//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 Discovery 
// Story: The Dragon Riders: Book 1 
// by Thunder Quill 
//------------------------------//

Disclaimer, I do not own the Inheritance cycle, or My Little Pony, they belong to Christopher paolini and Hasbro






AppleJack knelt in a bed of trampled reed grass and scanned the tracks with a practiced eye. The prints told her that the deer had been in the meadow only a half hour before. Soon they would bed down. They were her targets. The deer needed to stop eating the food from their farm, Sweet Apple Acres. They were facing hard times, everypony was hungry, but that didn't give you the right to steal somepony elses food.

The sky was clear and dark, and a slight breeze stirred the air. A silvery cloud drifted over the mountains that surrounded her, its edges glowing with ruddy light cast from the harvest moon cradled between two peaks. Streams flowed down the mountains from stolid glaciers and glistening snowpacks. A brooding mist crept along the valley floor, almost thick enough to obscure her hooves.

AppleJack was fifteen, less than a year away from marehood. Her emerald green eyes glinted in the semi-darkness. A hunting knife was strapped to her right fore-hoof, she used it for hunting, but not in the sense you would think. she was an earth pony, she was a vegetarian. She used it to skin creatures she killed and sold the hides. A gruesome job, but it helped the farm survive. A buckskin tube protected her yew bow from the mist. She carried a wood frame pack.

The deer had led her deep into the Spine, a range of untamed mountains that extended up and down the land of Alagaesia. Strange tales and ponies often came from those mountains, usually boding ill. Despite that, AppleJack did not fear The Spine, she was the only hunter near Carvahall who dared track game deep into its craggy recesses.

It was the third day of the hunt, and her food was half gone. If she did not fell some of the deer, she would be forced to return home empty handed. Her family needed the money that AppleJack generated from her hunting activities, for, without that money, they could not afford to buy the things they needed to survive the winter.

AppleJack stood with quiet assurance in the dusky moonlight, then strode into the forest towards a glen where she was sure the deer would rest. The trees blocked the sky from view and cast feathery shadows on the ground. She looked at the tracks only occasionally; she knew the way.

At the glen, AppleJack strung her bow with a sure touch, then drew three arrows and nocked one, holding the other two in her other hoof. The moonlight revealed twenty or so motionless lumps where the deer lay in the grass.

AppleJack slowly crept closer, keeping the bow ready. All her work of the past three days had led to this moment. She took a last steadying breath and-an explosion shattered the night.

The herd bolted. AppleJack lunged forwards, racing through the grass as a fiery wind surged past her cheek. She slid to a stop and loosed an arrow at one of the bounding deer. It missed by an inch and hissed into the darkness. She cursed and spun around, instinctively nocking another arrow.

Behind her, where the deer had been, smoldered a large circle of grass and trees. Many of the pines were bare of their needles. The grass outside the charring was flattened. A wisp of smoke curled in the air, carrying a burnt smell.

In the center of the blast radius lay a polished purple stone. Mist snaked across the scorched area and swirled insubstantial tendrils over the stone.

AppleJack watched for danger for several long minutes, but the only thing that moved was the mist. Cautiously, she released the tension from her bow and moved forward.  Moonlight cast her in pale shadow as she stopped before the stone. She nudged it with an arrow, then jumped back. Nothing happened, so she warily picked it up.

Nature had never polished a stone as smooth as this one. It’s flawless surface was a royal purple, except for thin veins of green that spiderwebbed across it. The stone was cool and frictionless, like hardened silk. Oval and about a foot long, it weighed several pounds, though it felt lighter than it should have.

AppleJack found the stone to be both beautiful and frightening. Where did it come from? Does it have a purpose? Then a more disturbing thought came to her. Was it sent here by accident, or am I meant to have it? If she had learned anything from the old stories, it was to treat magic, and those who used it, with great caution.

But what should I do with the stone? It would be tiresome to carry, and there was a chance it was dangerous. It might be better to leave it. A flicker of indecision ran through her, and she almost dropped it, but something stayed her hoof. At the very least, it might pay for some food, she decided with a shrug, tucking the stone into her pack.

The glen was too exposed to make a safe camp, so she slipped back into the forest and spread her bedspread beneath the roots of an upturned tree. After a cold dinner of bread, cheese, and apples, she wrapped herself in blankets and fell asleep, pondering what had happened.