The Last Walk from Ravensdale Woods

The leprechaun clawed his way through the hardened earth, each movement agony as radiation-poisoned soil crumbled around him. The mound in Ravensdale Woods, once his sacred dwelling, had collapsed inward, the ancient magic barely sustaining its structure. He emerged into a world transformed, gasping as unfamiliar air, filled lungs that had not breathed for fifteen years. What remained of the woods stretched before him like a blackened skeleton. Trees stood as charred sentinels, their branches reaching skyward in permanent supplication. The protective canopy that had sheltered his kind for millennia was gone, leaving him exposed to a sickly yellow sky. He stood seven feet tall but stooped now with weakness. His skin, once the rich texture of oak bark, had faded to sickly ashen grey. The eyes that had terrified young Helen Colfer over a century ago were dulled, the bog-water green now murky and clouded. He pulled his once moss green coat about him, which had become brown and threadbare, as if to ward off the cold.

"The land dies, and so do I," he whispered, his voice a dry whispery rasp where once it had rumbled like distant thunder.

As he steadied himself against a blackened tree stump, he felt the stirring within. Deep within his essence, he felt them, his children that he had absorbed after the bombs fell. Their voices, once a chorus of wild music in his mind, had diminished to faint whispers. They had been his last connection to the old world, these half-human offspring born of Helen and others who had broken promises over the centuries. When the radiation had poisoned the earth, he had drawn them back into himself, consuming their essence to survive the long winter. A terrible choice, but necessary. Better to preserve some fragment of the ‘Aos Sí’ than to let their magic dissipate into nothingness.

"Forgive me," he murmured to their fading presence. "Your sacrifice will not be wasted."

He turned toward what had once been Enniscorthy, driven by an instinct older than memory. If any humans had survived, they would need water, shelter. They would rebuild near the river, as they always had. The journey that once took mere minutes now required hours. His legs, once swift enough to outrun any mortal, trembled with each step. The radiation had seeped into the very bedrock, poisoning the ley lines that had nourished his kind since before humans first set foot on Irish soil. He passed the remains of farmhouses; their stones scattered like broken teeth. Fields where cattle once grazed lay barren, the soil crusted and lifeless. Occasionally, he encountered the bleached bones of those who had not found shelter, grim markers on his pilgrimage through devastation. Enniscorthy appeared on the horizon, a jagged silhouette against the sickly sky. The town where Helen had lived, where her son Thomas had grown into a monster, where countless generations had been born and died while he watched from his woodland sanctuary.

When he finally reached the outskirts of what had once been Enniscorthy, the devastation took his breath away. The town was a blackened mound of ruin. Though spared direct impact, firestorms had swept through after the bombs fell on Dublin, Belfast, Cork and Wexford. Buildings that had stood for centuries were reduced to hollow shells, their windows gaping like empty eye sockets. Their roofs collapsed inward.

The leprechaun moved through streets littered with the detritus of civilisation's end. Rusted vehicles, their paint blistered and peeled. Shop windows shattered, their contents long since looted. And everywhere, bones, scattered by scavengers, bleached by unfiltered sunlight, silent witnesses to humanity's folly. The church where Helen had once prayed stood partially intact, its spire collapsed, but its walls still defiant. He paused before it, reflecting on the pointlessness of its structure and the inaction of the God it represented.

"Your god did not save ye," he murmured. "As mine all abandoned us to this fate."

Finding no signs of life in the town, he turned back south toward Brownswood. The journey was arduous, each step draining his dwindling strength. The radiation had affected him differently than humans, slower, more insidious, corrupting the ancient magic that sustained him rather than destroying his physical form outright. He followed what remained of the road, occasionally stopping to rest against tumbled stone walls, half-buried in ash and ice. The countryside showed faint signs of recovery, sparse patches of hardy grass pushing through the grey soil, insects buzzing in the stillness, a thin lone fox watching warily from a distance. Nature was resilient, even after mankind's worst. But the old magic was fading, and with it, his kind. He was the last; he knew this with certainty. Across Ireland, across the world, the Fae had withdrawn into their mounds and hidden spaces as the bombs fell, and none had emerged, their voices he would normally have heard gently chattering in his mind, were silent as the grave.

As twilight approached, his weary steps brought him to a sight that kindled a faint hope. The cottage appeared as the sickly sun began to set, a small stone structure nestled against a hillside, its slate roof partially collapsed and repaired with sheets of corrugated sheet tied together with twisted wire, but its walls intact. A thin wisp of tired smoke rose from the chimney, the first sign of human presence he had encountered. He approached cautiously, his senses, though diminished, alert for danger. The cottage door hung askew on leather hinges, and through the gap, he could see movement within. A figure hunched by a small fire, stirring something in a dented pot. The leprechaun paused at the threshold, ancient courtesy preventing him from entering uninvited. He knocked once on the wooden frame, the sound startlingly loud in the stillness. The figure inside froze, then reached for something, a weapon, no doubt. "Who's there?" called a male voice, young but roughened by hardship. "A traveller," the leprechaun replied, his voice barely above a whisper. "Seeking shelter for the night."

The man who emerged from the shadows moved with the caution of prey. Tall and gaunt, with the wiry strength of one who had survived on too little for too long. His face was partially obscured by a makeshift mask of cloth, his eyes hidden behind dark goggles fashioned from scavenged materials.

"You're alone?" the man asked, a crude spear held ready in his hands.

"I am the last of my kind," the leprechaun replied truthfully.

The man studied him for a long moment, then lowered his weapon slightly. "You don't look too sick. No radiation burns I can see."

"I suffer differently," the leprechaun said.

After another moment's hesitation, the man stepped back. "Come in, then. Not much point in caution anymore. I'm Sean."

"Sean," the leprechaun repeated, tasting the name. A good Irish name, ancient in its way. "You may call me Findarra, Fin if it pleases ya."

The interior of the cottage was sparse but orderly. Sean had created a living space from salvaged materials, furniture repaired with wire and twine, walls patched with metal sheets, windows covered with translucent plastic that filtered the harmful light.

"Sit," Sean offered, gesturing to a chair by the small fire. "I don't have much, but I can share."

The leprechaun sat, his tall frame awkward in the human-sized chair. He watched as Sean ladled a thin stew into two mismatched bowls. The food was simple: some root vegetables, what might have been rabbit meat, and herbs that had somehow survived.

"This is your last food," the leprechaun observed.

Sean shrugged. "I'll find more. Always do." He pushed a bowl toward his visitor. "Eat. You look like you need it more than me."

The leprechaun accepted the offering, understanding its significance. In the old days, to share food with the Fae created a bond, an obligation. Even now, with the old ways dying, the gesture held power. As they ate, Sean removed his goggles, revealing eyes clouded with cataracts, the result of exposure to unfiltered ultraviolet radiation. Though barely thirty, hardship had aged him beyond his years.

"I was fifteen when it happened," Sean began without prompting.

"In school, an ordinary day. Then the lights, brighter than anything. We thought it was the end of the world, which in all the ways that mattered it was."

The leprechaun listened as Sean recounted the fall of civilisation, the initial panic, the government radio broadcasts that grew increasingly desperate before ceasing altogether, the mass exodus from the towns that survived, the violence that followed as food grew scarcer, and the sun hid behind a freezing grey fog.

"Dublin, Cork, Wexford and Belfast were hit directly," Sean continued. "But it was what came after that killed most people. The fires, followed by nuclear winter. Crops failed. Livestock died. People turned on each other and took to eating corpses of anything."

He described years of darkness and cold, ash blocking the sun, temperatures plummeting, everlasting winter. Communities formed and fractured. Disease that spread through weakened populations. The strong preyed on the weak until they, too, succumbed.

"My father lasted ten years. Taught me everything he knew about surviving. My mother died earlier, from cancer, probably from the radiation. I've been alone here for five years now."

"Your great-grandmother," the leprechaun said carefully. "What was her name?"

"Great Granny Helen. Helen Colfer."

The name sent a ripple through the leprechaun's weakened form. He sniffed and tilted his head to one side. "I smell her in you," he said, more statement than question. Sean looked up, surprised.

"Great Granny Helen. Never knew her, though. Dad said she died when his dad was born; he was always telling stories about her, left from the diaries she had religiously filled in every day. How could you know that?"

The leprechaun studied Sean's features, seeing now the echoes of Helen in the shape of his jaw, the set of his shoulders. The bloodline had continued despite everything, despite Thomas's darkness, despite the end of the world.

"I knew your family," he said simply. "Long ago."

Sean leaned forward, squinting through damaged eyes. "You're not... You can't be that old. Unless..." His hand tightened on his spear. "What are you?"

"I am ‘Aos Sí’," the leprechaun said, allowing his glamour to fade slightly. His features sharpened, became more angular, less human. His eyes flickered briefly with their old bog-water light. "What your people once called leprechaun, though that name never captured what we truly were."

Sean's breath caught. "The stories. My great-grandmother left stories about... about something in Ravensdale Woods. About a bargain she made."

"Helen," the leprechaun confirmed. "She promised to visit me, to keep me company in my solitude. When she broke that promise, I took half her life as payment. She died giving birth to your grandfather."

Sean's face hardened. "And my grandfather? My dad said he disappeared."

"He came to the woods one night, with darkness in his heart. My children took what remained of his life force."

"Your children?" Sean's voice was barely audible.

"Half-human, half-Fae. Born of broken promises and collected debts. They sleep within me now, what little remains of them." The leprechaun's voice grew softer, almost tender when speaking of his children.

"Why are you here?" Sean asked after a long silence. "Have you come to collect another debt?"

The leprechaun shook his head slowly. "I have come to pay one."

He explained how the nuclear devastation had poisoned the ancient magic, how the Fae were bound to the land in ways humans could never understand. As the earth sickened, so did they. One by one, they had faded, their very essence bleeding into the wounded earth.

"I absorbed my children to survive longer," he admitted. "A selfish act, perhaps. But I sensed... something. A purpose not yet fulfilled."

He reached across the table, his long fingers hovering near Sean's face. "May I?"

After a moment's hesitation, Sean nodded.

The leprechaun's touch was gentle as he traced the contours of Sean's damaged eyes. "The radiation has taken much from you. Your sight fades. Soon, you will be blind."

"I know," Sean whispered.

"You showed kindness to a stranger. Shared your last food. Such actions once had meaning in the old world. Perhaps they will have meaning in the new one as well."

For a moment, the leprechaun hesitated. This final act would end thousands of years of existence, the last of his kind surrendering what remained of ancient magic to a human. Yet in Sean's damaged eyes, he saw something that reminded him of Helen, not her betrayal, but her initial compassion, her willingness to see him as more than a monster. Perhaps this was why he had survived when all others had faded, this final chance at redemption.

The leprechaun placed both hands on Sean's face, palms covering the clouded eyes.

"What remains of my life force, I give freely. The last magic of the ‘Aos Sí’, passed to the bloodline of Helen Colfer."

Light bloomed between his palms and Sean's face, not the sickly yellow of the irradiated sky, but the deep, verdant green of ancient forests. Sean gasped, his body arching as the magic flowed into him. The leprechaun felt himself diminishing, the thousands of centuries of his existence unravelling like old rugs. The children within him stirred one last time, their voices rising in a final chorus before fading into silence.

When he removed his hands, Sean blinked in wonder, his eyes clear and bright.

"I can see," he whispered. "Everything's so... vivid."

The leprechaun smiled, his form already growing transparent. "The gift carries responsibility. You will father children. They will rebuild. They will remember."

"You're dying," Sean realised, reaching out to touch the leprechaun's fading form.

"Returning to the earth," the leprechaun corrected. "As all things must."

His voice was growing fainter, his tall frame slumping as the magic that had sustained him for millennia ebbed away. "I have one request, Sean Colfer."

"Anything," Sean promised.

"Scatter what remains of me in the field beside this cottage. Just upon the surface, where the sun's light may reach."

Sean nodded, tears streaming from his newly healed eyes.

"I will."

"The fates have decided," the leprechaun whispered. "The circle closes, mayhap the old magic will return, mayhap it won't."

His form shimmered once more, then collapsed inward like autumn leaves caught in a sudden gust. Where he had sat remained only a long heap of earth, rich and dark and fragrant with possibilities.

One year later, as the brightening skies gently warmed the summer land, Sean stood at the edge of the orchard that had sprung from the field where he had spread the leprechaun's remains. Trees heavy with fruit stretched in neat rows, apple, pear, plum, and others he couldn't name, varieties that had been thought lost forever.

The soil here remained fertile despite the radiation that still poisoned much of the land. Birds nested in the branches; fat bees hummed among the blossoms that somehow bloomed regardless of season. At the centre of the orchard stood a single oak sapling, its leaves an impossible shade of green.

Sean had found just over a thousand survivors in the years that followed; they were drawn to the miraculous grove like moths to flame. A community formed around Sean’s cottage, growing stronger with every passing season. They built traditional white limed, mud-walled, thatched-roofed cottages. They called the place New Ravenswood, though none but Sean knew the significance of the name. The survivors brought what skills they had, farming, medicine, crafting and slowly, a semblance of civilisation returned. Children born after the devastation showed unusual resilience to the lingering radiation, their eyes clear and bright like Sean's had become. Some whispered that the orchard's fruit had healing properties, though Sean kept the true source of this miracle to himself. Sometimes, in the quiet hours before dawn, Sean would take his stick and painfully shuffle to the old oak tree in the middle of the orchard and place his liver-spotted hand against its trunk. He could almost feel a heartbeat there, a rhythm ancient and patient.

"The circle continues," he would whisper, and the leaves would rustle in response, though no wind stirred the air.

Gently stroking the bark, Sean closed his eyes and listened to the sweet birdsong from the surrounding orchard.

“A man’s worth is no greater than their ambitions, and your sacrifice gave me the purpose to dream beyond just surviving day to day and to grow a community with hope and love at its heart.”

Sean's old and cracked lips kissed the bark, and he murmured a quiet thank you for the last gift of the ‘Aos Sí’: not an ending, but a new beginning, another chance to put things right and live in harmony with the earth and maybe one day its ‘Faery Folk’, should they ever return.