Let's Not Forget Ourselves
I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters. Or the American Civil War or any of its personalities.
I'd say I don't know how I got into AU Fire Emblem mash-ups, except that I do know where it began. I read a thread on Serenes Forest that hypothesized that, were Ephraim and Eliwood somehow to meet, it would end in bloodshed. I didn't buy it- but I could definitely see Eph having a problem with Lord-type characters other than Eliwood.
This particular mash-up stems from a request from shining_valor, who wanted a Seth-and-Orson Civil War piece. I'm working on it... and this is a side story to it.
March, 1863. Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
Ephraim drummed his fingers on the table top in time with the rhythm of falling water. He felt conspicuous, almost as though a target had been affixed to his back. It was silly; his uniform was no different than the blue blouse of a private, and even if someone studied him closely enough to note the star on each soldier, brigade leaders were a dime for a dozen in this town. He must make an utterly ordinary sight in the lobby of Murfreesboro's second-finest hotel, especially as he was now, with his hair damp from the rain and his boots caked with Tennessee mud.
Ephraim was on his second cup of coffee when he heard a familiar foot-fall approaching from behind. Strange that, after so many years, he still knew Innes simply from the sound of the man's step.
"Good morning, Colonel."
"Good morning, General."
They regarded one another for a moment. Innes looked as though he'd stepped out of a bandbox; he had on his dress uniform, right down to the hat. Ephraim stared for a moment at the crimson sash that dangled at the other man's side. It reminded him of a gush of blood, frozen in the act of spilling.
Ephraim wasn't sure where his own hat even was.
Innes sat down opposite Ephraim, all the while keeping his carriage so erect that the effect was almost ridiculous. The coffee girl seemed to like it, though... she definitely paid Innes more mind than she had Ephraim.
"Where is Lowell? It's not like him to be late."
"He was drinking last night," Innes replied with a marked lack of concern.
"I thought he was as passionate about temperance as he is about abolition."
"He's a hypocrite. He's been drinking in his quarters since Stones River."
Ephraim stared at Innes over the rim of his half-empty cup.
"Stones River is a good enough reason to drink," he said, and drained the rest of the coffee. The Lord knew that he'd spent the night after with a bottle of Kentucky's finest. His corps commander had been so drunk he'd been singing nursery rhymes...
"Whatever you say, General Kingston."
"I will say it, Colonel Canmore."
They glared at one another across the table; Ephraim wondered if Innes carried the same loathing of his battlefield promotion that Ephraim had for his new rank. Maybe not. Then again, Innes was such a stickler for protocol, and it just didn't seem right to have all these men shy of thirty running around with stars and eagles on their shoulders. Like they really outranked the greybeards who'd taught them everything back at the Academy...
"Good morning, friends."
Marth Lowell's greeting was automatic and meaningless; Innes and Ephraim both had dearer friends among the ranks of the enemy than they had in their fellow officer. Politicians-in-uniform were a plague upon the Army, and Lowell's only reason for being invited to breakfast was that he liked his fellow political creatures as well as the real officers did. Not at all.
Ephraim scrutinized the man who was his superior officer, in fact if not in merit. Lowell's eyes were clear and on the whole he didn't seem like a man who'd just awakened from a drinking binge. He was in his dress uniform, too- the sixteen buttons on his jacket gleamed in the gaslight. Lowell also gave a perfectly believable reason for being late, though men who would lose themselves in a bottle at night did tend to have a stock of excuses. Or Innes was telling tales... for whatever reason.
"Well," Ephraim said slowly. "Now that we're all here, where do we begin?"
-x-
Innes crossed his arms and regarded the two men across the table. The Kentuckian and the Michigander made a perfect pair, he thought- Senator Kingston's brat and Senator Chandler's pliant tool. Both of them stubborn, both of them reckless, and both of them cherishing the covert desire to put a bullet in the brains of half the high command.
Both of them clay in his hands, thanks to the current state of the Army of the Cumberland.
Innes had the august men of the high command defined in his head, as neatly as in Mr. Webster's dictionary. The entry for Major General McCook of the XX Corps read "mentally deficient." McCook's XXI Corps counterpart General Crittenden was labeled forever as a foul-mouthed blower of his own fair horn. As for their Army's commander, the entry for General Rosecrans read, "A genius. Jury currently out on whether his genius is of the mad sort." On the one hand, he'd turned morale around after a year of maltreatment at the hands of the previous commander. On the other hand... Innes had once been privileged to witness an evening of entertainment in Old Rosy's quarters, which consisted of listening to the general expound at length upon the glories and wonders of the Roman Church. Innes considered himself to be lucky if he wasn't invited back any time soon.
This categorization extended itself to Innes's own circle. He'd recognized early on that Lowell's nerves were strung like piano wire; in the moments when Lowell neglected to use his stock of personal charm, a disturbing lack of something in his soul at once became apparent. Men like that needed something to fill the void, be it second-hand political slogans or Tennessee whiskey. As for Kingston... Innes had been studying the flaws and foibles of Ephraim Kingston for more than a decade, since the day he first encountered the blockheaded Kentuckian at the Academy gates.
"Where do we begin?" Innes repeated. "Where are we now?"
"Bottled up in Murfreesboro for the third straight month," Ephraim replied. "While Bragg's army sits pretty in Tullahoma."
"Sits starving in the Barrens, you mean," Lowell interjected.
"Says a handful of miserable deserters, who may or may not be spies."
"It's poor farmland." Lowell shrugged off Ephraim's objection. "Why Bragg abandoned the best valleys to us, I don't know. Maybe he hates his own men as much as they say."
And the conversational opening Innes was waiting for arrived ahead of schedule.
"He hates his generals, and that's a fact. And Bragg's generals hate him back with equal passion," Innes said.
The two general officers in his present company looked back at Innes with near-identical stares of disgust.
"We could offer up a trade- half our commanders for Bragg's bunch," said Ephraim. "Wouldn't do us any more harm than McCook and Crittenden are doing us now."
Well, that was coming on a little too strong, too fast. Innes looked at the dark stain spreading across Lowell's cheekbones and decided to downplay the issue a hair. He didn't want open mutiny in the hotel lobby.
"Old Slow Trot is all right. And the bloom may be off our Rosey after Stones River, but at least he's no Buell." Innes hadn't been among the twenty officers who petitioned President Lincoln to have General Buell sent as far from their Army as was possible, but he agreed with the outcome.
The shadow of Stones River and its twenty thousand fallen settled over the table, leaving the fine young generals mute for a moment.
"I want to see McCook courtmartialed," Lowell muttered.
"I want to see Crittenden shot," Ephraim retorted. "The man is a stain upon the military reputation of all Kentucky."
Innes rolled his eyes.
"It always comes back to one thing with you, Kingston. My dear Kentucky home, land of fine horses and fine women..."
The schoolroom jibe burst the tension between them; Ephraim snorted and Lowell produced a faint smile. Innes then invited his old classmate to lay his cards on the table.
"Since we agree our current situation is pathetic, General Kingston, what do you propose we do instead of spending another three months drilling and parading in the mud?"
Ephraim leaned back in his chair until its feet squeaked against the parquet floor.
"Break into Old Rosey's inner circle and convince him that we need to take on General Bragg where he's hiding. Now, before Jeff Davis wisens up and sends someone competent in to take Bragg's place."
"Do you want it as a flank attack or just a grand frontal assault?" Lowell said it under his breath, and Innes ignored him for the time being.
"So, how do we get a word in the gracious ear of Rosecrans? Any ideas?"
"Well..." Ephraim fell silent.
"How do we 'break in' to that inner circle, Kingston? Aside from converting to the True Faith and showing up for catechism."
"There is the boy," Lowell said, with considerable hesitation.
"Rosy's become quite attached to young MacPherson," Ephraim agreed.
"Out of guilt," Innes put in. "But no matter. There's an avenue for us. A pity none of us was close to Roy's father."
"Seth was. He knew General MacPherson from their time at the Academy," said Ephraim. His eyes were already alight with what Innes recognized as the first glimmer of a scheme.
"True. Unfortunately for us, your friend General Harding isn't here," said Innes.
"No, he's off on another cavalry raid, to great cost and very little avail."
Ephraim's mouth was agape, but the sour comment hadn't come from his lips. Innes narrowed his eyes at Lowell. The Michigander's dark brows had come together in a frown and his china-blue eyes were fixed on some point in mid-air.
"I admit that cavalry tactics are not my area of expertise," Innes said smoothly, and he touched the red artillerists' trim on his jacket. "I take it you have an issue with the current use of our horsemen?"
"These raids of derring-do are pointless and waste men's lives. How many have fallen since January- do you know? I know we lost nearly two thousand last week at Thompson's Station! And for what? Have we anything to show for it?"
"I don't know what you'd know about tactical matters..." Ephraim had his jaw working again, and he thrust his conversational lance right into the sorest of sore points. "But if you're implying that our cavalry are incompetent..."
"I don't think that's what he's saying," Innes interrupted. "But I think we can agree that Thompson's Station wasn't a proud moment for our side."
"No! But... look, the Rebel cavalry are a gang of madmen- Forrest, and Morgan, and Tal Murphy and his raiders. We're not doing anything like that."
"My point is that we're not doing anything at all," Lowell said. "Nothing worth the cost, at any rate."
Innes had to repress a smile of satisfaction. There was nothing in the world like a bleeding-heart idealist who'd woken up to the fact that his grand campaign to do the Lord's work had turned into a grim circus of death and mayhem. And Innes knew the keys to strike to play upon those piano-wire nerves.
"What would be worth the cost of two thousand men, Lowell? Or twenty thousand, or the many scores of thousands that have fallen to date?"
"Winning this war."
"And how do you propose we do that, sir?" Ephraim didn't leave Lowell time to answer. "I propose we get out there, settle our scores with Bragg, and take Chattanooga."
"Taking Chattanooga won't win this war. Taking Atlanta won't win it. These days, I'm not sure taking Richmond might."
Innes held his breath. It was all about to come spilling out, and he- Colonel Innes Canmore- hadn't needed to express a single idea of his own. Lowell was going to do all the talking for him.
"Are you mad?" asked Ephraim. "What are the rebels going to do if we take their capital?"
"Cities and presidential mansions don't make a nation. Painted lines and printed words upon a map don't make a nation."
"So what makes a nation?"
"Something in the heart that cities can't contain. Something that goes beyond songs and flags and pieces of paper. The rebels sing and raise their starry banner because they are rebels, not because the flag makes rebels out of them."
Innes wished a camera were available to capture the expression of Ephraim's face just then. As for Lowell, he was animated at last, filled with the spark that convinced men from Michigan and Indiana to sign up for hell itself under his regimental colors.
"Okay," Ephraim said then. "So, how in your view do we beat the rebels?"
"Bring them to the point where they see no future any longer for their newborn nation and lay down arms of their own accord."
Ephraim wasn't tipped back in his chair any longer; he was sitting upright, his back straight enough to make their old instructors proud.
"Are we talking the Anaconda Plan here?" he said uncertainly. "Starve them all into submission?"
"I'm... I don't know." Lowell looked down, and the spell was broken. He was, again, just a hollow talker who'd persuaded his way into an officer's uniform.
"You don't know." Innes had to keep from sighing; he already knew how Ephraim behaved when he thought he'd found an opening to exploit. "You're talking about something highly unsettling, sir, talking about breaking the spirit of several million people, and you don't know how to bring it about. All in all, I'd rather be taking Chattanooga."
"Fine. Take it. The war won't end. The bodies will keep on piling up, staining the fields of every farm in the South with a red the sun won't bleach and the rains can't wash away."
"Well, if I can't end the war, and if you can't end it, I don't know why we're even talking." Ephraim crossed his arms; he might have been a petulant cadet about to earn himself another six demerits.
"I don't know why we're even talking," Lowell echoed. He pulled out his watch as though checking the hour, but Innes noticed that Lowell didn't even focus on the timepiece and didn't really see it before stowing it away again.
Innes cleared his throat.
"I believe we were talking about using young Roy MacPherson as an agent to gain access to General Rosecrans."
"Yes, so we can convince Rosy to commit inhumane acts against the people of the South until they beg for mercy." Ephraim's eyes, a changeable blue-green, looked especially green and bright in that moment. "Or maybe just to let us get out there and whip Braxton Bragg once and for all."
"That's fine. Now, the question in, which of us approaches the boy? And don't say 'Seth Harding,' Ephraim. The man's not here."
"I'll talk to him," Ephraim replied. Again, that had been an easy coup for Innes to manage. Let Kingston fill the boy's head with dreams of glory beyond the walls of Fort Rosecrans. If Lowell did the talking, Innes wasn't sure what sort of message the former politician would impart to Roy. The cracks in Lowell's psyche were a little too wide to trust him with the task; Ephraim would keep the message simple and direct.
So, they parted ways. Lowell shook hands with them both, but he already sounded doubtful over their scheme.
"Let's not forget ourselves, my friends. The great machinery of this Army won't stir itself at our command."
"It won't be at our command, Marth," Innes said, opting to feign friendship with his co-conspirator. "Major General Rosecrans will be issuing the orders. It'll just be our ideas put into his head... with none of our brave superiors being any the wiser."
That, of course, was not the goal of Colonel Innes Canmore at all. His "friends" simply didn't need to know it.
-x-
Ephraim had nowhere in particular to be on that rainy morning. He remained slouched in his seat in the hotel lobby for some time after Innes and General Lowell both disappeared.
"Drunk? I don't know about that. But the man is definitely out of his mind. I don't know if it's something in the water up there in Michigan, or what..."
At last, Ephraim pulled his long body out of the chair and headed for the street. It was still raining, and now he wished that he did have his missing hat. The raindrops trickled down the back of his neck and pooled between his shoulder blades; it felt like a puddle of blood. There in the cream-thick mud of the street, he turned in the direction of Tullahoma and addressed the gray horizon.
"I know you're out there, Lyon. What in God's name were you thinking?"
The End... for now.
Notes and Stuff:
All characters not from Fire Emblem are real people, and their portrayal is roughly in accordance with contemporary perceptions- McCook and Crittenden were loathed, Rosecrans loved to talk up Catholicism with his young aides, and so on.
Last names: shining_valor himself contributed "Kingston" and "MacPherson" for Ephraim and Roy respectively, as is "Harding" for Seth. "Canmore" for Innes is a nod to his pseudo-Scottishness and is derived from the royal dynasty of Scotland prior to Robert the Bruce. "Lowell" for Marth comes from the anime; it's crummy in a Fire Emblem context but works for 19th-century America. I personally think it's a joke last name. [Mars...Lowell. As in Lowell Observatory, mecca for believers in life on Mars. Geddit?]
As far as background goes, Ephraim comes from a well-to-do and influential family in Kentucky. Innes is from Pennsylvania, though it isn't mentioned in this story. And Marth hails from Michigan (x-ref the "prequel" to these stories, "Transcendence"). Innes and Ephraim were at West Point together- Ephraim has an infantry background, whereas Innes specializes in engineering and artillery. Marth is a pretty blatant non-West Pointer political general, there to make his radical allies in DC happy (Senator Zacharias Chandler being a very Important Dude of the day). These guys are all in their late twenties/early thirties during the war, while Roy is about sixteen here.
"Michigander" (as opposed to "Michiganian") was supposedly coined by Abraham Lincoln, who was insulting the Michigan politician...er, statesman... Lewis Cass. It wasn't a nice thing to call someone at the time.
Finally, while I admit Innes and Ephraim in this owe a lot of my headcanon (a peril of AUs, after all), I'm not making any apologies for my portrayal of Marth here. His characterization in FE11 and FE12 appears to consist of puzzle pieces from different puzzles that don't add up to anything.