A/N

The reviews have been wonderful and I thank everyone leaving them. It gives me a different insight to how things are viewed and is very helpful!

When I started writing this story, I really wanted to try and look at the whole Alice and Uncas ship with different eyes and it was a challenge for me to do that because they are SO entwined with each other in my mind. When I think of who they are as people, I think of them finding out that information through their budding relationship and exchanges with each other. It has been done so well in other fanfictions here that a lot of it has become my own headcanon.

It has been a lot of fun exploring both my versions of Alice and Uncas and having an outside character do that exploring. I know it's been a lot of Uncas (he is so fun to write!) as of now, but I hope Alice gets her time to shine too.

I can't promise or explain much as to where this will all go as this story galloped off with it's own rhythm, and I don't want to spoil anything, but it made it immensely fun to write and rediscover.

I hope you continue to enjoy it.

/

Dawn's grey light seeped into Erin's sweet blissful oblivion, and she groaned at the disturbance.

Her mind awoke a little more as the light did not abate, and she expected the feel of her own soft bed beneath her, the sharp sound of the city outside her windows as the day began. But instead she felt a tiny pointed rock nestled somewhere in her lower back, prodding her with the stark insistence that she she was in OZ, not Kansas.

The soft rustle of leaves in a sea of distant birdsong just confirmed it. She groaned lowly again, the slow crashing waves of her current reality flooding back and drowning her in information.

She was still in 1757, in the wilderness, pursued and hunted by unknown men that wanted her and all those she travelled with dead, heading to a fort that was by now heavily under siege. She rose slowly, feeling stiff and irritated, finding less enjoyment in her surroundings after each night spent sleeping rough.

Without many words passing between anyone other than greetings, the party ate and were away again. By that evening Erin knew they would arrive at the fort and a whole new chapter would begin. She tried to go over everything that happened in the book, but it was difficult. It had after all been a while since her last re-read with a careful eye, and she felt like large chunks of exact detail were missing from her memory; she skipped whole chapters sometimes, more interested in the human, and of course, romantic stories.

In truth she didn't really know how much the novel had made up and how much had actually happened. She wasn't a historian, she loved her literature. Was she in a true time travel situation, or was she just in the book? The thoughts made her feel a little dizzy and did not help her distemper.

She could keep track of the days upon her phone calendar she supposed, but the battery was less than 60%, even keeping it on flight mode wouldn't make it last forever. She touched her pocket at the thought, her last link to her own time. Her fingertips lingered on her drawing pad, it had seen more action in the last few days than any of her art had in the last three years. This whole era, the people, the beautiful wild nature, filled her with inspiration. It was as if flood gates had opened releasing a part of her that had been kept asleep for so long.

Everyone seemed to be in a sullen mood this morning, through fear of what had happened last night or the lack of sleep, Erin wasn't sure, but she felt it too. Still she trudged on, it was surely the hottest day yet. She felt herself beginning to sweat, the trickle down her back and the droplets sliding down her scalp making it all feel very unpleasant. Her stays had now nearly rubbed above her left hip raw despite her underthings. She stopped often to catch her breath, the tightness becoming almost unbearable with each mile they covered. She lagged a little behind the others but still kept herself going, catching up, then falling back, the sweat near pouring from her with the effort.

She just had to think of a way to divert things, she just needed a little time to think! But given her current state her thoughts floated teasingly just out of reach.

She stopped once again, her hand clutched to her chest as she caught her breath. If only she had a knife she'd cut the damn laces. A noise behind her made her heart start until she saw Uncas sliding down a nearby embankment, returning from his latest scouting mission.

She'd been avoiding him ever since their talk the night before, afraid just what she would feel once she was confronted with his presence. Erin was relieved to find that while her stomach did still act like it was full of butterflies at the sight of him, it was excitement of who he was that drove the sensation, not desire for the man he was.

She regained herself and gave him a smile of acknowledgement as he walked towards her, hoping that perhaps they might continue their conversation of the night before, but his deep frown quickly daunted her own expression.

"Wha..." she began, but had no time to finish as he reached out towards her, touching her neck with two of his fingertips. Erin's whole body flinched backwards in surprise at the sudden inappropriate contact.

"You're bleeding." His fingers were stained red.

"What?" Mouth agape in shock, she reached up to her nape, pushing her own searching hand around, trying to find any wound or pain, but there was nothing. When she saw her own fingers coated in the same crimson her heart fluttered in panic and she quickly untied her cap, searching her scalp for anything that could explain it.

She saw Uncas' eyes widen, his fingers flexing as if he was unsure what to do, and she followed his gaze to the once white linen of inside her cap, now stained a rather gory looking shade of red; a sight she had recently become quite accustomed to seeing on her own pillow back home.

Realization flooded through her and with it a sigh of relief. "Oh, thank God." She clutched a hand to her chest for a moment, she could almost have cried as the trepidation flowed out of her.

"You thank your God for this?" Uncas looked very confused and very unimpressed.

Erin let out a small peel of laughter. "No, no. It's fine," she said, hoping her humour would relax him. "It's not blood." She held up her cap. "It's just the colour from my hair. The sweat made it rub off on my cap, it's fine, I'm fine." She laughed, but he still seemed unsure and a little dismayed.

Erin gave a deep long suffering sigh. "In Russia, lots of women dye their hair. It's fashionable." How long she could use this excuse for she wasn't sure, but it had worked so far.

He stared at her a moment, his gaze going from her hair to her face, allowing her words to sink in, but feeling more was needed she continued.

"My hair is actually dark, like Cora's. But I dyed it red." She tried to explain. "The dye was cheap, so... and I didn't have time to wash it before... all this happened... if I had, the colour wouldn't be running and staining everything."

She used her now ruined cap to mop up the running dye, making her look less of a fright. "See it's fine. It's just Russian fashion!" She was babbling now, and unsure any of it was making things clearer to him. Those mistrustful eyes stayed on her, narrowed and cynical, and Erin held her breath.

"Russia is a very strange place," he finally said, beginning to walk again. Erin sighed in relief and trotted to catch up to him.

"It is! The strangest place!" she agreed, with an over-abundance of enthusiasm, still dabbing at her face and neck.

He gave her a sideways glance but didn't slow his stride.

Erin knew she had to do something to smooth over this discomfort between them.

"Sooo..."

Another sideways glance from him.

"Do you ever stop talking?" He was annoyed and she wasn't fully sure why.

"No," Erin said defiantly. "How else can I get to know anything about anyone if I stay silent all the time?" It was a dig at his stoic quietness and she almost hoped it flew over his head.

"Sometimes silence is better." He didn't look at her this time, his eyes once again scanning about them.

"Sometimes. But not today." She tried grinning at him but he ignored her, saying nothing in return.

Before this day Erin wasn't sure she would have allowed herself to be so confrontational with a man she barely knew who seemed displeased with her. It had been a long time since she felt her true self shining through, but something about knowing these characters made it all feel very easy, like she was performing a play with the words already written, she could just add some footnotes.

Ignoring his coldness Erin continued. "Your brother, father and you. You live where you like?"

He let out a sigh that sounded a little huffy to her ears, his face was turned from her but she swore in that moment he was rolling his eyes. He said something under his breath in his own tongue, she didn't quite catch it, but his tone made it sound like an insult.

"Yes. In Winter we find a village to stay." His reply was curt. "Sometimes French, sometimes Yengeese, sometimes not."

"You don't have your own village?" She felt like a complete cheat asking this, she knew well the answer.

"No, no village. No people."

Erin found her eye line wandering to Chingachgook up ahead, soon he was to be the very last - if she didn't do something to save this man beside her.

"So, you are the... last?" She echoed her inner thoughts with the words.

He seemed taken aback from the sorrow in her tone and actually deemed to look at her, his sharp eyes searching a moment.

"The last until I find a woman," he said directly, in a way that Erin didn't think he would have said to Cora or Duncan. She even felt for a moment that he was trying to shock her, perhaps in an attempt to stop her prying.

She did her best to look as calm and collected as she could. "Oh, you have one in mind?"

He huffed out a tense laugh, shaking his head, taken off guard by her directness. "My father would like that." His voice was low and hollow.

"Isn't that what you want?" she asked, surprised, and he looked slightly confounded by her words.

"It is what is expected."

Erin couldn't help the thought flickering through her mind that Alice would not be what was expected, was this why he was so irritable?

Erin nodded and chanced a glance at him, knowing she had to lighten the mood. "So I guess you are just like a fairy-tale, huh?"

"Fairy-tale? You mean old Yengeese stories? I was taught about them when I was a boy at school. Taught by a preacher." He paused, turning over her words in his mind, but couldn't find her meaning. "How am I like these stories?"

"Well, you're the last. Your father must be a king then, and you a prince." She bit her lip, suppressing a smile.

His face let go of all sternness and crumpled into laughter, chuckling long and hard at her outlandish words, and then he caught her sly smirk.

"Ah!" he said, pointing at her. "Teasing again."

"You learn fast," Erin said, laughing with him.

This exchange seemed to have relaxed the young warrior and they continued in an affable silence. Erin was glad, after last night and his cool manner today, she had begun to think she'd pushed him too far, but now she was beginning to understand, this was just part of who he was, trifles and meaningless chatter were left behind the moment he had a job to do.

"Your marks, the moon moth." He didn't look at her, his eyes scanning about them. "Does it have meaning?"

His voice was casual and Erin realized she enjoyed the sound of it immensely, deep and rhythmic, an unhurried drawl of lulling velvet.

Erin considered his question for a moment, surprised he'd asked it at all.

"Freedom." She glanced at him with the ghost of a smile.

He nodded sombrely as if this was a very good answer, and they walked together, enjoying the company among the dappled sunlight.

"Do you just live in the wild when you aren't in a village?" Erin asked, returning to their earlier conversation, wanting to steer any talk away from herself.

He nodded. "Hunting beaver and elk mostly, the hide fetches a good price."

"You don't miss the villages, the people?"

He gave her another sidelong glance, but he was smiling. "No," he said in his mellow baritone. "This is my freedom." He tipped his face up at the massive canopy of trees above them, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight.

Erin felt a little unnerved by his words, there was a longing in them, and she suddenly thought of a bird being allowed out of its cage, but always expected to return. She felt a growing disquiet that this had something to do with the testy answer he had given her about settling down, the words he'd used...

'My father would like that.'

Erin felt an uncomfortable welling somewhere in her belly, and her mind softly mocked her at just how little she really knew these people.

"What of you? Your home?" His curiosity seemed to have swept away all of the gruffness he'd held towards her before.

Erin looked at him, trying to detect any hint of her suspicions. Was she over thinking things? "My family own a horse ranch out in... the countryside." She pulled herself back from giving too much away. She felt sure Russia had horse ranches. "I miss it." She gave a low sigh, puffing out her cheeks. "I moved to the city... I didn't really want to... I kind of hate the city... then everything went wrong and... here I am."

"Everything?" He raised an eyebrow.

"It's a long story." She sighed again. "But the short version is, I ran away and now I don't know how to go back." Erin felt a small sting somewhere deep inside and knew it was her wounded ego. It was hard to ask to return home when you'd been so insistent on leaving, that you knew best... he knew best...

"You want to go back, to this place?"

Erin gave him another small smile. "Very badly."

"Is that why you are here, to speak to your father?"

She looked at him with what she hoped was a steady gaze. "Yes." Her answer wasn't wholly convincing.

"Would you give up your adventures at sea to return?"

She glared at him, eyes softly reproachful, he really did listen to everything! He'd been taking in every story she'd told Cora and Alice on their travels. He smiled, as if enjoying her realization, and finally she gave an affirming nod.

"If you go to him with an open heart, he will listen. Maybe you can return together? Home." He sounded so certain that it made Erin smile, as memories of her own home flooded her mind.

They fell so easily into a friendly manner when he allowed it, when he let his guard down, but as they continued to walk she felt him bring his defences back up, his face smoothing into that same watchful marble. His task turned to their surroundings and his place in it all. With a curt nod he jogged ahead to where his father was, to relay any information.

She watched him for a long time, knowing in her heart that none of this meant they were friends or that he trusted her any more than before; she didn't feel he had the time or patience for friendships outside his own bonds of kinship.

Erin thought that perhaps Uncas didn't really have time to be much of anyone out here, in the wilds, where one missed shot, one bad fall could be the end of you. Unfriendly eyes were everywhere.

She felt if he'd lived in her own time he would have been a very laid back guy, full of good humour and ease. But as it stood, he was a tracker and a hunter, an outsider in a world that had very little space left for him.

/

A/N

In this chapter, I pulled at this tiny thread of thought I had while watching the movie many years ago. I lingered a little too much on why Alexander was asking about if Uncas had found a woman yet. It was almost a gentle reprimand, as if he should have found one by now. Nathaniel teased him and their father said nothing and it was all brushed off very quickly. Of course this could all have been banter and meant nothing at all. But, I couldn't help wondering, is this a sore spot for Uncas? Is he perhaps reluctant to settle? Why would that be? Is it a weight to have everyone expecting you to be and live a certain way? Is that why he is so drawn to Alice because she's not what is expected of him?

I'm quite sure I'm not the first to ponder on these things either.

Of course these are all wonderings and I don't necessarily believe this is movie canon or even my own headcanon, but I thought it was a interesting thread to pull on. Whether Erin's concerns are founded we'll have to see later, she can be an unreliable narrator, as I've discovered :)))

I used to dye my hair BRIGHT red in my 20s and I can vouch, if you do not wash it out well after dying it, anything white you go near after getting wet (sweat or in the rain! That was fun!) will get stained and it will run in trails like you have just been hit over the head. Quite a scare the first time it happens, I can tell you! :))