Heads and Tails

There are two sides to every coin. You flip a coin and the decision is made. Heads or tails. This path or that path. Up or down. Left or right. Light or dark.

Good or evil.

I sigh and lie back in the long grass, flipping the coin up into the air again. I wonder which way it will face when I catch it this time? Heads, and I'm Illyana Rasputin, the little russian snowflake child, all sweetness and light. Tails, and I'm the Darkchilde. Hell on Earth. Fire and brimstone and terror. The end of humanity's reign.

And it really is that close, that's what no-one understands. Kitty, Piotr, not even the Professor understand just how close each side of me is, just how little it would take to push me over into the darkness. Rahne's right to be scared of me. I'm rolling on the edge at the moment, waiting for the momentum of the flip to stop, waiting for the coin to call heads or tails.

Evil calls to me. That darkness inside, power gained through fear, the blood-rich song of destruction that I could blaze through this world. To know what that feels like, to know what is so easily within my grasp if I would but reach out for it...

I cannot accept it and I cannot give it up. To become it I would destroy everything that I love about this world - Piotr, Kitty, the Mutants. My family. But to give it up I would destroy everything that I am. All that I have learned in my life would be gone, and I would be half of what I am. I can't do that...

An alarm beeps and I open my eyes with a jolt, suddenly waking up from the half-daze I was in. Nice idea Illyana, I chide myself. Doing homework outside on a warm summer's day might seem like a good idea when you've been cooped up inside for too long, but sooner or later the quiet air and heat from the sun make any serious study impossible. I should go inside to get this done, really. I should sit down at a desk and think seriously about what I'm going to write. I should just go over, pick up the books and walk into the library...

Nah. It's criminal to be inside on a day like this. I roll over to where the books are lying open and prop up my chin with my hands, squinting at the sunlight reflecting off the pages. My eyes skim over to the next question to answer and I almost laugh out loud as I read it. Subtle, Prof, subtle.

"Evaluate and assess, using the accompanying texts for reference, the impact of formal education on the behaviour of children and young adults in the given communities studied."

That one's so obviously intended for me it's funny. Ever since I arrived here you've been trying to get me to go to classes. You don't get it, do you, Prof? I spent seven years growing up in the next best thing to hell. What use has your education got for me? You're just trying to get me to make the decision, aren't you? To flip the coin and let it fall, and go one way or the other.

No, I don't think I'll bother with this. I reach over and set the alarm again for fifteen minutes time, just in case I doze off, and lie back in the grass again, gazing up at the clouds. The sun is warm on my face and a slight breeze rustles through the trees. I'm not going to sleep. I'm just going to close my eyes for a moment...

               *            *            *

I'm running. Running as fast as I can along the cold metal strip. The coin is a vast silver disc beneath me, rolling across an empty landscape, and I have to keep it moving. I run, my feet finding purchase on the rough surface, keeping it moving, keeping it balanced on its side. I know that I can't ever let it stop moving, because if it does it will fall down, on one side or the other...

I see S'ym and a hundred lesser demons on the ground, cheering me on with their loud and violent screams. The soulsword flashes silver in my hand, its colour echoed in the metal beneath my feet. I see Kitty and the New Mutants standing on a rocky outcrop, yelling out their encouragement like I'm an olympic runner winning a race. As I glance down at the coin I see the yellow-and-black of my uniform, half covered by the ancient metal of my armour.

And beside me is a man, walking along in the empty air, effortlessly keeping pace with the coin as it trundles across the land. He is tall and pale, with a long black cloak and wild black hair. I feel as if I have seen him before.

"Illyana Rasputin," he says. "Why are you running?"

"I have to keep it moving. I have to stop the coin from falling." I'm running so hard it hurts and there are tears in my eyes. Anger fills me at the humiliation and I reach out into the sky with my sword, spells already filling my head.

"No," he says. "Not here." I see his hand reach out and, in an eye-twisting wrench of perspective, he takes hold of the coin and catches it in his hand. He holds it out in his pure-white palm and I see it is blank. We are standing now, in a place full of trees and grass. There are mountains somewhere in the distance.

"Did it fall?" I ask. Unspoken dread rushes through me - which side did it land on?

"In a manner of speaking," he replies. "Why do you fear this?"

I look up at him. He has no eyes, just two stars deep in the blackness. "I can't let it fall," I repeat. "Heads or tails. What do you do when both the answers are terrible?"

"Flip your coin, Illyana Rasputin."

He hands the coin to me and I look at it. One side has a sword engraved upon it, the other a snowflake. The meaning is obvious.

"No," I reply, tears of anger filling my eyes. "I can't."

"Flip your coin, Illyana Rasputin."

My hand moves up of its own accord. I cry out, reaching for my sword, reaching for the magic. But before I can touch it my thumb has moved, sending the coin spinning into the air...

                *            *            *

Leaning over the book to shade it from the sun, I start writing, ignoring the question itself and answering what I know it really meant.

"Education is as much about the teacher as it is about the pupil. I have had an education. In seven long years in the hands of demons I have learned things that no-one should have to learn. I could teach you as much as you could teach me. Would you want that?

"I know you mean well, and I know this is important. But I can't learn in your way any more than you could teach in mine. I do not know what the answer is any more than I suspect you do. But I do know there is one, and I do know that, working together, we may just find it.

"I think you'll understand this.

"Illyana."

I close the book and lie back again, breathing in the smell of grass. I'll bet he wasn't expecting that. But he'll know what it means.