The Fire Dance

By Daisy Strike

	Shayla dodge to the left in a perfectly choreographed move as the song reached a crescendo.  Sweat glistened off the priestess’ body, as she and her two acolytes tried to fill their lungs with more air.  The heat on the stage was overpowering, even for her.  Lights flickered and danced around the priestess as the three spirals of flame gloriously outlined her in the red robes of the chief priestess of fire.
	The audience, including the royal family, waited in a hushed awe as the band finished its pause and began again with a pair of flutes.  Shayla began swaying in a circle around the center bond fire looking as if she was in a trance.  Behind her on either side the two red hair twins followed her movements in perfect symmetry.   A drum slowly began to beat out time, adding its song to the pair of flutes as the entire audience paused  in anticipation.  Then in a well timed bit of chaos the entire orchestra suddenly began playing again.  All three priestesses covered themselves with fire and began to attack each other in a mindless pattern of destruction.  For those few brief seconds it appeared to the casual observer that they were really trying to kill each other until you noticed that the strikes of fire were perfectly timed to the music.  Each death blow dodged with a pounding of drums and a counter attack.  The two acolytes both ganged up onto their head priestess attacking her in wave upon wave of fire.  Then with a pounding of drums both enemy attacks broke through Shayla’s defenses and the fire engulfed her throwing the priestess back into the center bond fire..
	The audience gasped as the orchestra paused in a deathly silence.  The heat from the flames had caused the people closest to the stage to slowly back away.  It seemed likely that some of the closer audience members would wake up during the night with sunburns from the intense heat.
	The drums began pounding again this time in a slow even beat.  Bump-bum.  Bump-bun.  Bump-bun.  Those who had never seen the dance before began to recognize it for the sound of their own heart.  The pause stretched on, the two acolytes had disappeared unseen by the audience when the head priestess had been consumed by fire.  The only thing left were the two smaller columns of fire and the huge one that had been Shayla.
	A harp added its song to the drum.  A counter melody to the sound of a human heart.  Then in a burst of fire, song, and screams from the audience the fire burst apart into the sky and Shayla sat in the center of the column of flame.  Her clothes had burned off from the heat but she was now fully clothed in a cloak of fire.  Shayla allowed herself to slowly settle to the ground.  The fire surrounding her body, a shield of heat and power.
	She walked into the crowd as they slowly backed away from her.  Leaving behind only a pile of charcoal.  Where she stepped the grass burned leaving a scorched print of her foot on the earth a painful reminder of the power of flame.  She finally stopped her advance into the crowd, pointing at the Wanderer Makoto.  Reminding him for a brief second of his lost love.
	The wanderer stared back at the woman clothed in fire with something akin to fear and amazement.  Her eyes glowed as she pointed at Makoto again and then beckoned him towards her.  Afura Man the priestess of wind in an unofficial capacity today,  pushed the scientist forward into the priestess’s of fires embrace.  She wrapped her hands around him enfolding him into the flame that pulsed with a life of its own.  They began to float back towards the stage, the fire engulfing the two people even more as it outlined them.  The real fire dance had begun.
	Makoto had it explained to him before they had gone to watch the performance.  Once a year on New Years day every fire in all of Roshtaria, those within a days journey, were extinguished.  The dance then began, he was told that this was just the beginning chords of the dance, that their was an even larger dance that goes on behind the scenes after the first and before the last that would be in public again.  But Shayla had been particularly evasive about what happened after the fire starter was chosen.
	The two people floated in heat and light back to the stage and then behind it into the temple.  The fire finally disappearing except for  a brief flicker in Shayla’s eyes.
	As soon as the two people disappeared into the temple behind the stage the audience dispersed playing at the booths and waiting for sunset when the dance would be finished and the fire was once again spread through out the land.
	“Shayla, what’s going on?”  Makoto asked in a hushed whisper, but the priestess put a finger to her lips and led him deeper into the temple.  They finally came to a large metal door.  On either side of the door the red hair twins stood guard, solemnly.  The two immobile except for their eyes that watched with an odd mixture of guarded joy and fierce protection of what lay inside.  The twin on the left opened the door and bowed allowing Makoto a view of the interior.
	The room appeared relatively normal at first.  It had an abundance of pillows, which was normal for the Roshtarian society who proffered lounging on the floor rather then sitting in chairs.  A small hearth sat in the center of the room, a pile of logs were carefully arranged in the hearth to allow easy lighting by fire.  The room seemed normal except for the walls which were made of hard polished iron.  Finally, it lacked any windows but had a small chimney high in the center.
	Shayla pulled him into the room as the door was shut behind the two.  In the following silence it was easy to hear a long metal bar be slid across the door firmly locking it into place.
	The fire priestess gently guided Makoto towards her looking beyond lovely in the nude.  Rather then appear embarrassed she pulled him towards her, wrapping herself around the wanderer.  Makoto stood shocked for a second and then pulled back away from her.  Tripping over one of the pillows he tumbled to the ground.  With a joyful glee the priestess tackled him and pinned him to the floor.
	“Today you are the kindling and I am the heat.  Together we will create a new fire that will last an entire year.”
	“Shayla,” He tried to push her off.  But the uneven floor continued to foil his attempts to escape.
	“Their is only two ways out of this room Makoto,” she whispered.  “One is to start the fire in the center with our passion.”  She gave him a kiss.  “The other is to use your body as the kindling.”  Shayla paused, “I don’t think you would enjoy that.”
	He looked at her mystified.  “Even a priestess must follow some of the laws, and this is one of our most holy.  Now accept your fate.”  She purred as she lowered her lips down on top of his and gently pecked a kiss again.  The priestess blushed from the light contact.  “This is only my second time ever leading the ritual and the first time was just an empty motion.”  She kissed him again.
	Makoto stared back up at Shayla.  She was so hot, her skin seemed so close to bursting into flame again and fire still danced in her red eyes.  Those eyes seemed to draw him closer to her and when she kissed him it felt as if he was slightly burned from the power contained in her.  He couldn’t deny that she was having an effect on him the room seemed to swirl with her passion.  Makoto tried to figure out if that was caused by the dance, the heat, or this very sexy woman in front of him, but all rational thoughts were brushed aside when on the third kiss probed his mouth with her tongue.  Makoto stood still for a second, shocked at her action then as if some biological necessity clicked in his mind he returned the action.  Slowly tasting the inside of her mouth with his tongue.  He remembered all those advertisements he had seen describing the taste of a first kiss but his first one tasted of charcoal.
	After a time that seemed like forever, Makoto finally broke the kiss.  He wrapped his hands behind her and pressed the fire against him.  She was so warm, even through his clothes he could feel the heat radiating off her body.  He massaged her back as she settled her body into his.  Shayla’s hands found their way under Makoto’s shirt and slid it up over his chest before leaning back against him.  Her head nestled into his chest and for a second they paused enjoying the shared heat.  Then Shayla turned her head and planted a kiss on Makoto’s chest.  He tilted back her head and shared another kiss before standing and removing his shirt.  He leaned forward again and nuzzled the priestess’ breast.  He focused all of his attention on her right breast changing from licking to sucking and back again.  Shayla moaned, raising her breast even closer to Makoto as he finished with the right breast and shifted to the left.
	To Makoto it seemed as if both his and her body seemed even hotter then before.  The room was sweltering now as sweat rolled off of the wanderer, not that it distracted him.  Makoto finally slid a hand down the front of the priestess letting it creep down her stomach as he continued to flick his tongue rapidly over her breast.  His hand finally came to rest a mere, but impossibly distant inch above her mound.  Makoto finally finished his attention to the breast and moved back up to the waiting lips of the priestess.  He gazed once more into those deep red eyes watching the sultry fire burn in them.  Shayla closed her eyes in pure pleasure as one of her favorite dreams finally came true.  A dream she had held on cold nights as the dance had approached, but not even the dream had been this good.
	Makoto finally broke the kiss and pushed himself above the woman looking down at her composed face and starring at her closed eyes.  The eyes that still glowed even through the eye lids.  She opened her eyes again and then with a mysterious smile she finally took action grabbing up Makoto’s pants with both hands and forced them off.  Makoto gave a startled, very unmanly squawk, that was ignored by Shayla as she slid down taking his dick into her hands.  She examined it critically for a second and then gave it a tentative lick.  Makoto looked amazed down at the redheaded priestess and then closed his eyes in pleasure.  The girl must have decided that she liked the taste, for she began licking the penis in earnest.  Pleasurably, running her tongue up and down the sides of Makoto’s dick.  Teasing the man with a light feather touch that sent shivers through his entire body.  Grasping the base of his dick with her left hand, Shayla finally took the entire member into her mouth.  Makoto gave a long deep groan that the priestess took as her doing the act the right and increased her pace.
	“Shayla you had better quit now or all your work will be lost, and I really want to light that fire.”  With those words he gently pushed her back down onto the pillows.   The wanderer dropped down with her cradling her body around his.  Once again Makoto kissed Shayla-Shayla their two bodies filling the room with their heat.
	“You ready.”  Makoto whispered.
	“I’ve been ready since the day we met.”  Shayla whispered back to the wanderer as she grasped his man hood and carefully guided it into her vagina.  He slowly penetrated her wet pussy as she groaned in pleasure.  He finally filled her to the hilt and paused in pure anticipation of the next stroke as they both kissed.  Finally merged as one in beautiful harmony.
	The room’s smell of smoke increased as even the air began to tingle.  After an impossibly long wait he slowly pulled all the way out and then gaining speed pumped in and out of Shayla.  The girl quivered underneath him.  The two of them were fire now little wifts of smoke rising from both of their hairs.  Filling the room with a thick intoxicating cloud of gray smoke.  Shayla shuddered and a fire broke out on her skin burning hot and spreading throughout her entire body.  Makoto tried to pull away from the fire but the priestess just wrapped herself tighter around the wanderer as the fire spread on to his skin.  Hot, amazingly hot, but not burning, the fire was now making them one blaze that spread through out the entire room.  Makoto paused in his beat as the fire consumed him and then restarted in a fervor of terror, pleasure, heat, and lust.  One last time the wanderer paused as he screamed, the room completely engulfed in flame roared in response as he shuddered and came.
	Stilled locked together and joined by flame as a single fiery entity, they kissed one last time.  Shayla aglow from the fire and a deep blush finally broke the kiss as her body changed from flesh and blood to pure flame.  The fire in the room gathered into the priestess forming a new body. The High Priestess of Flame stood as one with her element glorious in the fire and heat.  Makoto took a step back from Shayla shielding his face.
	“So this is a true transformation.”  Shayla whispered in wonder.  “I didn’t believe it was possible.”  The fire elemental shivered in pleasure.  “Thank you, Makoto.”  She would have shed tears of joy from the feeling, if their had been any water in her body.  “Thank you.” Shayla whispered.

***

	The twin priestesses swirled around the waiting pile of wood as the audience gathered with the dusk.  Runners from all over the country stood waiting with an unlit torch that would spread the fire through out all of Roshtaria.  In an explosion, Shayla burst from the center of the new bond fire as the crowd retreated from the heat.  With the smallest movement of her finger she set every torch in the crowd on fire.  Behind her the twins slowly pulled Makoto onto to the stage and next to the raging inferno that was Shayla.  The drums began beating again and Shayla bowed to Makoto and grabbing up his hands and they began to dance.  The fire and the tinder, the passion and the flame, and finally a fiery priestess and a simple scientist.

OMAKE OMAKE

	The crowd had gathered once again by the stage as the festival wrapped up.  The drummers of the orchestra beating their drums, calling the crowd.  Nanami grabbed the hem of her Yakata that she had labored the past week to make, hurrying to get a good spot.  The outlandish costume had gained a lot of stares from the Roshtarians, most of them stares of envy from the women.  Beside her Afura Man, dressed in a conservative dress, as it was bad luck for another priestess to be here in an official capacity.  Together they had explored the festival and seen the sites, dodging the ever constant attacks by Fatora and Alielle.
	On stage the twins danced around the stacked wood that would be used as a bonfire in a few minutes.  The pair paused and then bowed and backed away from the wood shuffling their feet.  The drums stilled, as did the crowd, and then with a burst of flame, an explosion of fire, and a thunderous clap of noise, the bond fire burst into flame and Shayla, pure flame herself, stepped out of the fire.
	Nanami searched the stage worriedly for a sign of Makoto, but failed to see him, she whispered into Afura’s ear.  “Where’s Makoto.”
	“Like the fire he was consumed and nothing remains.”  Afura smiled, “Metaphorically, right now he’s probably eating a world class meal and living it up like a king.”
	“He always has all the luck.”  Nanami muttered.
	“Don’t worry, I was hoping you would be the one to help me renew the wind, in the fall.”  Afura whispered with an odd smile.

***

Send all good ideas or comments to Daisy_Strike@hotmail.com and send all flames and other such nastiness to BSaddress@nowhere.com.  Thanks for reading.