Limerick’s Grand Sentinels, an incredible team of Knights within the Coven of the Fianna who reigned absolute only a short 15 years ago. Amongst the group stood a man unrivaled by his peers, a man heralded as the “Reincarnation of Llewellyn the Unifier.” Yet despite their overwhelming might, they met their end as quickly as their rise had occurred. However, in the shadow of their legacy a new generation had risen: a generation of unfathomable potential. And chief amongst them stands a lone light from an unremarkable village, a boy who would one day fell a calamity.

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Ring.

Ring. Ring.

Ring. Ring. Ring.

A hand darted out from beneath the sheet and slammed onto the clock, silencing the obnoxiously loud alarm. The plain gray and black striped sheets rustled as the body underneath adjusted. Once the sheets stopped moving the bedroom fell into silence for a few minutes, before a loud knock broke it.

“You better be awake!” A man's voice pierced through the white wooden door. When no one answered him, he knocked again, and again. The third knock transitioned into a full pound. “I’m coming in!” The silver knob turned and the door swung wide.

“You’re too loud.” Kieren mumbled sitting perfectly upright in his bed. “We’re off today anyway.”

Killian tilted his head and pointed at the boy's phone. “Check again, champ.”

Kieren sighed and leaned over to his bedside table, reaching past the clock and lamp to grab his phone. With a swipe he opened it and stared at the home screen. He blinked. Then he blinked again. His phone flew into the air as he dove out of his bed and ran past his dad. “Crap, crap, crap!”

“Thought so.” Killian snickered while watching Kieren dart into the upstairs restroom and slam the door behind him. Inside Kieren threw the shower knob to full hot and quickly grabbed his needed items and leapt in.

“Hot, hot, hot, hot!” Kieren’s near screaming panic filled the house in unison with the soft ambiance of the shower. A few minutes later Kieren emerged, now dressed in black slacks, a pair of dress shoes, and a long sleeve white button up with the sleeves neatly rolled up. Struggling to get his light blue and silver tie on, he clambered down the steps and into the living room. With a tug he finished his tie and took his dark blue sleeveless sweater vest from the back of the couch and quickly pulled it on, not bothering to tuck in his shirt after. “Where’d I put my bag?!”

“Pretty sure it’s on your desk.”

“Seriously!?” Turning, he went to turn but was quickly halted by his dad.

“Grab one.” The man pointed to a toasted bagel with cream cheese.

“Sweet, thanks pops!” Kieren grabbed both halves and darted threw the house and up the steps, eating one half as he did so. He quickly found the bag at the side of his desk and tossed it onto his back with one strap, ran down the stairs, and said goodbye to his dad with the other half of the bagel still in his mouth. Once Kieren was out of the house he jogged out onto the sidewalk and began his trek to school. Thankfully it was a beautiful day with a faint cozy breeze. “‘Least the weathers good!”

The campus was an open air style consisting of multiple single-story buildings that pointed out from the center like a firework or flower. In that center was a mini park-like recreation area filled with various trees and shrubbery that provided ample shade and maximum beauty. Each classroom had two doors, one that connected the room to the outside and another that linked the room to a long hallway like room that the faculty and staff used. The tall palm trees blew in the calm warm air while the bushes that lined the fences and buildings rustled. Each tree planter came with 4 scarlet benches and small end tables that allowed the students additional places to socialize or study.

This day, in particular, was beautiful. A gentle cross wind and plenty of warm sun gave the students more than enough reason to maximize their time outdoors with their friends. The myriad of voices was interrupted by the chime of a bell that signaled their next class was about to begin, forcing them to begrudgingly part ways and meander to their destination. A single boy dove into the crowd from the gate, swimming his way through the human ocean with an almost comical precision.

One of the final students to enter the room was that very redhead. Panting and exhausted, Kieren took a sharp right and placed his bag down on the middle window seat. With a thud he fell into his chair and allowed his head to deadfall onto his bag. The boy typically slept through most of his classes, a practice his teachers had long since given up trying to stop. He never snored or disrupted class, so he was hardly a nuisance. Between his part time job and after school activities, they felt his exhaustion was justified. And even despite all the sleeping, he was able to pass all his primary tests- though just barely.

A hand came down fast and hard onto his back, jolting the boy back up. “Sleeping the day away again?” Grian asked.

“Yeah…” He blinked. “Overslept.”

“Again? Was it work?”

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“Yeah. After practice I ran over and didn’t get home ‘till almost two in the morning.”

“Wait, don’t you all close at eleven?”

“Cleanup. Plus he wanted to show me a new dish.”

“You need a day off, man.”

“Sure do.” Kieren shot his arms up in unison with a yawn. “I’ll figure it out.”

Grian was about to say something but the sound of the rear door opening caught his attention. Turning to confirm it was the teacher, the two boys bid each other farewell. Kieren returned to laying his head on his bag and closed his eyes. He just needed a class nap and he would be fine.

“Mr. Albho.” His teacher's words forced him to raise his head. “Give me a few minutes, please. We have something exciting today.” Kieren raised his brow with a yawn but complied regardless. He knew he got away with far too much, so whenever they asked for his attention he happily provided it. “Class, today we have a new student.” Whispers immediately flared up. Kieren turned and looked around. All the faces looked familiar, albeit he hardly talked to anyone in his normal classes. He was more the outgoing shut in, as odd of an oxymoron that might be. “She’s from pretty far away.” The teacher gave a nervous laugh as he looked over the piece of paper on the podium.

“She?” Kieren questioned internally.

“But I’ll let her introduce herself, make sure you give her a warm welcome.” With a smile he turned to the door that led outside. “Come in!”

The young woman that entered the room caught everyone’s attention immediately. She was by no means tall, but the way she moved made her almost feel otherworldly. A graceful and silent stride carried from the entrance, past Kieren's row, and to the front of the classroom. She turned and looked over her peers with her deep red eyes. The murmurs fell silent, and the room felt as frozen as her icy white hair that transitioned into faint blue highlights. All eyes were on her. Grian, wanting to see his friend's sleep deprived reaction, turned to Kieren expecting him to be nodding off but was met with an expression he had never seen his friend make. Sitting straight up, Kieren was wide awake. Even more bewildering was the look of absolute confusion he expressed at the girl. He couldn’t for the life of himself understand what was happening. The boy's fists balled up as an odd sense of what could only be called déjà vu fell over him.

Everyone’s attention was fixated on her, yet she hinted at nothing in the form of stage fright. The girl gave the teacher a small bow and looked back to her class. Her dim lips formed a smile and then she added the same small bow as before. “Thank you for having me.” She spoke softly. “My name is-“

“Rhiannon…” Kieren muttered before she could finish.

“Kieren!” Rhiannon shouted into the jungle. She lowered her hands and shot a gaze around. When Rhiannon and Mona woke up that morning the two boys were nowhere to be found. There were no signs of an attack, so both of their initial suspicions were that they went out for a brief spar. It was odd for either of them to leave their post, let alone both, but with their string of let downs Rhiannon believed, at least hopefully, that they were trying to better themselves. After a few hours passed and they both failed to return, Rhiannon took to running the surrounding paths they frequented in search.

She thought she had found their tracks at one point, but tracing them had her double back and terminate in a small clearing with a hill jutting from its center. She had tried to acquire their scent, at least as well as she could have, but even that seemed to terminate in the clearing. Interestingly, she found that the clearing had traces of a scent that, to her, felt unnatural. This was especially strong as you approached the top of the hill. On her way back to their camp she decided to trace the tracks backwards and noted that the same unnatural scent lingered at various points of the supposed tracks before vanishing all together. It was all concentrated at the very end, around the same time their movements seemed to have gotten far more chaotic. The girl stopped just outside the clearing and peered back in, narrowing her crimson eyes in suspicion. They had to have been attacked. The way their tracks acted and that foreign unnatural scent all but confirmed it. But what was it? The scent wasn’t human, nor was it any creature she had interacted with. It was vaguely familiar, but unrecognizable. Even more perplexing, her senses were telling her that it couldn’t be a creature. But then where did they go? There were no bodies, nor signs of a struggle. She knew neither of them would go down quietly- which only added more fuel to her speculatory fire. “None of this makes sense.”

Returning to the campsite, Rhiannon had a grim look of disappointment across her porcelain face- one that Mona almost immediately felt off by. She left the entrance and met Rhiannon a few paces from the tree line. “Anything?”

“Just a trail, I think.” Rhiannon scratched her wrist. “It disappears though.”

“Into thin air? How?”

“I don’t know.” Rhiannon awkwardly answers into a pivot. “There were scents too-“

“Like their smell?”

“Yes.”

Mona paused and raised a brow. “You tried to track them with your nose? Are you a dog!?” The girl burrowed her fingers into the bridge of her nose. “Are you even taking this seriously!?”

Rhiannon paused, eyes slightly wide by the question. “Of course I am.” She had just spent the better part of the day running and investigating the only clues they had to go off. So why would Mona question her? “Did she say something wrong?” she thought to herself. The confusion caused the girl to sweat.

Mona released a deep sigh, collecting herself again. “I’m sorry. I think one of them told me about you having a good nose before… I guess I’m just wound up.” She was. Mona had wanted to accompany Rhiannon into the jungle and assist in the search but had been instructed to remain at the camp on the off chance the boys returned. The reason was sound and knowing them they would immediately dive into a search if the girls were gone, so she begrudgingly stayed behind.

“It’s okay.” Rhiannon scratched her wrist again. This was awkward, especially for her. She knew she was horrible at communicating and the person she felt the calmest talking to was currently gone. She was just as wound up at Mona, even more so to some extent. Yet all she knew to do was bottle up that frustration and continue searching. The two girls had never been forced to be alone with each other before. That compounded with their current situation was hardly a good foundation for a stellar friendship. “There was a clearing. Their tracks and-“ She paused before she said scent, opting to avoid the word at risk of upsetting her only remaining partner. “Their tracks ended there. I believe they may have been pursued.”

“Did they fight back?”

“They do not appear to have.”

Mona took her chin into her hand. “That doesn’t sound like them…”

“Agreed.” Finally, Rhiannon thought, they were on the same page. “If anyone would fight back, it’d be Kieren.“