Faro, The Owl Scholar

A small owl in an oversized coat and knitted scarf carries a lantern and a book down a cobbled street at night. Warm lamplight meets cool shadow, and the too-big clothes give the little scholar all his charm. The original oil painting on canvas is available or a high-quality litho HD print. Faro the Owl Scholar

The Lantern on the Night Road

Of everyone the Sanctuary has ever taken in, the scholars agree it has never found anyone hungrier for knowledge than Faro. He arrived as a half-grown fledgling, already asking his second question before anyone had answered his first, and he never left. He is the youngest of the order and, to the quiet irritation of his elders, one of the sharpest. He has read nearly everything in the Hall of Answers, and swears he can finish a book faster by hugging it than by opening it.

What he still has not mastered is slowing down. Faro talks so fast that half his brilliance gets lost somewhere in the middle of his sentences. He forgets to eat when a shelf still holds unread spines, loses his lantern about once a week, and trips over the hem of a coat he has yet to grow into. But nothing lights him up like a question he has not been asked before. When a traveler comes to the valley needing an answer, Faro is usually first out the door to meet them, already talking, still finding his other boot. And somehow, between the chatter and the stumbling, he always lands on the real question you came with.