Hi guys! I just wanted to thank you for all of your reviews and your incredible patience. I've been working on this chapter longer than I planned, but it also is the longest chapter I've posted on this story. I hope you like it! If I can, I'll try to write longer chapters in the future. Updates can be tracked on my profile page as well as progress on my chapters. I'm not going to keep posting author's notes just because of how much unnecessary room it takes up in the stories, so check regularly to see where I am with my chapters! Also! I wanted to thank Kihlala Sisters for creating a fan art photo on Quotev for Joanna and Kocoum. I'm THRILLED! If you guys would like to see it, the link is on my profile page. And if any of you are ever inspired enough to create any artwork online for my stories, let me know and I'll put the link up!

Just a little head's up as well, I put some history in this chapter so when you begin to read about the vote and realize it was not in the movie, you should know I did a little bit of research and then proceeded to tweak it.

Anyway, I hope you like chapter 6! If you want to, leave me some reviews (I love them!) and have a wonderful rest of the week!

-lightinside

I awoke coughing. Water produced itself from my mouth without much effort on my part, though I could feel myself squirming in the dirt of the bank as I tried to turn over so that I was on my hands and knees in an attempt to make the process easier.

My vision was swimming, my lungs burned, my body ached, and all the while it never once occurred to me that my savior, whoever they were, might still be near. Though, when everything was finally enveloped in a strange sort of calm, I finally noticed the lurking presence. I was dripping wet and not in much of a position to act defensive, so I remained on the ground. Tiredly, I glanced over to my right expecting to see Thomas… but saw someone else entirely.

A man, slender in build though tall he was with black mowhawked hair, dripping from the water, that was adorned with a now drooping white feather. His skin was tanned both naturally and from the sun; his bare chest was decorated with the prints of a bear, etched clearly in red paint. And his eyes, dark brown and particularly brooding, studied me in a most serious manner.

I gazed up at him in silence, too stunned to utter a word aloud. I could only imagine how I must have seemed to him then. There I was sitting on a muddy riverbank, dirty, dripping, and disheveled. I wished that I had the courage to speak up, and knew that I would have had he not been regarding me with such blatant contempt.

Though if that was how he saw me, as just another white invader, why would he have taken the trouble to spare my life?

Trying to ignore his vicious stare, I stood shakily to my feet and tried to brush the dirt from the palms of my hands as I wondered how in the world I was going to thank him for what he had done. Not everyone spoke English – I was not so naïve as to believe so. In all likelihood, my rescuer spoke his own native dialect… which meant that for us, communication would be impossible.

And just as I opened my mouth to utter my thanks despite knowing such a thing, the wind began to blow. The gust itself caught my attention immediately, as the strength and suddenness of it alone were enough to take my breath away. I watched as it picked up the leaves from the ground, stirring them around our feet in a mass of color before it worked its way up and over my wet skin and dissipated just as suddenly as it had begun.

When I looked back over at my rescuer, some of the contempt and hostility in his eyes had been overtaken by a discreet sort of curiosity. I wondered what could have initiated such a drastic change, but decided not long after that I shouldn't question it.

"…Thank you." I murmured, much to his obvious surprise. "You saved my life."

He said nothing for the longest time and I thought for a moment that he might not say anything to me at all. How was I to understand him if he did? How could he have understood me?

"Stay away." He said finally. "An innocent creature was killed on your behalf. Only fools would make so much noise in a place which they do not know and do not belong."

I could feel my mouth hanging slightly ajar, realizing I understood what it was that he was saying, and closed it immediately. "I was to be that innocent creature's next meal. Do you dare tell me that this is my fault?"

My rescuer hardly paused, his eyes narrowed in anger as he spoke. "Yes."

Though I was feeling quite incensed at this moment, I was also ashamed. I should have known better than to go stomping through a strange place – it hadn't been my intention for an animal to be hurt or killed. Even one such as a mountain lion. "Then I sincerely apologize."

My response, it seemed, was the one that he had least expected. I didn't know what I should have said then. I stood there, looking between his face and the ground stupidly, wondering if he would depart if I stayed silent long enough.

He did not.

"I do wish to know, however, if that is all you wanted to say to me." I said, my temper flaring noticeably as I attempted to hide my discomfort. I wished the silence was not so severe. I felt as if things would be considerably better if he would simply speak to me, whether he was angry or not. "Was your purpose in staying by my side to chastise me like a child for an accident it was too late to prevent?"

Silence.

"Well isn't this just wonderful?" I asked myself in a mutter, starting off in the other direction in an attempt to find my way back up to the top of the falls. "Saves your life and then what does he do? Tries to run you off in a fit of irritation."

I hoped that he couldn't hear me, but to be dreadfully honest I don't think I cared all that much in the moment. The proper English woman buried deep inside me, the part that actually possessed manners worthy of such an upbringing as mine, cringed at my behavior. I knew what I would ask myself if I had been her. What would Mother say?

But did it matter to me? Absolutely not. It didn't matter to me whether anyone else found my behavior to be less than proper. My rescuer was turning out to be quite the pill and if he was going to take it upon himself to ignore me, then I felt I could be put out all I wanted.

"JOANNA!" A voice shouted far off in the trees. "JOANNA!"

I groaned. Thomas, it seemed, had finally caught up with me. With a glance at the now wary man standing just twelve feet from me, I turned my eyes back toward the forest. I could just see it over the ledge of one of the large rocks protruding from the top of the falls.

"John is going to have my head, Joanna!" I heard Thomas call, defeat plain in his voice. "Next time, I swear, I will take you for a walk. You don't have to keep running off."

At this, I saw my rescuer look at me inquisitively, as if something about my situation was familiar to him. I sighed. There was no time to ask the questions I truly wanted to ask. I took a moment to calm down and focus on not falling and began the long climb to the top of the rocks where I knew Thomas would surface in a matter of minutes.

I looked back at my rescuer for only a moment. "Go," I told him. "And perhaps when next we meet, it might be under better circumstances."

I didn't believe it for a moment. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that things would only decline from that point on. Ratcliffe would not easily be satisfied by the slow progress the men at camp were making. John would allow it all to go on without a word. Thomas would be at my heels each time I rose in the morning and would stay there until I slept at night. There was no possible way that any good could come of the whole venture. And whether I would meet the Indian again, I was not sure at all.

I surfaced from the bank below, damp and muddy as I waited for Thomas to appear, and soon he did. His face relaxed the moment he saw me and he heaved a large sigh as he made his way over to my side.

"Good God, woman." He said. "I thought you were dead."

"You thought wrong." I replied, hoping he wouldn't take notice of my appearance just yet. "I'm a Smith. We're much more resilient than anyone gives us credit for."

Thomas rolled his eyes. "I give you credit, Joanna, but clearly not enough. That was terribly clever of you. That stunt you pulled back in the woods."

"Yes, well, I hope you learned your lesson." I muttered, knowing that surely I had learned mine. Being lunch for a mountain lion had certainly not been on my list of to-dos for the day. It was only by the sheer luck of having other eyes watching me that it did not come to pass. I wondered for a moment if it had been my rescuer, or another, watching me my first day in the forest. I wondered what I would tell Thomas if he asked why I looked so horrid and consequently wondered about my rescuer. And it was only then I regretted not asking the man's name. Calling him 'Rescuer' would surely grow dull. I was tiring of it already and wished that I had something else to call him.

'Bear' perhaps. Or Charles, in the spirit of my mother's long deceased, but equally as humorless brother. I remembered him only vaguely from my childhood, but recalled enough to know that I did not like him. He was so… serious, as this stranger seemed to be. I wondered if this was the way of life here, or if he had only become serious to deal with invaders like me. I could not blame him if that was the way of it. I could never imagine him in good humor though I had only been near him for less than half of an hour and did not know him well at all.

"I did." Thomas promised. "More than learned it, I committed it to memory." It was then that he looked me over. "What in blazes happened to you? You're wet. And muddy. Did you fall? Are you hurt?" Thomas didn't give me time to answer before groaning. "Oh, John is surely going to kill me."

I sighed. "Hush, Thomas. John doesn't have to know everything. He is not my keeper. And yes. I fell. Now, let that be the end of it and stop fussing and lead the way back to camp."

He looked slightly stunned for a moment before nodding. "Alright. I don't see why you're so eager to go back after you went through all of that trouble to dupe me so that you could slip away, but yes, I'll take you back."

As we walked away, I spared one last look at the waterfall, wondering if others were watching us as my rescuer had. And I found myself hoping that by a most lucky chance, I would run into him again.

"Glad to see you survived." I told Thomas on the way back. "I half thought you would get yourself lost before you ever managed to find me."

"I almost was food for a most vicious looking rabbit." He said, seeming quite serious but that had always been his way of things. His jokes were shrouded in severity and though this one was obviously a poke at me in an attempt to lighten the mood, there were times when I couldn't tell if I should laugh or agree. "I did see Wiggins at one point. He was looking for that blasted dog, calling for him like his life depended on it. Much like I was calling for you. I felt sorry for him. If only a little."

"If Percy got away, then I must congratulate him. However spoiled, it must be terrible to belong to a man like the Governor." I murmured bitterly.

Thomas opened his mouth to say something, but stopped. He grabbed my arm and pulled me to a halt and I might have protested had he not looked as though he was about to be fed to wolves. I followed his gaze and found what it was he was looking at.

My brother.

"Joanna!" John called, sprinting for me. I could tell right off that he was in incredibly high spirits and knew I needn't worry about being scolded. That was an absolute blessing for the poor boy standing next to me. "I have to talk to you right away. I was out, looking around, and –"

"I think I'll be going back now." Thomas interrupted him, wringing his hat in his hands for a moment before slapping it back on his head. "I have faith that the two of you can make it back?"

"Yes, yes." John said, hurrying him along. And then, once he was out of sight, John turned to me. "Joanna, I met one of them."

I raised a brow. "That could encompass any number of people, John. Do be a little more specific."

"One of the Indians. A woman."

A woman… my thoughts were immediately redirected to the gleam I had seen nestled in one of the spaces between one of the waterfalls and the large rocks that created the bowl around the bank that I had been forced to scale. I thought it was a gun then, but had been convinced I was wrong. There had been no one that far out but me, or so I thought. I remembered the woman standing on the rocks, seeming as though she had lost something. And I realized at once that she had been following John, much as my rescuer had followed me.

I gasped before I could think about it. "It was you! You were the one down by the falls. You were going to shoot her! John how could you!?"

John's mouth fell open, as if I had wounded his feelings. "What do you mean, shoot her? I thought she was going to kill me. I didn't even know it was a woman until the moment I… I would never have – wait just a moment, Joanna, how would you know that? Were you there?" He looked me over for the first time and disapproval was evident on his normally so gentle face. "Joanna."

"Well, I…" My mouth opened and closed as I tried to find the words to defend myself. I thought for a split second about claiming to have had a vision, but that was absolute codswallop and John would know it. "I… absolutely don't see what that has to do with anything. My whereabouts are irrelevant."

"Irrelevant." John scoffed, scowling. "And how, if I may ask, did you come to look like that? You look as though you had a fall face-first into a mud pit."

"I might've." I said, sticking my chin into the air defiantly. It was a trait that I shared with my mother. "And that was all there was to it. If you really thought for a moment that you could keep me locked away at the encampment, then I must say you really don't know me at all."

My brother sighed heavily and shook his head. "I suppose I don't."

"Well, then." I cleared my throat. "Go on telling me about the woman you met. Or was that all you had to say?"

"No, actually, I –"

"Wait. Is that where you've been all morning?" I asked, crossing my arms. I was beginning to be very irritated with John. He was becoming the very personification of the hypocritical attitude that existed in most high society men in England, telling me not to do something while he sneaked away to do it himself. I recalled specifically the vote conducted the afternoon we landed. It had just begun as John and I arrived back at the encampment after I had first slipped away. I wished to participate, but was told that it was not a woman's place to voice her opinions in a matter that was not her concern. I still burned over that. I thought it right that everyone living in the settlement, even the women, should have a right to have a say over who was put in charge. Generally, I found it all to be very unfair. "Out frolicking about with a stranger you met not but an hour and a half ago?"

Another sigh. "Joanna."

"It's very indecent." I remarked, frowning.

"My spending time with a strange woman?"

"No, not that!" I said, as I had never been one to care about social boundaries. "You ordering me about as if I was still a little girl while you go off adventuring. You brought me here so that I could see the world. Or a small piece of it. Do you not remember that? And now you practically have Thomas chained to my side to keep me in line while you…" I shook my head. "It's just very indecent of you."

"I'm sorry." John said and I truly believed that he meant it.

"Yes, well," I began, trying to brush the whole ordeal aside. "Anyway. Tell me about her."

John smiled. "Her name is Pocahontas."