The first thing Azura noticed was that the room she was in was a pale pink color with white moldings bridging the walls to the floor and ceiling; though the room wasn't lit with a lamp, the color was so naturally bright that it almost illuminated the room, allowing her to see. The second thing she noticed was that she was laying down in a bed, white and green, fluffy as ever, and she was tucked under the covers with such precision that it felt like she had done it herself. Removing herself from the bed, Azura stood up, relishing the feeling of her bare feet touching solid floor once again, and begun to think to herself.
"I can't remember a single thing after my death..." The songstress looked around the room and tried to make sense of where she was; in all throughout Nohr and Hoshido, she had never seen a house colored or arranged like this, even for the nobility who could afford it. "This place is unfamiliar to me, where am I? I'll have to look around and investigate." Slowly, she walked towards the door to the room, careful that there were no traps, and gripped the doorknob tightly; the sensation of touching brass was another pleasurable feeling to her, where previously, all she could do was phase through matter, unable to interact with the world around her. Opening the door, all Azura could see was darkness, the halls unlit with seemingly no lamps she could illuminate the halls with; she began touching the walls, partially to feel out where she was going, partially to enjoy touching things again, and eventually made her way to a stairwell. Slowly, she began to step down the stairs, careful not to slip and fall, and eventually, she reached what she assumed was the ground floor. Going through the first doorway she found, Azura carefully snuck into the room and used the shadows to conceal herself as she looked around the room - what she saw caused her eyes to grow wide; in the darkness, the familiar hairstyle and shining crown of one of her greatest comrades, his figure sitting on a chair and staring out the small window.
"Xander!" Azura yelped with glee, forgetting she was supposed to be stealthy. The songstress giggled a bit and smiled wide as she came closer to the Nohrian royal. "Oh, forgive me for my outburst, it's just...I never thought I would see you again, it's been so..." Azura trailed off as she looked at Xander, sitting in the same position, showing no movement or sign of emotion; something was clearly wrong. "Xander?" Azura reached over and touched the royal's shoulder, and upon feeling him, quickly dashed in front of him to confirm her suspicions; the Xander she spoke to was nothing more than a felt doll, crafted with precision to look like the royal, face crafted in a permanent smile with shiny, beady onyx eyes. "Wha- What is...?" Azura trailed off as she heard a thunderous yawn come from outside the home, startling her as she never heard anything like it.
"Hmm? Morning already...?" The voice sounded familiar to Azura; carefully, she approached the window and knelt over, concealing herself save the top of her head, and was shocked to see the outside world. Outside the window there was another, gigantic bedroom, crafted from stone and lit only by a pale, cloudy light through a single window; out of the corner of her eye, Azura could see a gigantic figure rising from the equally giant bed, wiping her eyes and rolling out of the bed before walking over to a separate bathroom, slowly and groggily. Azura looked at the giant's seemingly short stature, blond hair, and strands of purple clashing with her bright pink pajamas; bells went off in her head as she knew exactly who the giant was.
"Elise?!" Azura sunk below the window and sat with her legs to her chest, arms gripping her dress tightly as she tried to calm herself from the sight. "How did Elise get so huge? This has to be a trick, she couldn't have gotten so..." Suddenly, memories from the night before began to flood Azura's mind, memories of Camilla & Elise, memories of the shooting star, memories of the dollhouse; as the memories came fast, Azura looked up at the life-sized doll of Xander, and the truth hit her like a arrow. "This is the dollhouse." she spoke. Another thought entered her mind. "I've become tiny."
Azura placed her hand to her forehead, she had no idea how to cope with the situation she was presented with. Slowly she got up and walked over to a sofa at the end of the room; a doll of King Garon sat on the sofa, smiling in a manner the King Garon she knew never would, unsettling Azura a tad. She pushed over the doll to the floor and begun to lay down on the sofa, trying to make sense of the situation that she found herself in.
"Alright," she thought, staring up at the dark ceiling, "Not only am I suddenly alive, but I've shrunk to the size of a doll along with it. What could've caused this to happen?" Azura thought about the shooting star again and remembered Elise's wish, it was clear to her that that was what bought her back to life. Further, she thought about the doll Elise made - the doll made in her image contained bits of Azura's hair and was placed in the same bed she found herself in, meaning that somehow, she managed to completely replace the doll, becoming a living person through its body; Azura reached her arm skyward and grasped her hand, feeling the sensation of flesh once again, just to confirm she wasn't made of felt. The songstress closed her eyes and giggled, finding humor in the situation she was in. "So I'm now a living doll, is that it? Midori always did tell me she wanted a doll of me when she was little, the gods above sure do have an interesting sense of humor."
She looked out the window from her sofa, looking into Elise's gigantic bedroom once more; she could hear the young princess humming a tune to herself from the bathroom as she brushed her teeth. At first, Azura thought of the peace in Nohr and the efforts to rebuild Hoshido Xander had instituted, thoughts that made her smile, but then, she began to have other thoughts, dreadful reminders of the world under the Bottomless Canyon, the world she knew as a home. She remembered the monstrous false Garon, the possessed corpse of Takumi, the invisible soldiers that attacked her son; all of these were signs that another war was going to come, one that could destroy both Nohr and Hoshido in the blink of an eye unless she did something. There were two thoughts she cursed; one was that her pendant was gone, which not only meant she would no longer die through her songs, but no longer have power in them either, the other was that she was 8 inches tall, and at her size, she would be unable to do anything meaningful to save both kingdoms, even the journey through the lake would take forever for her to swim through.
"There's no choice," Azura thought, "I'll have to find my way to Corrin, she's our only hope." Azura tapped her foot against the wooden frame of the toy sofa, thinking just how she could get to Corrin in this state. "I know the layout of Castle Krakenberg well, but I'm not able to phase through walls anymore, nor go completely unnoticed. Death could await me yet again if I make one false step, or rather, if someone else makes a false step..." Then, Azura heard Elise close the door to her bathroom, she tilted her head to look out the window and could see her groggily stumbling over to the vanity, mumbling to herself.
"Another boring day..." grumbled the young princess, pouting as she begun to tie up her hair. "I'm happy for Xander's peacetime, but I miss the thrill of our adventures together as a family, out on the field, fighting monsters and saving lives. Most of all, I just miss Azura..." Elise yawned as she pouted to herself, struggling to pay attention as she twisted her big roll of hair into a spiral; suddenly she got more heated as she looked into the mirror with awake determination. "You know what Elise? Today, you're going to ask Corrin to help you look for Azura! You march right into her room, give her your best hug-a-snug attack, and say 'I wanna go find Big Sis'! Yeah, that's what you'll do!" Elise finished tying up one spiral and pushed up on it, admiring its poofiness before moving on to the next batch of her hair.
Azura watched all this from the sofa and slowly stood up, thinking to herself as she did so. "If I let Elise know I'm here now, then she can take me to Corrin with little danger." Azura thought over the implications about this; if Elise took her to Corrin, then she would be involving Elise in her journey, marking her for death with the invisible soldiers. Furthermore, if Elise were to accidently speak of the other world outside of the world itself, she would disappear like her mother had years before; she did not wish that fate upon the young princess. "I couldn't bear to do this to Elise, no matter how strong a fighter she has become. And yet, she is my only way through this castle safely, and if she still doesn't know what happened to me, it'll break her heart..." Azura mulled over the choices presented to her carefully, weighing the outcomes, before reaching a decision.
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