She was blinded by the lights that flooded the stage but left all else in darkness. Still, she knew all eyes in the audience were on her as she moved across the stage, her steps light and felled with the energy of life and creation. She was the embodiment of spring with ribbons in her hair and flowers on her dress, the fabric on her hips shifting like the wind. She glittered with silver and light as she danced, barely feeling the pain in her feet. She knew by the end of the performance they would be bleeding from the toe shoes, but right now she didn't care.
She was Persephone, the woman Hades had fallen in love with and taken to the underworld for part of the year. She knew she should have been afraid as the music shifted into something darker and far more foreboding as Hades stepped into the light, smoke and cinders coiling about him, dancing through the air with a life of their own, but she wasn't. Neither was he what she imagined him to be. Instead of darkness he was swathed in gold and glittered like the sun. He was all heat and fire and wrath and he was beautiful.
Belle's heart skipped in her chest and something akin to longing filled her as he moved across the stage towards her. There was a frightening kind of love in his eyes as he reached for her and the music lifted in crescendo.
Regina watched her dance through the slit in the door, surprised at her grace as she pirouetted about the cell to some music she could only hear in her head. Her lips moved without sound, as if she were talking to someone, but she was alone in the cell. It seemed strange that after all these years locked away the girl was still capable of dancing with such skill. Apparently her training had never left her, even if her senses had.