To think you'd seek for my help?
On what?
Oh, that's right, Luna's on vacation. I am such a dumbass sometimes.
You want to WHAT?
You want me to tell you about what I see in the dream world in Luna's stead?
-Foxfire chuckles, but it soon is replaced with gloom-
Augh, fine.
As you know, fine visitor, we all have dreams. Some of happiness and others of...dread. Dread I cannot possibly bear to speak about lest I get reminded of...well, the bad thing. Ahem, I think everypony you know has had nightmares at some point in time. Don't lie, your very body trembling at the thought confirms my suspicions. What's that?
A dream of a werepony eating you alive after a Changeling drained you dry of all emotion?
And you have the GALL to say they don't have nightmares--much less dream? Did I honestly hear that right?
I shall prove you wrong.
Every night I don't travel through the dream world, I have relived that horror over and over again. I was mutilated, drugged, raped...you name everything in the book that didn't involve me dying. Sometimes, nightmares are very cruel and as such take the extra step of making you regret all the bad things you yourself did. Me, you ask? Remember that creature that killed an obese pony that the guards fruitlessly chased after? That was my doing. Yes, that was me. I killed that obese pony mercilessly and during a full moon no less. The pony with bite wounds in the broken neck of his? Also my doing. Disappearing ponies who were supposed rapists and the like? My doing too!
You want to know what else I dream of? I dream of my birthplace--the very pits of Tartarus. Yes, my family was expelled to those fiery pits well before I was born. Why? When we got out cutie marks, we were often dangerous from then on. I was no exception--look at me! Do you not see a monster before you that could kill you in a split second?! Do you not see a monster that literally killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, in the name of deranged justice and ungodly vengeance?!
When I do travel through the dream world, I see similar horrors--often of my own hoof--happening to innocent ponies. They think I'm out to hurt them the way I hurt others around me. The way I myself was hurt. I even killed a colt that was mine in cold blood--you honestly think he doesn't haunt me every night in the form of a famished giant just wanting my bones first? Fee fi fo fum, they always say.
And then there's him. The bad stallion. He haunts me in more ways than one. I sometimes wake up screaming with my body ablaze because of it. But the things I have done end up exceeding his crimes, as horrendous as it is to admit it to the commoner pony who'd only just met me. Yes, I practically fed off of others and hunted for monsters myself. A beast who hunts other beasts, as it were.
The few good dreams I see whilst traveling often become hellish nightmares faster than one could blink. Nightmares of being chased by monsters, nightmares of dying over and over while your loved ones ignored you. I've literally seen it all--and I could go on and on here. I've seen wars of ages past; I've seen death and destruction all around the very premises of the world before it became what it is today.
I've seen unspeakable horrors happen right in the shameful eye of the masses one calls crowds and it was either laughed at or let alone without any afterthought. I've even seen a mother kill her foal once and only minutes after it was born; she reasoned that the 'father'--whom I think shouldn't be called that no matter the case given her hostility towards it--was, quite simply, unworthy of having children. Strangely, and by coincidence no less, all the mares who bore his foals did the same exact thing for the exact same reason. The 'father,' in response, had all those mares killed before he himself was sent to the gallows. He said those mares wanted his foals and only killed them to spite him when they broke up.
This, mind you, happened only a few months before I was born. Somepony had a lot of one-night stands! I also saw this other time that the poor Zebras were enslaved by the ponies who looked down upon them because of their specific colors and patterns. They eventually rose against their masters and, after a brutal massacre, fled to what I personally call the Veldt--quite simply, plains of the Zebras.
-Foxfire sighs after taking a breath-
Please, I do not wish to speak about this any further now. But since you're so insistent, I guess I could give it a go on what my swarm has seen. They have seen wars with rival hives and have personally freed innocent slave ponies and other Changelings at my behest. Some of the slaves, sadly, had to be killed simply because they begged for death to take them away. It had to be done.
Other slaves, however, died of natural causes whilst in my personal care. They all spent their last moments in my forelegs as I sat there and begged them over and over to not leave the world so soon. It hurt me to see them die--yes, even we monsters are hurt by death. They gave me their last wishes and I carried them out myself in fear that the drones could mess them up somehow. It hurt me worse having to do it, but it was needed so that they could rest in peace.
This was the case for most of the slaves! One filly asked me to cremate her body after properly treating her body the way a mother would. And then I was to spread those ashes all over Canterlot so that she could forever watch her parents from above. She was the youngest of the slaves, so having to burn her body after caring for her as if she were my own--wouldn't you cry too?! The other slaves who lived longer than she all shed tears as well--j-just looking at me made them c-cry too! It was then they reached their hooves out to me and asked that I help them ascend in order to rest when their time came.
That day I have come to call the Sorrows of Dying. They needed my help--they wanted deliverance. I had to give it to them...their pain made me churn in my own writhing agony. I still have dreams about that. In their honor, I release orbs of fire in a garden I have. I never could tend to this garden, as it always withered even when I did what I was supposed to do. Perhaps its the presence of sin, perhaps its the presence of something else... Since then, it's become a place of remembrance for all those innocents lost in this senseless mess! I hate having to pay my respects since I always cry out to the sky in horrendous wails.
But they...the innocents...they visit me every time I do. They are saddened by their choice and how it affected me, but they know deep down it was for the best. The filly even hugs me and...calls me momma. It makes me cry even more just hearing her say that...to a monster. The others call me their fallen angel. They look at me with sadness in their eyes and they are only allowed to stay for a few minutes at best. Every time I am called momma, I get hurt because of that...reminder. It hurts, and I... I feel like they're watching me right now...
I....!
-Foxfire breaks down into tears-
N-Now, please, w-wake up and forget th-this experience. I beg you. Wake up!