Choices
Author's Note: This story was written just for fun, and it has no connection to my other story outside of recycled character names. Enjoy!
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It was the birth of the second child that almost killed her.
Mystique had writhed and screamed until her throat was raw and her voice disintegrated into a whimper. She sweated through the bed sheets, her scales trembling, changing colors and shifting uncontrollably. She wanted to die, and she almost got her wish; she bled for hours after her daughter took her first breath, the child's tiny scream a challenge to the world. With the first child, the boy, it had been so easy. After brief labor pains, the indigo colored infant arrived with a cry that sounded like laughter, and seemed to embrace the world and everyone in it. With his fraternal sister, the very act of coming to life was an act of war.
When she first laid eyes on Illyana, the child was covered in blood. Mystique thought at first the child had inherited her father's skin pigmentation, but after she was wiped clean, the infant girl looked human in every way. When laid next to her brother, the blue child clung to her instantly, wrapping his arms and tail around his twin as if they still shared a womb. The girl remained passive, not once acknowledging that her brother existed. As far as the child was concerned, she was the only one in the world.
Their father died the night Kurt and Illyana came into the world. Mystique didn't know the details, and she hadn't bothered to ask. Several hours after labor, after the twins were fed and asleep in her arms, she had accepted Magneto's raw eyes, his wounds from the same battle, and the pair of blood stained swords he handed her saying, "it was all I could save" as fact that part of her life was forever, irrevocably over. Mystique shed no tears; after all the death and destruction she had experienced in her time with the Brotherhood, she had none left to shed. She packed the few belongings she kept, and taking her children, she simply walked away. No one tried to stop her, although Magneto looked at her departure with sadness in his eyes, knowing he lost not one, but two good soldiers that night.
Mystique hadn't spoken to her brother in more than four years. Not a call, not a letter, not even an attempt. She had thrown away Raven the day she left her brother dying on the beach, but now that she was alone, a life with the Brotherhood was no way to raise a child. We owe them that much, she reasoned as she approached the house of her brother. When she knocked on the door to the mansion, Charles opened his home to her without hesitation, embraced his sister and wept.
She took up residence at Charles's school, she and her children in their own rooms tucked away from the rest of the mutants. Eventually, she was assigned a teaching position at Charles's school, and after a time, she found fulfillment in counseling young mutants whose abilities were difficult to conceal or control. After all, if you could find a way to live with that demon, you can handle any of these kids, Charles argued. There was good in him Charles, you just had to know where to look. Mystique did see the good in their son. Kurt was a lovable child, and a favorite of everyone who met him. He was the spitting image of his father except for his deep blue coloring, a gift from his mother. As he grew and matured, Mystique could find no vice in the child. It was as if everything good about his parents had been molded into a single person. With his twin, everything was different.
In many ways, Illyana was much like her mother. She was intelligent, observant, and learned at a young age how to manipulate men into doing whatever she wanted. Although she had inherited her mother's shape shifting abilities, Illyana did not inherit either of her parents' skin colors. All who saw her considered her a beautiful child. She was petite, she had dark hair that fell down her back in waves, and she had porcelain skin that made her look deceptively like a delicate doll. Her most notable feature was her eyes – one golden, one ice blue – that gave her an intense stare that prevented anyone from really looking directly into her soul. Heterocromia iridum, it was called, and a bad pick-up line her brother had used once on a human. Despite her shifting abilities, she never once concealed this unique feature. The girl rarely spoke, preferring instead to observe the world silently and calculating though her mismatched eyes.
Kurt loved his sister, despite Illyana's cool indifference. Never an affectionate child, Illyana rarely returned kisses or hugs from her family. Kurt followed her like a lovesick puppy, never deterred from her silence or from her lack of sisterly affection. He would make up stories and perform acrobatics to entertain her, and her rare smile was a treasure he held dear. She kept to herself mostly, her nose buried in a book or drawing in a journal she kept with her at all times. Mystique often caught her daughter playing with her father's swords, and no matter how well she hid them, Illyana always seemed able to find the weapons, as if finding them was an extension of her mutation. The only time she seemed fascinated – truly fascinated – was when she was tracing her fingers along the engraved Cyrillic writing on the twisted metal blades.
While Kurt was an accommodating child, Illyana demanded – she rarely asked – when she wanted things. Charles indulged her in almost every way, and although she excelled at controlling her mutation at an early age, her uncle was frustrated with her lack of dedication to schoolwork. She is choosing to be difficult, Charles reasoned. Mystique wouldn't accept that as an answer to her daughter's personality. She often thought about this when she watched her children play and when Mystique searched the Illyana's face for answers to questions she dared not ask. Are we defined by the choices we make, or sometimes, do we have no choice at all? Mystique didn't know if personalities were transferable, and although she never breathed a word to anyone about it, Mystique saw too much potential for violence in her daughter.
At eight, Illyana began to work with her father's swords in training. Charles brought in a teacher especially for his niece. As long as she learns to control them, he argued, what harm can she really be?
By ten, she cut her teacher so badly that he needed stitches in three places.
At fifteen, an older boy had a desperate crush on her. Despite her lack of interest, it was rumored that one afternoon he had succeeded in grabbing Illyana and forcibly kissed her in the hallway. Soon after, the same boy runaway from Charles's school, or so it was reported. Two days after his uncharacteristic departure, Mystique caught Illyana wiping blood off one of her father's swords. As she stood in the doorway she made eye contact with her daughter, there was no surprise or remorse in her duel colored eyes. It was the first time Mystqiue was frightened of her own flesh and blood.
And at sixteen, she was gone.
Just like that, Illyana left no note, no reason, just a teary-eyed brother who clung to Mystique and wept for a sister he loved with words he could not identify. Azazel's swords were gone as well, but this did not surprise Mystique. She just hoped the next time she saw her daughter, Illyana would choose to fight on the same side.