Stories of the Never-Never

For english this term, we had to write a creative task themed around various pictures related to the book and movie that we have done comparison studies on. Me being me, when we were asked to write one, I wrote seven. One is a Metallica story, so I put it in my book The Metallica File, and I don't recomend reading it unless you've read Revolution and Evolution (well, what I've written of Evolution so far). I thought I might put these up here so that I could get feedback before I actually have to hand these in. So in no particular order, here is 'Secrets of the Never-Never'. That's actually the title of the first short story.

Only memories remained of the old Wyldwood. Even the talking trees, the ones whose stories continued for millennia had fallen silent, and only stories of the Seelie Court's rule remained. The piskies and goblins, kelpies and redcaps, all creatures of the Unseelie Court's rule and the old Wyldwood, stood only as statues to warn off the occasional human who strayed too far from the ordered roads and cities of the human realm. The Wyldwood, and the forgotten city of Tir Na N'Og which it surrounded, served only as a harsh reminder of the penalty of the only child of the Unseelie Queen and the only child of the Seelie King and Queen falling in forbidden love.

The Wyldwood was a battleground paved by the ancient wars between Summer and Winter, Seelie and Unseelie. Summer's two rulers proved too much for the Unseelie one, and so the Seelie Court came to rule the Wyldwood. But a change was coming; a change coming in the form of Gabriel and the Wyld Hunt, unseen in the Wyldwood since the fall of Winter. Their arrival would bring back the cold, bring back the force of Unseelie, bring back the whispers of the old Wyldwood, and restoring the balance of the Courts upset by the battle in which Winter was conquered.

Within the city of Tuatha de Danaan, the Seelie Court residence, the only reminder of the ancient war of the Courts was an elaborate painting which was slowly disappearing with the lively and growing city. This was exactly what Gabriel had planned, as a heralding of the Unseelie Court's return, and only one Summer sprite noticed the gradual change, though he could not say a word against it.

In the forgotten city, Gabriel and the Wyld Hunt had set up camp where the palace used to stand. The ground was still cold, and frost began to cover the statues which stood throughout the city. Tir Na N'Og was an Unseelie place once, and as the Wyld Hunt made themselves at home, the Winter Court began to live again. As the frost began to grow, and the cold winds began to howl through the forgotten city, the trees and creatures of the Wyldwood began to whisper of the Winter Court's return, which eventually made its way through the wood and into Tuatha de Danaan, where the Summer Court was waiting.

News of Gabriel and the Wyld Hunt's return reached even further than the Wyldwood and Tuatha de Danaan, into the human realm. The cold returned in sharp bursts which appeared from nowhere, and the humans fled in fear from the Winter which they had not seen in millennia since the Summer Court's rule began. Whatever happened within the Wyldwood and in turn, in the Fey realm, was reflected in the human realm, and so as Gabriel's return heralded the return of the Unseelie in Tir Na N'Og, it heralded the return of the season of winter in the human realm.

As the news of the Wyld Hunt began to enter Tuatha de Danaan, the sprites and lower Fey took the news the worst. They were young creatures, ones who had not even heard of the Unseelie Court or the power of Winter, and so knew nothing of what was to come. The actual Court, King Oberon and Queen Tatiana, had worked so hard to quell the whispers of the Winter Court when they first defeated them, and now that Gabriel and the Wyld Hunt had returned, knew that if the hounds came, then the Court would follow.

An important rule shaped the form of the Fey realm, known to some as the Never-Never. No Fey could die within the borders, but instead fade away to non-existence. If enough belief returned to the human realm, or the whispers of a forgotten Court resurfaced, then the Unseelie had the power to return, through imagination, an important force which everything in the Never-Never was created from in the beginning.

The painting of the lovers in Tuatha de Danaan, now hidden behind vines and crumbling walls, was slowly covered in frost as the whispers of Winter grew from Tir Na N'Og and the Wyldwood to reach their icy arms into the Summer Court itself, planting the seeds of doubt in the minds of the Seelie sprites, growing the power of the Unseelie in ever increasing bounds. Those who were old enough to remember even faint memories of Winter left the Summer city for the Wyldwood, each wanting to be part of the return of the old ways and the seasons.

As the cold winds blew up the dust of the Forever Desert, bringing with it the smell of frost and promises of the future, the creatures of old who lived beyond the Wyldwood, beyond the Forever Desert, and beyond even the River of Dreams, began to stir from their slumber. These were creatures of the old Wyldwood, and the old rule of both Courts, and as the Winter returned to the Never-Never, the old ones returned.

In Tir Na N'Og, Gabriel raised his head to the skies and howled, signalling his pack to do the same. The sound of the hounds of the Wyld Hunt filled the air, and with it, the frost and the beings of Winter returned.