Author Note: This was a one-shot for the LiveJournal Community: storytellersong
[Silent Love]
Life no-longer mattered; none of it did.
She could feel the blood pulsing through her veins, twisting and turning, yearning for the man she loved. Who just moments before, was brutally murdered; his amber flecked eyes pleading with her to live and declaring his love as he died at the hands of Magua, the Warrior who now held her captive.
Her heart ripped from her chest, as his body was flung over the wall of granite and lay motionless below. She cried out, something in her body awakening, a fierce spirit of anguish and passion and she tore herself free from her captor.
She stifled her cries. She was suffocating with grief.
She had lost so much. Her Mother, her Father, her sister Cora; but to lose the man who had stood silently at her side, who had shown her tenderness and lit a fire in her belly, was more than a death sentence; she would reside in hell without his presence, his warm whispered words of adoration and worship that blossomed in the secret of their forbidden love.
Never had she welcomed the safety of the shadows, until she had met Uncas. Never had she thrown herself headlong down the path of temptation and recklessness for the sake of emotion and passion.
She was the good girl, the quiet and sickly, little Alice - Cora had been the brave and passionate Amazon in her family, the woman with a noble character worthy of respect and awe, the lioness of her siblings. – Alice; timid, shy and obedient, was the lamb, and she would sacrifice herself for the sake of this wild and native man's love for her – she could not go on alone.
Whether she lived or died in this moment was no longer her decision.
Fate would play its game with her and destiny would welcome her embrace.
She turned to face the crashing, thunderous mist of the waterfall that wrapped itself around her frame like a blanket; it soaked her body through to its very core and drove away the demons which had installed fear and self-loathing into her soul for her sheltered short life.
It was such a great height!
Her knees felt weak and giddy and she felt as light as a feather, she feared she would lose her resolve if she thought about it too much.
She turned her head to look at the war hardened warrior who was her enemy, his face smeared with black paint and splattered with the blood of her beloved.
He lowered his knife, sensing the change in her broken spirit. The brave who had come for her had fought well, but he was young. Magua was young once and he had been fiercely in love, just as he knew that the young brave had been- for whom else would risk his life for this slight and pale little bird-child of a white man's seed? She was no beauty, but a fragile, caged little bird that yearned for protection with her large frightened eyes. Eyes that now looked at him with an eerie calm.
He reached for her, beckoning her. He could warm himself to her, as he had once made another woman love him. He longed for the end of the bitterness that eluded him into thinking that war with the white man was the answer to everything.
But she turned from him, her eyes flickering with the faintest hint of passionate rebellion; her limp blonde hair shimmering as the setting sun's rays glistened and danced with the dew from the falls as it continued to soak her through.
And then there was nothing; nothing to grasp, but air.
She was silent as she fell, not a sound from her lips.
Her eyes were closed and her arms spread out free as a dove as her body fell to join her love.
She was so light, Magua was surprised she did not float away with the summer breeze. He felt no deep resounding sorrow - as he watched her leap to her fate- nor did he feel any joy. Instead, he turned to continue his journey, his men following dutifully behind. The bird child and her brave had met their fate, as he would his.
His cold heart, only slightly thawed, by the love that they obviously shared; grew hardened still, its walls of ice re-building with every step he took.
At the bottom of the mountain, an angel covered the body of a warrior. Both bodies broken, both breathless and still, but both spirits joined, bound together by a love that neither life, nor death, could ever forfeit: This was the silent love of Uncas and Alice.