Stallion Mage: A Horse Shifter Mpreg Romance (COMPLETE)

The Way They Used To Live

The grass and rocks threatened to make the stallion mage tumble down toward the trees at the bottom of the slope.  This was treacherous footing for an equine, but his soft human feet would not be able to withstand sharp rocks jabbing into the bottoms.  And his sight and hearing were not as good in man-shape. 

Alvarr ground his teeth together as he took one small step after another, zig-zagging almost horizontally over the steep drop.  To either side of him were smaller hills about half the height.  I just have to make it that far, and then I can rest.

All the while, he sensed a suspended energy from the stone under his hooves, like ice in winter.  It was not hostile like the dry grasslands, nor welcoming like his home, and the mage could sense no true life in it.

Like the ghosts.  He would have welcomed more ghosts.  Anything was better than this empty land.

Evening fell, and he welcomed his horn's light.  Without it, he would not have been able to go on.  If his horn stopped glowing, Alvarr would be in danger; there was no good place to stop.

He didn't dare look beyond the next step, and then the next.  But he couldn't help wondering, What if there is nothing here?  His horn's light was the only thing that gave him hope.

He could only go on.  It was his purpose. If there was nothing here for him, Alvarr would have no choice but to journey on, and hope that Nature would guide him.

Alvarr reached the high valley between the mountain he was descending and the gentler hill to its side.  It was well after full dark.  The moon did not appear, and he let the light of his horn guide him to more level ground.

I should eat.  Though the mage's stomach hurt from the anxiety of coming down such a steep drop, he knew he needed to keep his strength up.  He bent his head to graze.  At least there was plenty of food.

As he bit the grass, he uncovered a long pale shape embedded in the earth.  It looked out of place; it wasn't a stone.  Alvarr scraped the ground with his hoof, exposing more and more of the object.  It was long and thin, and both ends stuck in the ground.

This does not belong here.  He scraped the edge of it, and it splintered.

He whinnied in frustration.  Though the night wind carried a chill, the mage shifted to human form and crouched down.  The light of his horn had disappeared, and he found the jagged shape with his fingers. 

With sharp chips of stone, he dug around the object until one end came free.  He pulled on it, wincing at more cracking noises, but it came free.  When he shifted to four legs again, his horn lit the splintered edges, the hollow center. 

His breath caught.  This is bone.  Brittle, ancient bone.

Illuminating the small area, the mage found that he had been standing on a slight mound.  In man-shape, he scratched and dug in the cold earth until he had uncovered more long, brittle bones, but it wasn't until he found the skull that he truly understood what he'd found.

It was an equine skull.  A stallion's.  Here was where one of his people had given up his hold on life.  Alvarr couldn't help but think of the stallion who had broken his leg in the ghost stampede, but the mage had long passed the place where that happened in his vision.  It can't be the same one.

Alvarr crouched down by the remains.  This stallion had probably been injured and unable to go any further.  Perhaps he had been run down by a predator.  Or maybe he'd been the loser in a fight against a brother.

Though ancient bones were hardly good company, the mage no longer felt so alone.  One of my people who has ventured this far.  He didn't allow himself to think any more than that, but it gave him hope that he was on the right path.