The music flowed from her fingertips, each key change flowed into the next as she used the sustain pedal when needed. She sighed with each exhale of breath that held each note together. It was her guilty pleasure, all of the X-Men had one, and despite being the only X-man to have a demonic realm under her thumb, she was just as normal - as one could be - as them. The first memory Illyana had of touching a piano was when she was visiting her cousin Larisa Mischenko in Moscow for a family reunion. Her father -Nikolai- talked to his sister -Evgenia- while her uncle -Evgenia's husband Vladimir- played Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake ballet. Illyana couldn't have been more than five at the time but she remembers it all the same.
"Dyadya Vladimir, chto vy igrayete? (Uncle Vladimir, what are you playing?)" The curious, blonde haired child asked her elder Uncle with his greying hair and U.S.S.R. uniform hat on halfway, Sobranie cigar lit and hanging out of his mouth as he entertained the children.
"Vasha istoriya, moy rebenok. (Your history, my child.)" Her enigmatic Uncle Vladimir replied, much to Illyana's dislike.
"Ne mogli by vy nauchit' menya, kak igrat'? (Could you teach me how to play?)" The energetic child asked as she climbed onto the piano bench while her mother and eldest brother -Mikhail- were engrossed in a conversation, something about him wanting to become a cosmonaut despite their mother's warnings. Mother knows best. With the non-Rasputin eyes that were duller than the stuff horses pooped into the snow, her uncle looked at her, ignoring the loud "Net!" coming from the middle Rasputin child -Piotr- contemplating her rosy dimples and wide smile, the young child that screamed in terror if even a small fly was harmed while cleaning.
"Ul'yana Nikolayevna, dorogoye ditya, vy polny syurprizov. Da ya nauchu vas, yesli vy budete prinesti mne yeshche nemnogo koz'yego syra v pervuyu ochered'. (Illyana Nikolaevna, dear child, you are full of surprises. Yes I will teach you, if you will fetch me some more goat cheese first.)" At the mention of goat cheese, Mikhail, who had been engrossed in his important conversation, lifted his proud chin, a devilish smirk on his lips.
"Malen'kaya snezhinka, ne mogli by vy poluchit' svoy lyubimyy brat nekotoryye, a? (Little snowflake, could you get your favorite brother some as well?)" He asked, garnering a sneer from Piotr, who wasn't fully trustful of his elder brother who had just returned from Malinovsky Military Armored Forces Academy. Illyana turned head up, almost blinded by the light from the beautiful lamp sitting mere inches from the top of her perfectly combed hair on a side table next to the piano. Without a word the young girl got up and retrieved the goat cheese for both men, then able to sit on her Uncle's lap, tentatively touching the ivory keys with such anticipation that her small hands shook. That night she spent as much time as she could at the piano, providing a source of entertainment for her small, but loving family.
"Mama ya mogu igrat'! (Mama I can play!)" She said after Uncle Vladimir had shown her how to play a C Major scale. Each time they returned to the Mischenko household for family dinners, or New Years celebrations, Illyana learned a new piece. Until things went haywire and she couldn't return home. Besides the upside of getting to see her brother everyday once again, living at the X-Mansion gave her the freedom to play their piano whenever she liked. The mutant Katherine Pryde -Kitty to everyone else and Katya just to Piotr and herself- taught Illyana more complicated pieces. Whenever she couldn't sleep, Illyana would trudge down the wooden stairs, holding on to the bannister with her loose hand, to find the piano available. Sometimes she would find new music sitting on the piano bench with "naslazhdaytes' i igrat' na udovletvorennost' vashey dushe ugodno (Enjoy and play to your heart's contentment)" written on the top lefthand corner in terrible cyrillic print, not cursive like most Russian's wrote. She never figured out who left her those pieces, but she was indebted to them.
As the piece came to a close, Illyana sighed out heavily, her agile fingers not missing a beat. The gentle notes carried through the rooms with wooden floors and out of the open windows into the wasteland that was Limbo. Fires burned in every place imaginable, demons lurked in the shadows, ready to usurp the mutant queen when the time came -if it ever came- but she sat there remorseless with all signs of care out a window. Behind her in the ornate room that her tormentor Belasco had designed, sat a portrait of the ones she held dear, it was ever changing, ever growing; her parents sat in the back, her brother Piotr next to them while his gaze was fixed on her children, all four of them and the father of three of them sat next to his children. She could feel their eyes on her back as she played as she tempted fate as she had done many times before.
"Prikhodite i poluchite menya. (Come and get me.)" The blonde mutant queen muttered as she continued to play, her goat hooves lightly riding the pedals. That red tail she usually hated came in handy as she only had ten fingers, not enough for some classical pieces. Her horns rose out of her head, she was proud. She had hubris, and would display it for her realm to see, for she was queen. What could they do to her that they hadn't done many times before?