The cool air was so much nicer than the last time she'd felt it.
Her tiny wings fluttered softly in the rising draft and her shivering hooves hung out below her as she took a breath of blissfully open air. It was clean. So so much cleaner than she was used to. It didn't taste like iron, or smoke, or chemicals; just wonderful, fresh, untainted freedom.
Oh, but there was a hint of something else. Something a bit more familiar than the crisp morning air...
Tiny, floating particles tickled her nose as they rose up around her on the breeze, and she couldn't suppress a full-body sneeze as she momentarily halted in mid-air.
The buzz of her wings found their rhythm again, though; and her deep red eyes slowly swept open as more of the matter swept up past her. Small black beads of dust seemed to still in the air in front of her as her drowsy expression took it in.
Thousands of rising little clumps of soot and ash danced along the morning's first breeze as the far-off dawn slowly approached behind them. Just barely peeking up over the rim of the hill, casting faint rays of light across the sky's canvas speckled with bits of fading white and encroaching black.
She had never seen anything so beautiful. She had never been allowed to, before.
Oh, but now she was allowed to do so many things. So many wonderful, terrible things...
A small speck of burning soot landed on her cheek, quickly burning a stain into her pale fur as it evaporated. The sudden, negligible pain brought a quietly real smile she'd never dared to show across her face as her hooded eyes dipped across the ash in the air.
Calm countryside for miles. Green plains stretching to the horizon as far as her airborne eye could see, speckled with tiny little specks of browns and greens and a dirt road and trees and shrubs and just so many things she'd only ever been allowed the barest pictures of.
It just went on forever. Green and green and green, and beyond it: sprawling cities and oceans like she'd seen in books. Hustling and bustling with ponies and creatures and things that walked and talked and felt and cried and lived!
The life out there... and she could see it... She could take it...
But the thought barely compared to the centerpiece of it all, the crown jewel on her lauded crown of freedom. It wasn't even comparable to the admittedly beautiful nature that stretched out around her, or the wonderfully unseen sights that she would see someday.
Nothing would ever compare to the feeling of the cold air on her wings, even as her face warmed in the red glow of the inferno below her.
Her former house, sitting there with its ramshackle trappings and its broken little fence surrounding it in a neat little square, was on fire.
And she'd caused it.
Crackles and pops burned merrily to a songless tune as beautiful reds and oranges gradually painted itself over the boring browns of reinforced wooden walls. The bursting glow of heat had long since shattered through the windows, and wisps of occasional flares would peek out to join the outside from behind the steel bars running vertically across them.
At some point, the door had also fallen outwards with a small chunk of the wall, allowing the blaze to creep steadily across the outside walls. The spread almost reminded her of a stain, actually... Just oozing along the edges and pooling wherever it could, even as it sputtered and died in places as chunks of fuel slopped off like sickly refuse.
Her mouth drifted open slightly in muted astonishment as hot, orange flames broke through the slanted wood of the roof; sending a shower of sparks and splinters into the air as the structure screamed and groaned. Glowing embers joined the darker bits of ash in the air, looking almost like the little fireflies she'd seen in her books when she was very young.
She hadn't seen those pictures in so long... Floating and fluttering on the winds along the blacks and greys under the dim morning sky...
A sudden hang in her consistent flaps and a twinge in her back promptly broke through the daydream of foalhood, reminding her that she'd never flown for this long before. It was hard to gauge how long she'd been there just staring at the pretty fire consuming everything she'd ever known.
She blinked once and brought a hoof up to shield her face as a rush of heat and ash blasted past her as the slanted roof below her fully caved to the hungry fire. More and more smoke was coloring the air around her, carrying the same burning little flecks of light she'd just been admiring.
They bit and stung at her coat, leaving stains and pains that she knew she'd have to clean before anypony saw her. As pretty as the scene was, and as much as she admired her handiwork, there was little reason to take it in any longer.
She needed to get away from here; away from her crime, away from the house, and away from him.
Her hoof slowly lowered across her face, dragging an expression of deserved apathy across it. Her eyes took in the spectacle of the burning house once more, as more of the roof broke away under the heat and revealed more of the room under it.
A dark, cold room, even when covered in the warming glow of the flames in and all around it. She could see broken pieces of once pristine furniture crumble to ash in messy piles, as well as an all too familiar bed set against the wall. One of the support beams had fallen over it, completely crushing anything anything under it for even easier fuel fodder for the blaze.
A sneer rose up over a pale face shadowed by dancing flames and ashes, curtained by the fading wisps of the life she was leaving behind. She was glad she had gone the extra step instead of leaving the fire to do her dirty work. It might not have been a sure thing otherwise, even with the roof caving in.
Never leave doubt. Never leave proof. She hoped he enjoyed sharing in the lessons...
Her wings slowed their beat as she began to descend out of the darkening haze. It had probably left her looking more than a little blackened, but she knew there was a stream just over the hill behind the house. In all the years it had been since she'd seen it, it'd been hard to forget.
The last time she'd been outside. Her first and last taste of the outside world since she had been... young.
But not anymore. As she descended, and her hooves gradually came to rest on the ground, she knew she wouldn't have to relish the feeling of the grass poking at her frogs. There was no reason to.
As the burning crisps of her prison leapt and played before her, casting long shadows along the ground to the edges of her hooves, she knew that she could take it all for granted as much as she wanted.
She'd never be trapped again. Not by him, not by anypony.
No, she was going to be the one in charge. She would be the one doing the trapping.
As the sun slowly rose in front of her, over the padded walls and the locked doors and the metal bars of her former home, she turned away. An eternally practiced pleasant smile over rosy cheeks blackened with smoke and soot found its permanent home on her face, while a fire in itself burned behind it.
She would chase that asinine dream instilled into her by a long gone fool who had died in his sleep, but not for him. Never for him.
The soundless, deafening noise of cracking wood and shattering stone cascaded heavily over the area, completely drowning everything out except for a wordless hum to her own ears.
She would do it for herself. She would do it all for herself.
One step, two steps; away from the burning house like she was taking a sunday stroll. As many steps and as many moves and as long as it took to find what she needed. Whatever she had to take and whoever she had to fool, for one reason.
She was going to be a princess, and she would never let anypony keep her from what she deserved.