Centaur Love Ch. 04

During the summer months living was done mostly out doors in the vast courtyard. Several miniature umbrella pines and cypress trees dotted the courtyard, with flower boxes throughout. Several vines were allowed to grow wild on the front wall softening the walled courtyard.

Felicia marveled at the courtyard saying how beautiful. Mathew closed his eyes breathing in the serenity. This was his weekend sanctuary while he attended school, his place to escape the city. As they walked deeper into the courtyard, the sounds and pressure of the city seemed to melt away. The relative quiet and peace of the courtyard replaced it. It was like coming home from a long vacation. The farm would always be home for Mathew, but Uncle Roberts' house was a close second. This is where Mathew really learned about magic. With Uncle Robert here to help and over eighty other Elite class mages, he got a thorough grounding in Magic, and with over one hundred and sixty Master class mages, he got a wide variety of uses for all the lower level spells. However, what made Uncle Robert's place a close second home was, Aunt Cyril's cooking. The smell of cooking and baking always filled the courtyard all day long. Mathew did not know what was in the ovens today but just the smell got his mouth to watering.

Mathew led Felicia into the main living area of the courtyard. Mathew looked over the sitting area, several mages sat near the doorway to the potion shop eating lunch. Mathew recognized a few who looked up at them as they walked in. Before he could scan the rest of the courtyard for any changes, someone engulfed in a hug.

"Mathew! I have been so worried!"

Mathew recognized Aunt Cyril's perfume mixed with scents of cooked meats and vegetables. Mathew pulled himself out of Aunt Cyril's hug and looked into her pale amber eyes. He had to look down somewhat to look into her eyes which surprised him some, Aunt Cyril was always so tall to him when he was growing up and going to school here. Aunt Cyril looked the same with dark brown hair framing a narrow face that was dominated by a wide smile. Mathew returned that smile, "Aunt Cyril, thank you for your concern, but you had to know I was alright."

"I did, but, without you here, I am allowed to worry." Mathew laughed, and turned towards Felicia, she had a smile on her face. "Aunt Cyril, I would like to introduce my mate..."

"This must be Felicia!" She cried! "Robert told me all about you yesterday, but he didn't say anything about how beautiful you are." Cyril disengaged her arm from Mathew and walked over to Felicia, "Welcome to the family Felicia!" And leaned in to embrace Felicia.

Felicia smiled and hugged her new herd mate. "Thank you..." Then gestured at the house and the large patio, "Mathew told me about your place, but he failed to say beautiful it was." Cyril laughed, "Thank you!"

"An added bonus of the family business, here, let me show you around so you can understand where yours and Mathew's efforts fit in." Cyril quickly grabbed Felicia's hand and pulled her away, saying, "Lunch will be ready in half a candle mark boys," over her shoulder as she lead Felicia away on the grand tour.

Mathew watched Cyril pull Felicia towards the main houses entrance, then felt his Uncle's hand on his shoulder, "There is someone I want you to personally meet. I think you know who he is, but I don't believe you have ever been formally introduced."

Mathew allowed his uncle to lead him over to a table in the corner, where he saw its occupants. Anyone who attended the Mage College knew him, but rarely did any of the students ever talk to him.

Grand Master Dorthan sat at a side table, in the shade of a large cypress tree. He sat next a woman whom Mathew assumed was his wife. He had seen the Grand Master numerous times at school; of course, open and closing ceremonies and graduations, but he had rarely had any contact with the student mages. His duties with the council of mages and his role as his majesties magical advisor kept him busy. He had always looked so imposing standing in front of the assembly. His firm strong voice carrying all the way to the back of the assembly hall. His tone and words conveyed the power and wisdom of his great years, which gave Mathew the feeling that this man brooked no nonsense at his school.

Now just sitting there, he looked like an elder Grand Magnus sitting and laughing with his wife of many years. There sly smiles and quick look at each other said louder than words that these two still loved each other and enjoyed each other's company. Something Mathew was not prepared to see. As they approached, the Grand Master stood and offered his hand towards Mathew, "Mathew, first let me say we..., my wife and I are sadden to learn of your parents passing. Some day you may learn how much Gunther and Caroline meant to us, and our sorrows" to learn of their passing.

Mathew nodded accepting the Grand Masters condolences. Nodding to Mathew, "Please sit, for even in these sad times some thing's need to be said." As Mathew and Robert sat down, two of the mages who were eating their lunch, stood up and walked over, both started reciting a spell over the group, at first Mathew was alarmed but only after a few words into the cant he recognized a magical misdirect observation spell.

The spell misdirected anyone else's spells who tried to magically observe or listen in on their conversation; it was as if both were hiding in a dark 100-foot circle with no lights on. The spell night sight would not work in if they were trying to observe anyone sitting on the table nor would far hear. As the two-mage mages completed the spell, both smiled at each other before nodding to those sitting at the table, then walked away. Mathew was puzzled as to why both did the spell when it only took one mage to cast the spell.

Grand Master Dorthan cleared his throat and smiled at Michael and his uncle, "Both were in perfect sync, I can't tell whose spell took effect!" Uncle Robert winked at Mathew before he spoke to the Grand Master, "Me neither Grand Master, nor magically could I tell either."

Dorthan smiled at both, "Now I can honestly say I don't know who cast a magical Mis-direct on me this afternoon, even if it's under a truth spell!" He then turned towards Mathew, "Now young man we have some things to disgust that no one else must know...

The last stop was visiting several stables to find Mathew a new mount and purchase a sturdy carthorse. The first stable they stopped at Felicia took one sniff and refused to enter. Mathew and Robert soon learned to trust Felicia's nose, for every place that Felicia did not like the smell of, they did not have any quality animals. Once they found a stable that was acceptable with her olfactory senses, clean hay and clean stalls. They found two horses that was acceptable to all. Mathew did not know who inspected and test each horse more thorough. Robert was inspecting each with his mage senses, while Felicia looked over bone structure and muscle proportion.

Now when it came down to price! Mathew had seen his uncle Robert haggle with the best of them over price, but Felicia was downright ruthless! She kept up the pressure until she got the price 'she' wanted; even Uncle Robert was impressed with her haggling skills.

It was early evening in Kings home when Robert teleported them home from an industrial complex teleport pad. It was still middle of the afternoon at the farm. The first thing they all did was settle the new horses into the barn. With fresh hay and grain, both settled into the open paddock with no problems from the teleport.

With goodbyes and promises to write exchanged, His uncle handed him a small package, Mathew knew what they were from the feel and weight. "I know you still have allot of studying to do before you explore these books but take some time going over these, and take a little more time reading the last one, Destructive spells. I think it was written by one of your hero's, Grand Master Tiberius?"

Mathew nodded yes to both questions.

"Good, because he wrote it before he formalized the destructive progression...there are a few spells in there that most mages don't know about." Mathew raised an eyebrow at that. Robert laughed, "Let's just say most institutionalized mages don't have a clue that these spells exist. It might give you an edge if you ever have to defend yourself from an experienced mage college, combat mage. And the last is this scroll," That he handed Mathew with the small 4 inch crystal ball.

"Master Mage Peter from the shop invented this variation of the farsee spell that allows you to look at someplace you never been with just guessing how far it is from where you are at. It will be a great spell to know if you are out scouting around or need to see someplace you never been."

Mathew looked down at the package and nodded yes. He knew the path of being an un-fretted mage meant, a renegade Mage went without the collages backing or support. That also meant that no accredited shop could sell him supplies needed for his spell casting, and if there was any accusations of a magical crime they would presume him guilty unless he could prove his innocents. However, he was sure that since the family farm, now his, according to his Uncle. And what he could determine from Grand Master Dorthans explanation, that it was the only reliable source of Dragon's Claw Root for the known kingdom.

Therefore, the council would likely not interfere with Mathew being a full un-fretted mage. In addition, he could always get his magical supplies from the Elves since they did not recognize the Mage College's authority over any magic users.

Robert smiled at Mathew, seeing that he truly now understood his chosen path, "If you have any concerns or need some advice, just write me," Grinning at Mathew, "you know the page number." With that said, he held out his hand to fix his orientation within his mind and Teleported.

Taking Felicia's hand Mathew lead her into their house. The first thing, he showed her was how to open the secret room. With just a touch of Klatha and your finger on the right wood knot, the bookcase opened to reveal the hidden room. Putting the new books and scroll in the bookcase, he pulled out a little wooden box that he used to play with when he was young. After a quick look at the message book seeing that their orders would be delivered the next morning he handed her the little box.

"What's this Mathew?"

"A toy my love that will teach you how to feel klatha and later on how to pull it from inside yourself and use it." Felicia looked at the little box,

"Is that going to make me a mage then?"

Mathew laughed, "No and yes. You see, like Uncle Robert explained, centaur's on the whole have a little residual Klatha inside them. Most do not have the power reserves to drive basic Journeyman level spells, but most people with a touch of were blood or what is considered magical types, elves, centaurs and some dwarfs can power apprentice level spells. Most people can learn to use what they have, to use simple magical devises that are self-powered. Mathew put several Klatha into the stone that was inside the little box.

"Now just touch the painted end and you will feel a little burst of klatha. At first, it will just tingle your fingertip, but doing this five or six times a day your body will lean the feel of what Klatha is. Then once you learn to recognize it, we can start to teach you how to manipulate it, like how to power up your amulet."

Felicia smiled at Mathew, but gave a little apprehensive look at the little box; Mathew laughed and touched his finger to the end. A little blue spark, emitted from the end and he laughed at the little tingle, he carefully held the blue sparkle and rubbed it between his fingers, then willed it back into the box. Something Felicia will eventually lean to do. Felicia watched in amazement as Mathew played with the little blue ball. Eager to try it, she pressed her finger to the end. The little blue light touched her finger; Felicia felt a little tingle on her fingertip, "Oh!" and quickly pulled her finger away. The little blue light did not receive any mental commands from the hosts Klatha; it quickly retreated into the box.

Mathew quickly leaned in and kiss her finger saying, "Sorry love, the first time is always a little scary for some people. Next time try to feel what the little spark is and see if you can feel that same, uh, thing inside of you. When you can feel the little klatha ball and recognize the same thing inside of you can learn to mentally direct klatha. Like thinking of just holding it in your fingers, until then we can work around your need to power the little devises around the farm. But eventually you have to learn to do this, to work on the farm here by yourself".

"Like what?" she asked.

"Well you need to learn how to power the little charm you wear for one, and the ones on the cart pony's harness. Oh! In addition, to seal the bottles we use to ship the dried root in. And you will need it to order things.

Felicia frowned at that. Mathew showed her the open book, "When you need to order something, you turn to that stores page and write what you need or want, then put a single unit of klatha into the stone above the book and it will read what page it is on and copy that on that stores book under the farms name. Then in a day or so they send a message saying when they will ship the requested item."

"Oh! That would be convenient to learn!" Felicia exclaimed as she looked out into the front room to the small pile of bags and boxes of new blouses and hats that Mathew encouraged her to buy. Mathew groaned thinking that this might not be a good idea. That brought another thought, he turned and opened one of the glass cases and pulled a little black covered book. He stepped aside Felicia and walked back into the front room, so they were not so, cramped standing inside the secret magic room. Turning he handed Felicia a small black book. Felicia looked at the title, 'The basics of Magic'.

"What is this Mathew?"

"It is the 'Basics of Magic' every mage has to read it. It is a phonological textbook of the magic language. It teaches you how to read and say the words of the spells." Mathew grimaced at Felicia, "It isn't a fun read but it will save me time teaching you the few spells you would need to learn if you could just read them yourself."

Felicia frowned and opened the book. Mathew watched her as she started read through the first couple of pages. As the first, few pages slowly introduced her to the first couple of words in the magical language it talked about the Klatha teaching box. He watched her read but also noticed the fingers of right hand rub each other trying to remember her first touch of pure klatha. He also noticed that she unconsciously side step next to the couch till her side was touching it, as she got into reading the book.

A small came to his face, like sleeping, centaurs like to lean or be next to a sturdy object while relaxing. As she turned a page, Mathew asked her if she wanted dinner now or a little later. At first, she did not answer him, until he asked her again.

"Huh? What? Oh no I am still a little full from lunch...but if you're hungry go ahead and eat...I will get something later"

Mathew nodded, "That's ok love, was just checking, I am not hungry myself."

"Huh?"

"Do you like the book?"

"Oh yes, you don't know how much I love to read, we only had ten books at my father's place and six of them were on the art of war." Laughing, "I like to read so much, even those were a pleasure to re-read when I had time."

"Well the library is full of all sorts of lore books on field botany and healing, and the magical library as well, but I would ask to consult me on which books you should read in there, since some would be way above your level to cast those spells. But most of the first year and some of the second year spell books should be in your spell range. But we can figure that out once we can measure your Klatha levels."

Felicia frowned. "Will this book teach me how to measure my Klata levels?"

"Kla-Tha, levels. And yes, but first you have to be able to recognize it, inside of yourself, and then learn how to move it around so you can sort of gather all the free Klatha inside yourself to one place so we can measure how much you naturally store. Then we can see how fast you regenerate it."

Felicia frowned. "Is this all in the little black book Mathew?"

Mathew nodded yes and left her to read, he could feel the farm through the clairvoyance spell he threw that morning, and with his uncle's expanded range he could feel the slight fuzzy feeling from one of the far rows of lay lines. He had a feeling that row eighteen was upset somehow. He knew that that the one arm of the Oak tree was going to have to be trimmed back. Small branches dying off due to lack of sun light and certain weeds somewhat upset the grove and the fine lay lines of magic that ran along the grove.

However, this was sort of more of a hard type of fuzziness; it was something that needed his immediate attention. Once outside he activated the small cloaking charm and went to look at the silver-wheeled wagon to make sure it was in good shape before harnessing up the new carthorse. With several trips to the barn for saws and a tub of healing balm for the Oak tree, he harnessed up the new carthorse and activated the small cloaking charms on her bridle.

Felicia finished the little black book and tried to put it back into the glass cabinet, but could not open the door. She had read that most mages use a simple mage lock to keep non-mages from accessing magical items so she laid the book besides the message table. She had been playing with the Klatha box while she read the basics of Magic's book, she started to be able slightly feel the little Klatha ball but had not yet been able to command it nor feel all of the Klatha her own body stored.

But as the book stated it took only a little time for one to learn truly the feel and then command klatha. She stepped outside only to see it was it was early evening, the sun was hour or so from setting. Looking around for Mathew, she walked over to the barn. The carthorse was missing so she guessed that he was somewhere up on the sacred grove, she did not know the spell to cloak her from it so she decided to start dinner for him instead.

Mother was generous with dozen of bags of five grain. She pulled several cups full of sweet green pea melody and put that into a cooking pot, then saw rye flour and other makings for rye bread...

Just as she got the two loafs of rye bread into the oven she heard him walk in, turning she saw him covered in sawdust that stuck to his sweaty shirt. With no washstand like the one, they had at her father's house she did not know where Mathew was going to clean up at?

Mathew walked in and stared at Felicia standing in the kitchen naked, her arms and few spots on her breasts, were covered in flour, a smiled came to his face. He had fantasized about this for several years, but did not think it would be a reality with his and especially her family accepting a human, centaur relation. Felicia smiled and tried to pick a few dough balls from her fingers, she could see Mathews reaction of seeing her naked. The front of his trousers was straining to hold back that reaction.

Felicia smiled, she had dreamed of this day for years, ever since the day they made love for the first time at the lower pool when she discovered him spying on her rubbing herself on a rock fantasizing about him. Holding up her hands, "I was hoping to surprise you with dinner, but I just got the bread in the oven and I didn't know where I could clean up to...to, umm."

Mathew smiled and walked into the kitchen; he leaned in and kissed her, "I like the look!" He reached in and brushed a bit of flour off her magnificent chest. With just a touch, he noticed her nipple getting hard and she flinched away, "Mathew stop that! I am all filthy and need help getting cleaned up before we can play like that."