Western Airbender Temple, 16 BG
Down below, far from the bustling crowds and echoing bells of the main plateau, a few late arrivals trickled in on their bison. Among the sparse few, an elderly man guided his massive beast next to a landing pad. He launched himself into the air with a graceful burst of airbending, landing softly on the stone despite the slight ache in his joints.
Turning in place, he gave a gentle nod to his companion, signaling it to head off for the day. His lifelong flying bison let out a low, rumbling groan before taking flight, leaving the elderly man alone. This was Elder Malik, a high-ranking master from the Northern Air Temple, wearing the heavier, layered robes that befitted both his status and his older body.
His shaved head was marked by a deeply weathered blue arrow that ran down to a kind, wrinkled forehead. His eyes, surrounded by deep smile lines, held the calm clarity of someone who had watched generations of children grow into masters.
As he walked along the lower terraces, he gave a gentle nod to the younger monks and acolytes who remained below. Some were busy cleaning or performing chores, while others had already finished enjoying the festivities up top. Either way, most of the commotion could be heard echoing from the plateau above.
Elder Malik simply gave a warm, grandfatherly smile back to every young nun and novice who bowed to him, content to take his time as he headed toward the steps.
On his way to the building that housed the steps to the plateau above, a few attendees were already heading back down to conclude their time at the temple. Among them was Kelsang. The young nun caught Malik's eye just as she reached the bottom of the cave steps, exactly as Malik was about to head up.
Malik offered the young master a warm greeting. "Ah, Kelsang, it's been a few years, hasn't it?" he remarked, his voice carrying an elderly touch of sophistication in every word.
Kelsang greeted him with a respectful bow of her head, keeping her hands tucked neatly into her opposite sleeves. "It has, Elder Malik."
He gave her a grandfatherly smile, "If I recall correctly, the last time I saw you was at the Northern Temple's Sky Bison Polo championship, correct?"
Kelsang offered the elderly man a small smile. "Indeed, Elder. About five years ago, in fact. It is good to see you up and about," she added, playfully jabbing at the older man's age.
Malik chuckled with genuine amusement, his eyes crinkling. "You say that now, but wait until you reach my age. You'll be getting those exact words thrown right back at you." He smiled warmly, giving Kelsang a gentle pat on the shoulder. "It was good seeing you again, my girl."
"And you, Elder," Kelsang replied.
With a final nod, Malik turned and began making his way slowly up the lit cave stairway toward the festival above.
While Malik continued his slow, steady climb up the cave stairway, the noisy, cheerful sounds of the festival grew louder with every step.
Up on the lush, green plateau, Granny Reshi had finally gotten her small group of four-year-olds to stand up in a semi-straight line.
"Alright, girls, eyes on me!" Reshi called out, standing in front of them to demonstrate. "When we bow, we don't just drop to the ground like sacks of grain. We take a deep breath, lift our hands together, and fold forward smoothly. Like the wind bending a tall blade of grass. Let's try the first one together."
Min immediately bent forward too fast, lost her balance, and tumbled forward into the grass with a soft oof, though she quickly started giggling. Yoko tried to bow so quickly and competitively that she nearly bumped her forehead into Kaya's hip.
Tanza, however, stood perfectly still. She took a measured breath, raised her small hands with exact precision, and lowered her upper body into a perfectly balanced, elegant bow. Her posture was completely flawless, not out of spiritual devotion, but because she refused to look undisciplined in a public setting. 'After all, if anything, it's more like honoring a high-ranking elder for their civic accomplishments,' she reasoned to herself.
Back at the stairway though, Elder Malik stepped out from the mouth of the cave tunnel, the sudden brightness of the mountain sun catching the edge of his silver beard. He paused at the crest of the grassy plateau, taking a long, deliberate breath of the thin, crisp air.
Before him, the festival was in full bloom. The plateau had transformed into a vibrant sea of yellow and orange outfits, as hundreds of flowing robes rippled like field wheat in the high-altitude wind.
The air itself was heavy and fragrant, sweet with the scent of burning cedar incense and roasted fire-lily seeds drifting from small gathering circles. Everywhere he looked, the sound of the sanctuary filled the spaces between the cliffs, the low, harmonic humming of older monks chanting ancient verses, the bright, ringing laughter of young novices catching the breeze, and the rhythmic, soft thuds of leather boots pressing into the damp grass as lines of visitors moved in perfect unison.
Malik's gaze traveled upward, past the swirling white shapes of dozens of long-legged cranefish circling the sky, until his eyes rested on the towering stone face of the grand monument. The ancient stone woman looked out over her kingdom with absolute, frozen serenity.
To the young acolytes around him, the scene was a flawless display of eternal peace and spiritual devotion. But as Malik watched a group of younger monks laughing together near the statue's base, his smile carried a faint, hidden shadow. He couldn't look at the beautiful gathering without remembering how fragile it truly was.
He knew that just beyond the mist of these mountains, across the vast oceans, a massive storm of political resentment had been quietly brewing for four decades against the 'Guiding Wind' some time ago. He could only pray that the gentle wind carrying the laughter of the children today would hold strong against the heavy clouds gathering on the horizon.
With a soft, silent sigh, the old master smoothed the front of his heavy winter robes, tucked his hands back into his sleeves, and forced his warm, grandfatherly expression back into place. He stepped forward into the crowd, determined to cherish the warmth of the sanctuary while the sun was still shining upon it.
Back down below, Kelsang walked along the temple's stone steps, leaving the cheerful noise of the festival behind. The heavy sound of chanting and bells faded away, replaced by the soft wind whistling through the upside-down monastery.
She kept her hands tucked into her wide sleeves, her mind focused on her duties. At her age, it was nearly time for her to take on a student of her own. The elders had already dropped a few hints about looking through the younger girls either this year or the next.
Still, Kelsang was in no rush. Finding the right child took patience. Since the council chambers were empty today, she was perfectly content to wait a bit longer before she bothered to pick an acolyte to train.
Reaching the outside terrace of the upside-down temple, which hung from the cliffside like a massive stone icicle, she closed her eyes to feel the soft breeze flow against her face and hair. When she opened them, her gaze traced the playground terraces and training grounds, picturing herself as a child here among so many others. It was funny how much slower time seemed to move back then.
She noticed a few other acolytes scattered across the lower terraces and flat stone grounds. More than likely, they had already finished enjoying the festivities and had slipped away to do a bit of chore work.
Her eyes trailed to the council chambers at the far end. Most of the senior leaders were still up top enjoying the Yangchen pilgrimage festival, but a couple of the older council members had already trickled back down to avoid the noon heat.
She spotted two elderly nuns sitting on a shaded stone bench near the council doorway, quietly discussing memories of their first festival, reminiscing as elders often did about their younger years.
As Kelsang crossed the bridge over the deep chasm, the two women paused their conversation. They offered Kelsang a slow, approving nod as she approached.
Kelsang stopped to bow respectfully. "Morning, honorable elders," she greeted them, straightening up with a warm smile. "How go the years?"
Granny Pemi gave her attention, her face wrinkling into a deeply maternal gentle smile. "The years are like the summer breeze, young Kelsang! They rush over the peaks so fast you barely feel them touch your cheek before they are gone, leaving only the warmth of memory behind."
Beside her, Pemi shook her head and bemused, "Oh, hush your poetic whistling, Pemi, the girl asked a plain question," Paaru interrupted with a boisterous, raspy chuckle that echoed lightly off the cavern walls.
She slapped her knees, her sharp eyes crinkling with amusement as she looked Kelsang up and down. "The years are making us creak, that's how they're going! But look at you. By the spirits, it feels like only yesterday you were a chubby little thing crying over dropped dumplings on these very steps. Now you're walking around with your hands in your sleeves looking like a proper master!" She gave Kelsang a warm grandmotherly smile.
Kelsang, a bit bemused the elders still remember her, and her younger years, smiled wryly back, "Time flies fast, granny Paaru." she shot back.
"Not fast enough for some!" Paaru teased, leaning forward on the stone bench and narrowing her eyes with a knowing grin. "The other elders have been buzzing about, masters this, masters that, and your name pops up as well!" She gently shook a finger at Kelsang. "Tell me, have you thought about staying put long enough to pick up a student this year, or are you going to leave and hide from responsibility?!"
Kelsang shifted on her feet a bit, the old instinct to stand at attention before her former master kicking in, before she let a calm smile settle over her wry grin, "You're never going to let go that I shirked my chores when you watched over me, are you?" she shot back, amused.
She shook her head and leveled her eyes between the two elders. "But yes, I have not only come for the festival, but I came to stick around and see the prospective children. I want to see about taking on an acolyte."
Paaru let out a hearty laugh, thoroughly satisfied with the answer, while Pemi offered a serene, approving nod. "A wise choice," Pemi murmured softly. "The tapestry of the temple relies on the threads we weave today."
Kelsang nodded, keeping her warm smile, and bowed her head toward her former master. "It was a pleasure to see you again, Paaru. Do take care," she said, bidding them well before taking her leave.
As she turned and walked away, Paaru's parting words reached her ears over the breeze: "I'm sure you'll find a good future student this year! Take care of yourself as well!"
Tanza
The conclusion of the four ceremonial bows triggered an immediate shift in the crowd. The quiet reverence of the cliffside monument dissolved into a massive, orchestrated movement. Thousands of monks and nuns began to form a singular, winding line.
Granny Reshi did her best to corrall her eight four-year-olds into a tight cluster, planting them directly in the middle of the flowing stream of orange and yellow robes.
It was a clever positioning choice. It used the bodies of the older monks as natural guardrails to keep the toddlers from wandering too close to the steep cliff edges.
Then, the music began.
The heavy mountain air vibrated with the deep, resonant drone of long ceremonial horn-pipes. The low brassy notes flowed through the air. They were punctuated by the sharp, rhythmic chiming of bronze bells. While Neli and Lushi immediately began to bounce and sway to the rhythm, Tanza found the music a bit overwhelming, but there was a rhythm to it.
The real challenge, however, was physical. The procession began its slow descent down the winding stone stairs toward the lower terraces. For four-year-old legs, the steep, giant steps were a minefield. Neli caught her foot on her robes and nearly went tumbling. Kaya whined softly until Granny Reshi reached down to take her small hand.
Tanza refused to struggle. She locked her gaze forward, centering her gravity and using tiny, precise steps to maintain her balance. As she stepped, she noticed the deep, smooth grooves worn into the center of the stone. Centuries of thousands of marching feet had literally reshaped the rock. It was a testament to the sheer weight of time and tradition holding this fragile society together.
Finally, the steps gave way to the wide, open expanse of the grassy meadow terrace. The heavy chanting slowed to a peaceful halt. The overwhelming drone of the horns faded, replaced instantly by a far more welcoming sensation. The rich, warm aroma of food was drifting up from the lower kitchen terraces. The air smelled beautifully of steamed grains, savory vegetable broth, and pan-fried tofu.
Granny Reshi did not hesitate. Sensing the immediate shift from exhaustion to intense hunger in her group, she skillfully maneuvered the eight girls through the dispersing crowd. She led them directly toward the low wooden dining tables, determined to secure their seats before the massive wave of festival-goers flooded the area.
The girls giggled and chattered among themselves as Granny Reshi, helped by another monk, began dispensing small dishes in front of them. They served each girl a plate of traditional steamed tofu and bean sprouts, alongside a soft bread roll. Each of them was also given a small cup of warm sweet butter tea.
Beside the individual portions, a large communal bowl was placed in the center of the table. It was piled high with steamed bamboo shoots, broccoli, and an assortment of fresh mountain greens.
The moment the plates touched the table, the polite manners of the four-year-olds vanished. Neli immediately lunged forward, her small hands grabbing her bread roll and ripping it apart with pure, joyful hunger. She stuffed a massive piece into her mouth, her cheeks puffing out like a flying bison's, completely ignoring the chopsticks beside her plate.
Beside her, Lushi tried to be neat but accidentally knocked her chopsticks off the edge of the low wooden table. They clattered onto the stone floor, causing her to giggle loudly as she scrambled underneath the bench to retrieve them.
Across the table, Min and Yoko began a quiet but intense tug-of-war over the largest piece of steamed broccoli in the communal bowl. Their small fingers tangled together as they pulled, their faces twisted in fierce toddler determination until the stalk snapped in half, leaving them both blinking in surprise with equal green pieces.
Kaya poked her steamed tofu with a single finger, giggling at the way it jiggled on her plate, while Piroh and Yishen focused entirely on their sweet butter tea. They blew soft, uncontrolled puffs of air into their small cups, using basic, untrained airbending instincts to make the warm liquid bubble and splash up onto their noses, erupting into a fit of shared snorts and giggles.
Granny Reshi let out a soft, long sigh that carried the weight of a woman who had raised many generations of stubborn airbenders. She gracefully smoothed her orange robes and sat down at the head of the low table. With practiced, maternal patience, she gently tapped Piroh's cup to stop the bubbling, handed Lushi a fresh pair of clean chopsticks from her sleeve, and gave Neli a soft look that meant chew before you choke.
"Eat nicely, little currents," Reshi murmured, her voice warm and steady despite the surrounding chaos. "The wind does not rush its meal."
Tanza, on the other hand, was familiar with the food. Having eaten with her peers many times before, she steadily and efficiently consumed her portion. This existence was a world away from the life she had lived in her previous world. These toddlers, and herself, by extension, had it incredibly good compared to Tanza's past life as Tanya, surviving alongside the other orphans in the cold, underfunded church orphanage of the Empire.
Furthermore, she rationalized the food with reasoning. Considering that the airbender lifestyle demanded a lean, agile physique rather than a body built with excessive muscle, a strict vegetarian diet made perfect sense. While it was not wholly beneficial for building raw, military-grade muscle mass, it provided more than enough essential nutrients to fuel the unique demands of an airbending body.
As she chewed, Tanza mused over her food. The steamed tofu had a smooth, almost gelatinous texture that collapsed easily under pressure. It was incredibly mild, possessing a subtle, milky sweetness that relied entirely on the freshness of the bean curd rather than heavy seasoning. To a tongue that still subconsciously remembered the salted meats, scorched rye bread, and synthetic grease of a military-industrial nation, it was almost jarringly clean.
The bean sprouts provided the necessary contrast. They were crisp and snap-fresh, releasing a cool, watery crunch with every bite that cut through the softness of the curds.
She picked up the soft bread roll, tearing it apart with her small hands. It lacked the dense, heavy gluten structure of the imperial rations she had consumed in her past life. Instead, it was light and airy, a literal reflection of the culture that baked it, and dissolved quickly on the palate with a faint, yeasty sweetness.
To wash it down, she took a measured sip of the sweet butter tea. The mouthfeel was rich and coating, thick with the fats of churned butter. The flavor was a heavy creaminess, which was immediately cut by a sharp, grounding salinity, followed by the deep, slightly astringent undertone of the steeped mountain tea leaves.
It was warm, highly caloric, and coated her throat in a way that promised immediate insulation against the thin, biting altitude of the cliffs. Back on the freezing, mud-soaked front lines of her previous life, a beverage this rich would have been considered an absolute luxury, had she ever been fortunate enough to get her hands on it to break up the monotony of her daily coffee.
Though, that was not to say she had hated the brew Visha used to make for her, but the point still stood...
With a gentle clap of her hands, Granny Reshi signaled that the main course was finished. An older monk acolyte stepped up to the table, moving to collect the empty plates, used chopsticks, and drained tea cups. He offered the toddlers a warm smile before disappearing back down the stone steps toward the lower wash stations.
The brief lull in food didn't last long. A few moments later, a completely different monk emerged from the lower kitchen terrace, balancing a wide, beautifully woven flat basket on his shoulder.
Granny Reshi stood up to assist him, her maternal warmth shining as they began distributing the grand finale of the feast: individual, high-domed sweet fruit pies. The pastries were baked to a perfect, golden-brown flake, dusted lightly with sweet sugar, and warm enough that the scent of cooked moon-peaches and spiced mountain berries instantly filled the air.
The appearance of the golden, sugar-dusted fruit pies shattered what little discipline remained at the table. A collective gasp of pure toddler ecstasy rippled through the group.
Neli did not even wait for the plate to settle on the wood. She snatched the pie with both hands and took a massive, unhinged bite out of the side. A thick stream of dark purple berry preserve immediately erupted from the crust, splashing across her nose and dripping down her chin onto her pristine festival robes. She did not care in the slightest, letting out a muffled, sugar-fueled hum of delight as she chewed.
Beside her, Lushi tried a different approach. She used her thumb to poke a hole through the top crust, giggling hysterically as warm, spiced moon-peach steam puffed out against her face.
Across the table, the peaceful alliance between Min and Yoko completely disintegrated. Both girls abandoned their chopsticks entirely, using their sticky fingers to aggressively claw away chunks of flaky pastry. They ate with a fierce, competitive speed, their faces rapidly becoming masked in a chaotic mixture of crumbs and red fruit glaze.
Kaya, meanwhile, managed to drop her entire pie upside down onto her lap. She froze, staring down at the sticky disaster with wide, trembling eyes, on the absolute verge of a massive festival meltdown.
Before the tears could start, Granny Reshi swooped in with supernatural speed. She used a clean, damp cloth from her sleeve to lift the pie, wipe Kaya's robes, and place the dessert back on the plate with a comforting pat. "All is well, little cloud," Reshi soothed, turning around just in time to catch Piroh and Yishen.
The two troublemakers had discovered that if they clapped their hands together with a sharp burst of untrained airbending, they could make the loose sugar on top of their pies blast into the air like a miniature snowstorm. They were currently covered head-to-toe in white dust, sneezing and giggling as the sweet powder floated down over the entire end of the table.
For Tanza, she took a quick look at the desert, it looked quite the delicacy in contrast to a monk's life, but she supposed it was a small thing in an airbender monk's life to enjoy a treat to the tongue, no harm no foul.
To Tanza's eyes, the dessert's base was a thick cylinder of golden-baked shortcrust pastry, acting as a sturdy structural retaining crust to hold the weight of the filling. Swirled high on top of this pillar was a vibrant spiral of dark purple berry preserve, piped upward into a sharp peak that resembled a miniature volcano.
She noted the high viscosity of the fruit glaze. It was thick enough to hold its shape against the mountain breeze, yet glinted under the noon sun like wet lacquer. A heavy dusting of white powdered sugar coated the purple slopes like fresh snowfall on a peak.
To her mind, the entire design was a nightmare for a four-year-old to consume cleanly. There was no top crust to trap the filling, as evidence of the fact of her sisters consuming their pies with messy faces.
Using her small fingers, Tanza pinched the very base of the pastry cylinder. She brought it to her mouth, taking a measured bite to prevent a mess on her face.
The shortcrust base broke apart with a clean, buttery snap. It was remarkably rich, the high fat content of the churned butter creating a melt-in-your-mouth texture that was immediately overwhelmed by the explosion of the purple preserve.
The dark berry filling was an absolute assault of concentrated sugars on her tongue. The initial flavor profile was intensely tart, reminiscent of wild mountain currents and dark plums, before a deep, honey-like sweetness rushed in to balance the acidity. The texture of the glaze was thick, smooth, and heavily reduction-cooked, coating her palate with a warm, fruity weight.
As she chewed, the fine dusting of powdered sugar dissolved instantly on her lips, adding a sharp, clean spike of sweetness to the earthy, yeasty undertone of the baked crust. It was undeniably well-crafted, an expertly balanced contrast of sharp acid, heavy fat, and pure sugar. Tanza swallowed methodically, executing the entire process without allowing a single drop of the vibrant purple syrup to compromise the cleanliness of her orange and yellow robes.
In short, it was very sweet and tasty, something she enjoyed very much. She finished her dessert, leaving a shortly lingering aftertaste of sugar on her tongue, before Granny Reshi began herding everyone away from the table to let others sit down.