Another writing warm-up, using a character from a novel I plan on writing (eventually) and based off of a picture I found and years of dance classes.

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After the three long weeks she had spent as a prisoner in a cold, lightless room and the three days she had been locked up in the most luxurious bedroom she had ever had the displeasure of staying in, Skylar decided that she was going to take advantage of the regent and prince's absence to explore the palace without having guards escort her everywhere or having to kill some freaky monster. She told herself that she was going to take up Prince Declan's command to the royal staff to let her go and do as she pleased (except leaving the palace grounds, of course) in order to plan her impending escape. But if Skylar was just a tiny bit honest with herself, she'd admit that she actually just curious about the other enchanted objects and people that were so common in this weird world she had crash-landed into.

    After finally figuring out how to navigate herself through the seemingly endless galleries and corridors, Skylar found herself outside for the first time since the night when she had been "peacefully" led into the underground prisons. It was a superficially elegant courtyard with a smooth marble platform and perfectly formed iron trees placed in even spaces near the walls of the palace.

    In the center of the rectangular courtyard, a few stray servants surrounded a giant globe that was blurry from the distance Skylar was standing at. Intrigued, she began a slow, quiet walk closer, hoping not to spook the servants on what she assumed to be their break, to no avail. One maid, with greenish-pink eyes and a cutesy short haircut noticed Skylar silently approaching and elbowed her companion. Immediately, the attendants turned to give her a quick bow, and scurried inside in fear of saying or doing something in front of Skylar that would anger their future ruler.

    Scowling despondently, Skylar made the quick and easy decision to not attempt another attempt to befriend one of the maids, and examined the globe. Much to her surprise, a pair of hazel eyes stared back at her.

    A young girl, maybe eleven or twelve years old, stood frozen in a position that Skylar recognized as quatrieme derriere from her childhood ballet lessons, the only sign of life being her fearful, blinking eyes and chest moving slightly up and down as she breathed. Her own eyes narrowing in confusion, Skylar stepped closer to the globe- wait, no, it was more like a snow globe, only with cotton candy pink flower petals- and pressed her hand against the glass, refusing to break eye contact with the dainty ballerina.

    Taking Skylar moving forward as sign of who knows what, the girl lowered herself as her body seemed to naturally melt into third position, her upwards right arm flowing to her side. Then, lowering her gaze to her faded slippers, she pushed herself into adage, standing on en pointe. After staying stationary for several seconds, the girl sunk back into third position, then, as quickly as a grasshopper could jump, performed five entrechats, her pale pink tutu poofing in the air as she returned to solid ground each time. Adjusting into another stance, the girl raised her arms slowly as her left leg rose, her toes pointed flawlessly.

    Skylar copied the girl, turned and lifting her body into a flatfoot third arabesque instead of the young coryphée's pointe one. The girl watched her from the corner of her tired eyes with a mildly stunned expression. As she gracefully dropped herself into first position, so did Skylar. The ballerina glanced at her thoughtfully, as if she was mentally creating a complex problem.

Suddenly, without warning, the girl swept herself into a swift pas de bourrée dessus and then brought herself down and back up again with a demi-plié, but Skylar quickly followed suit, random memories of the ballet classes that she had loved to take before her mother had forced her to drop out flashing through her mind. Then followed a piqué turn, a brisé, an arabesque penché, and a carefully spaced sissonne before the girl turned towards Skylar with a relieved look on her enervated face.

Not so elegantly, the young girl collapsed to her knees, wrapping her emaciated arms tightly around herself and burying her head between her body and her limbs as deeply as she could. Her movement was so sudden that it took Skylar a moment to register that the leotard-clad girl was no longer standing. Unsurely, she sank down to her knees to join the girl, leaning closer towards her glass snow globe.

The girl looked up, a smile gracing her features and big, fat tears forming in her eyes. She opened her mouth and spoke, but through her pretty prison, Skylar couldn't hear her. But she could read her lips, though.

"You're from home." The petite girl mouthed. "No one else hear knows ballet, but you do. You're from home." The girl unwrapped herself and pressed her pale hands against the glass, her joyful expression beginning to darken with desperation and depression.

"Please take me home."