Azura

Overview

Azura is a major character in all iterations of Fire Emblem: Fates. An abducted princess who spent the latter part of her life in the Kingdom of Hoshido, she becomes an important ally to the player character Corrin.

She is a trained fighter who is capable with a spear, but her singing abilities are what makes her stand out amongst her warrior peers. Her song seems to perform a variety of functions, some bordering on the fantastical. At its mildest, her singing can rejuvenate allies in the middle of a battle; at full power, it can counteract powerful magics.

Yet despite her status as royalty, Azura still remains an enigma to her contemporaries. No one knows why her singing has such incredible power. The game initially does not explain how she has the knowledge concerning Dragonstones to prevent Corrin from transforming into a mindless dragon. The player character also learns in Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest that she is capable of traveling to a hidden land between the Kingdoms of Nohr and Hoshido; but players do not get an explanation as to how she knows of the place. Azura's full backstory and origins only receive a fuller explanation in Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation.

Character summary

Early life

Azura’s origins are a mystery. She is the daughter of Arete, who became the second wife to the Nohrian king Garon; both mother and daughter are very talented singers who shared a close bond until Arete died under mysterious circumstances.

Life in the Nohrian court was not an easy one for Azura, who needed to cope with more than her mother’s death. Garon’s many concubines vied for his favour and love, and that conflict was also visible in their children fighting and killing off one another. Azura herself was the subject of bullying and physical abuse by some of Garon’s older offsprings, and the experience led to her becoming largely distant and aloof as a young adult.

Azura’s life improved somewhat after her kidnapping by the rival Kingdom of Hoshido. This development placed the young songstress under the care of the Hoshidan High Queen Mikoto, who treated her like her own daughter. Azura was not entirely welcome in her new home; the extended Hoshidan royal family was wary of her, and she did not form meaningful relationships with some of Mikoto’s own children. But she became very close to the queen’s youngest daughter, Sakura, and came to view her life in Hoshido as a much better experience than what she endured in Nohr.

The songstress also becomes fast friends with Corrin when the latter is escorted to Hoshido early in the Fire Emblem: Fates story. With the rest of Mikoto’s children, the two venture around the markets and stalls nearby Castle Shirasagi. Tragedy strikes when a hooded assailant uses Corrin’s sword to create a devastating shockwave around the city plaza, killing innocents bystanders and the High Queen. Corrin, who recently learned that Mikoto was their biological mother, tranforms into a dragon to lash out at all the enemies responsible for the attack. But with the player character at risk of losing their sanity due to the transformation, Azura (at the risk of her own safety) intervenes with her magical song and pendant to help Corrin cool down and revert back into a human. From that point on, Corrin considers Azura to be a trustworthy friend.

The songstress' story after Chapter 6 varies depending on the player's chosen campaign.

Birthright

In Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright, Corrin sides with his new home and family, the Kingdom of Hoshido, against his adopted royal family from Nohr. There he better learns the extent of Azura's powerful singing abilities. She exhibits its potential when she sang to alleviate a curse affecting Prince Takumi, who attacked his own troops and siblings in the middle of a battle against the Mokushu ninjas. She also uses the song to restrain an entire Nohrian army when it attempts to close in on Corrin and their allies in Cyrkensia's grand opera house.

But using the song has one important drawback. Corrin learns that its use causes Azura to sustain great pain and damage to her body; and if she uses that power too much, she will simply die off and disappear. This new information causes Corrin to worry about Azura's well-being, given that she is willing to use the song to for the greater good of the Hoshidan army and its campaign against Nohr. But she promises that she will save her song for the most dire of circumstances.

Azura finds such an opportunity in the final battle against King Garon in his Blight Dragon form. With Corrin's blessing, she sings as forcefully as possible to restrict Garon's power, thus giving the Hoshidans the opportunity to slay the evil king once and for all. But the singing becomes too much for the songstress as she succumbs to the self-inflicted pain and passes away in the form of floating blue water.

Conquest

Corrin's decision to return to the Kingdom of Nohr raises Hoshidan suspicions around Azura, who was a Nohrian princess earlier in her life. Despite High Prince Ryoma publicly vouching for her trustworthiness, a faction within his army decides to take matters into its own hands by abducting the songstress with the intent of executing her. Fortunately for Azura, Corrin's Nohrian forces coincidentally encounter and defeat her captors at Fort Dragonfall. Understanding that she has no home in Hoshido, the songstress returns to Nohr and becomes a part of the player character's forces. While her stepfather King Garon barely acknowledges her return, she receives a warmer reception from Corrin's Nohrian siblings, who barely knew of her existence when they were children. Elise, the youngest of the siblings, is especially eager to make up for lost time with her new stepsister.

In Chapter 14, Azura uses her magical song for her own covert ends. Believing that King Garon is under the influence of a malignant evil, she disguises herself as a nondescript performer and sings in front of him and other onlookers in the grand opera house of Cyrkensia. The song's magic causes great pain within the Nohrian ruler, but Azura learns from the performance that her stepfather is beyond saving. Her actions, much to her horror, result in Nohr's indiscriminate search-and-destroy operation of all performers in the resort city.

In Chapter 15, the player character secretly follows Azura (to the latter's surprise) into a strange underground land between the Kingdoms of Hoshido and Nohr. That locale is full of enemies that look neither living nor dead. But with Corrin and the Nohrian knight Gunter, who was presumably killed earlier on in the story, Azura fights off these enemies and travels back up to the Bottomless Canyon between the two warring kingdoms.

Azura warns Corrin not to speak of this land to anyone else but her and Gunter; failure to do so results in a curse that makes its target disappear. She also shows them a crystal ball from that strange place that reveals the true nature of the cruel Nohrian king - as a monster in the literal (as opposed to just the figurative or metaphorical) sense. By presenting this evidence, Azura convinces Corrin that they need to depose Garon - but in a roundabout way. They are to help Garon conquer the kingdom of Hoshido and have him sit atop its magical throne that will show his true nature. Only then can his offspring see their father for what he truly is and have the courage to kill him and restore peace.

With their adopted Nohrian siblings, Corrin helps Nohr conquer Hoshido and the armies defending it. The siblings see their father as a monster and kill him shortly thereafter. But with a revived Hoshidan Prince Takumi (who presumably died in the battle atop the Great Wall of Suzanoh) threatening to destroy all Nohrians in a demonic rampage, Azura uses her mystical song to contain Takumi's powers and allow the Nohrians to kill him for good. The songstress disappears from view after the battle. And because nobody knows about the true nature of her song (unlike in Birthright), they are unsure as to the reason why she has gone missing.

Revelation

Azura remains by Corrin's side when they refuse to take sides in the imminent war between Hoshido and Nohr. To escape the wrath of both kingdoms, she takes the player character down to the same underground land from Conquest through the Bottomless Canyon. The songstress then introduces this land as part of the Kingdom of Valla.

Azura reveals that Anankos, the current King of Valla, is scheming to conquer the world after usurping the original king and his family. To that end, he is manipulating King Garon into sowing strife between Nohr and Hoshido - hoping that both sides would exhaust each other before he conquers them with his invisible army. When Corrin asked how she knows of these machinations, Azura admits to being a part of the deposed Vallite royalty. Specifically, she was a Vallite princess while her parents served as King and Queen.

Like in Conquest, the songstress warns the player character not to make any mentions of Valla outside the Bottomless Canyon. She explains that her mother vanished when attempting to warn Garon of Anankos during her time as Nohr's Queen. This complication makes the task of uniting the kingdoms against this unseen enemy difficult. But thanks to Corrin's personal charisma, both their adopted Hoshidan and Nohrian siblings (and their retainers) slowly begin to enter his ranks and cooperate with one another. Azura contributes to this easing of tensions in Cyrkensia, where she uses her magic song to drain the Hoshidan and Nohrian combatants of their will to fight. She is also the primary guide who leads Corrin's team through Valla, given her previous experience there.

When the combined forces of Hoshido and Nohr venture into the Hidden Kingdom, they fought against a revived Queen Arete on three separate occasions. The mage was under Anankos' complete control at first, but each successive bout brought her dormant memories to the surface. After losing the third battle, a dying Arete marvels at her daughter's maturation and inner strength before passing away. And while she grieves for losing her mother a second time, Azura resolves to find and destroy Anankos once and for all with Corrin and her newfound allies.

With the fall of Anankos, Azura presides over Corrin's coronation as the new ruler of Valla. While the songstress has a stronger claim to the throne, she cedes rulership to the player character for their pivotal role in defeating the Silent Dragon and brokering peace between Hoshido and Nohr. However, she promises to remain by Corrin's side as an advisor to help them rule over their new domain and maintain the hard-won peace between the three kingdoms. If Azura marries Corrin, however, she will rule by his side as the new Queen of Valla.

Character gameplay guide

Fire Emblem Fates

Azura is the only character in the game with the Songstress class, and shares similar strengths and weaknesses with other dancer units in the Fire Emblem franchise. She has the special ability to provide an adjacent character an extra action with her "Song" command. As a combatant she suffers from low HP, defence and resistance growths, making her vulnerable to sustaining fatal damage if attacked by an enemy of a similar level. On the positive side her high speed, skills, luck and strength growths usually permit her to perform accurate double/follow-up attacks with naginata/lance weapons that can deal serious physical damage. These attributes can be of further use should the player choose to reclassify Azura into another role, like the Sky Knight. In combat, Azura should stay behind more durable characters and serve as a reasonable secondary attacker if characters are in Attack Stance.

Azura's base Songstress class does not have a promoted counterpart, so she has a maximum level cap of 40 and gains 3 more skills as she levels up. Most of her skills revolve around providing buffs to allies and reducing damage from nearby enemies. Her unique skill, Healing Descant, heals allies within two spaces of her for 10% of their maximum health per turn. Her level 10 skill, Inspiring Song, grants her allies 3 extra Speed, Skill and Luck whenever she uses the "Sing" command on them. Azura's level 25 skill, Voice of Peace, reduces the damage of physical attacks from all enemy units within two spaces of her by 2 points. Her final skill learnt at level 35, Foreign Princess, reduces the damage dealt from all "Invader" units within two spaces of her by two points; those same units within two spaces of Azura also receive 2 extra points of damage.