If you've been wondering what I've been doing all this time, it was a combination of prior commitments and an unruly semester. If you haven't, then, well, go read my previous works and fall in love with me, then you too can relish in the aching pain of my inconsistent hiatuses and tales notorious for updating... whenever. Anyhow, a direct for the series aired recently, a bunch of stuff was announced. A poll in particular, one that ends in about an hour or so from this posting.

~Perhaps a last minute vote for Azura so that she may sustain her current top ten placement?~

But I digress, let's break from all these willy-nilly spin-offs and remakes for a moment. There is a particular scene (this is—at the time of this writing—a Japanese-only conversation) in the Parent-Child Scramble conversation between Corrin and Shigure that I find rather amusing. It's brought up for a mere second, you might even miss it the first time, yet it's just long enough that it offers enough context to make for a pretty amusing scenario to envision.

Word Count: 565 words.

Pitch Perfect

She attempts to tap her feet to the rhythm, what little of it she can salvage from the sheer dissonance it's marred in.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, two, four.

. . .

She halts in an instant, bare foot cringing at the utter lack of harmony. Her response is quick, blunt, and without even the faintest hint of marital leniency.

"Again."

Across the room, her skittish prince of a performer jerks at her tone, muscles tensing, hairs on the back of his damp neck standing on-end.

He's never seen her like this, he's never experienced her like this. She's usually so demure, so sweet and reserved, so absolutely adverse to the idea of straining his vocal cords to the third degree. The woman before him was not his wife, far from it.

"A-Again?" Corrin pants, dumbfounded. "Hah.. I feel like I've sung the same verse a hundred times already! And there's still a whole song left to go!"

His pleas fall on deaf ears, not that he expects mercy at this point (even death is beginning to seem like a brighter alternative). "You can't sing well because your heart isn't in to it," she says, eluding his cries of exhaustion in favor of philosophy, and he almost wants to laugh at it until he realizes she's serious.

"I.. what?"

Azura wastes no time in continuing, as if she's prepared it in advance. "You sing as if you want to impress me, as if you want the masses to like you."

Now he really wants to laugh, but his better judgment takes priority. "O-Of course I am!" he claims, arm across his chest. "I want everybody to like us! That's why I'm singing my throat out over here and.. I, er.. I thought that's what this was for?"

"Hm, it's no wonder you're so fatigued," she hums, head shaking. "Singing doesn't come from the throat, but from the soul. You are not singing for others so much as expressing yourself."

".. Woah."

She has a knack for that, throwing him into a sweaty, stupefied, bumbling mess and all.

And still, even with his mouth agape, she continues. "You need to divorce yourself from the outside world, those watching you with baited breath, and focus only on the emotions you wish to convey. Then, release them."

Corrin can only rub the back of his head, so stumped, so dumbstruck, so lovestruck to the point of feeling unworthy of even being within her company. Face flushed, he stutters. "I-I see.. Th-thank you, Azura. I'll be sure to put that guidance to good use when we pick this up tomorro—"

The daggers she shoots at him are unrivaled.

"The children won't be back for another hour or so," she swears, seeing through his facade. "Again."

"What, r-really?! But, but my throat—!"

"I assumed this little diversion was respite enough."

"B-But, that whole heart-to-heart just now! I can't think of a better way to cap off the evening—!"

"Corrin."

He gulps, and assumes the position of a soldier in his own army.

"Is this really the extent of your feelings toward your child?"

That does it. What little wavering resistance he has crumbles into oblivion, Corrin loosely hangs his head low and airily sighs with a feigned sense of rejuvenation.

"Okay! Take it from the top!"

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four...

"When it comes to music, Azura's quite strict. Every day she scolded me during practice. I think you would've been surprised if you saw that Azura, Shigure."

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