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Giselle had two neighbours. On the one side there was Frankie, who was, well... Frankie. If you had been in Barren Pines for more than a week, the word 'Frankie' would tell you all you needed to know, and probably make Giselle eligible for some sort of award for not having one panic attack this far into the year.

On the other side, there was Hero, and even Giselle, who did not have a high opinion of many people at all, considered her to be a highly commendable individual. Considering that the most praise Giselle had ever given her own mother was the odd 'Excellent', this was high praise indeed. And it was well deserved, because Hero was the kind of person who was probably going to end up in the very history books Giselle read so avidly later on in life. She was a leader, a speaker, a doer, and, most importantly to Giselle, an ally. She wouldn't trust Frankie as far as she could throw her, but from what she had heard and seen of Hero, she was absolutely dependable.

The fact that she was such a leader, so dependable, a speaker, and a doer, was also what occasionally made her utterly unbearable.

Giselle was the self-proclaimed best historian in the school. Through the years she had survived many a history partner project, and though she had grumped and groused about people depending on her for all the answers and easy As, in most cases, she had definitely been in charge. History was her forte, something where she was the undeniable expert, and when she was doing it, she wanted to be in command. However, perhaps because they were tired of her complaining, or perhaps in a foolhardy effort to be kind and attentive, the history teacher had inadvertently given Giselle what she had never wanted.

During the unit on the Reign of Terror, they had put her in a partner project with someone eager to take control.

Precisely opposing Hero, Giselle loved to do topics that everyone else was doing. She liked nothing better than taking the subject that there would be twenty presentations on, and making them all look terrible. However, this was not just a project. This was a cold war, plain and simple, and behind the iron curtain of her textbooks, Giselle thumbed to a bookmarked page. "I concede to your proposal that we should research a topic off the 'beaten path'," she admitted, but it somehow felt important that she choose the topic, so she added, "However, I believe that we should focus more on a single individual, so we can really get some depth in our report. I was thinking Georges Danton, in fact. He was quite a prominent figure, but is often overlooked in favour of the more, ah, dramatic Robespierre."

"However, we might also research something else, if you see fit."

It was a concession that she might not have made to anyone but Hero. However, Hero was an equal, and as she was treating Giselle like one, so she could only reciprocate. "Danton was considered by some to be the good man in the Reign of Terror. The protagonist, if you will. However, as you are aware, there is no real good or bad in history. As such. Anyway, many of his biographers either portray him in a flattering light or loathe him, so digging for the truth is quite enjoyable."

A pause, and Giselle regarded her from behind the iron curtain to see how her proposition would fly as she laid it on the table.

Giselle nodded curtly. "Desmoulins is an acceptable addition. They both of them are often only lightly touched upon in classes and projects, so I feel that we would be making an admirable choice." She politely ignored the glances downward, but she certainly had caught at least one of them. Giselle was always observing her history partners, and the more equal they were to her, the more she treated them like a nation on the verge of declaring war until the project was safely over.

"Yes, I suppose."

And now they were comparing a different sort of weapon in their student arsenals. Giselle was ready and whipped out her own neat schedule, printed on perfectly white paper and colour-coordinated to be easily navigable. However, in this area she was lacking. Though she had arranged her schedule to be as tidy as humanly possible, the content was no match for Hero, whose interests were broader than her own. And Aurelia's work was on par or superior to Giselle's organization. "It appears that I have more free time," she admitted grudgingly, pushing the schedule over for Hero to examine. "Some of it appears to overlap with your own schedule, so we should have ample time to work on the project. And I have most evenings free as well. It's quite convenient that we are neighbours."

However, she was eager to move back to the firmer ground of history, and added "Did you have any ideas for the presentation itself?" Giselle, of course, had her own plans ready and waiting if she didn't, but she had chosen the topic, and by conventions of courtesy, Hero should be given the chance to choose the format.

"Excellent." Giselle affirmed, making a note of it. It was always thus when she and Hero were obliged to work together, rather than waste time discussing the trivialities, they decided who would get to choose what, and then assumed agreement. it did not matter what kind of presentation they did, or what the subject was. They would both outperform the competition no matter what they decided upon. However, the price of disagreeing was an escalation into an argument, and since both girls had a drive to succeed that made them a bit like sharks in a kiddie pool in their history class, it was something that was avoided whenever possible.

The initial negotiations over with, Giselle acknowledged Hero's short interjection. "As you know, I'm not a social creature." she stated, glancing over her books at her partner as she wrote a memo to herself in her notebook. "The new students are up to Barren Pines' standards, from what I've observed, though." She said 'Barren Pines' carefully. Though the school was prestigious, its standards and her own were quite different. "I do note that none seem to display any outwardly remarkable interest in history so far."

And that was that. Giselle Petrova refused to judge history, but judged people every single day, quicker than she could snap her fingers. And whether or not they were dedicated to their history, or at least to excelling in the subject, was one of her biggest criteria. If they did not seem seriously displeased upon receiving a 90 or less on their first biography paper, they would never be eligible to be anything more than average in Giselle's eyes.

"Before we digress too much, do you have an opinion on how we'll parcel out the work? I feel we shouldn't linger too much on Danton's early career. Focusing on his role as a member of the Mountain would allow us more room for Camille Desmoulins, possibly leading to talk of his relationships with other members of the Mountain, a thorough look at how he envisioned France's government, how he used his power to shape it, and his role in the Reign of Terror coming to being. What are your thoughts?"

"I agree. Far too many historians have been sucked in by the bloody chaos of the Reign of Terror. It leads to purple prose where it does not belong, and ridiculous sentimentality. I have no desire to hear how blood flowed through the streets like a river, and how the firey passions of the revolutionary mobs fueled the heart of the fledgling nation whilst heads rolled in Paris. That is absurd. I feel we should simply deal with the men and the careers. If we mention their deaths, it should be purely factual and brief." Of course, with Desmoulins it was difficult not to be a tad sensational, but if anyone could balance Desmoulins' passionate career with logic and levelheaded analysis, Giselle would first offer herself, and if forced to choose another person to do so, would reluctantly pick Hero Barrett. The woman was not just an orator, she was an adept historian.

However, adept was as far as Giselle would credit her with. Hero was excellent at many things, more than enough to make Giselle consider her an equal on the whole, but she accepted no equals in historical matters unless forced. "Of course. I've made a list of names and phonetic spellings, but none of the class seems to pay it much heed." If one could not clearly convey the historical topic they were talking about correctly, Giselle was of the opinion that they did not deserve to be in the class learning about it until they could.

On a totally different topic: Tara.

That name was one of the few that could ruffle Giselle's project-mode professionalism, and her hands twitched, disrupting her fetching of the very list she had spoken of. "I'm quite sure that they will be admirably suited to Tara's projects," she said as neutrally as possible. Considering that she and Tara could never meet without some sort of argument, this was not quite as neutral as she would have liked.

"Yes, that would be quite admirable," Giselle admitted, mostly because she had come up with the list in the first place and Hero's superior organization had already been established. (Slightly superior, a part of Giselle's mind that was stubborn and probably in denial insisted.) "I'm honestly having some difficulty deciphering what some of our classmates are referring to at times. As for a name like Lucie Simplice Camille Benoist Desmoulins, I feel they would simply get lost in the middle of it without some sort of guidance."

Her talk about Tara's club got a twitch of Giselle's lips that was dangerously close to a smile, but she mentioned no more of it. Giselle herself was only against the science club because Tara was running it, but not due to any power struggle. Some rivalries were so old that they were habit forming, and Giselle had become accustomed to disliking anything involving her unofficial archnemesis.

Giselle considered her answer, and went with "I have yet to make a decision, perhaps I may."

She knew that if she didn't go, she would get an angry call from Tate, probably containing more cutting remarks that Tara could throw at her in the course of a year. She knew that if she did go, she'd be unbearably homesick, and that was not acceptable. Homesickness got in the way of work, and work was by far the most important thing to focus on. If she was going to go home, she was going to go home a success.

"I do admit, I have some old allies that will probably be making an appearance there. As for the rest of the affair, it seems somewhat frivolous. Plus dancing these days tends to be nothing more than an excuse to shake bits of yourself in someone else's direction, possibly with glowsticks on. If nothing else, it would be interesting to compare to cultural gatherings from other centuries though, I suppose."

She gathered up her papers, piling them neatly though they were already fairly neat before, and looked again over the iron curtain. "Desmoulins and Danton," she began, "Were staunch allies, however they were quite different men. Do we want to attempt to focus on them both equally, or put the focus on one or the other? It could be argued that they both had an equally important role in the Reign of Terror, but for the presentation we have a limited amount of time. If we choose to put emphasis more heavily on one, the one we choose could change the tone of the whole project."