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// 176. Fire. 
// Story: Short Shorts 
// by Coranth 
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Nopony could touch Daybreaker. 

Of course nopony could touch Daybreaker. 

Every assassin who'd even tried to strike her down had been utterly burned to ashes.

But the ponies could harm somebody.

Yes, they could.

They could harm David, her strange yet friendly human lover, her Consort. Her human.

They did. Foolish. Yet they did.

David usually accompanied her everywhere she went, short of her bedchambers of course, but today he wasn't at her throne where she usually bade him sit with her so that he could pet her, his soothing touch able to quiet her rage that she might deal with the fool--ehrm, the nobles that thought to plot and scheme.

But today, he wasn't there.

He. Wasn't. THERE!

Incensed - barely able to contain her seething rage - the Fire Mare demanded to know where he was. Her seneschal, Raven, answered, "He's taken ill, your Highness--" but that was as far as she got before a furnace-blast of heat signaled her Queens exit.

Upon seeing what was hers laying upon his bed, clutching his stomach, writhing with pain, with Voice of Flame she summoned the Royal Physician. "Hnnh... he's been poisoned," the old stallion stated. "Fortunately, the one who did it didn't know that he wasn't a pony. Poor feller's got enough Oleander in 'im to kill a Stallion in minutes--being human, however, saved his life..."

A remedy was devised; then once her David was on the road to recovery, seething with rage of cold-fire, Daybreaker ransacked the minds of her castle staff, utterly determined to find whoever had done this to what was hers. She did. The Scullery Maid bleated and screamed but it was all for naught as Daybreaker burned the information from her mind, leaving the Earth Pony mare sobbing, babbling incoherently.

"An act so petty, because your Husband was executed for genuine treason against me?!" She roared. "You harm the One who has harmed None?! YOU DARE TO HARM THAT WHICH IS MINE?!"

"Luna will return from the Moon," the Earth Pony sneered in defiance, "and when she does, she'll---AAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH!" Her words ended in a scream as Daybreaker's fires engulfed her, burning the skin from her body then turning her to ash. 

Then, Daybreaker went down to the kitchens.

She entered.

She exited.

A miniature pyroclastic surge followed in her wake. The ponies within were killed instantly, of course, yet the fine ash fall encased their bodies, hardening to form a porous shell. As the soft tissues of their bodies decayed, they leached away through this later. But by then, the hardened ash had captured and preserved their final postures at the moment of death. 

Just as Daybreaker had planned.

New kitchen staff were hired; the old now lined the hallway to the Palace Kitchens. When David recovered - as Daybreaker wept gently with relief in his lap - as he petted her so softly, so gently, so carefully... she vowed never to tell him what she'd done. 

At the thought of what had happened to what was hers for a moment, unbridled fury filled her heart and she seethed; then a sob escaped her as her human gently scratched her behind the ears, her rage and flames calming. 

Later, she would have him move into her chambers, where nopony would ever harm him again.