My name is Quill Master, but my friends call me Quill. That is, if I had any friends. Anyway, I was born in Cloudsdale with my mother, Golden Quill, who is a great artist. Her specialty is drawing amazing art with nothing but a quill, which is quite a feat without magic. She's a great mother and I love her, she's always done her best to make sure life was good for me and that I grew up well despite the fact that I didn't have a father. And it's been tough for both of us because, you see, it's rare for somepony to have a child when not married. In fact, nopony can remember it to have happened at all.
And not having a father is the least of my problems anyway. You see, I was born with a cutie mark, an hourglass. It's small, but it's still there and it baffles everypony that sees it. And no one can figure out what my special talent is. I can't do anything with clocks, I can't make hourglasses and it can't have anything to do with organizing time, like my mother suggested, because I'm constantly losing track of time. After a few years ponies gave up on trying to figure out what it meant and when I got to the end of my school years I earned another cutie mark over the first one. This one was a gold quill along with a matching golden ink bottle, with the hourglass resting as a symbol on the ink bottle. It still baffles everypony, but it's stopped being wondered about and just excepted.
But before I got my real cutie mark, which was for my talent in writing, my mother married a nice stallion named Sketcher. He was very nice and always treated me like I was his own daughter, always offering me ice cream and giving me two bits to get myself something if I went out with him somewhere. When they got married I was so excited and happy for them and I've always called Sketcher 'dad' since that day, he loves me calling him that. About two years after I got my cutie mark my half-sister was born, a term rarely used, and she was named Ink Mistress. We've been best friends since the second my mother brought her home and I love her so much. We've never seen each other as only being half sisters but real, full sisters and it's amazing.
When I turned fourteen, two years from being a full adult, there was an accident. Well, no, not an accident. My mother and I were out running errands, talking as usual and laughing, having a good time like we always did, when he showed up. We were confused at first how a unicorn was walking around Cloudsdale, but he told us about a spell he learned and we started talking. He was nice and I liked him, his name was Star Gaze. He walked with us and helped us on our errands, carrying anything extra that we couldn't. He was so nice and we let him come inside, helping us put the stuff away. I went to my room to hide my step-dad's birthday present, which was in two days, when I heard my mom scream and I ran in to help, wondering what had happened.
Her whole right wing was missing and Star Gaze was hovering her just above the cloud floor, both of us knowing that if he dropped her she'd just fall through without both wings. I tried to ask him why he was doing this, what he wanted, but he just kept talking gibberish to me, something about energies and regeneration and lords of time, I didn't understand it. When I couldn't give him the answers he wanted he let my mother fall. I remember bucking the cloud out from under me and flying down the catch her. I did catch her and took her to the hospital in the nearest town.
After the incident we had to move away; we couldn't live in Cloudsdale with my mom only having one wing. After a lot of talk between my step-dad and my mom we chose Ponyville, a nice little town just outside of Canterlot. It took awhile but we managed to move there and we've been here for about a month now. My sister has made plenty of friends in school and my step-dad works in Cloudsdale on the weekends to help with living here while I look for a job of my own. My mom will look for a job once the doctors say she's allowed, but until then it's up to my step-dad and I to keep us up and going. And this, dear readers, this is where the story truly starts.