"Did you have to get Mr. Poe to speak to me, Cora? Couldn't you have come and confronted me yourself?" Alice's tone isn't angry or rebuking. It's small and meek – timid of being treated, once more, as the unruly child. Even though the event is now in the past, Alice's cheeks still color.

The expression pulls at Cora's heartstrings. "Oh Alice," her arm goes to rest her little sister's shoulders, hugging her closer. "Lord knows I love you dearly, but I asked you what was wrong every day, more than once, for three days and you didn't even try to lie to me. I worried, yes, perhaps overmuch, and sent in the cavalry – because I love you."

Cora knows Alice has had to endure a significant lack of attention since their lives took a turn towards the near-catastrophic. They've had to concentrate so hard on survival, the quality of their lives and their feelings have had to be pushed back to places of lesser importance.

Yes, Cora also knows she's now reacting by overcompensating – she's gone from being content with the mere fact that all Alice's limbs are still on her person, to experiencing a vague sense of alarm every time Alice looks too long or too hard at a point in the horizon. It's jarring, to see the empty stare she's sometimes seen on soldiers at the surgery on her little sister's face.

But then again, Cora can confess that everything is jarring, now. Every harm too violent, too fierce to bear after almost losing her little golden-haired sister. Nathaniel has joked that she looks ready to defend Alice from burrs and butterflies these days, and Cora could scarcely laugh at him.

To Cora's surprise, a tiny, fragile smile comes to Alice's face. "Nathaniel Poe is the cavalry now?"

Yes, yes he is, whispers Cora to the silence of her mind. It seems Alice really did need nothing but the words of someone with a less convoluted view of the word. Out loud, however, Cora presses for lightness: "Would it make you smile again if we pretended he is?"

Alice's laugh is merry, devoid of all the dark things that have plagued them for so long. It rings out into the forest, upsetting one or two birds, and Cora worries that they'll be chastened for being noisy, but a quick look around assures her all is well.

(In fact, she wonders if Uncas, far at the back of the group, might not have been hiding a smile.)