Welcome to Gaia! ::

He ah, wasn't confident in his skills at etiquette. It had been on his mind all day, and when he'd found out that they offered classes in how to NOT make an a** out of himself, he'd jumped on it. Because, and he'd probably admit it if asked, the last thing Roch wanted to do here was make a complete a** of himself.

When he was told he was going to practice on birds, he cheered up immediately. He liked animals! Well, other than scrags and canon cats. But he definitely could like the huge birdies. He headed for one of them, stopping in front of the bird and glancing around to see what the other students were doing. Then he grinned at the bird, and bowed.

The fact that he'd looked around might have been bad, but he didn't realize it, because the Adara moved closer, rubbing her head into his hands. "Hello, beautiful," he said quietly. "It's nice to meet you." A feather fell and he picked it up, slipping it into his pocket without stopping the affection.

Okay, he could do this, he thought as the adara came back. "Could you tell me about the music they have here, darkling?" he asked her. "I'm really big on music, you know?"

The bird's eyes lit up. He seemed to have picked the perfect topic, because she started speaking a mile a minute, opening her wings once in a while and performing a beautiful little movement that he was positive was dancing. Her tone changed to scolding and he was certain she was talking about a form of music that she did NOT agree with, but seemed to know extremely well.

He nodded, listening intently and trying not to laugh as she went on for a very long time. It was entertaining! He had no CLUE what she was saying, but he was enjoying himself. And when she dropped a feather she even bent down and scooped it up, offering it to him.

"Thank you," he said as he took it.

Dance: Performing Arts

Those who had taken Week 1 of the Clan of Conquest's class might recognize the female seated on the chair in the room; in front of her was a Guzheng. Standing on her left was a horsewoman who was dressed like a servant ghoul holding a Pipa, and on her right stood a horsewoman who looked like she was of the same age as the servant ghoul, but was dressed in clothing that looked more colorful and decorative.

"Welcome. I am Zhang Liulian, but you may address me as Professor Zhang. Traditionally, dancing is an art form reserved for females, but in recent years, even males had taken up this art," She explained, giving you a small smile, "It requires flexibility, a quick reflex... It is not as easy as you think it might be. In fact, it requires years of practice to get dancing down. Here, let my disciple show you." She turned to the ghoul on her right and gave her a nod; immediately, the young ghoul brightened up, moving to the space in front. When Professor Zhang started to play the Guzheng, accompanied by her servant's Pipa, the young ghoul performed a dance so entrancing, it probably kept you captivated.

"Same say that dancing may even lift your spirits and heal your soul... Why don't you find that out for yourself, child?"

He could have sworn the horsemen were snickering as they offered him a box. This was trolling the newcomers, he was positive--or maybe it was just trolling him. He bet if someone like Xiu or Edel came in, they would have been quite happy to help her.

As it was, Roch grabbed the first thing he touched in the box, pulling it out and looking at it blankly. It took him a few minutes to figure out that it was a fan--he wasn't used to fans coming in a form like this, he thought as he opened and closed it a few times just for kicks.

"Wait, I'm supposed to DANCE with this?" he asked belatedly.

KUMIKO:

While the ceremony of Kodo is a complex one and may take years to master – upwards to 30 being the quoted amount – it seems that the Clan of Conquest has taken it upon themselves to at least bestow a small challenge of observation upon the students in the form of a game that, in theory, is rather simple. One of the younger members of Conquest’s Clan, for the sake of difficulty adjustment, has set up 5 different samples of incense on scentless bamboo squares.

A small demonstration is made as how to smell them – also known as ‘hearing’ the scents, with the square held up to one’s nose and the hand cupped over the square in order to scent it.

With this done, the rest of the explanation is given: Your task is to determine which scents are the same, and which are different! Several scents might match each other, some might not match any of the others. For this task, you are given several different sizes of block.

Using these blocks, you stack them so that a top bar may be put across matching incenses, which will form certain Genji-mon (also called Genji-ko) to denote chapters of the Tale of Genji (a strange tale from the Human World O_O!! )

For example, if the first and the last scents match each other, you would stack your blocks to form the chapter ‘Maboroshi’ (Chapter 41, ‘The Wizard’) with three shorter blocks in the center, and two taller ones on each end with the longer block set across the top of them.

The trickiness comes in that some scents may be very similar to each other, but not the same, and some might be exactly the same just to trick you!

Once you have ‘heard’ each scent and set up your blocks, the individual who set up the challenge will let you know how you did.

The horsemen nodded. "That is Hana no en, the festival of the cherry blossoms," he explained, looking somewhat pleased.

"Sounds like somethin' I could get into," Roch said, grinning. "Thanks," he said. "Um... it's like this, right?" he said as he stood and bowed slightly before walking away. He'd actually done something right!!

Kumiko - PASS! Perfect score<33 (First 6 becomes 3, second six becomes 2)