Their First Task
The children that received their education and training at the temple often went out for different reasons. Most often it was part of a lesson or a training, often it was for regular work and trade, but the travels were usually short.
A group of monks went to a big city that was about one week of walk away from the temple, there they would join a festival, trade, see other monks from other temples and exchange information on the current affairs and other knowledge.
Rarely, they would venture away and travel long distances, they would bring back new students as well as interesting novelties and news from all over the world. And yet, they knew, that there was a special power that allowed them to travel far in an instant.
She studied the ancient scripts that described how the temple was built and which kinds of magical forces were used to keep it safe from any kind of attack from the outside, magical or not as well as the magic that was hidden within.
The temple was the training ground for future wielders, but they were not supposed to transform and use their powers on the temple premisses. The kwami were discouraging it and as far as they knew, nobody ever tried to transform on the temple premisses.
Nobody told them it was impossible to use magic inside the temple, just not to do it, and all of them respected their home too much to try, it would take utmost trial and despair to make one try and transform on the premises of their magical home.
Dorje was always protective of his new home. Nobody dared to inflict any damage to it in his vicinity. He grew tall with wide shoulders, strong and relentless, he would have made a truly strong and brave warrior, so he was trained to be in charge of the most valuable possession – the temple itself.
Pema knew that both of them were hardly children any more, but still far from being adults. There was no hurry to grow up in the temple, nobody was forcing her to marry. She felt affection to Dorje, it was different and stronger than for anyone else she ever met, but she never acted on it.
Dorje was always protective of her. Probably as much as he was protective over the home they shared, the temple. He liked to touch her by accident and they often engaged in verbal battles or chatted about anything long into the night.
It was in a morning after they spent a night in their conversations that they were summoned to a meeting with two of their temple leaders, two elderly monks called Tenzin and Dolma. They had a task to fulfil, there was a danger and evil coming about. None of them felt ready but accepted.
"You shall go there alone. You are going there to bear witness to the events and do not intervene unless there is a magical evil involved." Dolma was setting out the rules. "The only purpose for the magic we give you is to take you there and protect you from any threat."
"There is a new kind of magic being sold in exchange for silver and other goods. Some say it makes people feel good and other say that it brings out the worst in them. You are asked to go and see what it is." Tenzin advised.
The two kids were asked to join hands and a piece of cloth was wrapped around them. Dorje just smiled sheepishly, he had no idea what was that. Pema watched the faces of the two elderly monks and started to be nervous in anticipation.
"Consider this your first trial in your training to become the future guardians of the temple. Since you are to share the duty we here proclaim you married into a single entity." Dolma spoke solemnly. "You are now as one."
Suddenly it became crystal clear what had just happened to them. They were married. Pema looked at the boy with wary eyes. What was he going to do to her now that he was her husband? But the boy just smiled gently, confused and surprised by the whole ordeal and she relaxed.
"You are mere children, so your miraculous is going to issue you warnings after you use your power and you are going to detransform after a time of about fifty breaths." Tenzin warned the kids about something they already knew.
"Dorje, we have decided to give you the horse miraculous, you will use it to go to the great harbour on the coast of an ocean where the magical thing is being brought in to this part of the world." Dolma solemnly announced and gave the boy a pair of glasses.
Kaalki appeared and greeted the boy who adjusted the glasses on his face. He had only seen half blind elderly men and few women with the device and thought of him as odd because he was still a young man.
Pema was given a choker, it was the dragon miraculous, considered to be the most useful as it provided her with a weapon as well as magic that could help her defeat armies. Longg greeted her with much praise and the two were ready to go.
"Before you go, we have one more thing for you to take." Dolma continued. "This is a pair of magic rings. It gives you a special connection to each other as well as this place. These rings have the power to protect you as they were forged here in the temple used our magic."
They went to a cave. Dorje transformed and opened a portal they joined hands and walked through. Nothing could have prepared them to what they encountered on the other side. It was crowded, it was busy, people shouted, pushed each other around, it was a harbour and there were ships on one side and there were buildings on the other and a lot of people in between.
They hid for Dorje to detransform, but they already saw so many new and unbelievable things that they felt detransforming in the middle of the crowd would not bring up too much attention onto them.
Dorje was overwhelmed, he had seen the chaos of the markets before, but this was so much more. There was the stench of the harbour in the air, there were people of all kinds of clothes and skin colour bustling around while the embankment was filled with goods for sale.
Pema was cautious, after the bad experience from the last religious festival, years ago, when she got separated from the rest of her group and ended up in the Tibetan temple, she clutched onto Dorje's arm and looked around wary of everything and anything.
People spoke in languages that even Pema did not understand, she translated to Dorje as much as she could, what was for sale, what the buyers were looking for, what the people chatted at different corners. Dorje enjoyed his role of being the protector slightly too much.
They have been walking around the busy harbour for hours. Often a girl or a woman would approach them and say something, sometimes it was a man, Pema would pull Dorje away with no explanation, but when it started to get dark, it happened far more often.
"What are they saying? Do you understand? What are trying to sell?" Dorje inquired from time to time. At first he thought that Pema did not understand them, but he was becoming that she did and just did not want to share.
"They are selling themselves." Pema finally admitted. "Their bodies." She clarified. She looked away from Dorje.
"What? How?" He demanded.
She started to translate offers of specific actions, they both blushed, but he encouraged her to continue. Sometimes they did not have a clue what specific actions meant, but the body language and their imagination filled in the blanks in a way they did not find pleasant.
There was one word offered at every corner and they both did not know the meaning of it. The only thing they understood was that it was sometimes advertised with 'feel the magic' or 'transfer into the magical world' just like some women promised while they offered their bodies.
'In order to protect the temple you have to learn about the world.' They were told. 'There are evils and goods out there that do not involve any magic.' Was another lesson. 'A human being can commit atrocities far worse than any magical creature.'
Both muttered the advice they got back in the temple to each other trying to reassure themselves while they became more and more painfully aware that their lack of experience might be their doom.
"We can always just go back using the horse miraculous and you can defeat anybody using the dragon miraculous." Dorje whispered reassuringly. Pema straightened up and looked at the world with different eyes, it was far less scary, because now she could use the power to protect herself.
It was getting dark when they collected courage to enter some kind of establishment and see what was going on inside. They saw different persons who ate their meals, other were drinking, but some were inhaling smoke from tubes and releasing it into the air with glassy eyes.
"What is that?" Dorje asked Pema, perhaps slightly louder than intended, maybe a little surprised and scared from what was going on before him. They both saw people smoking before, but Pema saw that glassy device used before.
"They are smoking something." She whispered.
"Yeah, I see that, but people do not behave like that when they smoke something. I saw people who looked like that, but they were chewing some leaves that my parents never used but to relieve the pain." Dorje whispered.
"I believe that is what the masters sent you to observe." Kaalki suggested from his hiding place.
"Be careful, my fair master." Longg warned.
"We should stay and observe. Maybe ask questions." Pema used a coin to get them some food and tea while they took a seat on a carpet with cushions. Their robes that clearly showed they were monks earned them little attention.
They were slightly disappointed in the food, but they were hungry so they ate it. The tea tasted differently, it was not the usual Tibetan tea they had nor any kind of the herbal teas they ever tried, but it kept them awake and alert to observe what was going on.
Men and women would consume the smoky substance and become lost to the world. Most would just become numb, others would start mumbling and stumbling around, few became violent. Men and women alike entered the premises and demanded to smoke.
The two monks left the premises of that particular establishment and walked the street while they observed what else was going on around them. It was already dark and they often peeked through the windows to see what was going on. There were no private homes there, anyway.
They witnesses intercourses in all combinations of sexes, the participants and observers alike enjoyed some of that magical smoke. They saw several participants unconscious. The scenes made the two disgusted at what human beings were able to do to themselves and each other.
Sometimes, a man or a woman would beg for the substance that ensured that smoke, and they were refused, because they had no silver coins to pay for that. Women would get parts of them naked and offered in exchange, men would draw knives and demand the purchase.
Suddenly, they both became aware that this chaos around them, the trade, the crowds, the violence, and the prostitutes all revolved around one single thing, it was that item offered at any corner in exchange for the most precious coins they had.
It was offered to the two of them time and time again, everyone was buying, everyone was getting it, nobody cared about the consequences it had on their bodies, minds and souls. It was abundant although expensive and offered an escape into some magical world.
The people around them took the leap and enjoyed that escape, their lost eyes, their frantic moves or complete numbness, mumbling and stumbling, scrams or just empty stares, it all showed that their minds were somewhere else and they would sell their soul to get there.
The substance and the magic they all strived for?
It was called opium.