I do not own The Last of The Mohicans.

So, um, we're taking a shift here. And I understand if some of you wish to discontinue.

The Dragonfly Woman and the TurtleMan

*Trigger Warning For Disturbing Content. I apologize.*

Rage and Nothingness


Alice has wrapped the child up.

It is a small bundle on the table where they have fed life into each other.

When Cora fell out of the world, Alice's heart stuttered with terror that her sister was dead.

Dying.

Had died.

She had snatched the child from its beginning tumble from its mother's limp arms.

Set it where it is now.

And turned her full attention to the still woman in the bed.

Her dark eyes are closed, tears still leaking from underneath her purpled-lids.

A mirror to her nose revealed the lightest of breaths and careful study revealed the slow rise and fall of her chest.

Alice sags in relief, a trembling hand pressed to her sweat-damp forehead.

She wants to run, she wants to flee this Pit, run and run and run and never look back, never stop until she falls dead to the forest floor.

But she stays still, mocassined-feet planted firmly on the wooden planks of the cabin her sister's husband has built for her out here in the abandoned wilderness of the Americas.

Draws in a slow, deep breath until she is full.

And then lets it out just as slow.

Then she moves.

She blots her sleeping sister's brow, wipes the now drying tears from her cheeks.

Wipes her legs, her feet, wipes everything clean she may, cleaning away the afterbirth that could not nourish and grow the child to living as they had so desperately hoped.

She removes the dirty cloths, affixes clean ones.

Prepares the pile to boil.

And checks that her sister still lives.

At some point, she begins to cry, though she does not know it.

She hears the whimpering, repeatedly looks to see if her sister has awoken, if the child has somehow survived and is crying for its mother.

She is confused when neither is the case.

Until she realizes the sound is coming from her.

And the pain in her chest is the breasts that swell and ache to be emptied for her daughter's hungering belly.

She suddenly cannot stand the pile of bloodsoaked cloths, the stench of them.

She gathers them roughly in her arms and stomps to the door, jerking it open, flooding their own personal Tartarus in the dying light of the longest day.

She flings them fluttering into the dirt, hell be damned if she ever cares about them for the reminder of her days.

And presses her hands to the sides of her head, pressing until her head joins the rest of her in aching.

And the she gasps her swelling tears of sorrow and madness through her open mouth and stuffed nose.

She may or may not see movement in the treeline where the men have gone, the men that know no suffering as women.

She grits her teeth and throws everything into the pit of her broken heart and shovels fetid earth over it.

Until she may work once more, calmly, emotionlessly to the job that has been thrust upon her.

And returns back to the confines of the dark, humid, death-filled cabin.

And closes . . .

"Cora?"

. . . the door.


The child remains wrapped on the table.

Her sister remains sleeping.

Alicia Elizabeth Munroe gently wipes her brow with cool spring water.

Her arms. Her legs.

Replaces the stained cloth with fresh.

And returns to the porch.

Men are approaching.

Men she cannot face.

She instead resolves herself to descending the short set of steps and goes to the fabrics she has so childishly flung in her rage.

She gathers them, wraps them tight.

She wishes to burn them, make them no more forever in this world.

Instead, they will be washed clean in a tub of water and scrubbed with lye until the blood is gone from them.

They are valuable and will be used again.

The bedsheets as well, she will clean the bedsheets presently under her sister when she is able to be moved.

Scoured until they bear no stains of the misery of this day.

Amid these decisionings and musings, Chingachgook arrives at the bottom . . .

"Your sister."

"-is sleeping."

. . . of the porch.


"You have done well, Wënichana. As well as could be for what was."

Alice nods, she can finds no joy, no validation nor victory in any that she has accomplished within the cabin.

"The child is wrapped in a cloth. I did not know what more to do."

Chingachgook, craggy face heavy and solemn, nods.

And breathes a deep, mournful sigh.

"We will speak with my son and daughter. Ask what they wish to be done."

And then there is no more to say.

The father of all who weep and mourn now turns quietly away.

And walks back the way he came.

Alice, nothing more within her for this moment of time, watches him go.


He returns in time, adopted son trudging by his side.

Nathaniel Poe, Long Rife, the Hawkeye, walks as a man fully and completely beaten.

He exists only to continue his existence.

His eyes are swollen and his face is wet with tears when he reaches the porch upon which Alice stands.

He does not speak, only gazes brokenly up at her in silence.

"Bring him the child, Daughter. So that he may grieve."

Alice does as she is bid, going in and out of the cabin with mechanical movements and little to no sound.

Nathaniel sits as bidden by his father in the rocking chair upon the porch in the dying light of day.

And Alice hands him the child.

He takes it as a father, supporting the head, wrapping his arms around the little body so that the child might feel protected and safe and cradled.

In its eternal slumber of eternal death.

He sits and he rocks.

And he kisses the still, grey face, strokes the soft black cloud of hair.

And allows his tears to moisten the grey face as he whispers words to the child's unhearing ears.

Words that only the child may hear, were it able.

The child.

And the father.


Thanks for reading.

Hugs to you.