I do not own The Last of the Mohicans.
It's a gift for all of us. ;)
The Dragonfly Woman and The Turtle Man
That Which Was Expected
Their welcome guests have gone for the moment and they are alone.
Not scattered to the winds as before, leagues and leagues as before, no.
Merely out, attending their own matters.
Alice and his adopted brother, their child, their child.
Gone to build an evening fire in the glen to warm themselves from the night's chill.
Chingachgook, his adopted father, gone for nightly ministrations common after a good meal.
And so now, they are alone.
Nathaniel the Long Rifle.
And the family he has now found himself blessed with.
The Master of Life is indeed good, Father.
His son lulls against him, the sleepy little boy, vibrant energy waning in the advancing of the hour.
But a year of age and already Nathaniel still quite taken with the depth of love and adoration he feels for the child.
Do not love too much, he has heard tell. Their light extinguished too easily and then your heart lies shattered and broken. Do not love too much.
He cannot help but to, there is no choice for him.
His boy. His son.
Yes, and his wife as well, his love, his passion, evidence of that fact, another child already growing within her belly.
Cora.
She is there before him in the dim light, clearing away the last of the evening meal.
The dark-haired one, as he had so vaguely once identified her.
With her demure eyes and her cutting tongue and her refusal to back down.
Her who had pulled the musket from within the folds of her skirts.
Surprising him into only the briefest of pauses, the danger being too near and much more demanding of his attentions than a gentile woman of such resource and determination.
Cora.
She had spoken and he had considered, near against his will.
And he had spoken, near against his will, and she had considered.
He and his adopted father and brother had gotten her to her father, her and her sister and their lone remaining escort, task completed and done.
And found himself, quite directly, seeking her out once more.
Desirous to look upon her, speak with her, direct and true.
Look.
Admire.
Speak.
And smile.
They had searched one another out once and again.
He had been gaoled thereafter and still she had found him, stayed close.
Until he made her go for her own safety, her own protection for when the fort fell to the French.
Over and again, through blood and battle and danger, he found her and then lost her.
The leaving her to survive so he may find her again had near torn his heart asunder, what she may suffer whilst in hostage to Huron who hunted them.
And now, finally, after all this time, leagues and sorrows and victories and trials, they are here.
As they are.
And all is well
Nathaniel Poe, The Hawkeye.
Cora, elder daughter of fallen Colonel Munroe.
Wachiwi would have liked Cora, he thinks, though that is not the reason he loves her.
It is a reassurance, one of the many reasons he allows himself to love her so easily and without guilt or shame.
The woman before him in their tiny, dim cabin is a beauty, captivating in her delicacy and her grace.
Intelligence and determination.
Her fortitude in the face of all that has come to pass within such a short span of time.
He does not know if it will hold, their union, their lives, their peace.
Or if ill fate will strike them down.
It has happened before and may yet happen again.
He had been young once, Nathaniel had been, even younger than Uncas is now.
And he had thought he had found the one to whom he would be bonded all his days.
Wachiwi.
Named for the stories her mother had told of the child so often 'dancing' within her womb as she grew.
Wachiwi.
She had been of the Delaware, the Wolf clan.
Dark skinned, darker eyes.
Hair growing from her head long and thick and coarse between his fingers when she allowed him to stroke it.
Body young and firm and fine as any in the village.
Even younger than him she was, just barely into adulthood, younger then than Cora's Alice is now.
He had looked up on her and she had looked upon him.
And smiled.
She had been able to strengthen him with a glance, sear him with a single word.
And set his skin on fire with the slightest touch.
He had loved her greatly, desired her to be his wife.
Her mother would not have allowed the union, approved of him at all.
Him with his white man's skin, browned even as it was under the bright summer suns.
No, she would not have allowed it at all, no matter his complete and total embrace of the Delaware and Mohican lives.
If not for his adopted father.
Chingachgook had gone with offerings of meat and fur, gone with humble heart and deference to all things woman and divine.
Yes, he had said, the boy is of the white man.
Yes, he had said, he is not of Delaware blood.
But his spirit is good, he had said, his spirit is good and strong and he is finding his way as a man in the world and will make a good husband, a good hunter, a good provider.
Please, he had said, the Great Spirit and Creator of All Life has placed the boy in his path to raise as his own and give to a free life. Unconstrained by the worries and burdens of his blood kin.
Through tragedy, yes, but is that not sometimes the way of it, of the journey of life?
A fine match the boy would make and all creatures of goodness deserve goodness in return.
The mother had agreed for the match if it were in her daughter's spirit to do so.
It had.
And by the light of a summer moon, Chingachgook the Mohican had performed the fire ceremony he had performed for his blood son years later to the Yengee woman he had found in the wilderness.
But this, Nathaniel, the pale one, and Wachiwi, the dark.
The pair had lived with her mother in the Delaware village, Nathaniel devout in his respect and stalwart in his dedication of being a good husband and member of the family, community.
In the heat and passion of the long, steeped summer, Wachiwi had grown great with child very quickly and there had been joy and hopefulness throughout the village.
Nathaniel, fleet of foot from early in his youth, had felt as though he traveled high amongst the treetops in his joy.
Chingachgook and Uncas, wanderers still, had rejoiced with him, with them all.
The three of them had left the family behind on a hunting trip to seek out the bounding deer, the majestically crowned elk.
Bring them back to the village, to be shared by all as was their way.
Days had passed as they tracked, to no avail, frustration growing, bellies wanting for more than rabbit and squirrel, left dissatisfied.
And finally, under grey-cloud skies, they had returned home.
To a grim and grieving village.
The baby had come early and unturned and the mother, slender of hip and little of strength, had been unable to bring the child forth.
They had both died in the birthing process, mother of the to-be mother gone away in her grief of the loss of her only living child, never to be heard from again.
Nathaniel, eyes overflowing with tears, heart pierced through with grief, had been taken to Wachiwi's grave.
And there he had stayed.
Collapsed atop the mound under which her body lay, hands claws of loss, dug into the earth that separated them.
Asking, begging death for speed.
His adopted father had known well the sorrow.
Coming to him as he lay curled and lifeless, despondent and without the will to live.
Chingachgook, Uncas close behind.
They had spoken no word, no worthless, pathetically contrived thing.
Only waited with him, days and nights, in sunlight and shadow.
Patient and enduring as the stricken Nathaniel willed himself into lasting darkness to be with her.
And finally, drawn himself up.
Accepting the merest morsels of sustenance and drink, allowing himself to be led, to come with them away.
It was then thereafter that Nathaniel had begun to wander, to walk, with his father, his adopted brother.
Walk away from the pain, as it filled him up to brimming.
He had walked, hunted.
Fought when he must, killed when necessary.
Given himself wholly over to the life of the forest, the wilderness, of hunting and fur trapping, wandering, feet never still for long.
But for the men with which he traveled and trusted completely, his adopted father and brother, never living by another's leave.
After much time and reservation, finding himself able to commune again with others, by and by, families even, without resentment and rage souring his stomach and slitting his eyes.
Living with his sorrow, allowing himself to assimilate it into his spirit and all the ways he was, another part of him.
As his father had said, in due course able to be filled up with something else, something new.
Something, many many years later, wondrous.
Even if it were not that which he had once expected.
Cora comes to him then.
"Finally, he sleeps."
Warmed by the same gentle smile upon her face he feels upon his own.
"The day has spent his energy well."
She takes the child, cradling him up in her arms.
"It has at that."
And places him down in his cot at their bedside.
This one's for you, chiara87. I hope I made you happy and thank you for the request. :)
Thanks also to MohawkWoman, BlueSaffire, DinahRay, blanparbe, and bcawriter01 for your precious reviews! You are such gracious gentle readers. :)
Thank you additionally, BlueSaffire, for so graciously beta-ing this chapter. Having never written Nathaniel's perspective before, I was anxious to get present him well and not just a copy of Chingachgook or Uncas.
Plus, we got to have a great, early morning conversation as well! Thank you. :D