I do not own The Last of the Mohicans.
I do still love them so. And this fandom.
Into the Wild
Social Mores
English marriage is sacrosanct.
One man. One woman.
As long as they both shall live.
Under God.
Whether in one house together. Or separately.
Whether by love or arrangement, that is that.
All other is sin, abomination.
At the very least, hush-hush and never spoken of openly.
So she has been told.
And because of this, Alice finds herself at a struggle to understand . . .
"Do some in the village really share their partner willingly with another?"
. . . other ways of being.
Her lover, sitting beside her near the fire, pauses.
Glances to her.
Nods his affirmation of her question.
"And they are . . . content with this?"
Again, a nod. And very slight at that, she notices.
And Alice thinks.
Wonders.
And queries once more.
"Would you be? Content to share me?"
She does not know what makes her say this.
She does not wish to know another.
She does wish to understand the one she loves more fully.
And so she has asked and now watches as he frowns, just the slightest bit.
Brow furrowing, gaze lowering away from her and back to that with which his hands have been working.
Voice a soft rumble as he replies.
"No. I would not."
She feels a small flow of relief at this statement.
Wonders what made her ask the question at all.
And sees him not looking at her now.
My love-
And smiles.
Tilts toward him.
"Nor I you."
Just the slightest bit.
"Shëk lëni nòtunàm."
Only perhaps with the hunt.
And watches fondly as the corner of his mouth turns up.
Just the slightest bit.
And feels that all is alright between them.
In the bright of orange and red-leafed autumn afternoon, she is first shocked, embarrassed.
Stunned by such an unseemly display.
And how none other present seems to be taken aback as she.
Wet nurses are common in England.
Portland Square has nearly a wet nurse for every newly birthed child.
It is what is done.
Well-to-do mothers must of course maintain propriety.
And so every one of them quite to the last employs a wet nurse.
Or in the very least, shut themselves tightly away from others in order to milk their child.
It is what is proper.
Even Rebecca, tested and tried frontier woman, covered the child's head to feed.
So when Alice sees a young mother, no older than herself, feeding her babe outside her tent for any to see who happened by . . .
It is there. Simply there.
. . . she forgets herself entirely . . .
And that is . . . alright?
. . . and cannot help to stare.
The mother is simply feeding the child.
There.
The child's head, the mother's breast not covered at all.
It is simply . . .
They are . . .
. . . there.
. . . beautiful.
Beautiful.
The mother.
The tiny babe, no more than a handful of months of age.
Wrapped in fur. Cradled up tight.
One tiny hand wrapped 'round his mother's thumb.
A drift of tuneless humming just only reaching Alice's ears.
Mother gazing down. Little one gazing up.
Beautiful.
This should be the way of it.
Such care and love.
And others be damned.
Utterly beautiful.
And the mother, perhaps sensing her, looks up.
Sees her.
And Alice, moment holding . . .
I wonder if I shall ever be that strong, that brave. That free.
. . . smiles.
And the mother . . .
To be such as that.
. . . smiles back.
And yet there is . . .
"Are those . . . are those mollies?"
. . . still more.
She is baffled.
She is bewildered.
She is . . .
"Those . . . men."
. . . fascinated.
In the England, ones such as these must hide in plain sight.
Sneak themselves to secret meeting houses.
Marry women they do not love, perform acts upon them for which they do not feel desire.
Suffer humiliation, shame, be ostracized from family, friends, society if they are found out.
But here amongst the red-skinned savages she was so stringently warned of . .
"They are allowed to . . . live openly together?"
. . . they seem to simply live.
Dress as they wish. Adorn their hair, their bodies, as they wish.
Hunt with the men.
Tend the crops, the children, the more domestic duties with the women.
Whatever they so deem their pursuit.
They move about the village, interact with its people.
"Yes."
With no apparent qualms or corrections or judgments . . .
"Without women?"
. . . that she can perceive of at all.
"Yes. We call them Two Spirits."
She waits for an explanation.
He gives it.
"We consider them sacred beings. Touched by the Great Spirit with the ability to view the world through both male and female eyes."
And Alice, her own eyes once more open to the potential for love and acceptance beyond the strict governances of the Church of England, finds herself . . .
"They are . . ."
. . . bewildered.
". . . simply themselves."
And . . .
"Yes."
. . . in a wonder.
"The Great Spirit is . . .God, yes?"
Uncas' face reveals little as he responds.
"That is a name the white man use for him."
And Alice looks for that which she has not seen.
"You . . . worship him?"
Another, longer pause.
"We respect the Great Spirit."
And Alice pushes onward.
"And yet you have no churches for him?"
The one she loves affirms this.
"No."
And Alice is compelled further question.
"Why?"
Uncas seems to answer easily enough.
"The Great Spirit does not reside in a house, but the world itself. And its people."
Pauses.
And reveals the last bit that may result her.
"A church would only teach us to argue over him."
And Alice decides . . .
"Oh."
. . . she must think on this.
She lays beside him, the one he loves.
Asleep under the furs they have wrapped about themselves.
He lays beside her. Listening to her breathing.
Listening to his spirit.
Listening to the world.
And thinking . . .
Alice-
. . . of her.
She is a mystery to him in part, she always will be.
To have lived so long a life so chained by such social mores and restrictive conventions.
As if there is only way to be, one allowable direction.
And Uncas, though trained for an insufferable time as such, does not understand.
Mohican, Lenape, all are free to follow their own paths.
To harm not one another.
But to also follow their spirits as they choose.
He cannot imagine the rigidity of the world in which the one he loves once did navigate.
The women held down.
Men, falsely puffed up..
All kept wrapped tight and constrained under such cumbersome laws and assumptions it is a wonder any of them might summon the strength to draw breath at all.
It was the reason that, the moment he and his adopted brother were graduated from the hated Reverend Wheelock's School so many years ago they had disappeared in the wilderness . . .
The strap. The belt. The Bible.
. . . and never looked back.
Much as when she left her stays upon the ground, the one he loves has also been released from such a unrelentingly suffocating world.
Released herself from it.
Though through a series of unfortunate occurrences, to be sure.
And yet she has persevered, succeeded where a lesser woman would have failed to find strength.
And appears, by all that he can see, to be thriving and joyful within it.
And Uncas the Mohican finds that he is very, very glad of that . . .
"Ktaholël. Alice."
. . . indeed.
"Snore."
Okay. Footnote here. I reiterate that Alice was fine the way she was.
No female Rambo or anything but fine.
But without dying, look at how much more she is living now!
And with Uncas!
Right?!
Anyway, thanks to MohawkWoman, DinahRay, BlueSaffire, blanparbe, AsterLaurel, and BrynnaRaven for so graciously fighting through website issues to review.
Thanks also to ajlove81 for adding your support to this little tale.
See you all again soon for another chapter!
