Naturally the other Armstrongs had all insisted on starting practice right away, which was probably a good thing, as it was slow going. It had been so long since Olivier had sung anything that she barely remembered how, and at first she'd sounded as though she were mumbling her parts. It felt so awkward and silly and she'd wanted nothing more than to tell them to forget it, but she'd promised them a week and Olivier Armstrong was nothing if not a woman of her word. She'd gradually gotten better over the past hour, but the others, who had all stayed in practice, were getting impatient.

"Olivier, you have to sing like you mean it. A mezzo-soprano needs to belt, singing softly is our job," Strongine commanded, leaning heavily on a music stand. The five of them were in the music room arranged from lowest voice to highest. Which unfortunately put Olivier in between Strongine and Catherine. Hearing a low voice at her right and a high one at her left was confusing and she often found herself trying to match their pitches without meaning to.

"Shut up. I haven't done this in over a decade and I'm still getting used to it," Olivier snapped. She stared at the sheet music in front of her, trying to remember what all the symbols meant and what sounds they were supposed to make. This is such a waste of time.

"It's all right. Take your time figuring it out and the rest of us will just go over the harmonies," Amue said. "We'll get to the melody later. One, two, three, go!" The four Armstrongs burst into song, Amue drowning them out for the most part. Strongine and Alex always did the best they could, but there wasn't much hope for the low parts when they were surrounded by shrill high notes, particularly Amue's. She was one of the rare few that could sing opera and operetta, and her voice always filled the room. Catherine's voice was sweet and pretty in both Soprano I and II. Strongine could sometimes double up as a tenor and Alex doubled as a baritone, but for the most part they stuck to alto and bass since they didn't have much ability to sing anything else.

While they were distracted, Olivier grabbed her tap shoes from the corner she'd shoved them in and relocated to the ballroom. She couldn't remember the last time she'd worn these old things, and they'd suffered quite a bit of wear from when she'd taken lessons as a child (though somehow they still fit). Tap had been the one form of dance she actually liked; she hated dancing with partners and ballet required too much grace and femininity.

She closed the door, sat down, and carefully slipped them on. The tap-slap sound of the toe and heel hitting the hardwood floor brought back a flood of memories.

"Back in the day these were quite the stress reliever," she murmured. Whenever she'd had a bad day, she had always snuck over to the ballroom and furiously tapped away whatever was bothering her. The sound had been satisfying and the intense, fast exercise had melted away all the anger inside her.

Olivier awkwardly stood up, trying to remember what to do. They hadn't been able to acquire the right music yet, which made singing and dancing much more difficult. Usually she had just let the music decide the steps for her. She closed her eyes. How did the routine go again? I know there was the shuffle-step. She scraped her foot back and forth against the floor, the metal on the bottom of her shoe producing the required sound, and stamped her foot. Then it went tap tap, heel, heel. Toe, heel, toe, heel. Her movements were stiff, slow and cumbersome, and at one point she shuffle-stepped a bit too hard and fell backward.

"Oh, hell," she spat. Olivier pushed herself up and randomly tapped this way and that, finally deciding to just make something up. After all, she still wasn't planning on doing the concert, but if she could come up with something to show her family, they would leave her alone about it. And if what she came up with looked bad, all the better.

She tapped and spun and stomped her feet as fast as she could, waving her arms for balance and being careful not to put too much weight on her feet. Keep your knees bent. The awkwardness was beginning to fade. The rhythm came rushing back after being engrained in her muscle memory, and after a moment she didn't have to look at her feet anymore. They moved of their own accord and increasingly picked up speed. Olivier smiled. Now she remembered why she'd done it as a child. Once you got good enough, it felt like flying.

Without even thinking about it, Olivier took a deep breath and began to sing. The first thing that came to mind was an Ishvalan song Miles had taught her late one night when they'd been two of only ten people working the graveyard shift. The nice thing about singing in another language was that nobody would know if she messed up, and she liked the hard, assertive "Ha" sounds that the "Ch" in Ishvalan made.

No-deh-a-lo-heinu

No-deh-a-do-nei-nu

No-deh-a'mal-heinu

No-deh-a'moshienu

Baruch-a'lo-heinu…

Her baby blues widened. She sounded good. No, she sounded great. Somehow she'd gained a wider range and could achieve more vibrato than she had before. But could she still belt? She stopped for a second, caught her breath, and began to tap again. She opened her mouth wide and raised her voice.

Mi-cha-lo-heinu

Mi-cha-do-nei-nu

Mi-cha'mal-heinu

Mi-cha'mo-shienu

Olivier's heart pumped faster and faster, and her hair swung back and forth as the routine she'd performed countless times resurfaced in her memory, giving her feet minds of their own. She experimented with her voice, going as high and low as she could, and always loud. The louder she sang, the better she sounded, and the constant ring of her dancing gave the song a nice beat that echoed through her whole body.

Olivier bit back a laugh. This was fun! She had missed working out terribly since she first became pregnant a month ago and this was giving her just the adrenaline boost she'd been craving. And her singing…was that really her voice?

She wasn't entirely sure what the lyrics of the song meant (she could have been condemning her family to eternal poverty and suffering for all she knew), but Miles had said the song was meant to praise Ishvala and that it was an old and cherished one. Which meant it would certainly be fitting for an Ishval benefit concert.

Na'chita-va-has-da-ha

Amzu-ga'alta

Na'chita-va-has-da-ha

Amzu-ga'alta

Ashira, ashira, ashira!

Ashira la'adonai

Ki-ga'oh-ga'ah

Mi-cha-lo-cha-baelim-a'donai!

Mi-cha-mo-cha-ne-dar-bakodesh…

Yes! If she pushed herself enough, she could almost sing Soprano II. She had never been able to do that before; she'd always faltered just under it. Her voice sounded almost like Catherine's but louder, stronger, clearer, better. Just for the hell of it, she sang faster and tapped quicker, twirling every now and then just to have her hair fan out behind her. This was like a high. It had been so long since she'd done anything like this. When was the last time she had felt this loose, this free?

All too soon Olivier reached the end of the song, and as she did so she twirled around as fast as she could, her tap shoes scraping wonderfully against the floor and her hair enveloping her. She stretched her voice as far as it would go and, unable to keep the smile off her face, she closed her eyes and struck a dramatic pose as she sang the last word, throwing her head back and raising her hands in the air.

Her eyes immediately opened to the sound of applause, and widened in horror at seeing Roy Mustang with that stupid, stupid grin on his face, laughing and clapping. And to his left was her most trusted subordinate, Captain Buccaneer, with an even bigger smirk on his face.

It couldn't be more obvious they'd been there for quite some time.

The songs in this chapter are taken from a few Hebrew songs. The first one is from "Ein Keloheinu" and the second is an excerpt of the song "When You Believe" from Prince of Egypt. I claim no ownership for either one but thought it would be fitting for Ishvalan songs to resemble Hebrew ones since the Ishvalan War of Extermination is reminiscent of the Holocaust.