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"Girls, they wanna have fu-un, oh girls just wanna have fun..." The signal from the little radio drifted a bit with the gusts of wind driving sleet against the windows of the bedroom. Kitty sang along lightly to the radio as she sat on the floor in front of the room's full-length mirror, methodically teasing her curly hair into a fluffy cloud.
Rahne sang along as well as she sat on the floor, her voice barely louder than the static. She kept shaking her head in disbelief as she slowly turned the pages of the fat Sears Wish Book catalog that had arrived in the mansion's mailbox earlier that day.
Illyana lounged on her bed nearby, idly leafing through a stack of fashion magazines Kitty had brought over for her. She wrinkled her nose at the powerful scent wafting off the pages, a combination of the acrid printing inks on the glossy paper and the perfume samples wedged into the pages. Coming upon a series of cartoon diagrams of faces showing bits of colour applied with different kinds of little brushes, she peered with interest and increasing frustration. The images looked somewhat like diagrams for spells, but she doubted this was actually that straightforward. She kept trying to pick out repeated words in the short captions, to tie them to the images, but was making little headway. While she could read arcane runes, the English was eluding her.
Her brother Piotr had told her the Professor could help her with learning English and its bizarre alphabet and rules, but she just couldn't abide the feeling of his mind trying to push its way in.
Illyana snorted and put down the magazine. She could easily shrug off the incursions of powerful telepaths into her mind, how could she not avoid the incursions of stupid songs from the radio? "Girls, they wanna, wanna have fun, girls, they wanna have..."
Dani leaned against the window frame, pouting at the sleet. "Girls, they wanna go play in the snow. This stuff is ridiculous."
Kitty shut her eyes as she picked up her hairspray. "Yeah, it's not great. Sometimes we get a proper snow in December, but not usually until January. Watch out, I'm gonna spray. Using extra against the sleet."
They winced as clouds of hairspray wafted over and over Kitty's teased hair. "There, hope that holds it." Carefully she walked over and pulled a sweater out of her dresser. "I've been dying to wear this, and today is the day." She laid the sweater on the bed.
"Huh. That is – whoa, that sure is pink." Shaking her head, Dani snorted, "Wow. I coulda pulled that out of someone's mind, their worst nightmare, it's nuclear."
"Oh, Dani, don't say that." Rahne held the sweater up to her torso as she looked in the mirror. "It's pretty ae, I look like a fairy princess."
"A fuzzy fairy princess?" Kitty teased.
Rahne winced at the word 'fuzzy' and put the sweater back on the bed. "Gingas shouldnae wear pink anyway, an' I cannae do that thing you're doin' with my hair, it's so short."
"'Gingas'?" Kitty asked mid-tease. Rahne shrugged and pointed up at her head. Kitty's mouth dropped open in sudden comprehension. "Ah! I've heard Moira MacTaggart tease Banshee, is that what it means? It just means redhead?"
Rahne nodded sheepishly.
"Huh." Kitty cocked her head to one side. "Aaaaand that's supposed to be bad?" Rahne stared at her briefly in disbelief, then winced again and shrugged.
Kitty continued, "I kinda sorta thought it was maybe, y'know, dirty, like, an inn-u-ennn-do." She pronounced the word deliberately. Ignoring Rahne's horrified expression in the mirror, she gestured at the sweater again. "It looks fine on you. But you know who it would look perfect on? Illyana."
Illyana looked up at the sound of her name, to see the fluffy pink sweater flying through the air directly at her face. A summoning disc flashed as Illyana, and the sweater, disappeared.
"Whoops," Kitty grumbled, "I was gonna wear that today."
"Is she, isn't she, coming back?"
Kitty shrugged expressively. "Yeah? Sometime? I just don't know when. I didn't mean to startle her. Serves me right, I guess?"
---
Illyana emerged from the stepping disc in her old room in Limbo. She quickly swivelled around to see if she'd been detected by S'ym or any of the minor demons, but couldn't hear anything nearby. In the dim half-light it looked more decrepit than she expected, with the furniture strewn about and the thin mattress slashed. Some of the walls had some sort of crud on them. Maybe blood?,she thought. It had been a pretty pitched battle with Belasco, it could very well be.
A spot of colour caught her attention; it was the fluffy sweater that had teleported across with her. She picked it up off the floor where it had landed and dusted it off gingerly. It was so, very... pink was the only word for it.
She tucked it under her arm, at a loss for what to do next.
Somewhere along the line the mirror on the vanity table had been broken and part had fallen out of its frame. She grimaced. The bottom part was still usable, if she was sitting in front of it. She picked her way across the room in her stocking feet. Retrieving her chair from where it lay and dusting it off with her hand, she grimaced again as she wiped the dust onto her jeans. One leg had broken where it met the bottom of the seat, but if she sat on it carefully it was usable. So she sat carefully on her broken-but-still-usable chair and looked at her face framed in the broken-but-still-usable mirror.
Illyana snorted. Her spotty education hadn't extended to the word 'metaphor' but she could appreciate one all the same.
Holding up the pink sweater to her torso, she had to admit that Cat was right. Even in the dim light of the derelict room, the pink looked pretty nice on her. Kitty, not Cat, she reminded herself.
Suddenly inspired, she summoned a stepping disc, returning in a flash. She spread an array of variously-coloured cosmetics onto the vanity.** She couldn't retrieve the fashion magazine with the diagrams back in her room in the mansion without alerting her teammates, but she figured she could remember the spell well enough from the pictures. She set to work.
The diagrams had made the effect look so easy, but as she scrutinised her work she wished she could have read the associated spells properly. The Cerulean Blue mascara set off her eyes well enough, true. But by the time she'd applied the zones of Tundra Sage, Plum Dandy, Ea-nāṣir Copper and Tuscany Goldenrod eyeshadow as best as she could, the total effect of the spell was not as enchanting as the diagrams. She applied the Patrick Nagel Scarlet to her lips. Studying the effect, she wondered if maybe it went awry because she had that song running through her head instead of a proper incantation.
Maybe the makeup would look better with the pink sweater? She shrugged the confection on over her T-shirt, taking care not to smear the layers of colour. It did make a slightly better overall effect, even if the girl outside still did not match the girl on the inside.
Kitty does that thing with her hair. She stared appraisingly at her smooth blonde hair. I can do that, it's not even a spell. She picked up a comb and stared at her hair again, trying to decide where to start.
---
"I can smell her," S'ym gestured at his nose to his underling demons. "She's trying to mask it with ...some overworld funk, but I can still tell." He motioned for silence. They stalked toward the wing of the palace where Illyana's bedroom used to be.
With a toothy grin, S'ym waved the other demons to lead the charge on the room where he sensed Illyana was hiding. The ensuing screams were delightful and satisfying to his ears as he strode toward the door with relish at the terror he'd inflict.
He was almost knocked off his feet by wild-eyed petty demons fleeing headlong from the room. He realised they were actually the source of the terror-stricken screaming. Collaring one of them by the scruff of their neck as they rushed by, he dragged them screaming along with him as he stomped into Illyana's room to confront the menace that lurked there.
If it wasn't for the shining brilliant white of Illyana's soulsword illuminating the room, S'ym would not have recognised the apparition before him. He had seen more than a few rearranged faces in his time, but whoever had done this to Illyana was a master of torture indeed. She'd even had all of her hair half-torn from her skull, every disarrayed filament reflecting back the white light. He lacked the words to describe the shade of pink that adorned her torso, but S'ym had the impression that there was mighty sorcery at play that looked to have burned her and half-transformed her into a fuzzy animal at the same time.
He let the squirming petty demon flee with a dismissive flick of his wrist. "Lookin' good, kid," he directed at Illyana.
Illyana peered at the demon suspiciously. "What's that supposed to mean?" She did not lower her sword.
"It means, that you've been done over but good."
What does he mean by that? She mumbled, "New spell."
"Wait, you did this to yourself?" S'ym guffawed, making Illyana scowl. "At least, it scared the little ones, if that was what you were trying to do."
"Of course I was," Illyana stuck out her chin. "'cause girls just wanna have fun!" Striking a defiant pose, she summoned a stepping disc.
Illyana guided the teleportation disc to the changing room next to the mansion's Danger Room. She knew none of her team had sessions that afternoon, nor did Kitty, maybe the wider team also had the day off? A surreptitious peek confirmed the room was deserted, just as she'd hoped.
She dispelled her soulsword, still frowning from S'ym's comment. Chagrined, she realised that she'd left all the cosmetics back in Limbo. She couldn't go back right away, because S'ym might still be there and it would ruin her exit. She couldn't go back for them later, either, because they would get spoiled by the somewhat nasty atmosphere of Limbo, or the nastier denizens messing with them.
Then she spied fresh towels in the spa pool and massage area.
She emerged some time later considerably refreshed, with most of the makeup scrubbed away and her wet hair finger-combed back to smoothness as best as she could. She couldn't bear to put her dirty clothes back on, but the pink sweater could be returned to Kitty. She'd take her chances that she wouldn't meet anyone going up the back stairs while dressed only in a towel.
Her luck didn't hold. She could hear Roberto and Sam's voices in the stairwell. At least, she thought the voices belonged to the boys, they were putting on gruff accents.
"You call that a light saber? This is a light saber." Both boys made thrumming woob-woob-woob sounds as they stepped up and down.
"I pity the fool who tries to use a light saber on me!"
"Mr T was not a Jedi!"
"Put 'em in a microwave, make 'em explode!"
Illyana hesitated. If she summoned a stepping disc, she'd have to go through Limbo, dressed in a towel. Unacceptable.
Things are done differently here. Ororo told me about American attitudes toward nudity. The Ororo that lived here, still alive, not her Ororo, she corrected herself befoer pushing away the memory of her mentor in Limbo. She made the decision; she would walk proudly like the ruler she was. Roberto tore past her, startling her, with Sam only a few steps behind. Holding the towel on with one hand and the pink sweater in front of her face with the other, she made a dash for it.
"Whoa." She could hear Sam exclaim as she dashed past into her bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her.
Not. Dignified. What was that, she chided herself. When she lowered the sweater, there were 4 pairs of eyes looking at her.
"Well, look at that! That's our cue to go!," Xi'an escorted her two younger siblings toward the door. "We brought you some comic books, Illyana, we thought you might like them." She put a little emphasis on the last words.
"Spasibo!' Illyana thanked them; it was true she found the comic books a little easier to read in English than textbooks.
When they'd exited, Illyana turned to Kitty. "I brought back the sweater." She extended the pink fluff to her roommate. "I don't think it'll be good to wear out today, though."
"My fault for throwing it at you. And I've already been out and come back anyway," Kitty took the sweater, "but thanks for bringing it back. You ...went to Limbo?" She looked sidelong at Illyana.
Without meeting her eyes, Illyana nodded and walked over to her side of the room. She touched the covers of the colourful comic books strewn on her bed before opening her dresser to get out new clothes.
"Oh hey," Kitty interrupted her, "while I was out I got you a Hanukkah present." She fished around behind her bed. "I'm getting your brother to fry us up some latkes and I can cream you all playing dreidl afterward! Here." She handed Illyana a bag. "I haven't wrapped it, but you don't really have to, you know."
Mystified by what Kitty was saying, Illyana took the bag and peered inside. Then she chuckled as she pulled out... a fluffy sweater of her own, in bright red.
"Do you like it? We can be twins!" Kitty clapped her hands.
"That might be too scary, I think," Illyana laughed, remembering the terrified yowls of Limbo's demons, "but yes, thank you so much! Just, don't make me try to have big hair like yours!"