To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.

- Confucius

The boy was brought to the temple late in midday. He wasn't particularly special, with unruly black hair and rough clothes, looking around at the grounds wonderingly with wide eyes. From on top of the armory roof, two slightly older boys watched him as he was escorted by Master Bai into the main building of the complex.

"Kinda little, don't you think?" asked one, idly picking at the roof tiles.

"I wouldn't say that if I were you," said the other with a dry amusement.

"Hey, I'm bigger than that!" The first boy flicked a chunk of painted stone at the second with a scowl. "And he's skinny, too. All bones."

"He's probably from a peasant village."

"That doesn't mean much. So were you, and you were never that little."

"You weren't here when I arrived."

"So you were?"

"Well, no, but - "

Footsteps sounded on the ground below, and a senior monk glared up at the boys.

"Dashi! Guan! Get down from there! If you break the tiles and the armory floods again, I'll whip you both so badly you'll ache for a month!"

Startled and chastised, both boys leapt up and scrambled down to the roof's edge, leaping the seven or so feet to the ground and landing with practiced ease. They assembled in front of the monk, slightly subdued.

"Sorry, Master Yi," they said in unison, although neither sounded very sorry.

"I'm sure you are. How many tiles did you break, Dashi?"

"None, sir. I just picked a few chips out of them," said the first boy, already starting to slouch a bit.

"A few chips can turn into a whole tile in a matter of minutes. And you, Guan?"

"None. He was doing all the picking," said the second.

"Of course he was." The monk sighed and looked toward the sky, muttering quietly to himself. The boys fidgeted where they were, glancing toward the center building.

"Uh, Master Yi ... "

"Yes?" He glanced down and caught their glances. "Oh, yes. Come with me. There's a new prospective Dragon here today. I'm sure you saw him coming in."

A new Dragon! Dashi and Guan glanced at each other with faint, mischievous grins. There had been several arrivals to the temple in the years they'd been there, but all had been monks from other temples or particularly pious men coming for a term of isolation and thought. They were the only two Dragons-In-Training, young apprentices to the path of the Xiaolin Dragons, despite there being four paths to follow. The idea of another one being found was not only exciting spiritually, but also personally. It meant another friend for them.

As close as they were, they were somewhat lonely among the ancient and wizened sages that surrounded them daily.

They had to wait inside the temple for a while, breathing in the incense and being otherwise bored, while the boy was interviewed by the head monk. It was probably just as boring as their own had been. In retrospect, it was hardly a thing to think about, and they laughed about it even now, but they knew that the boy was probably just as frightened as they had been. It wasn't every day you got to meet someone as powerful as Master Monk Chen - especially not when he might have some kind of interest in you.

Slowly, the other monks gathered, ignoring the two boys who sat irreverently on the floor near the edge of the room. Whispers passed overhead, and though they pretended not to hear, neither Dashi nor Guan could fully stop themselves from listening to the rumors.

I heard he was found in a village not far from Luoyang.

Master Bai first saw him wrestling a tiger cub.

The temple guards say he has pale eyes - almost the color of amber.

Their excitement grew and made them restless. Neither spoke, but they shared glances. When was it going to be over? Was he that impressive, or was the head monk testing him harder, for some reason? Or was their memory just a little off from before - had it always taken this long?

Master Bai had to pay his family quite a sum to get them to part with him, I heard.

The door creaked open. The boys scrambled to their feet, partially hidden behind nearby large pillars. Out came Master Bai, one of their most traveled men; following him, the scrawny boy from before, looking wary and confused; and last, the honorable Master Monk Chen, his back bent with age but his walk steady. He stopped just beyond the doorway of his study and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.

Guan saw the boy squirm slightly, as if the grip disturbed him.

"My fellow Xiaolin monks," called Master Monk Chen, his voice booming through the small room, "I have excellent news. Heaven has granted us a great boon."

The silence grew tense, and the monks all seemed to lean forward, watching the boy with powerful stares. He stared straight ahead, shaking only the tiniest bit.

"The honorable Master Bai has traversed the wide expanse of all China and returned with a great promise. He has found one of the lost powers out in the great dark world and brought it to us, to bring light and good to the world." The head monk's hand tightened on the boy's shoulder. "He has found this boy, who will from this day forth train among his companions to become one of the four Xiaolin Dragons - for he is the Xiaolin Dragon of the Wind!"

Praises and chants went up, thanking the Heavens and the ancestors and the gods, both local and universal. A few of the higher-ranked monks went up to speak to Master Bai, congratulating him on finding one of the Dragons. Dashi and Guan watched from their spots behind the pillars.

"He looks weird," Dashi decided.

"Uncomfortable."

"Same thing." He shifted and peered out further, fixing the boy with a scrutinizing eye. "But I'd probably feel the same way if everyone was staring at me like that."

Guan watched the boy as well, seeing the shifting, the way he looked around like he wanted to be free of the temple walls. He wondered if they should go up to greet him when someone grabbed him - and, as he noticed, Dashi too - by the back of the neck and hauled him off his feet.

"Hiding like little cowards, were you?" asked Master Yi, sounding irritated. "You could have been standing with the other apprentices, you know. Like you should have been."

"Aw, come on, Master," said Dashi, squirming as the pair of them were dragged toward the exit. "We just wanted to see what was going to happen."

"You could see fine from the entryway steps!" He didn't let them go until they were halfway down the hall that lead outside. "You're barely apprentices, and yet you choose to go where you please and do what you want. I've told you time and again that you're under the same restrictions as any other apprentice, so why don't you listen to me?"

"We're sorry, Master Yi," said Guan as he stumbled ahead. "But he's going to be our new classmate, so we just couldn't help ourselves."

Master Yi sighed, stopping once they'd left the temple and were back on the grounds. He looked out at the complex, stone buildings bathed in the pale autumn sun.

"I know you're excited," he said eventually. "But he didn't come from the same families you two did. He's younger, and much further behind, than either of you. Master Bai will be teaching him away from you two until he's caught up. You're going to have to temper your enthusiasm. Don't look at me like that," he admonished, seeing the dejected expressions on the boys' faces. "It wasn't my choice to bring back a child from the middle of nowhere and claim he's the next Dragon of the Wind. You'll see him soon enough, anyway, even if you won't spend as much time with him as you'd like. He'll be in the same dormitory as you, after all."

Dashi and Guan nodded, still somewhat unhappy. Their chance for a new classmate and friend in their destinies was suddenly put on hold, and neither boy liked the thought.

Master Yi sighed again, rubbing his forehead.

"Fine, fine ... once he's settled in, why don't you two give him a tour of the grounds? His training starts tomorrow, in any case."

They glanced up, then at each other, smirks returning.

.-.-

The boy's name, as it turned out, was Chase Young.

They met him just outside the apprentices' dormitories, after he'd changed into the traditional red and white outfit. Up close, he was just as unruly, just as scrawny, and like the rumors said, had eyes so strangely pale as to look almost amber.

"Dashi, Guan," said Master Yi, "this is Chase Young. He will be your fellow apprentice as of today."

Guan bowed slightly, which Chase returned hesitantly. Dashi watched, then leaned in as close as he could to Chase. The boy leaned back, startled.

" ... what?" he asked, and Guan wasn't surprised to hear a slight coarseness in Chase's voice.

"Weird," said Dashi. "They're really gold. Why're your eyes that color?"

Chase's jaw fell open a bit, and his eyes narrowed.

"None of your business!" he hissed.

"Dashi!" snapped Master Yi, smacking him on the side of the head. "Don't be so rude, you idiot!"

"I was just asking!"

"It's merely part of who he is," said Master Bai. "A trait which made him stand out among his peers, along with many other talents." He rested a hand on the boy's shoulder to steady him.

"Honestly, Dashi. Have I taught you nothing about respect?"

"You've taught me plenty," Dashi said, and then muttered, "more than I care about."

"Well, then," said Master Yi as he yanked Dashi back by the ear (the comment had not gone unheard), "why don't you two boys show Chase around the temple grounds and teach him the rules? Afterward you can have dinner. You'll get a dispensation from training today - just for this, mind you. It's not going to happen again."

"Of course, Master Yi," said Guan, since Dashi was trying to pull himself free of the Master's iron grip. Chase, watching the struggle, grinned a bit.

Shortly, the three of them were passing through the grounds. Dashi did most of the talking, as he always did; pointing out this building or that, the gates and archways, the statues and carvings, the monks who passed them by. Chase took it all in, listening carefully, his eyes catching as many details as they could. Guan watched him in turn, adding in the correct information whenever Dashi mutilated it or left it out.

It took them two hours to make a full circuit of the temple grounds. As they came back to the apprentices' dormitories, another boy shouted to Dashi - an accusation of theft, as it always seemed to be. Dashi yelled back and ran to salvage his honor and prove that he was innocent, leaving Guan and Chase on the stone path. They were silent for a moment before Guan decided to re-introduce himself.

"We haven't really talked," he said. "My name's Guan. It's a pleasure to meet you." He bowed slightly again.

"Chase," the other boy responded, slightly startled. "And ... you too." He returned the bow after a moment of forgetfulness.

"This is ... pretty sudden, isn't it?" Guan recalled his own first days - his first week, actually. Hectic and panicked, afraid and unsure, he'd been the first of them to arrive and therefore the one with the least friendly help to show him the ropes. "Where are you from?"

"Near Luoyang," said Chase, looking around more rather than at Guan. "I've never been to the city itself."

"Then from a village?"

"Yes." The boy looked down at the ground. "It didn't really have a name."

They were quiet for a little while longer, but the silence quickly grew more awkward than Guan wanted to deal with. Fortunately, Dashi reappeared, dashing down the steps and landing between them.

"Sorry," he said. "He said I hid his slippers. Idiot put them under his bed and forgot about them. I could see them!" He turned to Chase and grabbed the boy's sleeve. "Come on, I'll show you where dinner is. Since we're apprentices, we have to help serve everybody else before we can eat."

Dashi started off, dragging Chase behind him. Guan followed closely, listening to Dashi's complaints about their work and mentioning that Dashi rarely ever actually did the work he was assigned; it was shoved off onto other people. Now that Chase was here, it would mean even less desire to do his work. It probably wouldn't go over well, but that was his friend - it was probably never going to change, no matter how many times Master Yi yelled at him and kicked him into action.

Dinner was, as always, a relatively simple meal. Rather than go back to their dormitory and eat there like everyone else, Dashi and Guan brought Chase to their favorite place to eat - just outside the temple, a little glade of trees behind a hidden break in one of the walls. Dashi shoved the loosely-placed stone chunks out of the way and slipped through, sprawling on the grass almost immediately. Guan settled down nearby, and Chase awkwardly pushed his way through, sitting against the wall with one leg pulled under him.

"Do you always eat here?" he asked, looking up at the branches above.

"Not always," said Guan, as Dashi was too busy eating to answer politely. "Some days we eat in the dormitories, or with the other apprentices, or with the other monks - if we're instructed." He glanced sidelong at his friend. "Less these days than when I was here alone."

"If you'ff got a poblem wiff 'e 'ay I eaff," Dashi said, rice both halfway to and already filling his mouth, "'en you 'an eaff a'one from now on."

"I didn't even understand that."

"Yes you did!" Dashi said after he swallowed, his chopsticks between his teeth. "My manners aren't that bad!"

"They're terrible," Guan teased with a slight grin. "A demon couldn't be worse."

"That's heretical."

"It's true."

Chase snickered, nearly upsetting his tray. Dashi snorted and rolled onto his back, pulling the chopsticks out of his mouth and trying to catch dust motes out of the air.

"Jerks," he muttered.

"He had every right to laugh." Guan smiled at Chase, who looked back down at his food quickly. "Most of what you do warrants at least a little laughter. Isn't that the point?"

"Yeah, but not when you say it like that." Dashi rolled over and looked at Chase carefully. "So what's your family like?"

"My family?" Chase set down his chopsticks and glanced at Dashi.

"You know. Siblings, parents, grandparents, positions, titles. Anything, really."

Dashi may not have seen it right away, but Guan did. The second Dashi said positions, Chase's expression darkened.

" ... I've got two brothers and two sisters," he said, his voice quieter than before. "Both my parents, and all their parents. That's it."

"What, no titles? What do your parents do?" Dashi asked even as Guan tried to stop the questions.

"No. No titles." The look in those oddly pale eyes kept any further questions at bay. "We're farmers. That's all we do, every day, every week, every year. We farm."

The boy looked back through the hole in the wall, at the temple grounds beyond, at the darkening fringes of the horizon just above the distant walls.

"That's why ... I don't know why I'm here. I don't know if I belong here, or if this is just some mistake."

They were all quiet then. Guan wasn't sure what to say - if he should even say anything at all, offering words of comfort and compassion, or if he should simply let the silence ease the despair that stained those last words. Dashi, on the other hand, propped himself up on his elbows and gave Chase a scrutinizing look.

"Master Bai's never made a mistake in his life, y'know." He smirked a little as Chase looked back at him. "He's famous for traveling everywhere in China and bringing back all sorts of wisdom and information. One of these days, he's going to make a trip to the southwest - all the way to India. There's no way he could ever be wrong." Chase opened his mouth to say something, but Dashi continued without giving him a chance. "I don't really care where you came from or what you think you do or don't deserve. The fact is that you're here, in this temple, right now, and you're a Xiaolin Apprentice. A Xiaolin Dragon Apprentice."

Dashi smirked and held up his chopsticks, clicking them together a few times.

"Your destiny's taken a whole new turn. Think about that, and focus on the future you've got ahead of you."

Chase stared, then returned the smirk with a smile of his own, looking back down at his tray.

Guan smiled, too, down at his irreverent and flighty friend, who, for all his faults, still knew where the right words were lying in wait. He just always wanted to save them for the best possible moment.