Centaur Love
V
Mathew sat on the little bench beside the drying barn. Growing up he always woke to see his father getting up early for deliveries, but he never knew how his father knew when one would be delivered. But now he knew. A soft scratching feeling had woken him up earlier. The soft scratching came through the spell of clairvoyance he had laid on the farm the other day, and his uncle had expanded the range of the spell, but the scratching came from the message book, and that woke him up, an itch he could not scratch. The Magic Emporium store was getting ready to ship their order, so they wrote on the Lindrose page and with their spell of Clairvoyance going, the soft mental scratching came from the magical stone above the book as the store's employee wrote in the book sending the message to theirs.
The stone circle was next to the barn, it was made of fist-size rocks, about fifteen feet in diameter. Mathew laid the Lindrose beacon stone just inside one edge and sat down to wait for the delivery. Dressed only in his pants and boots since he rushed to retrieve the beacon and to activate it inside the delivery circle. The Magic Emporium not only sent the message of the impending delivery but they also included information like the day and week, lunar phases, and the current constellations and planets in the sky for those who did Astro projections and Premonition type of spells. A kind of magical update for those living in the wilds who might not know what day of the week it was.
Licking his finger, Mathew touched the spell Clairvoyance and mentally adding the few Klatha to maintain the spell for another day. Mentally he looked over the farm and orchard. The farm felt fine, but the orchard felt dry, the late spring, early summer rains were late this year, he decided to ride up to the holding pond above the orchard to open the divergence gate and water the orchard.
Felicia woke and looked over at Mathew's bed. He was not there, stepping out into the hallway the kitchen lamp was not on nor were the front rooms lamps lit. The bookcase was open into the hidden magic room, but he was not in there either. Just as she opened the front door, a slight thunderclap came from the barn area. Rushing out to look, she saw Mathew sitting next to the barn. As the thunderclap rolled outward Mathew casually looked up from the stone circle, he was sitting next to.
Inside the stone circle were several dozen sturdy boxes and several enormous leather bags. So this was the source of those random thunderclaps that everyone has heard occasionally at her father's farm. The Lindrose's were getting things delivered! Mathew stood up as Felicia walked up and opened his arms to hug her. He was dressed in pants and boots but with no shirt. Very different from last night's casual wear.
Felicia leaned in and hugged Mathew good morning. Mathew tried to kiss her, but she pulled back, "No Mathew I have morning green Dragons breathe." Mathew laughed as he covered his mouth and coughed, "I might have you beat love, think I could drop a basilisk with mine." Both laughed. "Give me a hand in carrying this stuff inside the barn and we can go get presentable for our morning kiss." Felicia blew him a kiss, then reached in to grab a box of shipping vials.
On his third trip out of the barn, he asked Felicia what she wanted for breakfast. Felicia smiled, "My Stallion I should be asking..." Mathew held up his hands forestalling her comment. "Love the stallion stuff, and it is fine when we are in a Centaur house or community, but here, on 'our' farm, we need to share the chores, and that means both, the cooking and cleaning. And... since! It is a human slash centaur farm. And, since you did the cooking last night, in all fairness, I should cook breakfast!"
Felicia smiled and put her hand on Mathew's cheek, "Ok I will agree to that, but only if you make those pancake things your family is so famous for!"
Mathew laughed, saying, "Deal!"
Two trips later Mathew secured the drying shed's door, dumping two scoops of fresh feed into both horses feeding troughs and a hand full of hay. He then made his way up to the house. His shower only took a few minutes, but washing Felicia took longer and only one or two hand slaps. Over breakfast, he told her of wanting to flood the orchard and asked if she wanted to go with him.
"Will it take long? I sort of wanted to run down and deliver some of those things I got for my family yesterday and let momma and papa know we are all right."
"It should take us only a couple hours to ride, or in your case run-up to the pond and gatehouse. Then it should take me a half of glass to set the gates. After that, we could run over to your parents' place. I still need to retrieve my father's saddle and tack from your father's barn."
"Will you be 'ok' to ride without it? Up to this gatehouse thing?"
"I should be, it is an easy trail."
Once they had the kitchen cleaned up, they gathered up all the presents Felicia bought for her family and headed over to the barn. With not enough saddlebags available, Mathew put the leather panniers on the cart horse, then doubled up the saddle blankets on the new warhorse. They made their way along the path past the larger pond and alongside the bottom of the groves ridge. Felicia took the packhorse leads so Mathew could concentrate on riding without a saddle. When they reached the east side of the Oak Forest, they turned north. It took them almost two hours to reach the stream on the northern side.
A small rock hut stood next to a large pond, the fast-flowing stream fed it through a set of stone gates. After tying the horses, Mathew unlocked the stout door, bending low as he retrieved the wooden gates to close off the pond from the fast-flowing river. With the two large wooden gates, he climbed the bank between the stream and pond.
Felicia watched Mathew take his shirt off and got down to clean the gate slots. With a whistle and catcall, she let Mathew know she liked the show. As he was busy cleaning the gate slots, she looked into the low-roofed hut. Two stone and wooden gates held the pond's water back from a long stone trough. Three large terracotta pipes fed out of the stone trough that lead into the ground. Bright metal screws raised or lowered the two different sized gates. Both had long handles attached to the top. At all the connecting points, the metal was melted into the rock, that and the fact that there was no rust said louder than words this was Dwarven work.
Felicia felt a hand on her rump, turning she saw Mathew lean in and kiss her ass cheek and squeezed in beside her. She reached out, running her hand down his chest, and then with a smile, she leaned over kissing him.
Mathew kissed her back then climbed up to the gate controls. He turned the first handle lowering the very narrow outer gate till it was even with the pond's water level, then with a notched stick me measure from the top of the gate and turned the handle till it was two inches below the waterline. Stepping over it he slowly opened the outer gate allowing the water to flow into the large trough. Watching the three outlet pipes take in the flow, he opened it a little more. Pausing every other turn to make sure, the outlet pipe continued to flow.
After a quarter glass, he dropped the gate the rest of the way. The large tough partially filled but the three pipes were doing their job. "Are we done here?"
"Yes, we should come back tomorrow to check on it, my dad...," Mathew took a deep breath then slowly let it out before continuing, "We used to come out twice a day to make sure things were still flowing right."
Felicia reached over and hugged Mathew, "It will be ok love, whatever you want to do. I love trotting over 'our' place."
Mathew leaned back and snuck a kiss in as she was pulling back, his eyes were on her massive chest. He was about to give them a rub when Felicia grabbed his hands. "First there is no room for that here in this little hut? And, looking around, if you started something, there would be no place for us to clean up. That pond looks too deep for me. And I don't want to go to mother's place smelling of sex!"
"We could stop at our bathing pond?"
"No."
Mathew locked the hut's door, then untied the horses. Felicia reached in, taking the cart pony's leads, "Give me those. Don't need you being pulled off the mare if the pony got spooked."
They trotted south along the same path until Felicia could see the path leading to the lower ridge, Mathew turned east taking that route. It led further east then down a gentle hill that came out in the back of her father's fields. They trotted a ways, down rows of stretcher poles, then picking a row at random he led her down a row of hops plants. The hops towered over them, shading them as they trotted west. As they came out between two fields, Mathew stared up and down the row of stretchers trying to find his bearings.
Felicia pushed past him, turning south, weaving her way between the stretchers, speeding up to a canter. Slowly weaving left, then right, passing the stretchers that held the long ropes that held up stringers that the growing vines climbed up. Mathew could hear Felicia laugh as she danced in and out as she loped along. He was glad she led the pack pony as he was having a rough time controlling the mare bareback.
Felicia turned right at an open cart track and broke out into a gallop, yelling back. "Come on pokie! Hurry up!"
Once Mathew hit the cart path, he kicked the mare into a gallop but kept having to pull her up slightly allowing Felicia to run in front. They passed several crossroads, but Felicia led them straight up the slight rise until she crested the rise, leaping over the rock-lined canal.
Mathew had never jumped a horse without a saddle before. At first he tried to stand in the stirrups, but at the last minute he closed his legs around her chest and only got an inch or two airborne as she jumped. As the mare landed, so did Mathew with a slight groan. Felicia kept galloping down the road as Mathew slowed the mare to a slow walk to give the boys a chance to protest. Mathew looked up as Felicia raced back down the road.
Her face was slightly flushed, and she tried to hide the smile she wore riding up. She took on a look of concern asking him, "Mathew, are you all right? What happened?"
Mathew grinned, "I am ok, almost forgot to clamp my legs around the mare's chest as she jumped. Felicia burst out laughing, "Oh Mathew, are you all right?"
Mathew grimaced. "I guess, but we could walk to father's house." Mathew saw the slight disappointment in her face as he said that.
"Here give me the leads for the pack pony, now you can gallop while I lead the pony there at a slower pace."
"Are you sure?"
Mathew smiled seeing Felicia's face light up, "Yes love, go, I will meet you at your parents' place."
Felicia handed pony's reins to Mathew and trotted off on a side road, it only took her a few heartbeats till she was at a full gallop. Mathew grinned and started straight down the road he was on at a walk.
Cresting the last rise, he crossed the stream and saw the Fellis farmhouse. He thought, I should think of it as the in-laws. Then he thought of what he needed to say to Sir Fellis. Grand Master Dorthan was rather specific that he speak to Sir Fellis and urge him to organize the Centaur and the Elven nation to take care of the goblin army at Freetown.
Mathew wasn't sure he was ready to help lead an army into a war. But his uncle and the Grand Master said that his powers will grow strong enough in the coming months that the Centaur Nation and the Elves will follow an unfretted Grand Master into battle. Combining his power to the Elven nation's wild magic master level mages, they would have more than enough magical means to draw out the goblin army.
