Feast of the Three Beasts
The Feast of the Three Beasts commemorates the first hunts of the moon goddess at the beginning of time. In the process she made the stars in the sky, the islands of the sea, and filled the land with vegetation. While there may be a kernel of truth in it, the story itself is apocryphal and should not be taken as history!
The Tri-Lunar Feast is a great excuse for me to hunt, barbecue, and feast with my pal Sgt. Sunder! I've had some of the best meals of my life because of that myth!
In the Age of Gods, before mortals walked the world, Thaya, the Moon, mourned the loss of her Six Siblings.
She had slain the Bakunawa, the serpent who devoured her brothers and sisters. She ate its flesh and drank its blood. Her rage remained unquenched. Her hollow heart overflowed with vengeance.
As she wept amongst the broken coils of her enemy, the sky darkened once more. Immense wings blotted out the stars. She looked up to see the feathered form of the Minokawa, a new terror from beyond the stars.
A dark thing stirred in her heart. If one great beast had stolen her siblings, how many others lurked in the void?
She rose and drew her crescent blade. She vowed to hunt them all.
The Sky Beast
A vast midnight bird soared across the firmament, swallowing radiance and chasing the last moon.
Thaya hunted it across the starless sky, slashing at it with arcs of her silver blade. Its feathers scattered becoming stars. Its blood streamed behind it, becoming a silver river.
As it died, she felt that the beast had been born of her own fury. She wove its feathers into her hair to become her crown of wrath.
The Sea Beast
Thaya dove into the deepest depths. There dwelled the Tambanokano, a crab larger than mountains grown fat on the stellar blood of the sky beast.
It rose from its trench to devour her. Their battle raged until she cracked it's shell with a blow that boiled the seas. Its shattered chitin became islands. Its blood, magma beneath the world.
Her hunger for vengeance begin to fade. She carved its shell into bangles to wear on her wrists and ankles.
The Land Beast
Lastly, she hunted the Arimoanga, a lion who chased the sun across the sky.
She felled the beast from afar with an arrow, and where the lion's blood fell, grass, flowers, and trees bloomed from the barren lands.
The great cat moaned and bowed its head. For the first time thaya felt mercy. She chose not to kill. She cradled his head in her lap and sang him to sleep. Around them, an orchard of fruit trees blossomed.
She wove his shaggy hair into a cape, leaving only a regal mane around his head. From that day forward, all his male descendants bore his golden crown.
The Triple Feast
A great silver tree rose from the spot where she rested. Beneath its branches, Thaya prepared a feast with her own hands: the meat of the Minokawa, the flesh of the Tambanokano, and the sweet fruits of the Arimoanga's Mercy.
The other gods joined her to eat the good food she had prepared. And for the first time in the Age of Gods, there was peace.
BBQ-Palooza
The Feast of Three Beasts is still honored today by Thaya's Vindicators and the Shattered Moon Coalition. Each year, they conduct three sacred hunts or harvests to gather the main ingredients for the feast.
The most celebrated modern version is Sgt. Sunder's BBQ-Palooza. As the Zone's greatest hunter/fisherman, Sunder embarks on annual multiversal hunts, seeking three suitable beasts of land, sea, and/or air.
He prepares a towering roast that permeates the entirety of the Garrison Slice with the smell of roasting meat. His most famous roast was the Bro-Levi-lette, a brontosaurus stuffed with a leviathan, stuffed with a bullette. The meat is slow-cooked in a warehouse-sized firepit and served at a public charity feast attended by thousands.
I am not a hunter like Sgt Sunder, but I can cook! I make the Feast of Three Beasts too! I make a pork lechon spit-roasted over hot coals. I wrap a whole mahi mahi, with the head still on of course, in banana leaves and put it in the coals under the lechon. Last I make crispy duck, also with the head on, served with puto bumbong and taro leaves stewed in coconut milk. You can come next year if you like!
The Feast of the Three Beasts feels like the kind of story that would be told around a fire with a mix of awe and a little fear. It has that blend of celebration and caution that makes myths stick. I can imagine people preparing for the feast with both excitement and a bit of nervousness, wondering what the beasts might bring this year.
Thank you!
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