Stallion Mage: A Horse Shifter Mpreg Romance (COMPLETE)

Revelations

Laren is my mate.

And that meant that Alvarr was Laren's mate as well. Understanding flooded him. Of course. Now everything made sense. Everything Alvarr had suspected was true.

Equine mates didn't have to wait for the season to mate. They mated to connect with each other, not only to produce foals. His unions with Laren had been right and good, not against Nature. Mates were Nature.

Does this mean that foals can be born at different times? Did all mates and families share a dwelling like Alvi did? Could people choose their mates, or were mated pairs fated from birth? Alvarr had so many questions.

He rose from his pallet and silently walked toward the faint orange glow and the silhouette of the old man bent over an artifact.

"Elder?" Alvarr called quietly.

The older man looked up and stood. He took Alvarr's hands in his weathered ones. "How are you feeling, young mage?"

"Elder, I... can we talk?"

"Of course."

Alvarr sat next to the glowing torch. Its flame stirred something inside him that was both frightening and exciting. "Elder," he said, "how do you have the knowledge of fire?"

"It is one of the gifts of age," the Elder said. "Sevan, the oldest, taught me when it was time." He passed his hand over the flame. "Younger stallions and mares cannot be trusted with knowledge such as this. And they have no need of it."

Alvarr inched back from the flickering orange glow. "I certainly don't," he said. There was so much about the world he didn't understand. "Elder, I had a dream," he said, watching the pattern of flames on the ground.

"Go on, young mage."

"It was of the future, where Laren and I were somewhere else." Privately, Alvarr wondered if the location had been the old civilization, and they had all somehow traveled there. "And he said something about choosing a mage mate. And, he meant me." The mage swallowed. "I am that mage mate, or at least I was in the dream."

"Which do you think it is?"

Alvarr took a deep breath. "Laren is my mate." The mage said it plainly, with neither hope nor anger. It was just a fact. The truth of it settled behind his heart. He was glad he could finally speak the words; whatever happened, he now knew that it wasn't his imagination.

The Elder sighed and retrieved the bowls to make the restorative drink. With a blunt rock, he started crushing dried herbs.

To Alvarr's eyes, the stone bowls suddenly looked crude and half-formed. The old camp probably had much better tools. As an earth mage, could Alvarr shape stone? He found himself reaching for his power, only to find that same curious locked feeling.

Elder Mastok paused in his grinding. "What is it?"

"I can't access my power," the mage said. "It has been like this for a while. I try to channel it, but it feels like a stream that has been blocked, or a cave that has been walled off. I can tell it's there, but I have no way of getting to it. I'm worried that I won't be able to channel it when I need to."

Elder Mastok's face creased with an unreadable emotion. He looked down, as though trying to figure out what to say. "I'll just fetch some water from the stream." He took both bowls and shuffled toward the back exit of the tent.

Alvarr waited in the near darkness, listening to the faint crackling of the torch. Elder Mastok knew something. While Alvarr trusted the Elders, it occurred to him that having only three keepers of the tribe's knowledge was dangerous.