Petals of Iris - Chapter 1 [EDITED]

Hiya everybody!

I've finally written a chapter 1 to the prologue =) I think there's a difference in how I write in 1st chapter, but I honestly hope it's alright. But as I do not know, I'd like to ask for the help ^^

If it feels a bit strange, I believe reading prologue would clear a bit of confusion, so here's the link to prologue : http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/topic59304.html.

Here it goes =)

[EDITED]

Chapter 1

Time slowly , but surely, brought another morning. As sun was rising, Kyou was already awake, standing before Velvet Iris guild house with a heavy bag on his back.
„…I have a bad feeling I forgot to tell them where we’re supposed to meet“ he murmured as he was looking around with a worried look. He kept walking back and forth untill an idea came to his mind, he stopped to rub his hands against each other and clapped afterward, appearing later on a roof of guildhouse, followed with a sound of a weak thunder. He sat down on the roof with a weak smile on his face.
„Brings back old memories, doesn’t it, Lessa…We were once like those guys, struggling to get each day better, wandering around for adventure… Having now three students in my team feels nostalgic, can’t help but to remind of our old times, our crazy old times.“
He leaned back a bit and watched sun rising, coloring clouds to orange-brown colors, telling everybody that it’s about time to wake up.
While Kyou was enjoying the colorful fight, Drago bumped into Viola on the way to the guild house.
Drago: „Ey, Hi! … You live somewhere around?“
Viola: „In the same building as you.“
Drago: „Ah I see… Wait! Same building?!“
Viola: „Guess you should visit a doctor.“
Drago: „Eh come on, there’s no way I’d know when I’m away all the time… You’re pretty cold.“
Viola: „…Have my reasons.“
Drago: „And those are?“
This time Viola didn’t answer, she saw something enough to make her stop.
Drago: „Hey, say something!“
Drago turned around to find out why Viola isn’t answering, for his surprise though he saw Viola having slightly opened mouth. After a moment she pointed with her finger in front of her.
Viola: „Take a look… at the guild house roof.“
Drago did as she said and looked at the roof, freezing himself too.
Drago: „The hell?!“
They both saw Kyou sitting on a roof of guild house and to be specific, the height is about 9 meters…
Drago: „I believe we should hurry or we get in a mess…“
Viola nodded and they both started running towards the guild house.
While they ran to the guild house they noticed Rosy walking from other. When they reached the frontyard of guild house, Rosy looked rather annoyed.
Rosy: „„It’s about six o’clock am as said and he isn’t here!? That’s stupid, had to wake up early on top of that.“
When Viola caught her breath after the run, she pointed at the guild house roof, sighing.
Rosy looked there, „What’s he thinking?!“
Rosy was loud enough to make Kyou notice all three beneath him. He slightly smiled.
„I believe it’s time.“
In a matter of a second Kyou appeared in front of the three after using his trick once again.
Kyou: „You’re quite loud in the morning.“ , he even laughed a bit.
Rosy stepped back, „You…you heard me?“
„Loud and clear.“
Kyuou took a look at the bags of all three and seemed to be glad – after all, they all had the bags.
Rosy remained silent with an annoyed look, causing Drago to laugh a bit.
Kyou: „Alright that’s enough. You made it more or less in time so all we’ve got to do is go before we’re sighted.“
Viola: „Before we’re sighted? Why?“
Kyou: „We don’t want other teams to know where we’ll be.“
All three remained silent this time, Drago even gulped.
Kyou laughed, „Come on, we’ve got some distance to deal with today.“
He started walking first, leaving the three no other choice than to follow him.
Drago: „Um, where exactly we’re headed?“
Kyou: „To one woman’s favorite training ground.“
Nasty thoughts occupied Drago’s mind, caushing him to make a stupid expression, which unluckily for him provoked Rosy to slap him. „Pervert!“
Drago: „Hey! No way!“
As all four slowly walked through the streets of the city towards the gate, Drago and Rosy started arguing with each other. Viola sighed and moved next to the Kyou to stay away from the building up heat – she didn’t want to be thrown into the fire too.
Viola: „May I ask something?“
Kyou: „Sure, something the matter?“
Viola: „It seems like we’re going somewhere alone, I thought the teams had some preorganized training system or something.“
Like if miracle happened, Drago and Rosy stopped arguing to listen to what Kyou was about to say.
Kyou: „There isn’t any, really. The training is up to each team’s leader.... Though, if you wonder if we’re the only ones leaving the city, then the answer is definitely no. Each one of us, royals, know very well you can’t train somebody well inside a cage.“
Drago: „So we have the chance of bumping into another team?!“
Kyou: „Yeap we do, though we won’t fight Drago.“
Drago: „…Sounds boring.“
Rosy laughed at Drago, „Might as well give you some brain instead of muscles Drago.“
Kyou: „You might as well learn how to speak Rosy.“
Rosy: „…“
This time Drago laughed at Rosy, while he did all three passed through a gate.
Kyou thought for a moment, „You know, you look like a quarreling couple when you argue.“
That did the trick, both Drago and Rosy were so shocked that even Viola laughed. However the conversation got killed, they walked silent.
Kyou: „This is pretty much no go, let’s resort to questions, shall we?“
Drago: „… Alright, I’ll ask first then.“
Drago thought of something personal, „Then you might tell us how really old you are, you don’t really much older than us.“
Kyou: „Want to find out more about me hm? Well alright, I’ll answer that question. I’m barely 22, that makes me just for two or three years older than you.“
Drago: „Damn straight!... How did you become royal so soon?! As far as I know the rest of royals are all older than twenty-five!“
Kyou: „Heh, there’s just one answer for that. Because of what I can do.“
Viola: „And that is?“
Drago: „Yea, what that just can be?“
Kyou: „You’ll find out later or sooner, don’t worry.“
Rosy: „Doesn’t feel fair for you to tell me to learn how to speak when you don’t speak much yourself…“
„Oh really?“ Kyou slightly laughed. He stopped afterward and looked around to check if there’s somebody around besides them. As he hoped, there really wasn’t anybody else, so he quickly moved in the forest and headed straight to the mountains, moving fast on difficult surface inside the forest – roots, stones…
As his students focused on walking, there was no conversation going on, sheer silence besides the sounds of nature. Time mercilessly passed meanwhile untill they reached rather high standing mountains. Kyou didn’t look any troubled as he stepped closer to the massive rock in front of him and put his hand on it.
„I came to give you my condolences.“
A mass of rock started moving to the side, big enough to let people walk inside the mountain. The sight amazed the three, a will to go inside was clearly visible on their faces.
Kyou walked inside, immediately followed by the three. What they saw inside amazed them even more. The cave was rather spacious and dark with unnatural feeling of being hand made. The unnatural feeling was compensated with sheer beautifulness of sparkling lake in back of the cave, catching human’s eye as light shone through at the lake.
Kyou: „You’ll enjoy the sight fully while you rest guys. Tradition of this place must be kept.“
„What do you mean?“ asked Viola as she looked around her, noticing something odd – there were marks from fierce fighting all around on the ground, from deep scratches to torn off places. Soon Rosy and Drago noticed too, they all looked at Kyou with serious faces.
Kyou: „Besides, I can’t train you untill I know just how skilled you are.“
Drago: „Just like I thought… A sparring!“
Kyou: „More than that, so I suggest you to get ready for the worst guys. Before that though, I’ll ask you. Are you determined to become stronger, stronger to protect your believes, stronger to stand your ground?“
Drago: „Hell yeah!“
Rosy&Viola: „Yes!“
Kyou: „That’s good to hear. Don’t dare to quit in the process, because my theory will make you work really hard… If you survive a tough nightmare, lesser ones seem easy to crack. Same goes for fighting.“
Everybody except Kyou gulped. After a short moment, Kyou put his hand on a stone next to him inside the cave, closing the entrance. Whole place got govered in complete darkness except the small lake, making it so difficult to see.
Kyou: „Don’t blame me for what’s about to happen… Did you know, that true colors of human are shown when his life or life of a dear person to him is in danger? In a danger so great it makes the human realise that he stands between life and death, great enough to make one tremble to bones or heat up to burn… I’ll make you show me your true colors.“
Kyou put one hand on his chest and with second covered his face, „Living Nightmare.“


Thank you for reading,
Kyousuke

Hey! I'm Oynx here to give you a review!

First, it dragged on without any description. Now, I'm a little biased because I am a sucker for description, but even so, there was hardly any in this passage. Your story just kept going on with 'he said,' 'she whispered' and etcetera. As you can imagine, that gets quite annoying.

Now, it seems that you have a good story going on, so keep that, but I would rewrite it entirely. Add much more decription and don't say things in just boring, dull, plain words. For example -

I have a bad feeling I forgot to tell them where we’re supposed to meet…“ he murmured as he was looking around. After a few seconds Kyou rubbed his hands against each other and clapped, disappearing with a sound of thunder. He appeared in a matter of a second on a roof of guild house with an excellent view round him.

This was the most irratating because you set the reader up for this beautiful description and...nothing. You say there is an excellent view, okay...and? Explain it.

Many authors have trouble with this. Myself included. It's the "Showing not telling." I'm sure you've heard it. Explain what's so excellent about it. Are colors splashed across the sky from the rising sun?

Also, your quotes and how they started at the bottom bugged me so much that I almost quite this. That's one of the first things I suggest you fix.

Last, you give the reader information dumps through dialouge. It's okay, sometimes to do this. When you need to give the reader some help to understand, but you've got to be sneaky about it.
But, when you did this, you did it way too much and it was way too obvious. You have to be super careful with this.

Guess you’ve got a point… Anyway, back to the topic of the day! Can’t wait to see what our leader has to teach us, I mean, having a leader from royals must be kickass!“
„Seems so. They’re apparently the strongest in whole guild.“
„Yeah, we’re just so lucky I can’t believe it!“
„Well, we’d get one of the royals anyway. I found out yesterday from others that there are 5 teams in total, each team has a royal class leader due to a preparation for a tourney.“
„Tourney? You mean a fighting tourney?“ Drago’s eyes sparkled.
„We wouldn’t have a royal class leader if it wasn’t due to fighting.“
„Ah yea you’re right.“ Drago smiled to cover his embarrasment. However Viola didn’t even see it, she stopped moving and sligthly opened her mouth. As Drago noticed Viola isn’t next to him anymore, he looked back

When I read this I sort of just stared blankly at my computer screen. Obviously this is important information but you just dump it on the reader and that's that. You don't just slide it in there in a way that's either casual or dramatic, it's just there.
Either take that out and put it in in a more appropriate time or make it flow with the rest of your story better. (:

I hope that I'd helped and I hope to see a revised copy of this soon.

~Oynx

Edited ^^ I thought of using a bit script style for dialogues as in chapter 1 it's a lot of dialogues as I hadn't come up with anything else while they walked where they should =)

Hello again Kyousuke! I'm here to review yet again.

First, the script, dialogue didn't work. It was almost unorganized looking and drew too much attention and confusion. I'd stick to the normal way of presenting dialogue. This isn't a script, it's a story.

Second, there were a lot of grammatical errors. They can be sighted easily by going through it one good time, but I'll point out a few to give you an idea:

„…I have a bad feeling I forgot to tell them where we’re supposed to meet“ he murmured as he was looking around with a worried look.

Get rid of the hesitation (...) at the beginning. It looks sloppy and it's not needed. Hesitations are not needed at the beginning of a sentence, no matter what.

Viola sighed and moved next to the Kyou to stay away from the building up heat – she didn’t want to be thrown into the fire too.

There was just one word too many for me. It wasn't needed and the sentece flows and sounds much better just by taking out one word. Unfortunatly, you did this quite a bit, but I think a quick read through and you will be able to see those and fix them.

The unnatural feeling was compensated with sheer beautifulness beautyof the sparkling lake in back of the cave, catching human’s eye their eyes as light shone through at the reflected from the water lake.

The sentence before was so unorganized that you didn't get a clear picture. Plus I'm pretty sure 'beautifulness' is not a word Again, there were other sentences that needed similar work but a quick readthrough and you'll spot them.

Next, you have A LOT of repetition. If you use the same word over and over the reader will get bored and not be as interested. I won't point these out because they are easily spotted by just reading through it again. (If you can't tell I'm a big fan of reading through your work multiple times! )

Last, I've saved the very best for last, is your description has gotten so much better. Thank you!

He leaned back a bit and watched sun rising, coloring clouds to orange-brown colors and telling everybody that it’s about time to wake up

Lovely sentence. The description, again, is so much better. And with a little tweaking and more hard work I know you can make beautiful sentences.

I only read like the first pargraph and it just did not make me want to read any more