A/N
Song choice. She Moved Through The Fair - Tal Barr
/
There was a flurry of talk when they returned, Erin kept to her word, playing the situation off as nonchalantly as she could within the gaze of Chingachgook and Nathaniel. It was treated as just a passing comment that Uncas should go and get a last minute good bill of health, for Erin's own pushy need.
Cora and Uncas nodded at each other and began to make their way back to the infirmary. Erin made to follow but Uncas stilled her with a look that spoke earnestly that this was something he would do alone, she had a job to do, that job was to act as if everything was fine and not cause any kind of scene that would draw unwanted attention. She had promised.
Erin watched a moment as both figures disappeared into the cluster of vast wooden buildings, her heart tugging with anxiety. Realizing she couldn't very well just stand there and continue staring like some lost puppy, she turned back to the two men, who both regarded her with watchful eyes. She swung her arms gracelessly and clapped her hands, while trying to give a reassuring smile that failed to quite reach her eyes.
"Sure it's nothing." She wrinkled her nose while giving a careless thumb gesture back over her shoulder, the actions overall, rather ungainly.
After a moment of awkward silence, in which none seemed to want to strike up a conversation, Chingachgook and Nathaniel took this pause in travel to go and partake in a little more free food from the mess hall. With their departure Erin gave a small sigh of relief as she allowed the carefree pretence to fall away.
Alice stayed and came to Erin's side, pulling at her sleeve to gently acknowledge that they should both sit and wait upon a nearby wooden bench. Erin allowed herself to be led to the seat, where both women remained in silence a moment, watching the daily goings on of Fort Edward about them. Through the bustle of morning, the strains of a woman's voice reached them, singing sweetly somewhere nearby as she worked. The lyrics weren't what Erin knew in her own time, but the melody couldn't be mistaken, it was a version of 'She Moved Through the Fair', a sad Irish lament of lost love, and Erin felt that harmony chill through her, and goose flesh rippled across her exposed skin.
"Has his wound reopened?" Alice asked softly, pulling Erin's mind away from the sad, sweet refrain.
"No, I don't think so." Erin shook her head a little too long and Alice stilled, sensing something perhaps more serious than broken stitches.
"Is he alright?"
"Oh yes!" Erin was far too quick to reply. "At least... I think so," she amended, seeing little reason to pretend to Alice.
"Cora can sometimes be too much of a pessimist I fear." Alice tried to give a reassuring smile.
"Better to be safe than sorry, I guess," Erin mumbled, picking distractedly at a few loose threads on her sleeve.
"Oh yes! Exactly," Alice said, quite delighted by this turn of phrase.
"Did Nathaniel ask Cora what was amiss, when Uncas and I... walked away to talk?" Erin was finding it hard to assemble her words into making a sentence.
"No, I think we all assumed it was something..." Alice met Erin's eyes for only a fleeting moment before glancing away, a little flush touching her cheeks. "Private, between you and him."
"Oh." Erin wasn't sure if that made things better or worse, but it at least explained the feeling of awkwardness she'd detected between her, Nathaniel and Chingachgook. She wavered a moment, the thoughts not wanting to form past her lips, not really knowing if she should voice the question at all. She floundered for a few seconds before her mouth pushed out the words, leaving her brain lagging behind. "Did you smell something bad... upon that blade?" Erin felt her nerves waver and ripple like water disturbed by a rather large rock.
"Blade?" Alice's pretty blond brow furrowed.
"Magua's blade." Erin looked away, fearful of the answer, knowing what it would be anyway, because Uncas had not denied the truth of it.
"Oh, yes. It smelt awful!" Alice's tone was airy and light, not yet fully understanding the weight of the circumstances.
Erin felt her heart thud, so Cora really hadn't been wrong either. She wasn't sure why she had still hoped it would have been some kind of misunderstanding, even though she plainly knew from Uncas' own mouth, it wasn't. She'd hoped things could still be changed, be different. The confirmation settled somewhere in the very core of her, grit and discomfort.
Erin's attention upon pulling out that loose bit of thread on her sleeve intensified two fold. This strange and sudden obsession did not go unnoticed by her companion.
"Is that a terrible thing, Erin?" Alice had gone a shade paler as she realized the effect her words were having.
"I hope not." Erin found this was the only reply she could find to give, and that damn thread just wouldn't come loose, she gritted her teeth in determination.
"That was the same blade that man stabbed Mr..." She hesitated, suddenly unsure how to use her formal etiquette of address, she didn't know Uncas' last name. "Mr Poe's brother with, isn't it?"
Erin nodded, her throat bobbing as she tried to swallow the hard lump that had suddenly appeared. She brushed away the feeling with the focus upon that thread, her fingernails had almost caught it, just a little more!
Alice's gaze danced about as she formed everything into place in her mind, understanding finally rippling through her expression. She reached out and took hold of Erin's cold hand with her warm fingers, stopping the frantic smokescreen Erin had been trying to utilize to not face this problem, the thread forcibly abandoned. "He is very strong, I think. Not just in his body but in his spirit too." Her hand squeezed comfortingly.
Erin looked away, suddenly having to bite back the useless urge to weep.
Alice sensed the despair and moved the conversation forward, her voice clear with purpose and distraction. "When I met him, on the George Road, he looked so fierce, so different, and he killed men so quickly. I was afraid. He looked like all the imaginings cousin Eugenie's friends talked of. Of savages, savage men with savage ways, not like the men I knew. A different breed, some of the women had called them. At my cousin's I found that talk all rather amusing and... entertaining, like the stories your nursemaid tells you on dark nights by the fire."
She shifted, clearly uncomfortable with these past thoughts. "But... when he stopped me rashly running after the horses, he held me with such gentleness and care, and his eyes..." She paused, going back to that moment in her memory, lingering within it. She smiled dolefully, "I knew, he was also a good man, a kind man. Not a savage." Alice paused to wet her lips and Erin looked over at her, finding she was indeed intrigued.
"I couldn't really understand how two very different parts of a man, of any person, could co-exist." She paused, taking a moment to sigh and pat Erin's hand comfortingly. "After all we have been through... all I have been through, I see everyone has such opposites, it is needed in a world like this. Life is very complicated, in this land. I think he is a great man, because somehow, with all the hardship I'm sure he has seen, his eyes are still kind and his touch gentle. He has patience. I think that is a rare gem indeed in any place." She hesitated. "But I like to think the world, God perhaps even, has a balance and fairness which I hope will take into account all the good he has done for us all, the man he is, a man that is still needed for his kindness and patience, and give him the strength to overcome this, if he needs it. If anyone here deserves it, he does."
Erin smiled, understanding the comfort and compassion being offered. "Thank you Alice. I think he would be honoured to hear you say that."
Alice flushed. "I can see how deeply you care for him. It has been hard for me to understand, you are so very different, but I think I do understand a little. Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas."
Erin hadn't heard Alice speak French for what felt a very long time. Usually her speech would be peppered with random off the cuff sayings, or simply one word statements, used carelessly as a fashionable accessory, but this time it was full of emotion, as if Alice herself had pondered many late nights over the rhythm and meaning.
'The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.' Erin repeated the translated words in her mind.
Alice paused, hazel eyes searching Erin's for a moment, trying to uncover some secret. "I know it seems near impossible, but I wish you could overcome all these barriers if that is what you wish."
Erin glanced away, feeling suddenly ashamed. "I wish we could, but it is a dream. I don't belong in this land." She shrugged. "It's the way of things."
"Yes, it is." Alice said, tilting her head slightly, the sweet sound of the woman's song still finding its way to their hearing. "That may be true for this land, and my own. I understand why you fear what could come if you were together here, the laws, the people, it would be difficult and dangerous." She took another short pause. "Cora told me your father was not at Fort William Henry." Erin's eyes widened and her muscles stiffened, but Alice raised her hand up in a gesture of remaining silent, "I will not ask, nor do I want an explanation. I understand you had your reasons to act as you have and I have no desire to make us both cross with each other." She gave a little raise of her brow, requesting Erin's understanding.
Erin nodded, settling back from her tense posture, willing to listen.
"So, if your father is not here, it means you left him at sea."
Erin felt slightly dismal at Alice's sweet trusting naivety. Her father was no sea captain, or merchant, but how could she explain any of that now? She supposed she really couldn't. She tried to find some joy in the fact that despite what Alice had been through, the core of her kind nature had not been truly changed.
"Erin, surely your father and grandfather would not object? They both seem very... accepting of all different kinds of people, from your stories. Could you not ask them for their support, for your family's support?" Alice's voice was slightly breathless. "Would they accept him?" Her brow was furrowed again, her expression one of genuinely wanting to help.
Erin's mouth lifted in the merest spectre of a smile. "Yes," she whispered, "my family would accept him."
"Well, that is wonderful news, isn't it?! With your family's support, with you grandfather and your father you would be safe. Who could dispute what they deem right? You don't have to stay here, you could go to sea, you could be together. Away from the rules here, away from what others expect, away from hostile eyes." Alice's whole face was glowing with joy at the prospect that this could become truth. "You don't have to be bound by this land or its ways, because you are not from here. You are free, Erin!" Alice looked rather excited.
"It's not that easy." Erin sighed, and tried to ignore the mournful sound of the song still floating upon the summer breeze.
"Have you told him how you feel?" Alice pushed. "Have you asked him to go with you?"
Erin felt herself squirm at this questioning, everything she had wanted to avoid was being forced into her orbit. "I tried, it didn't work out..."
"That is a rather strange answer, Erin."
Erin sighed. "I guess neither of us wants to ask that of each other. To give up everything, it's selfish to even ask. We don't have to speak to understand that some things, are just too much."
"But you want to be with him?"
Erin shrugged and without much grace skirted the question. "We've both made our choices, we have to be content with them."
"Has he told you his feelings on the matter?"
Erin gave Alice Munro a measured look, her gaze trying to discern just what the young Englishwoman was getting at. "Not in words, but he has, well we, he and I -" Erin found her face suddenly felt hot and had to turn away to gather herself.
Alice let out a little laugh of equal parts embarrassment and amusement, gaining much more understanding from Erin's expression than words ever could give. "Mon dieu, Erin! I see." She seemed for a moment to be battling against her own pre-judgments on just how scandalous such a union was to her mind, but she overcame it with a little nod of her head, clearly determined to be the better person. "Then is it so impossible to stay with him? You have lived and been reared in a very different life to Cora and I, with different people, people who don't have our rules and way of living. Why should you be made to live by what others dictate for you? Perhaps all you need to do is move somewhere further away from here, away from French and English ruled lands, where they may be more accepting of..." She hesitated again, unsure just how to put across her point. "Differences." She tilted her head again, and Erin thought this movement was aiding Alice in tilting all her own ideas too. "There are kind people in this world, I believe you could find them, that there could be a way for you."
Erin was shaking her head and Alice puffed out a little breath of annoyance.
"It seems to me you are both being very churlish about this matter. Not speaking to each other. Sérieusement."
"Sometimes words are too small," Erin said, stealing Uncas' own proverb.
Alice took in a slow breath and closed her eyes. "Well, would you stay with him, if he did ask you?"
Erin felt a little ripple of panic flicker through her nerves as her mind pushed up one whispered word.
'Yes.'
'No!'
Her consternation quickly threw another word to cover its tracks. She'd already been down this road, her choice was made. She closed her eyes and chanted 'home' several times within her mind.
Erin shook her head, dispelling the words and her own thoughts into the ether. "I don't think he will. Just as I will not tell him. We are content to leave things as they are. A... good memory," Erin finished, the strains of sweetly sung lament pricking at her hearing and heart again.
Alice lifted her shoulders in frustrated acceptance that she was never going to understand this situation. "Comme vous voulez." She studied Erin again with intelligent eyes, a hardness coming into their depths, a new determination. "I think you are afraid, your heart and mind can't come to a compromise, so you are running away."
"Am I?" Erin said with an unkind roll of her eyes, Alice's poking was edging towards something tender and raw.
"I think you are, yes. I think you should tell him exactly how you feel, everything, even the difficult or hard to understand parts, and let him decide what his choice is."
Erin shook her head stubbornly. "He's already made his choice."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps he would have more to say if he knew how you truly felt. How willing you were to try."
Erin bit back the words she wanted to speak, to tell Alice that it wasn't all that easy. It was complicated and hurtful, because she and Uncas were both so very different, from their lives to the very time they lived in. Nothing about them worked on paper, why would it work in the real world? But she knew speaking of any of that would cause far too many questions, questions she didn't have time or the want to answer.
"I'll keep it in mind," Erin said, with a dismissive sniff.
"You should." Alice seemed quite resolute to continue the conversation until she reached the bottom of whatever mystery she was trying to solve.
"What of you, Alice?" Erin tactlessly tried to change the subject.
"What of me?" Alice gave her a sidelong glance that told all too clearly she knew Erin was steering the conversation elsewhere.
"How are you? I wanted to ask about your art." The cover was clumsy, crude and obvious, but at least it held a truth to it.
Alice laughed, a sweet low sound. "So, you use my art now to distract me?" She shook her head, but her expression was indulgent. "I suppose I am alright." Erin had become aware that Alice clutched her bound book of drawings in one hand.
"Has it been helpful?" Erin indicated to the book, finding it was easy to leave the uncomfortable topic of herself and Uncas behind because she did genuinely want to know the answer to her question.
Alice's fingers dithered along the page edges and then she seemed to decide something to herself with a nod and opened the book, leafing through the many scattered drawings until she pulled out one. Erin felt a little ripple of equal fear and admiration flow through her, as her eyes took in the lines and shading. Staring out of the off-white parchment was Magua. A study of calm detail, villain and victim, menacing and tender; but most importantly, just a man, with all the simplicity and complexity that brought. He was stood in a relaxed pose, his shawl over one shoulder, dark eyes connecting with the viewer in a direct confrontation. There was sadness there, somehow, in that hard expression, something that pulled at Erin's heart despite all he had done.
"It helped to draw him. To see him for the pieces and parts that made him just like any other being," Alice said, her fingertip brushing Magua's form very briefly.
"I understand," Erin said, finding it hard to look away from the depiction, the flint grey eyes held her captive and spoke so many things from their depths – accusation, and an appeal for mercy. Erin found her own eyes were stinging with tears at all the memories seeing him again brought forth.
"I feared I would have nightmares of his face forever." Alice took in a deep inhale and swallowed. "But now, I see he is a product of this land, this world. I have seen how people treat the Indians here. I know how I once thought of them and I am ashamed of it. I know he must have suffered many hardships to become who he was, for him to hate the English so. For him to hate us. Whatever orders my father gave to cause him misery, it must have been a great slight."
Erin's mind flashed up the thought that Alice's knowledge was deeper than she had assumed, but not thankfully deep enough to have uncovered the whole truth. The fact that Colonel Munro was the catalyst for the death of Magua's children, the abandonment of his wife, the destroyer of his whole life. It was something Erin felt this young woman never needed to fully know.
"I feel no ill will towards him for what he did. In some ways I want to understand him." Again Alice paused, her hand suddenly felt a little clammy within Erin's grip. "I am sorrowful that he died... that I was the one to bring an end to him, but I hold no true remorse." Her eyes met Erin's and there was a reluctance within them, as if she feared reprisal. "It was his life or ours. It was not a hard choice, so I chose." Another pause, as Alice blinked back threatening tears. "I will never forget his face, his look of outraged fear when I..." Alice brushed at her eyes, a muscle in her jaw clenching with effort. "When I think back on it, I am sad and I am elated. Because I chose... myself."
Erin gave a wan smile, understanding this was a situation that would never have clear, clean cut edges. "You saved us."
"Perhaps so, but it is not a choice I ever want to have to make again." She returned to her calm studious watch of the people around them. "I am no solider like my father, and I am not my sister. I never had any grand ideas of becoming more than I am. Perhaps if I had never come to this place, my life would have been very fair, with little to trouble it, but that life has not been mine. My eyes are open and I am glad of it." She turned to look at Erin, the golden depths of her irises glowing in the warm sunlight. "But I can no longer see my place anymore, where I fit in. I do not see where I am to go, or who I am to be. It is wild, and frightening, and... thrilling."
Erin nodded again in understanding. Alice's path was no longer set in the stone of society or expectation, and this woman was no longer the frightened girl she had once been, there was a thirst for knowledge and a need to understand this world blooming within her, a semi-blank canvas to be filled.
"You will find your way, Alice... I think you should show your father and Cora your work. I think you should show everyone."
Alice laughed, a light sound in the heavy humid air. "My father would never allow me to become an artist! He really would piquer une crise de nerfs!"
Hearing Alice speak French again so jovially made Erin laugh.
"All the women painters that he has heard of are French. My father needs no more reason to hate the French!" She laughed again.
"Maybe you could think of a nom de plume," Erin said, chuckling at the mere thought of Colonel Munro's ire at having a bohemian as a daughter.
"Perhaps. I do find this land very inspiring." Alice grinned and closed the book, cradling it lovingly against her chest. "It reminds me of where I grew up. Well, I remember so little... I was only a girl when we moved to London."
"Oh, you mean in Scotland?" Erin guessed.
Alice made a light musical noise of agreement. "It is very hazy in my memories, but some of it is still very clear. I feel I could still find my way across the old estate Papa owned, to the stables and away up into the heather. The beauty and wildness, it was like here." She looked out across the parade ground, seemingly seeing something within her memories. "When Mama passed, Papa didn't want us to stay. He thought we should be brought up among true polite society. Too many Jacobite sympathizers for his liking." She smiled a subtle smile, full of enigmatic secrets. "Which always made Cora and I laugh a little, because Munro, it is not really a Scottish name you see? Well, I suppose it is now, but I mean the roots, it is an Irish name."
They both shared a small laugh at this joke.
"I'm sure Papa would argue it somehow. He's very proud of his roots, proud to be both Scottish and English. I fear it is something that has always pulled him in two ways." She let out a sigh.
"I see," Erin said, unable to fully let go of the amused smile "What does it mean then, Munro?"
"Man from the river Roe. It is a place in Ireland. My late uncle, my mother's brother, he told me once, after Mama had passed, that it means we must ebb and flow as a river does. Be resilient."
"Well, that seems fitting," Erin said.
Alice nodded in agreement. "He told me that the place our people were from, the village or settlement was protected by the fair folk, spirits of good and bad fortune. It was flooded by a great wave. Cursed by the fair folk for some minor slight, or so the story goes. The village's little church was submerged in the ocean, forever silenced or so it seemed, but on dark nights the bell could still be heard tolling somewhere in the deep. A warning to those that would not show the due respect to the old spirits and guardians."
Erin felt a little chill of a shiver run across her skin.
"But we survived it, the Munros I mean. We sailed along the river and out to sea, to find a new land, a new place."
"Rivers often lead to exciting places," Erin added with a little smile.
"Yes. Perhaps that is where this life will now lead me. Onward to new places and a new way." She looked over at Erin and smiled. "It is just a silly story, but I always enjoyed it."
"Yes," Erin said, "it's a good story."
/
A/N
(boy this may be long a one. sorry!)
Hello all. Welcome again. I barely made tonight having been under the weather the last week. I am on the mend.
I know this story has been a slow burn in many different ways, with romance and plot and perhaps even meandering prose, but I hope you are still with me and willing to continue. Your kind comments and feelings are most welcome, always :)
I always worry when nothing really 'exciting' is happening that it is becoming boring to my readers. But I can only write what I myself want to read and here we are, 58 chapters deep :)))
I really wanted to delve into Alice here and how what she's been through has changed her in many ways, but it's still a slow progress for her because it's hard to change your views when you have known nothing else. I wanted to show that growth with how she sees Uncas and Magua. These men had been described to her as literal savages, yet because of what she has been through and her own core nature, she could see past that to Uncas' kindness, despite his own brutality (he is a warrior and has killed people in front of her, etc) and also how she can see Magua as a man, not a monster. I think it would be very easy for someone like Alice to just label Magua a monster or a savage with no humanity, because that is what everyone around her would do.
So, I am going to ramble below, no need to read unless you want to hear my ponderings on the Alice and Uncas pairing and the struggles I mused they may have faced if they had lived.
These are not facts, this is not canon, these are just thoughts that flitted through my brain in my 25 plus years of being in this fandom. Some of these ideas propelled this story into being so I want to share some of them with you. Again I stress these are thought threads, not how I personally see this pairing or what I think. I am, and always will be, an avid Alice and Uncas shipper.
So, I wanted to explore some of the obstacles I imagined that the canon Alice/Uncas pairing may have faced through Alice here in Spark. Mainly family and acceptance. I think it's easy for me to forget in my 'what ifs' of this ship, that even with Alice's father dead (in canon), she had cousins and (I assume) family in America, perhaps even male family members too (in America/England/Scotland). Would such people have blocked her agency to be with someone like Uncas? She would have had no money, no means, and this is a woman that had been used to an easy and privileged life. It is possible for her to give that all up for love, love is a wonderous thing, but there would have been barriers and hardships because of who Alice is and because of who Uncas is. Not just the racial aspect, but class, culture, society, etc, etc...
Also, Alice is only around seventeen years old, I often found I easily forgot this in my imagining of 'what ifs'. To turn against what she knows, how she's lived her entire life, it feels like such a big ask of someone so young (I say that as a much older person than when I started in fandom, so maybe I am also jaded, lol). I feel like, in Spark, it's still a big ask for Erin to give up everything with all her advantages, so I suppose I was trying to explore how it would still be a difficult life even if you had a modern mindset. I found in my thread pulling of thoughts, that I didn't think as much as I would have liked about just what Alice would have given up, while Uncas' life would remain rather unchanged. Still hardships, but he still gets to live his life, Alice would have to give up so much of hers.
Maybe that is no bad thing for love, but still I thought too hard on it, and thoughts grew into a story, and so on.
I feel this is why Alice was supportive of Erin here in Spark, because she can see love has no name or reason, but she also sees how hard it would be to live in this place for them as a couple. Erin is someone she sees could live a different way because she hasn't been burdened with the weight of expectation. I also wanted a contrast from Cora's open acceptance and Duncan's disapproval and I felt Alice was a good character to be in the middle.
This was still a time that men very much dictated what an unmarried woman could do, and I wondered if perhaps Cora would have had much say in what happened to her little sister? I mean I am sure Cora would have MUCH to say, but what would her actual power/legal ability be in this situation if it came to that, if family disagreed? I assume Alice would be expected to return as the ward of the nearest male relation of means who could look after her and see her married to a suitable man.
Perhaps Alice and Uncas could have run away together, eloped and left it all behind, and lived on the wild frontier with Nat and Cora, safe and hidden and happy... But there was also this thought I had that Alice's 'unhappy' family members may hunt her down and drag her back, as her being with someone like Uncas, with her status and class position, may have been viewed as not only scandalous but against the very nature of God to some. It's shocking to read such opinions in historical accounts, but it made me wonder all these many points and they made their way into this story.
Nathaniel's marriage to Cora, I assume (lots of 'assumes' and 'I thinks' here remember!) would be a lot harder to stop, perhaps Cora's family would have just disowned her or shunned her for marrying below her position? But because Nathaniel is white, even if he hasn't been brought up as a white man, I can't see what recourse they would have. Nathaniel could put on a suit and walk into any town and no one would bat an eyelid. Uncas could not do that. I wondered if any marriage of Alice to Uncas could have been quickly annulled with the right judge because... racism? I know there were not laws in this actual area in this time to prevent a white woman marrying an indigenous man (there were in other areas) but I think I would be being too optimistic to assume that means it would have been accepted. Perhaps if the woman in question was a nobody, a peasant, a farmer, it would have been looked over? But the daughter of an upper (or upper middle) class English Colonel? I wondered many times if this would be fraught with so many problems.
Gosh, I'm unsure if any of this is making sense as I type and I am quite sure my deep dive is too deep lol. I am very tired so forgive me if this reads like a big lot of nonsense. I suppose I am trying to explain my thought process a little and how I wanted to explore these themes.
I myself want Alice and Uncas to have found a way to exist together, and I do love to think of ways it could be possible, but... 'unlikely' is probably the best word if you made me put this pairing in the real world (don't make me do that!)
This is something I have pondered within my own feelings of this fandom so that is why I wanted to explore it here. Spark came from many threads and jumbled all together to form this story.
Fanfiction has always been my ally in fending off the doubts. We can imagine anything, and I am grateful for the stories that can whisk my logical mind away and make me believe, even just for the duration, that it happened, that it was possible. I thank those authors from the bottom of my heart for keeping my cynical side at bay.
As I said, these are just some musings I wanted to explore in this story and I hope I did it well. This may just be a big ramble of nonsense though. Oh well. My intent is not your reading, etc etc etc.
Until next time.
