"I told you we should have come back sooner, Uncas!" Alice chided, flitting onto the woodpile on Nathaniel and Cora's cabin porch. "Who knows what fun we missed now that Giles and Eugenie have been here for two whole days!" She folded her wings neatly and tried to peer through the window, careful not to let her beak tap the glass and draw attention.
"The window's too frosty to see in, you're not missing much now," Uncas replied, deftly leaping onto the woodpile beside Alice. He tucked his bushy red tail around his black paws and grinned at her, baring his sharp white teeth.
"Well…you could…I mean, I've only got this beak, after all…"
His amber fox's eyes narrowed and he glared sidelong at her. "Are you serious?"
"Well, yes. After all, you got to sit right down there in the snow and be close to Nathaniel and your father when Eleanor was born, and I haven't gotten to be close to Cora since before Christmas. And I want to see the baby. Please?" She looked pleadingly at him, somehow managing to look completely adorable even in her majestic raven form.
Uncas sighed. "All right…but only because I want to see my niece, too. And maybe because I love you and I want you to be happy." He stuck out his long tongue and licked the frost off the windowpane to clear the view. Once he finished, they both peeked inside the cabin to see what their family was doing inside. "I can't believe I've been reduced to licking windows…" he grumbled.
"Well, you said you liked being fox better… Ooooooh look, there she is!" Alice crooned excitedly, watching Eugenie dandle their four-week-old niece Eleanor on her lap. "She's so precious, is she not?"
"She certainly is," Uncas said with a smile, his tail flipping around Alice's inky feathered back. "I can't wait until she's old enough to come into the forest, then we can play with her."
"She will love to pet you!" Alice said sweetly.
Inside, Giles said something he clearly thought humorous and slapped Nathaniel on the back, earning himself a return slap from Nathaniel that knocked him forward a bit. Uncas laughed. "Hit him a little harder next time, Nathaniel!"
Alice giggled. "They are certainly getting on better, but I still don't think they'll ever quite like one another."
"It's amusing to watch them try though…he's no match for Nathaniel or my father, that's for sure." They watched Eugenie hand a fussy baby Eleanor to Nathaniel, who smiled adoringly and said something to his daughter as he cuddled her and crossed the room to give her over to Cora.
"Nathaniel is certainly fitting well into his new role as a father," Alice said. "It's rather sweet, I think. Just look at his face when he talks to her, he is utterly smitten!"
"I'd never have thought it of him, but you're right. But then, so is my father. I've never seen him behave so funny over anything as he does over Eleanor - "
"Oh! Duck, Kanshiopán is coming!" Alice cawed as the older woman passed near the window, flipping a wing out in her haste to get out of view. It hit Uncas square on his shiny black nose, knocking him off balance. He scrambled to regain his footing on top of the wood, but to no avail. The pile of wood shifted beneath his paws, and one side rolled and toppled, scattering logs across the porch with a clatter as he scramble to stay atop it. Alice flew up to hide in the eaves and Uncas flattened himself as best he could against the wall on one side of the window. Peeking indoors, he held his breath as Nathaniel looked suspiciously toward the window in response to the noise outside, but thankfully turned back, distracted by Cora giving the baby back to him.
"That was close," Alice whispered, flitting back down beside him a moment later. "I'm sorry, my love, I didn't mean to hit you. Sometimes I forget how wide my wingspan is in this form!"
"It's all right. I never have been able to fully appreciate that form – I prefer this one."
"You just like having that fine furry tail." Alice clicked her beak in amusement.
"Well, it is a rather fine tail, and useful too." He wrapped it around her with a grin, cloaking her feathers in the auburn fur, and she clicked her beak again.
"Oh my, will wonders never cease! Just look at that, Uncas!" Alice began to laugh, and Uncas followed suit as they watched a very awkward and unsure Giles take Eleanor from Nathaniel while Chingachgook looked like he wanted to laugh right along with them.
"There is nothing right about that man holding a baby. He's going to scare the poor little thing with that face of his," Uncas chortled as he slapped a paw to his fuzzy forehead. Suddenly he leapt off the pile. "Hide, Alice!" he hissed. "Nathaniel is coming to the door!" He darted around the corner of the cabin while Alice flew up onto the roof.
Uncas glanced carefully around the corner as Nathaniel came out onto the porch. "What the…." Nathaniel muttered, looking around at the scattered wood. He picked up an armload after re-stacking what had fallen, taking it back into the house. Uncas resumed his position on top of the pile, and Alice rejoined him. "I'll have to keep an eye out for animals around the house…" they heard Nathaniel's muffled voice say as he went to the kitchen with the firewood, where Cora was stirring something in a pot over the fire.
"He'd never shoot you," Alice whispered.
"Nope. That's why he built a fort around that chicken coop. I think I've ruined the infamous Hawkeye just a little," he laughed.
"DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN!" Uncas and Alice both riveted their gaze back to the window as Giles shouted from within and Nathaniel and Cora ran into the common room with Kanshiopán close behind.
"What happened…Oh. Oooooooooohhhhhhh. OH, sweet revenge!" Uncas fell over in stitches of laughter, his tongue lolling to one side as he gasped for breath, one hind leg twitching madly in the air above his fluffy white belly.
"What! Move out of the way, I can't see – OH MY GOD." Alice began to caw with hilarity at the horrible yellow-brown mess their niece had just made all over Giles, which was now dripping down the front of this white shirt and over the sleeve of the arm that held her.
"It would seem this form of vengeance on Giles is some kind of family trait," Uncas gasped, still in fits.
"Indeed! Excellent job, Eleanor! That's my girl!" Alice guffawed, her feathery black head thrown back and her tail feathers waggling.
Uncas tried to compose himself enough to not upset the woodpile again – he certainly didn't want to be chased away now that their visit was getting so entertaining.
"I know he's stopped being such a bastard to my brother, but I still can't help laughing at him," he sighed, finally catching his breath.
"I suspect he's getting his due for so many years of being such a miserable grouch, and I bet Cora feels just the same," Alice giggled. "Just look at her face!"
"They both look rather satisfied with this," Uncas agreed, observing Nathaniel and Cora as they took Eleanor away to clean her up, both trying to hide wavering grins. "And so does my father." He began to laugh again at the sight of Chingachgook trying so hard not to break his composure and give in to hilarity.
"Well, my love, it would appear that we chose just the right time to come for another visit. This has been the most entertaining one yet – I daresay even better than our visit to Albany."
"Agreed. I suspect Nathaniel and Cora having children is going to provide us with plenty of amusement in the future. There is certainly never a dull moment in this family."
Author's Note:
Well, now we know how the woodpile got scattered in Where We Start Again, and Uncas and Alice got another fun-filled family visit in their animal forms (and Uncas got to be a fox again). I don't know how many more Tricksters stories I'll do, if any, but I set this one up in the main story for the sole purpose of writing this one, so I hope you all enjoyed it. Alice certainly enjoyed seeing just how much her little niece takes after her auntie! Soon I'll begin working on the next big story, and these two, aside from Nathaniel and Cora, will be main characters in it – in human form of course. I think I'm going to enjoy having them around in that one, and I know you will, too. Thank you for reading!