They stared at each other for a long moment, Erin gathering her wits and Uncas still in shocked silence of what he had just discovered. His eyes shifted, moving to the pad he'd taken from her earlier and he flicked roughly through the pages haphazardly. Erin resisted the urge to dart forward and snatch it back.

Seeing nothing that interested him enough to linger upon, he returned his shrewd vigilance back to her.

"How?" He finally whispered the question again.

Erin found she didn't have an answer to give him.

"Who are you?" His eyes were slits of suspicion.

"I'm still Erin," she said, simply, it was the most honest answer she had.

"How do you know what I speak?" He was upon her within a heartbeat and suddenly grabbed her shoulders, shaking her as if this action would make her tell him, his anger renewed and fierce. "Those are my Father's words, only my family knows them, tell me!"

Erin pulled herself roughly from his grip, finding herself becoming angry too, and with the revived temper came the instant want to repel his attack harshly with anything she could. "I'm a witch, I told you!" She instantly regretted it, but her defensive stubborn armour wouldn't allow her to back down when confronted with a man so furious with her.

She could see him thinking, trying to puzzle this bizarre situation out.

"A 'fucking' witch, what is that?" He looked at her a moment like she may grow more arms and legs and scuttle at him.

She was certain for a moment he was eying a bowl of salt, and Erin imagined him throwing it at her while screaming Latin verse.

The absurd thoughts sucked all the fight out of her. "No, look, forget that! I didn't mean it. I was just angry." She drew in a deep breath, trying to calm herself and not go back down the rabbit hole of outlandish dramatics. "I'm saying everything wrong."

"So... you are not a witch?" Now he looked exasperated again, anger only a thinly veiled threat lurking behind his eyes.

"I don't think so. I know things," Erin said carefully. "Things that haven't happened yet."

"So, you are a seer?" His wariness grew like an afternoon shadow.

Erin pointed excitedly at him. "Yes! Well... sort of."

He looked unconvinced. "This doesn't explain why you said what you said, or why you do strange things. Why you lie." His voice betrayed his fervent curiosity, and she felt she still had a chance of trying to convince him.

"Yes, yes it does! Because I'm trying to prevent the bad things I've seen in the future coming to pass."

"What are these things you see?" His eyes were boring into her, digging for all her secrets.

Erin looked up into his face, her own serious and ashen. "Your... death." She knew she could have been less shocking and dramatic about it but the situation called for heavy words, to try and make him understand the sheer weight of it all.

His eyes widened and his steps shifted backwards. "You have come to curse me then?"

Erin reached out, grabbing his forearm, he tried to pull away like she had burned him with her touch. "No, please don't misunderstand me Uncas."

He stilled at the use of his name and stared at her, grasping for any truth in what she said.

Erin felt, or hoped, she saw him want to listen to her.

"I am not here to cause any harm. I don't have magic or any kind of power to curse anyone. The only things I know are some things that haven't happened yet. Some bad things. I'm here to try and stop what will happen to you. I don't want you to die! Please, try and understand."

He glared at her, a mixture of horror and distrust pulling at his mouth. She could tell he wanted to shake off her touch, to turn his back and leave the room but he couldn't, the mere fact that she knew his family's speech was enough to keep him rooted to the spot.

The fire again crackled and spat in the silence. He looked away, and when he turned back, Erin saw he'd composed himself as best he could. "What... is my... death? What do you... see?" he said, haltingly, as if he knew he shouldn't ask at all.

Erin dove forward, taking her chance. "Alice is taken captive, you try and save her, but the warrior you have to fight, he is too strong."

"I am strong," he said, insolently, the situation allowing him to easily slip into impertinent anger.

"You are," Erin said, still grasping his arm, stilling him from moving away. "But he has hatred in his heart and he doesn't care if he lives or dies. You care! This makes him stronger."

Uncas considered this notion for a moment. "When does this happen?" he scoffed, his stark rationality holding him back from believing any of this nonsense could be true.

"Soon," Erin said calmly. "In a few days."

"You want to stop this from..." He was trying hard to understand, but it was a mammoth task.

"Yes, I want to save you and Alice."

"Alice? Miss Munro?" There was something in his voice Erin couldn't grasp. A little give? A small crack? A shivering waver?

"She will die too."

He looked stunned. "Why?"

"It happens high up, on some cliffs, she jumps, after your death."

Feeling this was all becoming too much, Erin gently guided him to the stool by the fire and urged him to sit, he did, slowly, his wary eyes not leaving her form. Erin crouched before him and sighed deeply. "I know it's a lot to take in. This is why I said those... terrible things to Alice, it was my misguided plan to keep you apart. I'm sorry."

"Apart? I don't understand," he said, looking away, into the flames, as if they held all the answers.

"Love is hard to understand."

His head jerked up, his eyes upon her face, caution holding sway on his features again. "Love?"

"This happens because you fall in love with her."

He laughed then, and eyed her as if she was making a fool of him, that this was all just another one of her games of teasing taken too far. "I am not in love with Miss Munro!" There was some note of hesitation in his tone.

"You say that now but..."

"I say this as the truth!"

"OK, then fascinated, enamoured, captivated, bewitched, whatever you want to call it." Erin pushed.

"The only witch here is you!" he replied sharply.

"Stop! OK." Erin sounded like a self righteous idiot. "I know what happens, you don't! It's already been written!" She set her face in what she hoped was an expression of confidence. "I know this story, I know you."

"By who? Who decided this? Who are you to tell me you know me? You know nothing about me!" He gave Erin a look like she was the most repellent creature he had ever encountered in all his days on earth.

Erin shook her head, knowing this was all going terribly. "How do you think I knew we were being followed in the forest? I tried to convince Duncan the fort was under attack so we would go somewhere else! It didn't work, but I tried!" He still looked at her with a heavy leaden wariness within his eyes. "The light at the pool?" She was grasping desperately, her mind working too fast, she was losing him. "There is yet more I must tell Colonel Munro to try and save people here." She stilled only a second, giving him no time to interrupt her torrent of words. "How do I know what you speak even though I never learned any language other than English my whole life?" The words tumbled from her, clutching at each one in hopes it would be the correct thing to convince him.

He watched her in silence for a moment, stony and seemingly unmovable.

"You said you were Russian," he stated flatly.

"I said a lot of things!" Erin huffed, losing her composure again.

"So you admit, you are a liar!" He threw the words at her as if they were barbed wire, sharp, and meant to entangle her in her own hypocrisy.

"OK. We are just going around in circles. I know you've been watching me, I know you've seen the strange things I've done and said, this is why."

"You could be a spy for the French." He didn't sound like he believed that statement for a second.

Erin got to her feet and threw up her arms in defeat. "If I am, I'm a lousy spy!" She covered her face with her hands, groaning in frustration. "Look, I know what your fate is, I want to change it. I think we can if we are smart."

"No one knows my fate." He sounded deeply offended.

Erin was losing more ground and she knew it, she didn't know how to tell him all that she needed to make him understand. Should she disclose all she knew about Magua, the ambush to come, about where she was from? She didn't think that would make any of this easier to swallow.

"Look," Erin tried again, "I am telling you the truth, Uncas. I've seen you die saving Alice. You can disagree with why and reasons, but you will die if you go after her!"

He looked up at her, the firelight dancing off the smooth skin of his cheeks. She wanted to reach out to him in that moment, press her palm to his face and make him understand just how much she cared, how much she had always cared. His eyes studied hers, was he trying to see her side? Maybe if she just pushed a little more he'd comprehend her reasons.

"I've tried to change things, but it never works out, or it only changes a little." She grasped for an example. "Like your wound!" She pointed enthusiastically at his side and his hand covered it in defence. "I read... saw, in the future, you needed stitches... but when I tried to stop you getting hurt, when I stopped Alice running, I needed the stitches. I can't change things enough! Fate is just too strong and it will make you act the way I know you'll act unless we do something. I don't think we can stop your destiny, but maybe we can divert the course a little." She was desperate to make him see, her way was the only way.

Her mind flashed up the scene from the novel of Magua and Uncas upon the cliffs, a twisted cruel knife stab, metal rending flesh, blood seeping, and Alice's wide fearful gaze, calming into a defiant acceptance that deciding her own death was the only choice she had left. "Do you understand? I've seen your path!"

Without warning his expression twisted, riled by her words or the situation, Erin couldn't tell, but he was up on his feet in a moment, his hand wrapping about her forearm, the sudden assault on her recent injury causing her to cry out.

"Ow! Ow!" was all the surprised reprimand she could muster.

His face remained fixed in a kind of distressed indignation which she found she couldn't decipher, and he advanced upon her, still holding her, causing Erin to retreat until her back thudded into the wooden wall.

"Is this a game to you? Are you making up more witless stories to amuse yourself? Do I amuse you?" He hissed out the words between gritted teeth.

Erin made an attempt to twist herself from his grip but he held fast, firmly holding her in place.

"I'm telling the truth." He was close enough now that she had no escape. "You can think me a witch, or mad, but I would never... want to hurt you. I am sorry I said such shitty things about you, I swear on my own lifeblood I did it to try and save you. It was a stupid mistake, I regret it, I regret hurting you, I regret hurting Alice!" If only she could explain herself well instead of rambling, but in her fraught state, she couldn't find anything but a jumble of words.

"Are you a witch or are you mad?" he mumbled, his eyes flicking across her face as if he could somehow discover the answer. He then spoke in his own tongue. "Either way I am doomed." No wait... he'd said a fool... no, ill fated... lonely? Forsaken? Unlucky? The letters shifted in her mind, finding no one word to linger upon, its meaning lost as it had no direct translation she could understand, she couldn't even gain if it was a statement or a question he wanted her to answer.

This was the last straw, Erin knew she'd failed. "I'm sorry," she said, her eyes welling with tears that escaped to roll down her cheeks, she was just making more of a mess and causing him to hate her. "I really do want to save you."

He reached out, tracing the path of one tear with his knuckle as if proving the emotion was real. At that connection Erin felt something pass between them, something raw, angry and desperate. She felt suddenly scared that this situation could become dangerous, he was furious and she was frantic. Her breath hitched, her mind flaring that she had to act before any further dynamite was ignited and entombed them both, cutting off all paths to finding a way through this.

He was too close and...

"You're hurting me," she whispered.

Uncas looked shocked and his fingers loosened and released her arm. At this opportunity Erin took the opening, and with a dart of movement she was away from him and standing on the other side of the room, her breaths and heartbeat coming fast and hard. She could only hope the space would give them both a moment to regain their senses.

"You're still here Erin?" Cora's voice sliced through the muggy tension.

Uncas didn't wait to greet her or say any words at all. He let out a low noise of angry irritation before he threw Erin's drawing pad to the floor and then strode brusquely from the room, a tightness held in his shoulders.

Cora stared after him a moment and then looked to Erin, her expression quite baffled. "What's happened?"

Erin shrugged off the question as if it was unimportant. "He was mad about what I said."

"I see." Cora gave her a knowing look. "Well, you can't really blame him."

"No, I don't blame him at all," Erin said, scooping up the rumpled pad and smoothing it between her palms before coming to Cora's side to see if she could help.

After a moment, Erin's eyes slipped to the corridor Uncas had just walked down, disquiet growing in her belly. The mess was growing ever bigger.

/

A/N

Any bets that Erin would handle the situation well, just lost :))

I can't say she is the messiest character I have ever written but, she certainly is up there and I honestly love her for it. I love a messy character who is complicated and sometimes over dramatic and stubborn, but also you have some compassion for. I find these types of personalities very fun to read (and write) about, perhaps because I like to think I'm a pretty logical person when under stress, it's fun to be in a different mindset for a while. I hope you are finding some enjoyment too.

I decided to go with the novel/movie verse here instead of reality to create a more dramatic effect as to why Uncas would even listen to Erin or care what she has to say, in that, in this setting Chingachgook and Uncas are indeed the very last of their kind. Which makes Erin knowing their language all the more shocking for Uncas and harder for Erin to fully understand completely. She gets the gist and her brain places them into neat boxes of words, but it doesn't always work, especially with things that may be slang terms, so that was what I was aiming for. I hope it comes across somewhat in the story, if not I just explained it all long windedly and in too much extra detail here :D

A titbit for those wondering why Uncas did not seem very phased by Erin's use of the F word earlier and repeats it back as if he doesn't quite get what she means. From my own research (the facts and opinions vary wildly!) and reading of historical fiction, it doesn't seem to have been a very popular word in this period, although it did exist and was a rude word, it doesn't seem to have been used in the form it is today until the 19th (again opinions vary! Pinch of salt etc). So I thought it was quite a funny detail when I originally wrote the story.

I'm still attempting to hold my cards close to my chest on where I will be taking all this. I hope I can keep you all guessing and lead you all down some merry paths before we get to the end ;)