Moon Coconut Cheesecake

The Astral Elf Creation Myth of the Stars

The Lore

In the mythology and history of the Astral Elves, there is a dessert associated with love and fertility, and believed to be an aphrodisiac by historians and foodies across the world. The dish relates to a myth about how the Lady of Luminance, Primordial Goddess of Light, and the Umbral Lord, the Primordial God of Darkness created the stars.

Moon Coconut Cheesecake is a recipe made from moon coconuts, cream made from coconut milk, and a variety of soft, sweet cheeses. The mixture is combined with mashed quartzberries to symbolize the stars, shimmering sugar as the dust from which they grew, and crust made of oats. After baking, the cake is topped with two sprigs of lavender symbolizing the couple. Finally, the cake is drizzled with honey to invite sweetness and lasting love into the lover's union. It is the most popular choice for wedding cakes at Astral Elf marriage ceremonies and is also often served at New Year, Midsummer, and Art Festivals throughout the year. This dessert is also made often in home kitchens for couple's anniversaries and other romantic commemorations.

Although the sweet treat is loved as a cultural delicacy, there are rumors around the dessert that if prepared under certain environmental conditions, moon phases, and times of day, that consuming it could exact magical effects. This is a secret guarded by the elves, but many variations of the dessert exist throughout the North and claim to exact a variety of magical effects surrounding love, relationships, family, and fertility.

The Myth

The Lady of Luminance and the Umbral Lord were the first Lovers in the Universe. They first encountered one another where the Eternal Expanse meets the Endless Void. There were no methods for the Primordial Energies to track time, space, or distance, but this threshhold between the Expanse and the Void became the first. The gateway was acted as an infinite dividing line between the two worlds, rippling with light, and with bursts of hot and cold energy similar to that of a solar flare. It had not been used as a meeting point of any kind, adding to its appeal for the Lord and Lady. These energetic markers allowed them to better track their own locations and one another. They lived for nearly an aeon at this threshold; swearing their eternal love to one another and mingling their energies to grow the essential atoms and molecules that would one day form the Material Universe.

As these particles took shape, the Lady of Luminance felt the first ripples of change ignite a spark in herself. These would be later known as the Currents of Chaos that moved the building blocks of life across the Primordial Void. Following her motherly instincts, she scouted out the origin of the ripples, investigating them to see what she would discover, before creating Life.

"I can't let you give me the World, any World, my Lord, if I'm not entirely sure that I can make that place feel more like Home than your Darkness" she said, watching the wisps of her radiance perform a dance with his midnight essence.The Umbral Lord remained at the threshold of the Void to protect and guard the Expanse that belonged to his Queen. After standing guard for an aeternum, the Umbral Lord began journeying through the Expanse in hopes to discover his Queen, or at the very least information on her whereabouts.

They lost track of one another for tens of thousand years (and in some versions of the story, several aeons) in the Endless Void, before the formation of oceans, space, and stars. With no way to navigate their way back to one another, they drifted farther apart throughout the Void in distance, but constantly yearned for one another, and dreamt of their reunion. On their respective journeys, they encountered and learned of the other Primordial Energies that formed the deities that would one day create the Universe: Material and Ethereal, Chaos and Order, Truth and Lies, and Life and Death.

When they were reunited with one another, the Material World had formed enough that they were able to take on elven avatar forms to experience the World that they created. They both assumed the forms of Astral Elves; she resembling The First Mother of the Eclipse Clan in a satin white dress lined with handmade lace and heavy furs from a polar bear pelt, and he taking on the appearance of a decorated Warrior dressed in white and silver robes, his black armor shimmering in the moonlight; a regalia that would one day belong to the Shadow Dynasty. They met at the highest mountain in the Starry Peaks, now known as Mount Aeternum, in the elaborate white clothing and furs that would become the traditional Astral Elf wedding attire. Looking over the mountaintops, hand in hand, the pair took in the towering Astral Palm Trees; their purple fronds reaching over the mountain slopes and huge coconuts that hung like moons underneath the swaying crowns of the trees.

"I can make something delicious for us with those," the Lady of Luminance said with soft confidence, pointing at the bundle of coconuts, thinking about how long it would take her to climb the tree and harvest one. She gazed into her Lord's eyes and quickly said, "we musn't lose track of each other again, and especially not during a Polar Night like this one..." He put his finger to her lips, quieting her mind and worries, and just as quickly illicting a playful glimmer in her eye while she took his finger between her lips, giggling as she slid it back into the frigid air and watched his mind wander into the following night, after their Ceremony.

As the two Moons rose high and full in the sky, the pair shared a quick kiss before the Umbral Lord rode off to hunt for the Wedding Feast, and the Lady of Luminance stayed at the hearth to bake, forage, and prepare the bedchamber for His Return. As the tables and iceboxes filled with quartzberry pies, muffins and scones topped with currants, smoked fish over a bed of blackberries, and a new creation the Lady of Light made that night: Moon Coconut Cheesecake. After harvesting a Moon Coconut herself, she prepared a cheesecake that she made with the foraged quartzberries, a crust of oats and honey, and topped with two sprigs of lavender, symbolic Herself and her soon to be husband. She baked it with the radiant light she could summon from her Being. This would be their wedding cake and the traditional wedding cake for Astral Elves and many cultures in the North for millenia to come.

After the Ceremony, Feast, and their first brushes with pleasure in mortal bodies, the Lady and Lord laid under the stars, gazing into the Void of the Night Sky.

"They'll never know the beauty of the galaxies, planets, and all that we've hidden in the Void from down here..."

The Umbral Lord was dissatisfied that after all their work, he was still left questioning the value of his provisions. What good are material resources if...

"I have one last request of you, my Empress," he said, running his fingers through her hair...

They created the stars that night to use for navigation throughout the Polar Darkness in which they were wed, and so that they would never lose one another again. They hung these stars in the sky for humanity so that they too can remember their love and use these celestial guides as reminders not to lose sight of what is most important to them.