Ainsi je frappe - the pasts and presents of Isabelle Montlaville de Chanteloup

[Lanakov]

Stars. Billions of them, in a seemingly endless sky. Endless, cold, insensitive darkness. Isabelle struggled for air, feeling her life slip through her fingers like fine sand. There didn't seem to be enough time for regrets.

Then, a rowdy hand slammed her in the back, and life seemed to return.
Along with with the raspy voice typical of the pre-adult, post-teenager phase.
"Ah-hah ! I warned you Absinthe was a real kick in the face !"

Twenty-four years before the start of the Gallic conquest.

Isabelle was enjoying a night out under the stars with Baptiste. The same Baptiste from that poker night, who had dared to ask her out, and who had proven to be adept at conversation even when sober. Conversation, and some other things Isabelle had found to be more than adequate ways to pass the time on her way to glory.

She defined "glory", then, as becoming the most famous professor in all of Gallia. Being 19, she had no set limit in mind as to what she'd teach. The grand history of Gallia and her French forebears ? The intricacies of interpersonal dynamics ? The complexities of strategy, logistics and governing ? She wanted to know it all, master every field and teach it all. She wanted to be the one people come to for guidance and elevation and was certain that, given the opportunity, she could kickstart a new era of enlightenment for Gallia. She reasoned that, when the time would come to civilise the Sirians, nothing short of absolute erudition for all Gauls would suffice.
These questions were present in her mind on a daily basis, for she had just passed her Baccalauréat with remarkable grades (though not sufficient by her mother's standards) and was now out of high school. The time had come to choose a path in higher education, a choice that would alter the rest of her life as she saw it. She of course was striving for the Ecole Normale Supérieure, a prestigious, highly selective cursus that sought to produce generalist profiles, students with quick minds and ample intellectual backgrounds, able to tackle any problem and come up with creative solutions based on their wits and their trove of knowledge. Normale Sup', as it was affectionaly known, was the go-to cursus for great administrators, politicians, researchers, authors, activists... But rarely military leaders.

"So that's why she won't let you go ?" asked Baptiste, who made to refill Isabelle's tiny liquor glass with a second round of Absinthe.
"She's dead set on it. This nation has a large enough supply of haughty fools telling us how to think, she claims."
"She's not wrong", he pointed out, which elicited no reaction on Isabelle's part.
"This reductive reasoning is rather typical of my mother, Baptiste. I'm sure she's heard a few hacks try and talk their way into credibility on some television show or other and deduced that all intellectuals had to be vain wind merchants" Isabelle said, with the assurance of an angry teenager with big ideas.
"What does your father have to say about this ?"
"My father doesn't get to say much, usually." The tone of her reply cut the conversation short, as it tended to.

A moment passed, as they both looked at the night sky. It was one of those warm summer nights, near the Chanteloup estate, a nice, quiet rural spot in Paris' outer rim. Light pollution was low, too, and with Absinthe kicking in, the context lent itself well to juvenile existential introspection.
"I'm still going to do it, bordel" Isabelle said, without prompting. Marc looked at her, bemused ; Gallic youths, in polite society, were trained very hard into not questioning their parents. That training had still not dissipated in either of them.
"And what if..." he replied tentatively.
"I'm an adult. Legally speaking, she can't do anything. Emotionally speaking, she can try whatever she likes. I said I'd be a teacher, that's what I want my life to be and nothing else."

The stars looked on with a knowing glitter.

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If everyone was a bit more like Lanakov, the entire world would be more positive. Including pregnancy tests.