Told to go and meet My Lady, Queen of Faery’s, Gentleman, I find myself dancing by the river, dancing as an offering, because you don’t go to meet royalty without a gift.

He thanks me for my efforts, and I’m filled with such peace and joy – not what I was expecting at all!

He gives me a story, and tells me to run home and write it down, write it down before it flies away… and so I do.

I have caught a story, a story that feels like a little white bird, fluttering in my heart, fluttering to escape.

This story I shall share with you, swiftly, before she flies away…

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Gwen didn’t know how long she’d been who she was. Gwen only knew that she was a child of the hunt. The Hunt.

Every night she would find herself saddling a great white horse, and her limbs would be draped in soft white cloth, and her face would bear a terrifying mask. Astride this horse she fancied she looked like a vengeful spirit from the otherworlds.

And then, for a moment, she would wonder why she called them the otherworlds. Her home was not other, it simply was.

And then, the horn would sound and the hunt would ride and she would laugh for the sheer joy of the chase!

Gwen would laugh so hard the tears would flow like rivers.

And the Hunt would chase the sinners, the mean ones, the ones who had forgotten to care about the lives they lived, forgotten to care about the others.

The Hunt would chase the sinners through their dreams, through the night, through the deep, sharp darkness that would make the sternest of man uneasy.

And every night she would find herself, still in her soft, white clothes, wearing a mask which glowed with gentle healing light. And she would join the hunt, hunting out the demons of the good folk who slept. The Hunt would hunt the bad things, once sated on the blood of sinners, they would soothe the folk who tried their best by cutting out the darkness in their hearts, by leaving space for light to flow.

And every night, dear Gwen would find herself, still wearing the softest and whitest of cloth but with a mask which matched her own true face.

And she would sigh, and close her eyes, and sleep.

And Gwen would dream of sun filled days of work and play.

And then the night would fall, and she would wake to the joy of the hunt.