Disclaimer: This story is pure fiction. It makes historical suggestions, but it is fiction and not history. If you choose to flame let it be on the story itself and not on the fact that it differs from actual history. I don't own any Disney characters (I would love to, but I don't) nor history. This story is written for creation and entertainment only. This disclaimer extends through all chapters. Thanks enjoy.

Between Love and Hate

Chapter 1- Visions that shape destiny

North America

1607

The wind blew from the east, bringing with it the smell of earth and pine. Nestled between the warmth of a dying fire and the soft furs that made her bed, she gently pulled her mantle close for warmth as she lay rolling from sided to side in a fitful dream. A dream that contained her darkest fears and the path to her future.

Alone in the dark of night she ran through the forest from an unseen danger that choked the very air around her. Suddenly she stopped; in front of her was an arrow like no other she had seen. The arrow began to spin faster and faster then stopped as suddenly as it began. A blinding light burst from an undefended center, then the light as blinding as the sun enveloped around her and its warmth filling every pore.

The native woman bolted straight up awake, bathed in moisture and breathing raged as if she had just run a race with her best friend. The pull of the long house door frightened her. "Pocahontas get up, your father will be home soon." Nakoma, I will be out soon," was her response as her friend again called from the door. She dressed as quickly as she could, to the river she would go first to make offering to the goddess that protected her, the crops, and the fertility of her people. In its waters she would renew her body in its life giving essence. "What took you so long, was it the dream again" Nakoma asked. Pocahontas looked into her friends' face, its round shaped and color matched her own. "Yes" was her shaky response. "You must visit the wise women, maybe she can help you?" "Nakoma, I hope so."

They made there way towards the river, stepping over puddles of water from the early morning rain. The forest was lush with vegetation in deep greens and earthen browns. Pocahontas was the first to the river and as she disrobed and was pleased with what she saw. The water reflected the perfectly round face with black eyes that most said looked like pools of darkness. It was said that her nose small and slightly flat was that of a women she had never met, her mother. In her opinion, her mother had been sold at her birth, to a great warrior in the North for peace also to honor the law in which her father, the great Powhatan made. He kept no wife once she had given birth to his child.

By her people this was seen as a great honor, to have once been the wife of a great king and to have born his child. A motherless child was the price for peace and honor. From the water she glanced at the smooth plains of her face and traced her hand along her full lips that were tinted red from crushed tree bark. The majestic length of her raven hair, which was oiled and perfumed, encircled a body that had was womanly in all respects. She bathed in the cool water, letting it fill her soul while she prayed to the river goddess to renew the crops of her people, to plaint the seeds of happiness in her heart, and to ease her troubled mind for the deliverance that she sought.

Her calm was disturbed by her friend's insistence that she see the wise women before here father come back form his latest war with the Monacans. "You know your father hates you seeing the wise women," Nakoma added. "That's only because she equals in power to him, that of which he'd never admit." "Nakoma, she makes our pleas to the gods, she's a healer, most of all she interprets our destiny. How else do you think my father got his power?"

"Pocahontas, we still need to be back in the village when he comes." "Then lets go." The two women eagerly raced to the clearing hidden deep within a glade that served as the wise woman's home. With Nakoma lagging behind and caution sounding through her body, Pocahontas slowly made her way to the hut's entrance. "Do you think she in there," Nakoma's solemn voice questioned?"

"Of course I am child" was the sudden answer from the hut. "My child Pocahontas come in, I've been waiting for you." "Go" was the only response Nakoma could give. Pocahontas tentatively stepped through the door and was instantly bathed in the spiritual essence of her ancestors. "Many blessings to you that you will see me Meda," Pocahontas gratefully offered. "I see you are suffering, a dream is it." "Yes Meda." "Tell it to me child"

The young native woman retold her account as requested. Pulling white powder from the doeskin attached to her waste, Meda placed it upon the flames of her fire and offered the sprits a chant. As the chant grew to a close, Earth energy enveloped her and in a trance gave her the semblance of a goddess. When she spoke her voice held the resonance of an unequal power, a power far beyond the strength of man, it was in this voice that she foretold Pocahontas' destiny.

"The Dream Giver chooses to set your destiny in place now child." "The path ahead of you holds such sorrow, but rebirth will be found, if you choose it." "You will build a bond, a bond that will link you forever, child don't turn your heart away from it." "The Goddess chooses for your loneliness to end, but in all things child we will pay a price, even for love and that is our true sin." The unearthly power slowly begin to fade breaking Meda's trance. Pocahontas thanked the Meda and slowly made her way through the door when she heard the old woman say, "love him child."

Meda- means priestess