with the leather suit? Whomever it was, it didn't matter. It was often that mortal eyes laid upon him. Whether it was in fear, disgust or even just curiosity, the dragon humanoid didn't seem to care.

Okay, so this is a very interesting paragraph. From what I can tell you're trying to make the point that dragons have a slight inclination towards being empaths. You could have explained that a bit better if that was the case. Most mortals don't have the empathic abilities that are probably common to your race. I do like how he kinda goes around and ponders it for a bit.

Turning back to the two duelists, he watches Anuir's first move, hoping that this would be an interesting battle. Though, in reply to all this commotion, all he does is simply let smoke billow from his nostrils. As the heat generates inside of himself, the dragon let's out a sigh through his nasal passages, letting more of the smoke blast out from inside him. Even some ember managed to mix in there, just a couple sparks of heat, but enough for the dragon-kin to realize that his fire weapon was ready for it's initial use. What to set afire though? All there is to attack here is a heap of straw, cloth and wood to his side, the same one that the swords-woman wanted Aurak to attack earlier. how convenient.... His thought generates as he looks to that dummy with disgust as it seems to taunt him from across the arena.

It's solid, same small issues we're going over and trying to correct though with flow and content. I am finding the whole rivalry with the dummy amusing.

Inuki paused at the front gate to the Garden Shrine to catch her breath and hitch the battered old army issue dufflebag higher onto her shoulder. The Shrine had been suggested to her as a nice, quiet place for reflection and contemplation. A suggestion that she had taken to heart and now stood here in dust stained jeans and a ratty old t-shirt that had said something vulgar once upon a time but was so old and creased as to no longer be legible.

Cool whisky gold eyes surveyed the monestary, carefully evaluating everything that her gaze came to rest on. A playful wind tousled her white-blonde hair, and Inuki grumble quietly to herself as she dragged the strands out of her eyes. "Well, now what?"

Welcome to the abbey. It's good to see that you've made your way in and are getting acquainted with your new surroundings. You don't seem to be breaking any of the big rules, but we'll see how that progresses after a few posts. Generally after a bit of writing has been done, it's only then that your bad habits come out. So you'll make a few posts for me, then I'll give you a level and we're work from there.

I do want to note your post is a tad bit short. So why don't you give me a bit of background on your character. Who suggested the shrine? Where they close to you? How long ago was this suggestion made? You evaluated the courtyard, but you didn't actually give us your impressions of it. The details you need are not only in other people's posts, but the first post of the shrine itself. Happy writing! :3

::The glint of his blade hit Aniur's eyes, distracting her only for a second. She was not worried in the least though. While this would have been a problem for the unprepared, there were several things she had done in case just such an event happened to occur. Her stalling might have seem in vain to most, it was a calculated effort on her part. Each step backward had been a judge in distance, slowly counting and measuring just how far she was from him and figuring out exactly how many steps it would be before their swords met. She noted that his feet were dug into the ground and braced to take the blow she was about ready to deal.

A sharp clang sounded as they hit, the force driving her sword back and to the right of her. She used to this to her advantage allowing the force of the blow to spin her around. For a split second her back was to his as she allowed the momentum of the heavy blade to carry her around. At the point she was at his left side, the claymore hit its arc as she turned to face his back and began to swing downward. It flattened out about chest level as she pulled her arms in to quicken the speed of the swing.::

Well, the place is pretty enough, Inuki thought. Although the expansive gardens seemed a little too perfect for her taste. In her experience this neatly regimented perfection was always hiding something ugly underneath... and that sort of pessimistic expectation was exactly why Anna had suggested the place.

Inuki had been crashing at her friend's place for a month, after being placed on indefinate leave from the Force and her own apartment with it's bullet riddled walls and busted locks not being someplace she wanted to return to anytime soon. But even Anna of the saint-like patience could only put up with Inuki moping around her house for so long, and she found herself booted out with her dufflebag in one hand and a brochure in the other a few days ago.

Figuring Anna to be rarely wrong, she made her way here mostly by bus, hitching when her funds were tapped out, the last leg of the trip had her walking from where her ride let her out up by the highway. Which brought her here, hoping that they had a decent shower somewhere in this place. When a voice spoke up beside her, and a little behind, she nearly leapt out of her skin.

"Ever hear of a rhetorical question?" she immediately snapped. Silently berating herself, five weeks ago she'd never have let someone get the jump on her, she turned to see a kid. A kid! All by herself, what were her parents thinking? "Where are your parents?"


Grammar is on par, it's a rather nice post. You seem to be missing a few things though. Like the setting that you've entered. The place might be "pretty" but it's also pretty damn old. It's perhaps what you would call, working old architecture. There's ivy growing all along the walls and when you first enter it does look abandoned. This is quickly mentioned in the first post that describes said shrine. There are no pamphlets, no brochures on the matter. I would say it's either set during a time where the things you described aren't quite happening yet, or the shrine itself is a place set away from time. You may continue on with this line as it would be highly interesting. Just be warned you're going to have to be a little more creative to keep up with consistency issues.