Borderline

I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.

As this was requested by Trevor X, aka Shining_Valor, I am using the surnames for Magvel characters that he invented for his 'fic "Milady Luck." This is NOT set in that 'fic universe. It's set in the American Civil War AU timeline I'm using for "Transcendence" and "Until the Sun Cries Morning."

This is, per Trevor X's request, a tale of Seth, Orson, and the afore-mentioned Civil War. Being a war story, it will feature "realistic" violence, some harsh language, and some other bits of unpleasantness. But the first chapter, which deals with Seth's education and training, is pretty mild. Oh, yes. This story, being set in our real world, features real-life historical characters. No disrespect is intended to them.

The Empty Blackboard

When Senator Kingston secured him an appointment to West Point, Seth Harding didn't have to ask how he might one day repay the senator for his patronage. All Seth need do was look to the example of his fellow Kentuckian, Orson Reed. Cadet Reed, now in his final year at the Academy, was in the top ten for his class in nearly every subject, and had collected only a handful of demerits along the way. Reed proved a shining example of the worth of young men of Kentucky, and Seth vowed to himself that he was hold himself to a like standard.

But to achieve any of that, Seth would have to make it through the admissions process. He wasn't sure what sort of an impression he made; out of the dozens of would-be cadets, he was neither the tallest nor the shortest, the best-dressed or the most poorly clad. But he did attract a bit of attention on arrival.

"That one looks like he's in it to stay," he overheard one of the other cadets say of him.

Seth wasn't sure how best to respond- did he reply with a confident "I am," or a more humble "God willing"? Seth figured that "humble" wasn't necessarily the best way to impress his peers, though, and in the end, he kept silent and vowed to let his actions be his testimony.

The empty blackboard, at the front of a room of unfriendly eyes, proved his first challenge. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he struggled to demonstrate his familiarity with decimal fractions, but he remembered them at last, and so filled up the blackboard to his best efforts. By the time he was allowed to sit down, Seth felt physically spent... but his best was enough. A sound mind wasn't all the Academy wanted, though- they needed sound bodies for their future engineers. At the hospital, the doctors worked him over like a horse up for sale; Seth had his chest thumped and his teeth checked, every digit on his feet examined. Once he was found to be healthy and free of defects, he was asked to identify the facing side of a dime. It was just a tiny disk of silver at the end of the examining room.

"Heads," he said without hesitation.

Seth passed. It was off to the Plain to learn to be a soldier. "Camping" had never sounded so harsh as what Seth and his fellow plebes did out there in the heat and the dust- living, every day, by the sound of the drums. When the summer was over and they went inside to be students at last, it came as a relief; Seth's fair skin burned and blistered in the sun. He longed to be indoors, longed for a moment of quiet, a moment where he might crack open his suitcase and take out his neglected favorites- Waverley and Ivanhoe and other novels by Sir Walter Scott. The books made Seth feel that there was something grander, deeper, more meaningful to being a knight- well, a soldier- than just stuffing powder into guns and marching until his feet were sore and cracked at the heels.

Seth was fortunate to get on well with his roommate Cadet Bannerman, a handsome and slender Tennesseean whose given name was Carlyle. Bannerman also liked Scott's novels- he'd brought Rob Roy along with him and agreed to let Seth borrow it. Bannerman talked wistfully of a certain lady he loved, though he never so much as mentioned her name. It was forbidden, in any event, to be courting a lady- 'twas sure grounds for dismissal. At times, Seth wasn't entirely sure that Carlyle's lady was flesh-and-blood and not some sort of ideal. But if the thought of his lady was what drove Cadet Bannerman to endure the winter cold, the stench of the oil lamps, the unpleasant food, the drills and the lectures and all the rest of it, Seth wished him well.

Seth had his own reasons- he had to do well for Senator Kingston's sake, he had to measure up to Orson Reed's performance... and, maybe, Seth had a vision of himself in the future that involved horses and sabers and a gold-buttoned jacket. Not that he would get there if he didn't "bone up" for his classes. Seth fortunately had a good head for mathematics, as that was most of the curriculum for plebes. Mathematics sent more plebes back to their home states than did anything else; at nights Carlyle would bone up by lamplight, all the while cursing analytical geometry, trigonometry, and the calculus. Carlyle excelled in French, though, and here Seth stumbled at times. The tongue of Napoleon was just so... foreign.

Cadets in their final year didn't have much time for plebes, but Seth encountered Orson Reed fairly often, and the elder cadet would make time for him. Orson's roommate was a curious youth named "Cump," for his given name of Tecumseh, and Cump was known for the feasts he'd have in his room with "hash" stolen out of the kitchen. Orson would partake in these feasts but he wasn't an instigator- he wasn't the type to be sneaking around after hours, smuggling food under his jacket and inside his cap. He stood tall and straight, his voice was soft and precise, and his face seemed as serene as that of a saint; Cump's nervous energy never infected him in the least. Seth came away from each encounter deeply impressed and hoped that the Academy would transform him likewise into something better than ordinary clay.

Seth was out on the Plain for the summer when the Class of 1840, marching with perfect precision through a storm of fireworks, graduated. The mighty fire of cannon and the sounds of joyful music reached out to him, though- he felt at once spellbound and as alive as ever he'd felt. It was no simple spectacle; there was meaning in it all, meaning in the lights and the colors and the pounding of the drums. The ceremony transfigured mere cadets into something more and greater; Seth learned soon enough that Cadet Orson Reed was now Second Lieutenant Reed, off to his new life as a cavalry officer. He'd done well by Senator Kingston and the whole of Kentucky.

As for Seth himself... in his plebe year, Cadet Harding acquired twelve demerits- all for trivial offenses, but the marks against him left Seth chagrined and determined to better himself. He would not allow a strand of hair to escape from his cap. He would not fall asleep in chapel. He would not be tardy to class, even on the coldest winter day when it was a struggle to get out of bed. And he would bring up his scores in French.

His second year, Cadet Harding earned not a single demerit. He did, however, acquire a nickname; the other cadets dubbed him "Silver," as he seemed as serious to them as a silver-haired ancient. His roommate that year, Cadet Grant, was a slight blue-eyed boy from Ohio who shared his liking for reading and math, and Seth again felt fortunate not to be with a notorious troublemaker like Cadet Armstrong in the year above them. That second year seemed to pass more quickly than had the first, and when it was over the cadets were finally allowed home on a ten-week furlough. Seth and his roommate Sam Grant parted ways and Seth began the journey back to Kentucky. It gave him a bit of time to think about his place in the world.

Renais had been his home since the age of nine, when Senator Kingston had taken Seth from the care of his widowed mother, had given him a place and set him on a track for the future. Yet Seth had always been conscious of his status as a visitor, as someone who wasn't a true son of the estate's master. He owed the Senator much- owed him everything- but taking a place in the military would allow Seth to stand upon his own feet, no longer dependent on the older man's charity. It would be best, Seth supposed, if his career sent him to some far-away place like Florida. His roommate Sam didn't want to be a soldier for life; he wanted to be a math teacher, and Seth supposed that Sam would be a good one. But Seth didn't see anything for himself outside the United States Army. It was all he had going for him.

Seth reconsidered all this from the moment he arrived at Renais. Senator Kingston greeted him like a son and young Ephraim and Eirika behaved as though an adored elder brother had come home. The Senator showed Seth off to guests, and there was something different in his manner than there'd been when Orson Reed had come back for his furlough four years before and had come to Renais for a visit. The Army might be his calling... but Renais was really his home. Maybe. Seth hoped so.

-x-

Ten weeks passed by in a flash; as nice as it was to have a comfortable bed and familiar food, Seth enjoyed spending time with the young twins the most. They'd walk around the grounds, with Eirika badgering Seth for stories and Ephraim picking up sticks and pretending they were muskets, or sabers, or bayonets. Eirika promised she'd write him often when he was gone, and Seth believed her. As young as she was, Eirika already showed promise with a pen. Ephraim just asked if Seth could make sure that he, too, would get to be at West Point when he grew up.

"You'll have to ask your father about that one," Seth replied, ruffling the boy's light hair. "I'm not ever going to be a congressman."

Seth went back to his life at the Academy, where he was defined by as much by what he would not do as by what he could do. Cadet Sergeant Harding would not use surveying instruments to peep through the windows of houses down in Buttermilk Falls. He would not cook up illicit hash in his room. He would not sneak off to Benny Havens's tavern for "hot flips" and company, or even for the flapjacks. Younger cadets began to look up to him, but not in a friendly way, Seth thought. They seemed to think he was remote, unapproachable, more marble than man. He fell in with senior cadets like Eliwood MacPherson- yet another red-haired Ohioan, but as different from Cump Sherman as night was to day. Eliwood was one of the few people who didn't call him "Silver," and Seth appreciated it; they would study together, ride together, or simply talk about things on an abstract level, things like what it really meant to serve in the United States Army, what it means to bear arms for the nation, and all the various conundrums from ethics class. Sometimes Eliwood would bring his roommate Hector Armstrong along, to Seth's dismay. Cadet Armstrong was perennially skirting dismissal, and sometimes it seemed like he'd bring MacPherson down with him. But he was a decent and affable person in spite of his terrible grades and long list of demerits, and he had some interesting ideas in his head. Watching Eliwood and Hector interact had its own brand of amusement, Seth decided.

In the end Seth was sorry to see them both go when the class of '42 left West Point with the usual barrage of fireworks and music. The sight no longer awed Seth, though it did comfort him in an odd way. The rhythms of the Academy, from year to year, never changed; the Academy was a place outside of time, eternal, despite the hundreds of bright spirits passing in and out of its gates. Hector Armstrong graduated down near the bottom, just below Pete Longstreet, but Eliwood MacPherson just scraped the top ten. If he'd kept less unruly company, Seth thought, MacPherson might have gone higher still.

Seth entered his final year with as a man with a reputation of being "good at everything"- it was said his only failure was his third-year attempt at handling York, one of the more tempestuous mounts in the stable. Seth knew his own failings, large and small, and didn't believe his growing reptuation. He had his own soul to contend with, his own inner challenges. Never hate. Never envy. Never engage in gossip or slander or spite. Never look at a lady with base desire. Through it all, Seth was beginning to feel he had an idea, at last, of what being a soldier was really going to mean. He hadn't just received a fine education thanks to Senator Kingston and the United States Government. He wasn't just going to put in his four years and strike off to make it rich elsewhere, in shipping or mining or railroads. He would repay Kentucky and the Union for all it had given him.

At their final examinations, Seth watched with clear-eyed appreciation as Cadet Grant shattered the Academy's high-jump record, using the same ill-tempered sorrel that had thrown Seth the year before. Sam could handle York, and Seth couldn't, and that was fine. Seth was the fourth in his class, not the first, and that too was fine- he'd done his honest best and could do no more with the talents God had given him. Seth confronted the empty blackboard one more time, filled it up with everything his mind could pass along to his hand, and it was weighed and measured and found acceptable, both to the examiners and to Seth himself. He knew that graduation day was not the end of anything, but the beginning.

End Part One of Five

Author's Note: Next stop, Mexico!

Hector Armstrong and Eliwood MacPherson are, of course, everybody's favorite mismatched duo from FE7.

Biographical data concerning Cadets Sherman, Grant, and Longstreet is as true as the history books. For whatever that may be worth.