Quill was born into a wealthy family in Canterlot. For the first six years of his life, he had anything he wanted. His father was a captain in the Royal Guard, and his mother was the stay-at-home kind typical in that city.
But everything changed (as in all OC life stories) when his father died on the job. All their income was lost, and they went into a heavy debt almost immediately. Before long, they had to move. And until a certain time we know as the Days of Discord, he and his mother lived in a small apartment in Manehatten. His mother, having no previous job experience, worked in a poor paying mall, and he had his first taste of a hard, not-so-luxurious life as a “commoner.”
But he and his mother still lived happily together. She was still a good cook, and whenever she was able she made him one of the dishes she had when he was a child. And he promised to follow in his father’s footsteps (just as any protagonist does). But even though he said this, his interests were still in reading and writing. Every day, as long as he could, he spent time in the local library, just reading. Quickly he had become one of the most well learned young ponies in Manehattan.
Not long after that, he tried his hand at writing, and his mother, who was so proud of him, gave him a special quill. He set to work, writing fantastic stories of adventure, trials, and even tried his hand at philosophy. But, being so young, it didn’t work out for him.
At the age of eleven, he looked out his window and saw a pegasus pony flying; a rare sight in a city populated mostly by unicorns. Immediately he was fascinated. Heading to the library that had attracted him for so many years, he began researching. He learned of the magic used to control those wings, and then went back to his writing, thinking of a way to give wings to those who were not of the pegasi themselves. His studies lasted seven years, and he even left school for them.
His studies led him to create design after design, model after model. Ponies called him crazy as they watched him jump from rooftop to rooftop, trying to get his ideas to work. But the stubborn teenaged pony would not give up.
And then, yet again, everything changed when he was eighteen. It was in a time nicknamed the Days of Discord; or what we know as the time it took for the Elements of Harmony to defeat Discord, after he escaped from his prison.
Of the ponies affected by Discord’s magic, Quill and his mother had the unfortunate luck to run into one. As they sheltered in their apartment room, Quill’s mother now an older mare, a stallion burst into the room. Though Quill doesn’t want to remember the moments, he does to their entirety.
The stallion, as per the population of Manehattan, was a unicorn. He was lime green and had a black mane and tail. But the most noticeable thing of that moment were his eyes, which gleamed with an insane light, which could only be described as reflecting Discord’s own insanity.
Without a blink, the stallion charged at Quill’s mother, head down. There was no time to react. The horn had pierced her chest before either of the them could blink. And Quill watched in horror as his mother fell to the ground and writhed, gasping for air hopelessly. Then she was still.
His vision reddened and he stamped a hoof on the ground. In Manehattan, things like this were a constant happening, yet Quill had never expected it to happen to him. Just as everypony does.
He watched as the stallion crouched next to his mother and began lapping at the blood, laughing maniacally. He then heard a different laughter, a deep, insane chuckling. Then, two eyes of drastically different sizes, both with red pupils and yellow irises, seemed to open directly in his mind.
He felt a searing pain right in front of both his ears. Two horns sprouted from either side, then slowly twisted around each other, forming the tornado look mentioned before. They were a pure white.
The unicorn stallion had no time to react, just as Quill’s mother, and felt two sharp points enter one side and exit the other. Quill screamed furiously and flung the body away. It smashed through a window and fell into the street below. Quill then just stood there, panting and crying. He stared at his mother’s body for a few seconds and realized the blood dripping from his newly grown horns.
He went to the one sink and grabbed a towel, then rubbed furiously for an unknown length of time. When he looked at his reflection, he went through the process again. Then he realized with a small cry of shock that his horns were permanently stained a dark, brownish red. No matter how much he scrubbed at it, it stayed the same colour; a permanent memento of this day.
And to add to this, his eyes, which were once a deep, dark purple, were now a pure white, with only a hint of extremely pale violet in them.
And then there was his cutie mark. He had wanted to be an author, good at writing. So it appeared he had gotten his wish. His cutie mark, a quill, his quill, old but still in perfect condition, resting in a pot of blood, and a few strange letters written in that blood.
Then, even throughout all this chaos, a neighbor had chanced a look out the window and seen the stallion fall to the streets. And somehow, the Royal Guards had been collected to go see what was the matter.
Quill heard the knock, then the threat to break the door down. He quickly glanced around. There was his mother, dead. The stallion, probably also dead, killed by himself. Then there was him, alive and with permanently bloodstained horns. It wouldn’t look good to any pony.
Quickly, he raced to his small room and searched frantically. Finally he pulled his latest design out from under a pile of papers.
He ran out of his room and into the living room. Then he heard the last warning from the guardsponies.
The only thing the guards saw was a green and black tail disappearing out the window.
So there Quill stood, on top of his apartment building that had been his home for the past twelve years. Quick as he could, he situated his makeshift wings onto his back. His latest design had actually included some magic. To operate the wings, you had to have them where they were situated on a pegasus pony: the shoulder blades. They then fused themselves to the wearer’s skin, and were permanently there.
This was his last chance. He had done it this way because he was sure that this design would work. But as he looked down into the street, he realized that if his wings failed now, they failed permanently. He took a deep breath. One...two...
And again, the only thing the guards saw was a dark gray-blue pegasus jumping off the roof, and plummeting. Quill was presumed dead over the next few days, even though no body was found. “Good riddance,” ponies said.
But he wasn’t. As he fell, his wings flapping uselessly, he suddenly remembered a way of flying he had noticed among pegasi. He straightened his wings, and then glided into an alley. Using this as a cover, he ducked into the back streets and made his way out of the city. Not long after, he tested out his wings again, getting used to them. And his greatest joy was his greatest loss. He had achieved his goal that had existed for the past seven years, and even got his cutie mark, but with it came the bitter memory of his mother’s death, and his first murder.
Like Quill, Filter was born in Canterlot, but stayed around for quite a bit longer. His father mysteriously vanished a month before his birth, but his mother remained. Nopony, not even Filter’s mother, knew where his father had gone or why he had left. Needless to say, it became a frequent source of bullying for the young unicorn, as well as his carelessness about physical appearances.
Naturally, Filter didn’t like Canterlot. When he was nine, he and his mother moved to Fillydelphia when a job opportunity appeared for the latter. Filter appreciated the change in scenery, but that’s all that seemed to be different; the ponies at school still found ways to mock and irritate him. For over a year, he was all alone, unable to seek help even in the teachers. He very quickly became extremely shy and quiet; not to mention depressed.
One day at school, just a few weeks after Filter turned eleven, he saw some colts picking on a lone filly new to the school. Most other ponies would have just walked on by, but Filter found himself unable to leave. He stepped up and stood in front of the filly protectively, not even bothering to speak; he just glared at the colts until they backed away. However, they wouldn’t be gotten rid of that easily.
The leader of the group of bullies, Hoof Burns, decided to have some fun with Filter. He had heard of “the nerdy colt who never talks”, but never really met him. Now was his chance to look good in front of his friends by taking this colt down a few notches. So he tried to see if the younger colt would shake or not with a few insults.
Much to his own surprise, Filter erupted with a stream of profanities that actually made the bully back up a few steps. Humiliated, Burns vowed to Filter that he would get his revenge, and stormed off. Once everypony was gone, Filter checked on the filly to make sure she was okay. Thankfully, she wasn’t hurt physically, and introduced herself as Et Cetera, or Cetty for short.
That afternoon, when Filter got home, his mother pointed out the cutie mark that had appeared on his flank: a shield emblazoned with an R, resting atop a microphone. Filter deduced that this meant his talent was sticking up for others, something he had never tried to do in the past.
For several months after this event, Filter had obtained a new reputation at school. Instead of being bullied, he was respected; at least by the ponies who had witnessed the scene. Cetty especially seemed to like him, and the two of them grew rather close. However, Filter, being as dense as he was, never realized just how close Cetty wanted to be.
After the excitement from Filter’s victory died down, he resumed his previous role as a quiet nerd. However, he wasn’t picked on nearly as much now; only Hoof Burns and a few newcomers really belittled him, and they were quickly put in their place each attempt. He and Cetty stayed as friends, and for a while, everything seemed normal.
But this wouldn’t be a proper flashback if something bad didn’t happen, right?
A short time after graduating Fillydelphia High, Filter was struck by Discord’s magic, as was the entire city. While some ponies became insane individuals and others became victims of circumstance, Filter became both. He could never recall the entire series of events; nopony who was corrupted by Discord could. He knew he was walking around the streets with Cetty, when he blacked out.
He woke up drenched in blood...and without sight. The reign of chaos had ended, but it left its scars; sometime during the past few days, he had gotten into a fight, and while most of his body suffered only a few bruises, his eyes were much worse off. They had both been cut up quite a bit, rendering him almost completely blind. He called out for help, but everypony was too busy with their own problems to stop and take him to a hospital.
Finally, after about an hour, he felt himself being picked up and carried away by somepony. He was brought to the hospital, where the doctors just barely managed to save his eyes; the only way to retain his sight was to wear a set of enchanted glasses, which would allow him to see perfectly. Without them, however, he was literally unable to see a thing.
Since that day, Filter had been trying to figure out exactly what happened. He hadn’t seen Cetty since then, and eventually moved on. He knew he had his own life to live and couldn’t keep dwelling on the past...but still, it was a lesson he could never learn completely.
“What is wrong with our luck?” Quill groaned, slamming a hoof into his face repeatedly.
“We’ll work something out,” Filter said, trying to calm his friend. He knew that things happened when Quill was angry.
“We spend hours walking here, only to find we’re gonna have to wait a few days at least for them to fix that damn hole!” Quill continued his rant, drawing the attention of a few ponies. Filter tried to ignore them.
“Surely it won’t be that long,” Filter replied hopefully, eyes darting around warily. “It’ll probably only be a day or two...”
“Still, we came to this town looking for a house, and we get... well... that.” He jerked his head back in the direction of their ‘freaking destroyed house’ down the road. Filter rolled his eyes.
“‘That’ is still a house, you know. Just one we have to wait a bit longer for. Besides, complaining won’t help, unless we’re doing it at the town hall.”
Quill raised an eyebrow. “When did you get so snarky?”
“As soon as you wouldn’t shut up about the house.”
Quill glared, eyes glowing. “And you’re not even a little angry about it?”
“I never said that. I’m just not being vocal about it. Kind of trying to avoid attracting a crowd.” Filter gestured to the ponies staring at them, and Quill finally realized how much attention he was gathering with his ranting.
He cleared his throat. “Excuse me, I’m sorry for the interruption. We just, uh... had some problems when moving in... you may continue your earlier activities.” He turned back towards the town hall and quickly walked away, leaving Filter behind. The unicorn shuffled awkwardly under the stares of the ponies and quickly ran off. Unbeknownst to him, a pair of blue eyes belonging to a pink earth pony were watching him with intense curiosity.
Filter trotted quickly to catch up to his friend, then cocked his head to one side. “Hey Quill?”
Quill glanced over at him for a moment, then said quietly, “Yes?”
“Remember the first house?”
Quill snorted, “You mean your four-room apartment? Yes.”
“Yeah...” Filter looked at the ground, then back up. “And you remember why we left?”
Quill paused for a moment. “Yeah, I remember that too. After...”
Filter nodded. “Yeah... and that had happened just a month after we had met...”
Quill cocked his head to the side, then resumed walking. “How long has it been now?”
Filter stayed in pace with him. “Almost a year now.”
Quill nodded slowly. “Yes... a year since that day...”
Quill had been running for almost seven months from his home in Manehatten. While his common sense told him that he was safe now, his fight or flight instinct told him he would never be safe.
As the light of Celestia’s sun faded over the horizon and began to be replaced by Luna’s much dimmer moonlight, Quill had to squint his eyes to see. A few lights reached his vision, and he paused briefly in surprise at what appeared to be a city appeared in front of him. Seeing a chance for a few nights’ rest, his pace quickened and he turned directly towards the skyline of towers.
About an hour of walking was rewarded with entry into what the semi-pegasus recognized as Fillydelphia. He began looking around for a place to sleep, paying less attention to the road directly in front of him.
Quill raised his head at a distant shout. He looked up to see a pegasus soaring down from the sky at an alarming rate. This time the shout was clearer. “Stop right there, criminal scum!”
Quill looked up sharply. “Did I violate the law?”
“I’m not sure, but I need to check you just in case!”
“Stupid asshole,” Quill muttered.
“What is this?” The guard snagged one of his wings and tanked harshly, pulling him sideways.
“It’s my wing! Have you not seen yourself in the mirror?” Quill snapped, tired and in a bad mood. He just wanted to sleep, but the jackass wasn’t letting him go.
“I... uh...” The guard’s eyes darted around for a second. “Well...”
“By the way, what’s your name, jackass?” Quill glared at him.
“Um...” He mumbled something inaudible.
“Speak up!” Quill snapped.
“It’s... Jack Ass. My parents weren’t very kind...” He shook his head.
I still can’t believe I let you talk me into using that.
Eh.
“That’s not the point here! These wings are very clearly a weapon!”
“A weapon?” Quill laughed uproariously. “It’s a wing, smartass.”
“Jack Ass.”
“I know. Look, how can you justify wings being a weapon? And if you say it’s because they both start with the letter ‘w’, I will end you.”
“They’re... made of metal.”
Crickets chirped awkwardly.
“And... they’re... really scary.”
“Made of metal... and scary... they’re not giant robots of doom and destruction, Jack Ass! They. Are. Bucking. Wings.”
“I see... but what are they really?” Jack Ass raised his eyebrows.
“I don’t have time for this,” Quill grumbled, pushing past him.
“Hey! Get back here!” Jack Ass grabbed Quill’s shoulder. “I’m not done with you yet!”
Suddenly another pony walked up, confused and curious. He had seen the events from the past couple minutes unfold from his apartment window, and while he didn’t like getting involved, he had a feeling it was the lesser of two evils compared to letting this escalate.
“Ohai there,” Pop Filter greeted in an annoyed tone. “Care to explain what’s going on?”
“And who are you?” Jack Ass demanded.
“I’m Discord come back as a unicorn pony who travelled the seven seas looking for a fire ruby to shove up my nose so I could find Princess Celestia’s secret stash of gold. Nobody cares.”
Quill smirked. He liked this kid already.
“Don’t get smart with me, punk,” Jack Ass retorted through gritted teeth. “Nothing to see here. You can be on your way.”
Filter looked at Quill. “Yeah, a pony with mechanical wings getting harassed by a jackass is nothing to see.”
“How does everypony know my name?!” Jack Ass bemoaned.
“Wild guess. I assume you’re one of those fake town guards who tries to extort money out of ponies?”
Quill’s eyes widened. “So you are one of them!”
“Uh... what are you two babbling about?” Jack Ass struggled to regain a sense of authority.
“You know, those phony guards! We hear about all the time, don’t we?” He eyed Filter meaningfully.
Filter blinked cluelessly, not understanding what Quill was getting at. “Uh...sure?”
The illusion died instantly, and Quill facehoofed repeatedly. Jack Ass raised an eyebrow. Filter shrugged.
“You’re not gonna leave until we bribe you, are you?” Filter asked. Jack Ass nodded eagerly. “Fine. How much? I don’t need this tonight.”
“Two hundred bits,” Jack Ass said triumphantly.
“Two hundred? Dude, my eye surgery cost less than that.” Filter pulled his glasses off to show a previously hidden scar, causing Jack Ass to wince. “Try twenty.”
Quill nodded approvingly. “You know, these could be weapons if I wanted them to be.”
Jack Ass began to sweat. “Uh...how about one fifty? Considering I could at least put you under citizen’s arrest and all...”
“Try something that we wouldn’t have to pull around a sack to hold,” Filter snorted. “Fifty.”
“One hundred.”
“I said fifty, and I’m not going higher.”
“Seventy?”
“Deal.” Filter and Jack Ass shook, and Filter handed over a small pouch of bits. Jack Ass trotted away, whistling happily.
Quill sighed. “You’re kidding. Seventy? I could have lowered it to five, easy. Just give an example of what I’ll do to his family if he refuses, and bam.”
Filter raised an eyebrow, but ignored the remark and slid his glasses back on. “Seventy bits isn’t as much to me as I acted. I don’t use money much anyway.”
Quill closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. “It is to me.”
Filter chuckled. “What are you, a homeless fugitive?”
The semi-pegasus turned away and began walking down the road. “I might as well be.”
The unicorn’s smile vanished and he ran to catch up. “Did I say something wrong? Sorry...”
“My mom’s dead and ponies think I killed her. My life is just peachy,” came the sharp reply. “I’m just trying to find somewhere safe for a while, so tomorrow I can run around again away from the guards and keep the cycle going for Celestia knows how long.”
“Discord affected you too?” Filter deadpanned; an unexpected reaction to Quill’s bitterness. Surprised, Quill nodded. “Yeah, you’re not the only one who got hit. Remember when I mentioned my eye?”
“I lost more than a body part,” Quill growled. “I lost my life, my home, but in exchange I achieved my dream. A wonderful trade. But I guess somepony else’s freaking sap story isn’t important to the one rich pony in Fillydelphia.”
“I never said I was rich!” Filter yelled back. “Pretty much the opposite, in fact! And that’s not the point. Even if I was rich, you think that’d make me turn my back on somepony who needed help?”
Quill opened his mouth to answer, but Filter kept going.
“I’ve needed help too,” Filter continued. “Remember when I brought up my eye? After whatever happened, I was left bleeding in the middle of the street. Everypony around me could’ve just left me to bleed out. Instead, somepony brought me to the hospital. This isn’t any different.”
Quill snorted. “I don’t exactly need to go to the hospital.”
“I’m trying, okay? Work with me here.”
“Work with you? You need glasses to see. You see these?” He indicated his wings. “This is what I have to live with! Fake wings that will remind me every day of what I could have done to change things! If you think-”
“For the love of Luna, just SHUT UP!” Quill nearly fell over. Filter glared at him, somehow making the semi-pegasus feel smaller, despite being a few inches taller than the unicorn. “You’re complaining about being able to fly? What’s next, gonna complain about being able to breathe?! And don’t pull that ‘past’ crap on me! Angsting over that kind of thing isn’t going to fix it!”
“I can’t just forget it, though!” Quill protested feebly.
“Then don’t! But don’t let it run your life either!” Filter walked up closer to Quill. “I lost my sight, my only friend, my sense of mind, and long before any of that, my father. And my mother is close to being next. But I don’t show it, because if I did, I’d have jumped off a cliff not long after Discord’s reign.” He poked Quill in the chest. “When life pushes you down, you get up, stand tall, and show it what you’re made of. And you’re showing me that you’re made of pillows and weak support beams.
“But you’re not. I can tell.“ Filter smacked one of Quill’s wings. “You’ve got a pair of mechanical wings. You talk about death threats like it’s casual conversation. You watched your mother die and didn’t go eternally insane. You’re made of more than pillows and weak support beams, but that’s all I can see. So tell me: what are you made of?”
Quill looked away, then back. “What am I made of? What am I made of?” His voice rose, anger evident in his glaring eyes, and his wings flared out to the sides. Filter remained stoic. “I’m made of adamantium, the strongest metal known to any pony! I’m made of dragon’s scales! I’m made of the flight of a pegasus and the strength of an earth pony!” He trotted up to Filter, getting right in the face of the unflinching unicorn. “I’m made of more pain than you could ever know, and more ways to dish it out than you could ever handle.”
There was a brief silence. Neither Quill nor Filter spoke. Finally, a smile broke out across Filter’s face.
“That’s what I wanted to hear.”
Quill backed up a bit, surprised. He had just targeted all of his rage at this random pedestrian, and they didn’t even get scared. What happened?
“I’m Pop Filter.” Filter stuck his hoof out. “What’s your name?”
Quill looked at the outstretched hoof before tentatively shaking it. “Blood Quill.”
Filter smiled. “Want me to take you back to my place? It’s probably a lot better than wherever you’ve been sleeping.”
The semi-pegasus didn’t know how to really respond. “Well... I...”
“Come on, it’s better than sleeping outside. You don’t need to run anymore. Even if the guards were still on your case, they’d probably let you off pretty easily considering it all happened during Discord’s reign of terror.”
Quill rubbed the back of his neck. “I guess, but-”
“Let’s go, Quill. I’m not letting you stay on the run from something you didn’t do.”
A pause followed before the gray-blue pony finally nodded, a smile finally working its way onto his face. He and Filter began heading towards the latter’s home.
“We should probably get inside before another one of those jackasses comes by,” Filter chuckled. He shivered. “And before we freeze. It’s cold out here.”