Stallion Mage: True Mates: Mpreg Romance

by AO Spade

  “Elder Pastor helped you, then,“ Elder Sevan said. “Did he...“ But he gave his mane a shake.

  “What?“ Alvarr asked.

  “Nothing.“ The Elder looked once more at the mage, then cantered toward the camp entrance.

  Alvarr watched the grass, properly green this time, start to fade and wilt. His power could not sustain the tribe, but there was enough for him. If I can do this, I can live until spring. Then, there would be plenty of forage, and if Alvarr became too round, he could live in the cave until his time came.

  A cold breeze stirred his mane and made his coat twitch. But even if that all comes to pass, who will help me get the foal out? He just did not know.

  Alvarr entered to an empty camp. He expected this, of course, but his spirits sank at the sight of all the deserted dwellings. An icy silence had settled over the land. Though a little snow should not have made a difference, the white coating made the mage feel as though it would never be warm again. It had started to fall thicker, in clumps that obscured everything but the things closest to him.

  The sound of slow hoofbeats approaching the entrance made the mage turn. Laren.

  The great gray stallion was entering the camp, but his head was down, and he moved as though very fatigued. He seemed unaware of Alvarr as he came closer with heavy, measured steps.

  The leader, too, has grown thin. And the his spirits seemed to be lower than the mage had ever seen. Perhaps Laren was hungry. Of course he is. He'll be the last to eat.

  Alvarr reached for his power to make the grass grow. Please. But there was nothing in response.

  Laren stopped in his tracks and lifted his head. “What did the Elder say?” he asked quietly.

  Alvarr couldn’t resist the urge to comfort his mate, even though he had been rejected. The mage walked up to him, touching his nose to Laren’s. “I am in good health,” he said. “Elder Pastor is, as well. My power has come back, a little, and I am no longer ill. Everything is… fine,” he said, hoping the leader wouldn’t notice his falter. “But Laren, I can see something is very wrong. What is it?”

  “The spring has dried,” Laren said.

  “Can you not break the ice?” Alvarr remembered last winter, when they had to pound the thick ice with their hooves to get the cold water underneath.

  “Not frozen,” the leader said with a shake of his mane. “The stream is dry. There is no water left.”

  Horror struck the mage. “All of it?” The stream ran behind the healing tent, and it was where the tribe got their water. We could go down to the river, but the Elders… He could not imagine Elder Mastok making his way to the river every day to drink. And it was more precious energy the stallions had to use. Making the trip several times each day would wear them down that much faster.

  What will we do? he wanted to ask, but he knew that Laren had no answers. Alvarr could see the lost expression in the leader's eyes. “The river probably still flows,” he said. “Surely there is some way we can use its water.”

  “If there is, I cannot think of it,” the leader said, lowering his head once more.

  You can’t lose hope! Alvarr wanted to shout at him, to shake him, even. Laren was their leader, and if he could not lead them out of this, the tribe would all lose heart. They would lay down and die. “We should go to Elder Mastok,” he said, trying to sound confident. “The Elder's imagination is beyond most of ours. He will see a solution.”

  Laren sighed. “I suppose you are right, but even I know that no knowledge alone can lift water out of the river and bring it to us.”

  Alvarr lashed his tail. There have been had winters before. The ancient people had bad winters as well, and droughts, and times of flooding, and everything that we experience.

  They had mages who could move things with their magic, but they also had ways of finding non-magical ways around problems. Those clever dwellings, the fine material... Those all require multiple people in man-shape, though.

  There were dwellings by the water. Old and rotted, but still, they had lived there once before. Perhaps they could build new shelters there. With what? Alvarr stamped a front hoof on the hard ground.

  The river had water. The stream now had none. Alvarr swallowed, his mouth and throat already dry. Around them, thicker clumps of snow swirled in the air, making the patches of brown earth disappear. If we fetched snow, the Elders could make a forbidden fire, and… He shook his mane. That was a plan of desperation, not reason.

  “I will go look at the river,” he told Laren. “Perhaps there is something I can do, something I can think of.”

  The leader nodded slowly, his head dipping and rising as though it were too heavy. “And I will speak with Elder Mastok,” Laren said. The leader turned away toward the healing tent and began his slow walk.

  The mage’s instincts bubbled with uneasiness at how his leader had lost confidence. This situation would break anyone’s spirit. Alvarr watched him go, the snow settling on his thick gray coat and lighter mane and tail, then turned in the direction of the river. Now he was truly grateful he had eaten Nature’s offering. I have strength. My magic has helped me already today; perhaps it will help me again.

  A coating of snow had settled on the ruins of the old dwellings, covering their tumbling, rotted shapes. As Alvarr approached the river, he heard its sound, and his shoulders unclenched with relief. There is water. It still flows. Ice would have given him an extra worry.

  The water's dull surface reflected the gray sky, and the current had slowed, as though it was on the verge of freezing. Alvarr made his way to the water’s edge and he gritted his teeth, but when he dipped in his his foreleg, he found it warmer than he expected. Not freezing any time soon.

  And, to his further surprise, the water was full of large fish, their gleaming scales flashing here and there, a reminder from Nature. Though even a mild winter was a time of hardship for stallions, others lived in plenty. All was not lost, just perhaps lost to them. Nature abides.

  Pacing along the bank, Alvarr remembered how he had tried to move a stone with his mind. It had been no use then, so he didn’t expect himself to work a miracle. Nor could he command the weather, something he thanked Nature for.

  I can make things grow. I can give energy. Neither was useful for this. He stood on a rock and watched clumps of snow melt into the current. I have shaped the earth, though I didn't mean to do it.

  Every time he had changed the earth, it had been connected to Laren, and Alvarr’s energy had frightened him with its uncontrolled nature. But what harm could it do, with no one there to be affected?

  Alvarr examined the rocky bank, checking for breaks in the terrain. In most places, the slope was very steep down to the water, but he found one area with a smoother, more gentle slope upward.

  He closed his eyes, imagining that he was a stallion living in ancient times. His brothers and sisters, both mages and non-mages, lived alongside him, and they took their two-legged shapes often. He pretended that a small group of them had found the solution to the river problem.

  What are they doing? the mage asked himself.

  And the answer came to him. They had started to dig a narrow trench away from the water using sharp rocks and sticks shaped on the ends. The water started to flow into the small channel, which they lengthened toward the camp. Many people helped with the trench, a person-made stream.

  Alvarr opened his eyes and shivered; he had changed to man-shape, and the wind flung snow against his bare skin. He shook his long hair to cover as much of himself as he could, and crouched on the ground to dig. His fingers scratched at the half-frozen sand and small rocks. The water, which had felt so warm before, lapped against his knuckles and made them ache with cold. The idea was good, but with only him, it would never work.

  “What are you doing?”

  Alvarr looked behind him. Barron had come, and he stood over Alvarr in his four-legged form, shielding him from some of the wind. Clumps of snow coated his back and mane.

  At the sight of hi
s friend, Alvarr stood and leaned against Barron’s warm side. “The stream is dry” he whispered.

  “I know,” Barron said. “I came to drink from the river.”

  “I thought I could help. The ancient people would have tried to divert some of the water.” Alvarr’s dream flashed into his mind, where he and Laren stood ankle-deep in a clear pool which might have been mage-mage.

  “How?” his friend asked.

  There was no answer Alvarr could give that would make sense to Barron. No one else had seen the visions of the ancient people working together, building with tools that had long been forgotten, or that only magic could help shape.

  The ancient camp’s land had been perfect, so perfect: sheltered by mountains, a huge forest full of tall trees that provided wood, fields of sweet, thick grass, and a stream running through it. How had they found such a site? Unless they didn’t find it at all.

  With a gasp, Alvarr clutched his friend’s mane.

  “What is it?” Barron’s head swiveled toward him with large, dark eyes filled with concern. “You must be cold. Why have you not shifted?”

  But Alvarr ignored his discomfort. “The old civilization was beautiful,” he said. “And its beauty was not an accident.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There were mages, Barron,” Alvarr said. “Mages who could speak to the wind and clouds and rain. Mages who could move things with their minds. Mages who could reshape the earth.” He stepped away from his friend and looked at the river. I have this power.

  Barron did not understand, that much was clear from his face. “Mages like me,” Alvarr said. Though Barron knew he could help grow food, he didn’t know Alvarr’s full abilities. No one did.

  “I can also reshape the earth,” he said quietly. “I have done it before. The ground rippled like water.” Alvarr held his breath and waited for Barron to shy away or run.

  But the thin stallion just flicked his ears forward. “You think the ancient people shaped the land of their own camp?”

  “I do.”

  Barron nodded and shook snow from his mane. “I suppose that makes sense. If the mages could do that, why wouldn’t they?”

  “Why are you not afraid?”

  “Of you?” Barron snorted. “You would not hurt anyone or anything if you could help it. You’re a… you’re a life-giver, not a life-taker. If you use your powers, it’s always for good. I know it, Alvarr. Everyone else does, too.”

  The mage shifted uncomfortably, remembering his battle with the creature in the desert. But it had been a question of survival. “It’s what I try to do,” he whispered. “Whether or not I succeed.”

  Alvarr gazed at the moving water. “I have shaped the earth only a few times, and only during moments of great emotion.”

  Barron nosed Alvarr’s shoulder. “Surely, you have great emotion now. Things aren't good. I believe you can do this, Alvarr.”

  “I have to try,” the mage said quietly. He walked until his toes touched the very edge of the water.

  Ice-cold water oozed up from the wet sand on the river back, chilling Alvarr’s human feet. He shifted, and the change came more slowly, but his stomach didn’t revolt.

  Maybe the… my foal… is getting used to shifting. Had they all shifted in their mother’s wombs? They must have. Alvarr glanced at the light brown stallion beside him. Barron had no idea what Alvarr was hiding, but though they were friends, the mage was not going to tell him. If I tell anyone, it will be Laren.

  “What happens now?” Barron asked.

  “I don’t know,” the mage said. He pointed his horn toward the ground, but he could see that it was not glowing. Nor did he feel the surge of power that had sprung to him when he had healed Barron, or the weak trickle of power that had let him grow grass for himself and Elder Sevan.

  He walked a few steps into the water.

  “Be careful,” his friend said, alarm in his voice.

  “I’ve crossed this river before,” Alvarr murmured. That’s right. Barron too feels the fear of crossing the border. But the small black stallion’s compulsion from the past did not hold Alvarr.

  He closed his eyes. Give me the power, he willed, but he knew it was useless. He felt dead inside, as empty of Nature’s forces as one of the cold rocks on the riverbank. He paced a bit, splashing through the cold shallows.

  Everyone will die if I do not help. It was a strange, prideful thought, one that was uncomfortable to think, as though he were the most important of everyone. He cast around again for a thread of power, but still came up empty.

  What good am I, if I cannot do this? A hot ball of anger and shame formed in his stomach, and he stamped his hoof. What a useless mage. His anger warmed him from the inside until he was sweating. Deliberately, he envisioned the bodies of his friends lying by the river, stripped thin by hunger and thirst, eyes dulled in death.

  The anger grew inside him. That will not happen. I won’t allow it.

  He let himself see Laren stumble on his way to drink, laid to waste by the barren earth. No! His mate could not die. For if it did, even though Laren had rejected him, Alvarr would become like Alvi, a violent storm of anger and grief. He shook with his rage like a leaf in a storm.

  “Alvarr, what is happening?” he heard Barron call, as if from a great distance.

  An unbearable heat seared his forehead, and then white light burst behind his closed eyes. My horn! It shone as bright as that time he mated with Laren.

  Alvarr could not see anything but brightness and shook his head, trying to dash it away. He tried to touch the cold earth with his mind, but it repelled him, locked in the death of winter. It was not enough.

  Nature, help me, he cried in his mind, and a tiny, soft energy added to his plea. My foal! It was surely nothing but a small, soft thing inside him, no bigger than his hoof, but its energy had awoken.

  Still blinded by the light of his horn, Alvarr reared and came splashing down into the icy river, letting out a great trumpeting cry. He could not fail. He would trust in Nature and fight for the lives of his tribe and his child.

  A great tremor rocked the earth under his hooves. The water’s sound changed. Now, it rushed toward him, not past him. He felt its freezing flow just above his hooves.

  I have done something. But he knew his work was not yet done. He closed his eyes and poured more of himself into his purpose.

  “Alvarr,” Barron cried. Human arms wrapped around his neck. “Please, take care for yourself.”

  The mage could feel himself shaking, or was that still the earth? His energy extended far outside himself, as though Alvarr had become a tree root growing through the ground, forcing his way through hard earth and stone.

  More hooves sounded on the ground, but Alvarr could pay them no mind. He tasted old roots and smelled the hidden depths of spring far below the snow and ice. With a flare of power, he stirred the life within the earth; now, perhaps, it would bloom when the time came.

  “Stop!”

  The commanding voice took hold of Alvarr’s conscious mind, and with a wrench, he pulled himself free of Nature’s power.

  When he did, he stumbled. The mage would have collapsed into the water had Barron not pulled his head forward with his hands, forcing him onto the bank.

  His hooves found solid ground. He folded at the knees, and his vision cleared. All around him, stallions of the tribe had gathered in a circle, keeping their distance.

  What happened? Alvarr shuddered, suddenly very cold.

  Barron gave a high, thin shout. “He needs shelter.” Then, to Alvarr, “Can you shift? It would be easy to… to carry you.”

  ‘I’ll do that,” Laren said, stepping forward.

  But Alvarr shook them both off. “I’m all right,” he said, getting to his feet. He was just exhausted, but it was not the terrible drain he had felt after giving his energy to another stallion. This is normal. For a mage, this is what it is like. He could already feel his energy returning to him, though it would be days before he
was able to work this again.

  He examined the stream that now ran from the river and extended toward the camp. It looked natural, a ribbon of water through the earth, as though it had always been there. The stream was wide enough that they would have to leap over it if they didn’t want to get wet. There were even small banks that looked as though they had been worn away by time.

  This is what I am meant to do. I am not a healer, but moving the earth is my ability. Inside him, Alvarr still felt the soft, small touch of his foal like a tiny warm light.

  “How far does it go?” the mage wondered out loud.

  A quick, dark brown stallion turned cantered away down its length, his hooves thudding on the wet ground.

  Alvarr finally looked up at the crowd. At least half the tribe had gathered there. “Can anyone tell me what happened? What did it look like?”

  Cantril finally stepped forward and bowed his head in a little dip. “Like a vine growing over the ground, only it was water.”

  Laren’s gray body stood next to his. “It is well that the stallion tribe has a mage,” he said quietly. Then, he raised his voice. “Brothers, we fear magic. It is our instinct. But without our mage, we would have died.”

  There were murmurs of agreement. Though none of them came closer to Alvarr, he couldn’t blame them. He was not comfortable with his own power; how could he expect anyone else to be?

  A cantering stallion made them all turn. It was the one who had left. “The stream reaches almost all the way to the camp,” he said in amazement. A ragged cheer went up from the thin, tired stallions.

  Slowly, Alvarr made his way home along the new stream, with Barron on one side and the leaden on the other. Around them was only bare trees and snow-covered ground, but the earth by the stream bed smelled wet and fertile, like spring.

  Please, let the stream provide food as well as water, Alvarr prayed. If there was not, he would do his best to shape the earth once more, but growing grass in winter was against Nature's pattern, and much more difficult to control. Nature might not let me do it.