The Painter and The Poet - A Narnian Story

Chapter One

When the ice and snow of her youth melted away, Anya Macklin knew that her life would never be the same.

The Age of Winter was over. It had plagued Narnia since her grandmother was young, and every Narnian understood what its end meant; the Kings and Queens of the prophecy had come at last.

Since then, her home, The Great Western Mountains, had been lush with washes of greens, yellows, and blues for the first time in a century. Rivers wound through the peaks and wildflowers sprung from the meadows. Dried lake beds started to fill again, and creatures of every kind were returning to the mountains.

While her home was transforming, so was the rest of Narnia. It only took two weeks for word of the capital being rebuilt to reach her clan. With the Witch defeated and the Age of Winter over, Cair Paravel was once more becoming a center of life and commerce, and Anya was determined to be a part of it. The moment she heard that the Kings and Queens had established a royal art academy called the Art Quarter, she started developing a plan to journey there.

That was nine years ago. Now at nineteen years old, Anya was prepared to finally leave her mountains to travel to the coast. She would've left a little over a year ago, were it not for the letter she had written to the Art Quarter.

Unsure of who to address it to, she simply sent the letter to 'The Art Quarter' and prayed it would reach the right people. Her letter spoke of her desire to enter the academy and learn from the court artists as well as asked for instructions on how to get there.

She'd never expected the response that came clutched in a raven's talons two weeks later.

A man who called himself 'The Poet' had answered her letter with news that ruined every plan she'd made.

He told her he'd found her letter in the bin of misdirected mail and took it upon himself to write back. The Poet claimed he wasn't a student of the Art Quarter but spent much of his time there and as such was 'more than capable of answering questions'.

He began by tearing apart her expectations with the few words; 'You must present your portfolio in person for the entrance interview. You will not be accepted if you send it before your arrival.'

Anya's plan to wait for the Art Quarter's decision before journeying across the continent was quickly squashed. Now she would need to get there first and risk returning home a failure. She would not allow herself that fate.

Thankfully, the Poet seemed to expect her dedication. In the same letter, he offered what knowledge he had on what to include in her portfolio and what to scrap. In addition, he sent a few sketches his friend had drawn to aid in her studies.

It wasn't long before Anya began sending more letters to the Poet. She inquired about the professors and court painters, how the academy's schedule worked, what the city was like, and more. The Poet answered quickly and in detail, teaching her all about how Cair Paravel and the Art Quarter worked.

They became fast friends, the first Anya had made from outside of the mountains. Her questions about the capital quickly turned to questions about his life, his poetry, and how he came to live in the capital.

The Poet was fairly mysterious regarding specifics, but he told her vague stories about how he and his siblings traveled across Narnia to reach Cair Paravel right after the war. He told her about his sister, whose name she still didn't know, who first introduced him to poetry. He wrote about the people he's met, the places he's been, and the art he's seen.

But what he was most interested in was her life in the Great Western Mountains. He claimed he didn't even know nymph clans like hers were living among its peaks and asked that she tell him everything she knew.