-I just wanted to say a quick thank you to everyone for reading & leaving such kind reviews! This is my first fanfic & I am having a blast. I hope you all continue to read & enjoy. Although these next few chapters will be bleak, I promise better days ahead! And plenty of M, M, M! ;)-
In less than a week, Alice had set foot on a new continent, been nearly kidnapped, seen her first taste of death, walked over 90 miles, fallen in love with an Indian….and then she really been kidnapped.
But nothing shocked Alice like arriving at Magua's camp and seeing a familiar face waiting there.
"Nathaniel!" cried out the disheveled blonde joyfully. His rugged face was streaked with dirt and blood, and one of his eyes was swollen completely shut, but Alice couldn't have smiled wider if she was looking at the Savior himself.
"Ah, me brother's girl," he groaned, standing to rise, struggling, and then stopping as he remembered he was tied to a post.
Alice hissed in anger at the Huron who unceremoniously dumped her beside him, looping a prickly piece of twine around her wrists as she stared up at Nathaniel happily. Secured painfully to the post, she heeded the discomfort not, until a frightened thought dawned on her.
"Cora?" she asked with panic in her voice. "Cora?"
Nathaniel titled his head down and spoke lowly to her in Latin, shocking Alice once again. Chingachgook clearly spared no effort on his sons' education. "Do not speak of her to me," he said. "She is safe with my father, but for you to know more would be dangerous. They will do anything to get it out of me…and you, if they think you have knowledge."
Alice nodded in wide-eyed assent, asking in Latin. "What will they do…do to you to make you tell her whereabouts?"
He laughed bitterly, returning to English. "Whatever monstrous thing Magua can think of. I will not be long for this earth, whether I speak or no."
Alice shivered. Certainly death had been staring at her in the face nearly since she arrived upon this strange land, but as with most young people, the concept of it seemed ludicrous. How could she die? How could Nathaniel, fiery, wild Nathaniel simply…die? She met eyes with Magua across the camp, where he now stood eating a piece of buffalo meat hungrily. She felt as if Death himself had met her gaze. And, she thought wryly, she also felt a little peckish.
She looked back at Nathaniel and found he was waiting for her attention impatiently.
"My brother?" he asked, his voice harsh and angry. He suspected that if Alice was here, it could only be because her champion was dead.
Alice smiled. "He is well," she said. "He is alive and unharmed."
At this Nathaniel smiled too. "That surprises me."
"We were surrounded…there was nothing he could do," she said, though deep down she had to admit she was a bit surprised by Uncas's stony and silent reaction. She thought he might at least call her name or beg for one last kiss. But, then, she remembered this wasn't Romeo, this was an Indian warrior with a stoic reputation to uphold.
"I pray he does nothing stupid," said Nathaniel, again in Latin. "But I doubt that."
"If he comes after us, he will surely die!" said Alice in horror. "He would surely not be so foolish!"
Nathaniel seemed to weary suddenly. "Of course he would," he breathed. "I would do the same, were it Cora instead of you. I only wish he knew I was here. It would bring him a modicum of comfort."
Alice looked up at the sky silently and prayed that God would not allow Uncas to follow them.
A young child of about five years old came tottering over to where Alice and Nathaniel were tied. With a mixture of childlike carelessness and concentration, he held out a flagon of water for them to drink, beginning with Alice. She smiled in spite of herself at this adorable creature, even as water spilt down her chin at his over-eager assistance. Nathaniel then drank as well, deeply and without smiling.
"Thank you, child," said Alice, at which the boy merely shrieked in delight and ran away.
Nathaniel had been watching her for a few long moments. Finally, Alice asked, "What is it?"
"You seemed…changed," he said bluntly, "And I do not just mean your hairstyle."
Alice laughed. "I feel different, yes. I feel changed."
He seemed annoyed. "Do you grasp the severity of the predicament we are in?" He asked, fearing Cora's mad sister was once again struggling to manage reality.
Alice's face darkened. "Yes," she said, solemnly. "And I am sickened for you. I will beg Magua to let you go, to realize that you are not affiliated with my Father and his crimes in anyway."
"And yourself?" he asked, still deeply confused by this girl his father called the Silver One. "Do you not wish you never came to this godforsaken place?"
She looked taken aback. "No…no, never. I may die here…certainly I will die here. But I never lived before I stepped foot on your earth. Before Uncas…" She said, her voice trailing off. "It was worth it. It will be worth whatever comes. "
Nathaniel bristled a little. "Don't speak such nonsense, girl. You're seventeen years old…you have never married or bore children or made a home for yourself. And my brother—he is the last of my people. If your lives were to be snuffed out, it would be worth nothing, nothing do you hear?"
Again, Alice paled at the thought of harm coming to her beloved. Yet even as Nathaniel chastised her, she found some comfort in his anger. It reminded her of Cora. They were both so alike—vulnerability terrified them, but rather than admit to fear, they raged instead. How strange, thought Alice. All of this time, I thought I was the weak one, the one who was scared to face things, but it was Cora who was struggling, Cora who had to pick up the pieces everyday as her broken little sister stared into space and her father was worlds away.
Oh, Cora! She felt a twinge of regret for how cold she had been to Cora as of late, for how she had burdened her with so much and thanked her so little. My dear sister, she thought. My dear brave, frightened sister.
"Try to get some sleep," said Nathaniel, resting his head back on the post. "You may not have the opportunity later."
"I am not tired," she said.
He grunted in irritation. Alice smiled quietly. Yes, he was very much Cora's match. She rested her head back and closed her eyes, though she knew sleep would not come. But she was glad to shut her eyes. Truly, she had much to think about, not only about Uncas, but about herself as well.
For Nathaniel was right, she was different—she felt it on almost a cellular level. On her long sojourn to Magua's camp, she had felt as though an unknown power had invaded her veins. As though a spirit was there, lighting her up from the inside out, even as she walked beside her captors, beside her executioner himself. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
She wondered at this development, wondered at it immensely. Alice had never been a spiritual person, except when she was overcome with fears of hell, but thoughts of God had never brought her comfort. And was it God that was bringing her comfort now? She could not be sure.
Certainly something had changed. As she was dragged into the forest, she immediately tried to skitter into the safe room inside of her mind, the room where she hid from reality and pain and fear. But try as she might to shut herself off and slip away, again and again Uncas's face came to her. She found that he would not allow her to disappear, that the thought of him, the smell of him, the sight of her braid out of the corner of her eye, all of these things kept her strong and present. And so she would not disappear this time, she decided. She would face Magua's revenge with pride and strength, as Uncas would in her stead.
Uncas, she thought, gazing up at the stars that were beginning to emerge from the night sky. Though she felt brave in the face of her own demise, she had not prepared for the thought that Uncas might follow them. The thought of him being hurt—tortured—killed, the thought of the him suffering on her account…Oh! That alone nearly made her lose all her resolve.
Please, God, she begged. Let Uncas not find us. Sway his mind. Make him let me go. Let me go, Uncas.
Her prayer was interrupted by a cold voice.
"Untie her," Magua said to the young man beside him. "Take her to my tent."
Nathaniel began to speak to him violently in what Alice presumed to be Magua's language, but all he got for his troubles was a swift blow to head. Then, another, and another, and another, until finally the man's head collapsed forward like that of a puppet.
Alice watched this all unfold with pale, shaking silence, feeling as though she was about to walk off the edge of a cliff. Be brave, little mouse, she heard a voice say in her head, and she sighted her braid out of the corner of her eye once again.
She looked up proudly, meeting Magua's empty gaze easily.
"Let's go," she said, shrugging.
And the warrior stared at her in disbelief as she followed him as casually as if he was taking her for a walk along the Thames.