A Brother's Name
He hasn't used it in many years.
When he'd become the adopted son of Chingachgook, he was a child of two, somehow alone even in the company of the French trappers who'd found him in the burned out shell of his parent's cabin. Uncas was born when he was eight. As a toddler, his brother had a small, sturdy body, dark tangled hair, and even darker eyes that would gaze at him with a child's forthright admiration, before running off to play.
He didn't have much to do with him at all at first; he had too much to learn from Chingachgook. Uncas was more of a nuisance than anything else back then, always underfoot.
As they grew older, his younger brother became his shadow, emulating him in everything. Anyone watching them together could see that Uncas held himself the same way he did, that his mannerisms were the same, that his ways of hunting and tracking were the same. It was plain to see that he always looked to his brother for unspoken guidance in any unfamiliar situation.
It was during his adolescent years that he began to use it. A nickname, a sobriquet, for a young boy who looked at him with eyes that said he could do no wrong, that he wanted to be just like him, and that he sometimes ranked him even above their very own father in terms of regard.
It didn't last long, no more than a few years. Uncas' tender, burgeoning pride would not allow its use as his own adolescence began. It was then that his use of the affectionate nickname fell away.
Nathaniel runs along the trail, swift as a deer, hot on Chingachgook's heels. He breathes in harsh, gasping pants. His legs burn with the effort of the climb, the sweat stings his eyes as he ignores a painful stitch in his side.
He's not fast enough; *they're* not fast enough.
He's filled with a despair that goes deep, all the way down to the very roots of who he is, and is darker than anything he's ever known before. It eclipses even the horror he'd felt at seeing Cora on the battlefield, facing death at the hands of the Huron. Because then, he'd had time, and he had the ability to cross the distance to save her.
Now, there is no time, and the distance is simply too great. He knows it, even as he runs on, straining to change the inevitable.
He cannot save his brother from death. And as he sees Uncas' body falling from the cliffs above, like a proud eagle whose wings have been clipped, a long unused name becomes an anguished cry that comes from the depths of a broken heart ...
"Uncalas!"
A/N ... This is my first LotM fic. After finding the courier scene on youtube (I had forgotten just how much I adored that scene) and replaying it many times, I pulled out my dvd and watched it again. I was hooked. I'm not sure if I'm right about just what it was that Nathaniel said in this scene, but it's my take on it. Daniel Day-Lewis is about ten years older than Eric Schweig, but I adjusted that to put them a little closer in age.