There are nights when the air tightens.

You feel it first, before thought, before sound.

Animals grow still. Fires burn lower. Even the trees don't dare to breath.

These are the nights of the Hunt.

You have heard of it, haven’t you? Maybe even felt it before?

Feared by many, the Hunt is not a tale meant to soothe you back to sleep.

It’s an omen.

Not of chaos and destruction without reason, but of change that can no longer be delayed.

Where we pass, the old loosens its grip.

What no longer belongs is gathered.

What has lingered past its season is called to account.

What has overstepped its bounds is taken.

I ride at the head of the Hunt.

They call me Varu’kan. The Horned Man.

Not tyrant.

Not saviour.

Keeper of balance.

I do not hunt for pleasure.

I do not hunt for glory.

I hunt because the world, heavy with what should have ended, must be cleared so it may breathe again.

The Wild Hunt is not merely spirits racing the sky.

It is a force of thresholds. A crossing made flesh and will.

Souls are gathered, not only as punishment, but as passage.

Those bound to cycles already complete.

Those clinging to skins the world has outgrown.

We don’t just judge by good or evil.

I answer to truth and to time.

When the Hunt draws near, you feel fear, of course you do.

Fear is a primal instinct, recognising something vast has begun to move.

But fear is not the whole message.

We ride when stagnation has set in.

When decay has been mistaken for stability.

When the old refuses to give way,

and the living future has nowhere left to stand.

This is why the Hunt is both ending and beginning.

From clearing comes space.

From space, renewal.

The world grows stronger by releasing.

I am bound to beast and bone, to storm and soil alike.

I do not stand above the Hunt, I am bound within it,

answering the same call as those who ride behind me.

I do not promise mercy.

I promise continuance.

Listen to the signs, I am close..

Your dreams sharpen,

old habits suddenly feel unbearable.

Truths long buried rise without permission.

Structures, personal, worldly, begin to crack, like a snake that wants to shed it's skin.

These are not curses.

They are invitations.

Stand aside, and let what is false be taken or

cling, and be dragged by what you refuse to release.

May you emerge altered, carrying the strength of what remains, walking the path of evolution.

I do not come to end the world.

I come to ensure that a stronger one endures.

So if you feel the wind shift without warning…

If you hear hooves or horns echo somewhere in your blood…

Do not ask how to stop me.

Ask instead:

What within you has finished its season?

The Hunt rides whether you are ready or not.

The only question left

is what you are willing to release 

and who you are prepared to become?