Nightingale was borne to Cake Frosting, all the way in Fillydalphia, miles away from their home in Ponyville. Her mother had fallen in love with Storm Caller, who had defied his own nature to save her years and years before from a violent fate. Her father was there when her mother gave birth, and he named her Nightingale because, just from looking at her, he knew she would have a talent for singing. And she did. When she was just a filly, she would be performing little "concerts" just for her parents. Life was good.
But then, they sent her to school. The other students picked on her because, not only did she lack a cutie mark, but she was "part bird." They called her Pigeon Girl. One day, when she could bear it no longer, she attacked a classmate, and was nearly considered being taken away from her parents since the problem of her being "just an animal" had arisen. Finally, she was released back into their custody. She wouldn't go back to that school. Her mother instead taught her at home, and discovered how shockingly intelligent her daughter was. Life was good again.
But then, the fights happened. She would hear Storm Caller yelling at her mother in the middle of the night, and Cake Frosting would only cry and whimper in response. She later figured out from her mother that her father had chosen to join the military career in the royal guard to support his family, and that her mother had feared for his life and tried tirelessly to push him out of the job. But he refused. He would doing anything to keep his wife and daughter alive and happy.
One year later, Storm Caller surprised her daughter with a guitar. She had fallen in love with it the oment she saw it, but that only fueled another vicious argument between her parents. Storm Caller said work had got him the money for the guitar, but Cake Frosting still worried for his own well being.
His daughter, however, was ecstatic. She spend hours after hours self teaching herself how to expertly play the guitar. She began to play it so well, that she could even play songs she had never heard before if someone just hummed it to her. She wrote her own songs. The guitar became her best friend.
One year later, after Nightingale had completed her homework and was practicing her guitar, her mother came home. And she wasn't happy:
Nightingale would never forget that day, when her mother barged into her room while she played her guitar. The day that her father passed away. The funeral guests were just her and her mother. Her eyes sparkled with tears the entire time, but they never shedded. She was silent, ears flattened, and tail curled around her flank to keep herself semi-dry from the rain. She wasn't the same after that.
She stopped playing guitar for a while, and quit doing her school work. She now had to help in her mother's duties, or they would lose money quickly, and things would get very bad. They could fall into debt. But that wouldn't happen. Not on her watch. She learned to clean terrifically well. She couldn't bake anything. But she could maintain the house while her mother was away.
Once the tidy Nightingale was 18, she moved away from Cake Frosting, so the poor mother could finally take a rest from watching after her child. She went on to earn money, singing and playing guitar for other ponies. At first, no one seemed to notice her. But then, while she was playing her guitar quietly on a bench in the park, as other ponies passed by, one stopped. She looked up to see a dragon pony. Caelan Goldenscale. He gave her one bit, and then was on his way. But that was the spark of an attraction, and just the right encouragement she needed to really start her career.
She now attends college, and has even caught the eye of famous mares and stallions. The intelligent, tidy hippogriff tells herself that she can't ask the world for much more, content.
