Legend of Foewtien

One

In the land of Foewtien, a living legend has been passed down from generation to generation. The ancestors of Foewtien's heroic deed on their motherland and their life as vigilant heroes of the Dark Age. The legend tells how they had fought for the restoration of peace in the land of Lumeria. This is the story about the warriors of Lumeria began their journey up to the end.

In a southern part of Lumeria, there lived two warring tribes who had been fighting for the territory for many generations. The Liadlaw tribe, a tribe that worshipped Apolaki, the god of sun, wisdom and strategy, has a ruler named Kusogon, the blood-seeking 17th generation datu. Bathala, the god of all gods, blessed Datu Kusogon seven fine young princes: Kalaw, Hadi, Urda, Balun, Pili, Salim, and the youngest, Bulan. However, the two tribes believed in a superstition that the datu must be blessed to have a binukot or a princess. If the tribe has no binukot, the datu and his family shall lose their power or their tribe might met their own disaster. In order to change the fate, he appointed his youngest son to become a substitute binukot to be sheltered and pampered by all the people around him.

Bulan, maybe a weak-willed, but is a gentleman to all his attendants. He is a ladies' man yet very naïve. He was also the smartest and a skilled archer but not as skilled as his brothers. However, Bulan's specialty was not only to think but also to talk to the nature's spirits which makes him, if he was just a woman, a genius babaylan. He is very caring and a curious being yet very obedient to his father's orders.

Meanwhile, the rival tribe of Liadlaw is the Malyari tribe, a tribe that worship the goddess of fertility, wisdom and prophecy, Mayari. The ruler of the Malyari tribe is the wise, Datu Bukaw. Datu Bukaw was blessed by the Bathala with three young beautiful binukot named Danaya, Haliya, and Mayumi and two young princes named Bulaw, and Talon. Danaya is the daughter from the late queen, great Dian Waling-waling and Mayumi and Talon, were the twins born from Dian Amara. While Haliya and Bulaw were the children from a woman named Diyan Masalanta, whose been missing after giving birth to Bulaw.

The favored child among Datu Bukaw's children is his daughter, Haliya from a timawa¹ and who is also said to be a goddess of love, contraception, childbirth and the protector of lovers, Diyan Masalanta. Haliya is the third youngest of the five. She is strong-willed and a self-centered Bai Haliya but she was raised to be a Bai Haliya with humility and kindness. She loved freedom more than anything and she wished to marry as soon as possible in order to be free from the chained of being a binukot. She is a very clever person who always get away from any troubles she made. Yet despite of all her mischievousness, she was loved by her sisters, Danaya and Mayumi and admired by her younger brothers, Bulaw and Talon for her incredible strength mentally, emotionally and physically.

The two binukot of the two rivalling tribes had been friends since they were kids. Unknown to their people around them, whenever they bathe, they always meet in the river that separates the two tribes, every night. Binukot were allowed to bathe themselves during the night, thus, Haliya and Bulan met each other.

"Bulan,do you think we can eat the stars?" Haliya asked Bulan one night. She sat down in the rock and mesmerized with the beauty of the night sky.

"I don't know. My brother said, that there was a boy who dreamt eating the stars and did everything just to taste stars but at the end, his town met their destruction." Bulan answered. "Why do you ask Haliya? Is there something wrong? Usually, you don't ask that questions..."

"Let's elope." Haliya randomly said yet in a very serious tone.

"What? That is impossible, Haliya! You know, we can never set our foot in the ground! How will we do it? Fly? We are destined not to put our feet in the ground because we are supposed to be! Besides we are talking about eating stars a while ago."