The Draconequus doesn’t eat the mares he takes, regardless of what the stories they tell outside our village of Ponyville. there’s talk in the lands of Equestria about the village. They imply it practices pony sacrifice, and he was a carnivorous monster. However, it’s simply not true.
Only two things were known about the Draconequus for sure, that he has powerful Chaos magic, that can bend reality at will and that he is immortal, but he never eats the mares he takes, almost all have been released one that had chosen to stay with him. But that had been many years ago now and surely old Aage would have claimed her. Though he never ages he can still be killed it’s said, and the forefathers would be able to band together to kill him if he wanted to eat one of their mares every ten years. He protects the village against the Everfree forest, and they’re grateful, but not that grateful.
He doesn’t devour them really, but it feels that way. He takes a mare to his tower and then ten years later he lets her go, but by then she’s someone different. Her clothes are well sewn and she talks like a courtier and she’s been living alone with a stallion or who knows what for ten years, so of course in the eyes of any stallion she’s ruined, even though the mares say he never puts a hoof on them. But that’s all they really say if anything, they never have revealed what he was like or what their purpose was. The Lord of Chaos gives them a purse full of pure gold bits when he lets them go, so anypony is usually happy to marry them ruined or not, but of course, most of the time has been for the dowry that was given to them. But no, they hardly ever want to marry anyone. They don’t even want to stay in Ponyville at all.
“They forget how to live,” Cirrus skies said unexpectedly. A young filly glanced up to the Pegasus stallion. His daughter, another Pegasi, probably no more than 5 at the time, adorned with soft pastel pink hair and a buttercream coat that reflected lightly in the now setting sun. She had already learned that ponies didn’t talk about the Lord of Chaos, or the mares he took, so it shocked her when her father had now broken that rule. They were sitting in the wagon on their way back to Ponyville from Apple Loosa and had stopped in the ghastly gorge for firewood on the way home.
The filly then glanced up at the menacing looking tower that stood on the side of the mountain beyond the wall of dark trees in the Everfree. The earth that was visible from above the tree line was grey and burnt.
Sometimes when the wood caught someone, - a shepherd girl that used to work at her families farm at Apple Acres who drifted too close to its edge. She had a silky blonde mane tied in a loose ponytail and an amber coat. She had the cutie mark of 3 apples and was one of the hardest working and well-respected mares in the village. Her name was Applejack. Following her, a traveller who had been humming a beautiful bouncy tune also wandered into the tree line. Her name was Pinkamena, she was from a nearby village, also a farmer, from a rock farm, set for Ponyville to open a bakery. She had a bouncy bright magenta pink mane and a coat not too much lighter than that colour itself and bright blue eyes, - well, the Draconequus came down from his castle for them. and the ones he took never came back at all. It was a sad day for the Apple Family then, and for the family of the unusually energetic pink party mare.
That was more than a few years before Fluttershy's time. He wasn't evil, well anymore as told in the stories about him from aeons ago when he was first turned into stone. But he was distant and terrible.
“They remember to be afraid” he continued. That was where he left it. He nodded to the stallion pulling the wagon and they moved on down the hill and back into the trees. “Why don’t you rest now Fluttershy?” Mr shy said as he placed his hoof tenderly on her small face. “I’ll wake you when we arrive home.”
It didn’t make much sense to the filly, now known as Fluttershy. Everypony was afraid of the Everfree forest. But the village was home. And how could you leave your home? The filly knew the only reason they didn’t move to the new upcoming village of Cloudsdale was that she was never much of a flier, and her parents knew this and had chosen to make this little village in the valley their home anyway. She winced at the pang of guilt in her chest. The mares the Draconequus took never stayed though. The Lord let them out of the tower and they came back for a little while- a week, or sometimes a month, never much more. Then they took their dowry bag of pure gold bits and left. Mostly they went to Canterlot. Those few that did marry, married city stallions, and otherwise, they became scholars or shopkeepers.
There were whispers about Mrs Spoiled Rich, a mare of vibrant purple hair and a heavy pink fur coat. Her name wasn’t always spoiled rich but after the Lord took her and her release after 10 years she became the mistress of Marquess Filthy Rich. By the time Fluttershy was born Spoiled Rich was just a rich old bitter mare in her 60’s that spoiled her nieces and nephews with grand gifts, but she never came to visit. Not even on Hearths Warming.
It’s hardly like handing over your filly to be eaten, but it’s not something to be happy about either. There aren’t many villages nearby at all which makes the chances of being taken are high. He has a certain criterion. He only takes a mare of 18 years old and it's usually a unicorn or one who does magic, and not this one coming but the next this, he's chosen for a mare born in May. Unfortunately for Fluttershy and her family, she was born in the second week of May. Just because she was not a unicorn doesn't mean she was safe, the taking before the last an earth mare was chosen, so it still wasn't any reassurance to her or her family.
Everypony says that you love a Chaos born girl differently so as not to get too attached as the family can’t help but know they can easily lose her. But fortunately for Fluttershy, it wasn’t like that, they never stopped loving her, in fact, it only made them love her stronger. Fluttershy slowly closed her eyes to the gentle rocking of their wagon, drifting off to a dreamland where she would not have to worry about such a future. But even at her young age her family never kept it a secret, she knew she could be chosen, with a heavy heart she had accepted the possibility.