A painting of me created by an old friend long ago.
Greetings, my quarry, my kin.
I am Herne, the master of The Wild Hunt. My kind and I have lived long before your kind could imagine the concepts of tamed fire or steel. But it would be folly to say that we're unconnected.
Quite the contrary.
With every foray we made into your realm, you told stories about us. Some of them were quite flattering, others were less so, and some were borderline libelous, but it was a wonder to see other creatures weave these stories… You certainly grabbed our attention.
You see, one of our key flaws is that for all the wonders we can do, we cannot create. We can travel, we can extend lives, but to create something from nothing is impossible for us. We are creatures of reality; we reflect what is and what was. It is like… being actors in a play. The actors interact, but the lines have already been written. There is no deviation from the script. We were nothing more than fancy automatons of reality. An existence that had one singular purpose, with no capability for change or growth.
But you? Your kind can create things that were never part of reality. Steel, concrete, technology. In your stories, there are people who were never born, feats that can never be done, places that never existed. They can exist and not exist. You can take the script, alter it, and create something new. These were ideas that we could not fathom.
I must say, you have captivated us. Truly, we owe so much to you. By creating things that did not exist, you gave them to us. You freed us from our former existence.
The moment one of your ancestors carved animals into rock, we became able to carve. As your your voices put words to rhythm, we gained song. With each and every development in your history, we have been there, reflections of imagination that became reality.
I remember the first time I became able to hold a spear, the first time I donned armor, the first time I became able to ride beasts into the hunt. Each new facet of my being was intoxicating. The elation at being more than was I was before made my blood sing. No longer was I just a beast hunting because it was my nature. From that point on, the Hunt became my calling, my art, propelling me to refine and develop it. Others joined me, and I and my hunters became subjects of your stories, further changing us, freeing us from our static nature whenever we forayed into your realm.
Alas, we had to retreat to the Grove when you changed your world so much that areas of became toxic to our very being. Some of us could withstand the pain, but only for short journeys. But, ah, the knowledge they brought back. It let us continue to grow alongside you.
I and my hunters suffered, as no other quarry presented the challenge that your kind did. You may be small, but you're cunning, clever, ingenuitive. The perfect quarry. Our perfect match.
So imagine our surprise, our delight, when your kind began to fall into our world. This place, these realms, are places of dreams. They've changed with you. For a long time, these realms reflected the natural world. But as you fell, they changed. We gained new hunting grounds. Skyscrapers, cities, towns, the vast expanse of space. Places we could never think of or dream about.
And so our hunt began anew. But many of your kind had forgotten our relationship. They called us monsters, forgetting we are merely reflections of reality. We are not monsters. We are the wolves that stalk the deer. We are the owls that catch the mice. But you are much more than prey.
You are our equals. Sometimes, our betters. Without you, we would still be shadows in the night. Naked beasts with no culture. Unchanging and static with no room for growth. And that, my child, is why we hunt.
We are not your enemy.
We do not hate you.
We adore you.
We are your challengers. We are the sea that beats upon you, shaping you into something new, something more than what you are. We welcome you to this realm. Now show us what you create next in this world of thoughts and dreams.
Come to the the Grove. We are waiting.