soldier, poet, king || e. pevensie | slow updates

the poet • 6

there will come a poet, whose weapon is his word. he will slay you with his tongue, oh lei-oh lai-oh lord.

Wicus Findlay picked one of the smallest villages in Narnia for a reason. Any more neighbors and people would get suspicious. No human girl was ever born and raised in Narnia, it was just unheard of.

His daughter was not old enough yet to question why no one in town looked like her or her father. If Wicus was lucky, Coralia would never put two and two together and would live in the village unsuspectingly married to some faun. If she did figure it out, she'd just move to Calormene or Ettinsmoor to find some human man to marry.

So when he was struggling to maintain enough money to raise a wild five year old girl and the pub downstairs opened up, he jumped at the chance. He spent much of their remaining money on preparing the business and waited. A pub was no place for a girl to grow up. He hired two faun women, one to cook and work the bar and the other to watch Coralia when he was busy managing the restaurant.

He soon realized that his Corey could not be kept in a room for more than an hour without getting restless. When she reached seven, he had grown to trust the town, and let her leave the house whenever she pleased. She took this to heart, and one day returned home holding the hand of an 11 year old faun, covered in dirt.

"Papa!" She had said. "This is Dantus, we are best friends."

Wicus was glad for his dear daughter to have a friend that wasn't her father or her books. The boy was more shy, but Wicus soon learned of his love for cooking. Dantus spent much of his time in the house and the pub so as soon as the faun reached 14, Wicus hired him and let the faun woman retire.

Years later, when Dantus grew closer to Coralia, Wicus turned a blind eye. When Coralia turned 15, she was hired to work the bar at the pub. She seemed to enjoy the work, so Wicus didn't worry about keeping her cooped up inside.

•

Coralia woke with a start. The memories of the previous day rushed back to her and she groaned. She had to go up in front of skilled centaurs, minotaurs, and fauns and try to prove she was worthy.

She peeled her face off of Dantus' journal that she had fallen asleep over, carefully wiping the drool off the beautiful pictures. It was a tale of adventure and family, and she'd stayed up far too late reading it. Dantus had shared his poems and short stories with her in the past, but this was his first novel.

Coralia gently set the story onto the small table beside her bed and stood. Stretching, she let out a small groan.

"Morning!"

Coralia yelped at the sudden voice. Looking behind her, she noticed that the bed next to hers was no longer empty. Instead, there was an exceptionally cheery faun.

"Name's Dasia! We're both here to join the army, I assume?"

Too much for so early in the morning. "Yes, I'm Coralia. A swordsman."

"A swordsman? Well, that's impressive! I'm an archer." Dasia grinned, and held out her hands. "Let's be great friends, alright?"

Coralia took them and nodded. Couldn't hurt to make one or two friends before she was ultimately turned away from the army and sent home.

They ate breakfast around the servants hall, kitchens, outside, and anywhere they could fit the hundreds of the young and hopeful soldiers, then headed straight for the courtyard. Everyone lined up, suited up in armor and armed with their weapon of choice.

Coralia had her sword strapped to her hip, and just chainmail over her tunic and pants. She could never be bothered with full armor or a helmet. She'd always found it restricting. Sowdin hated her for it.

No one but Dasia talked to her, save for the occasional mutter of the words 'spy', 'traitor', and 'Ettin'. Dasia didn't seem to have a problem with the way Coralia looked, but word spread fast of the Ettin girl. The nasty looks were nothing compared to the others trying to sabotage her all throughout the day. Blaming her for any talking or disruption, trying to trip her and knock her over in front of the king and his guards.

King Edmund walked down the line, making notes on the potential soldiers. He shot her a glare, which Coralia found quite unprofessional. She wondered if she was ruled out already, but if she showed her skill enough she could make it back on the list. So when King Edmund paired everyone up for sparring, she didn't hold back. Edmund was wandering, observing all of the fights. Her opponent was a very mean faun. He kept verbally harassing her the entire fight, but that just gave her more motivation. She knocked him down in minutes, and luckily Edmund saw. The faun went over to the sidelines and Coralia moved up on the bracket.

She was assigned her next partner, a centaur. This was going to be a bigger challenge, considering the height advantage. She figured King Edmund had probably done it on purpose, to throw her off.

No worries, she'd fought Sowdin before, he was smaller than her. Fighting someone bigger than her couldn't be any different, right?

Coralia raised her shield and sword, preparing for an attack. The centaur lifted his front legs to stomp on her, then she jumped behind them and shoved her shield into the back of his knees, causing him to fumble a bit. She had a few seconds to stay under his horse body before he would regain himself and kick her.

Coralia couldn't stab him due to the rules, so she settled on using her shield to hit his legs in the joints and such. That's when it hit her. She wasn't sure if it was breaking the rules or not, but she shoved the side of her shield onto his, uh, weak spot. He was somewhat prepared, but not enough. His back legs bent down, just enough for Coralia to jump onto his back. She brought the end of her sword down onto his head, knocking him unconscious.

"She can't do that, that's not fair!" A minotaur called out, pointing at me. A lot of duels had stopped to watch us.

"She can, actually. The rules basically only include no maiming or killing. Nothing about which body parts you can attack." Queen Lucy piped up from the corner of the courtyard. She was grinning. Coralia hadn't even noticed her presence.

After five more duels, Coralia was in the top ten. They stopped sparring after that. It wasn't a winning thing, because Narnia needed multiple soldiers. They ran drills and training for the rest of the day, skipping lunch. After what would be lunchtime, some people were fainting. They hadn't eaten enough during breakfast, apparently. Anyone who had to rest at an unscheduled time was dismissed immediately. Coralia found that unfair, but it wasn't exactly up to her. King Edmund ran a tight ship.

By the end of the day, they were left with around a hundred people. Coralia had — surprisingly — not been dismissed during the day. Queen Lucy seemed to have talked sense into her brother and convinced him to at least give Coralia a shot.

The first day was only the beginning of the training, though. Hell was coming in the next week.

•

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