Journal Entry: Hunter's Bait Story

The Sacred Groves, Ireland — Winter 1830

The dreams became too much, filled with futures that were not my own. The only way to find peace was to seek the source of my torment, so I found myself in the ancient oak groves, the ground cold and hard beneath my boots. This is where the Hunter's Bait story truly begins. I told my parents I was gathering herbs for a remedy, but the truth is, I was gathering my courage. These are thin places, where the Otherworld presses close against our own.

He was waiting for me. Lord Luminous of the Seelie Court, beautiful in the way a wildfire is beautiful—impossible to look away from, even when it burns. He moved like honey over steel, with a smile of too many teeth. He told me my dreams were not my own, but a leash they used to control me. His words were a direct assault on my clarity, an attempt to make me believe my own mind was a battleground they already controlled.

But before he could trap me with false warmth, the Unseelie Queen arrived. Lady Nightfall, cold and sharp as broken glass, and utterly without mercy. She asked me what I saw when I looked at them. When I looked at the beautiful Seelie Lord, I saw a lie. When I looked at her, I saw a trap. My verbal accuracy was a shield; I spoke what I saw, without pretense or compromise.

This episode, "Hunter's Bait," is captured in the above track. You can listen to the song that embodies this pivotal moment of choice and defiance below.

They expected me to choose between them, to serve one or the other. They laid out the terms of the ancient bargain, an obligation passed down through my bloodline. But my heart, full of a new and radical truth, spoke for me. "Neither," I said. My defiance was a rejection of their premise entirely.

They then showed me the consequences of my refusal. They threatened Dennis, the kind farmer who has been watching me with quiet honesty. They made it clear that I was not the hunter in this game, but the bait. My love for him, my care for the villagers, my desire to keep them safe—all of it was a weapon they would use against me. The grief of this knowledge settled in my soul, but also a new kind of resolve. I had to move through this emotional clutter, not by accepting their game, but by changing the rules entirely.

The gift is a chain, yes, but chains can be broken. My grandfather's journal says that music is the most honest magic, a powerful tool to contain and control. In my confrontation with the fairy courts, I learned to sing a new song—one of defiance and separation. The journey from surviving to thriving isn't about escaping the supernatural, but about engaging with it on my own terms. My song is my own.