When the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara wept at the suffering of all beings, his tears didn't just fall. They took action. From those tears emerged Tārā, who promptly multiplied herself into twenty-one distinct forms because saving the universe is easier when you can delegate to yourself.

Five of these Tārās had developed particularly strong opinions about how compassion should work: Green favored swift action, White peaceful resolution, Red magnetic redirection, Blue fierce intervention, and Yellow practical organization. They rarely worked together, which was probably for the best, given that family dinners were complicated enough without arguing with yourself.

But when the annual Festival of Infinite Compassion goes spectacularly wrong, they have no choice. Forty-seven thousand beings have submitted impossibly contradictory demands, each convinced that wanting something is the same as deserving it. Someone has been teaching that authentic self-expression means demanding exactly what you want and assuming reality will accommodate the details. Someone has turned infinite compassion into a cosmic customer service nightmare.

That someone is Rudra, the demon of ego incarnate, who doesn't attack wisdom directly, but instead convinces people that their desires ARE wisdom, and that narcissism IS spiritual authenticity.

Now five versions of the same bodhisattva must work together to help everyone remember the difference between what they want and what they actually need. Between desire and wisdom. Between grasping and receiving.

Welcome to a festival where the only thing more impossible than the requests is explaining to beings why they can't all have mutually exclusive miracles.

After all, the Tārās are family. And sometimes family has to make the hard decisions for everyone else's own good.