<span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#666600">The lesson this night was not for the Ilimos boy to fail, or to be humiliated, or for his skin to burn by way of the flames that licked the night’s air like a thousand tongues praising the deities that abided above. Tonight’s test was to see what he did with what was being offered to him, or else watch as his feet sunk even deeper into the sands. Where there was one way - defeat - there was another way, and that was to rise above his own insolent pride. While the sand might grab at his ankle’s, one need only to wear the appropriate sandals in order to glide along the surface. And while one eye could see the land that stretched out before them as stark and dead, another could see it as a beautiful painting, filled with hidden life and color. <br/>
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Where the Ilimos boy saw his own lands being snatched by a merciless, foreign warlord, so others saw a dying nation, impoverished, and without a true leader left to them to overcome the last famine of their land. Such endeavors came with a price -- and it was that price that Aiemlan was unwilling to budge on. In exchange for the desert dwellers assistance, their people became that of Aiemlan. As Viktor would have it, a House would be built overlooking the seas, where the goddess Shahazen no doubt waited for her worshippers, and it was there that would become the centre of trade that would rebuild the islanders’ wealth.<br/>
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Except the boy did not care for the ilks of politics. The boy wished to squander his time in bed, hiding from his imaginings of his new life here, without bothering to understand.<br/>
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“You will only be as clumsy as you choose to be,” Viktor admonished, his previously condescending tone hushed with disapproval. While Mischa watched the fire dancer create her steps, gathering a circle of bystanders as the flame lashed every which way but her, the warlord’s dark stare turned down on the pale face of the young man, reading his skepticism. “And the fire will not burn you if you do not allow it to touch you. To dance with fire, you must first respect the flames. Too many who seek to dominate the fire become scathed in the process simply because they fight it, they struggle, they try to control it. You cannot control fire; you cannot predict which way it will go just by the direction of the wind. You must simply move with it in order to harbor its power. That is the mistake that man has made. They try to control the untameable and, as a result, have caused more havoc than they have harmony with something so dangerous.”<br/>
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The taller man stepped in closer to the boy so that his presence was a warm shadow against his back. His hands fell down on the younger man’s shoulders, only this time his grasp lacked the force that they had when ushering Mischa from his room. Instead, they guided him to where the woman danced and danced, seemingly tireless in her trance. Stopping at the edge of the circle, Viktor’s hands trailed down either side of the boy’s arms when he released his grasp. Against the cooling breeze of the night air, the breath that tickled against the shell of Mischa’s ear was hot like the day had been. <br/>
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“Do not burn and all will be well,” he murmured. The warlord stepped away fully afterwards, moving to the left most side of the circle where the fire dancer’s toys sat an array. Viktor picked up a pair of devices that looked like short whips called poi. A small bottle he also snatched up of an oil before he moved back to where he had left Mischa. The pair of poi he thrust into the other’s hands while Viktor himself dribbled the milky substance from the bottle into his open palm. The oil slathered thickly, shockingly cool, against Mischa’s skin once Viktor laid his hands on the boy again, strong fingers rubbing the substance into the muscles of the boy’s chest, down over the ridges of his stomach, then kneaded back up again to cover his shoulders and down his arms.<br/>
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“Cover yourself in this,” he instructed, quietly, slickened fingers moving down to Mischa’s hand to pass the bottle off to the boy. All the way, flames danced in the reflection of Viktor’s stare that watched, rapt, the boy’s while he subjected him to his touch. “If you do manage to incur the lash of flame, it will not harm you this way. Unless you prefer me to finish the task for you,” he finished with a twitch of his lips, the faint bemusement creasing the corners of his eyes. “Then you may dip your instruments in the fire and join Sienne in dance.”</span></span>