C H A R A C T E R -- B I O G R A P H Y
History:
Mackenzie was born a twin to a Svefra and a human that had married into the family. It was a very cold stormy night in the Northwind pod, and Kestral, Mack's mother, was in labor much earlier than was expected. The birth was very painful and Martin, her father, and the rest of the Pod did all they could to ease the twin's birth. The first child was born. She was named Sandi. She was a healthy young svefra baby, with soft, sky blue eyes, and sandy blond hair. Mackenzie was born next. She was much smaller than her sister, but other than that she also seemed healthy. Unfortunatly, when baby Mackenzie was born without Lavikus gift- The ocean blue eyes of her kin - her life expenctancy got a whole lot shorter. The Lia ordered Kestral to send Mackenzie Adrift. Mackenzie's father was horrified, never having encountered this part of the Svefra's religious practices. He decided to defy the Lia. He turned to his wife to back him up.
"She's our baby, Kess. We can't let them kill her!"
His plea was met with painfull silence. Kestral refused to look at him as she said what in her mind, needed to be said,
"She is not a child of Laviku. She cannot be one of us. We must send her back into the ocean."
She was still holding Baby Mack while she said all this, subconciously rocking her, unwilling to let go. But then she looked up at the Lia- her sister - and handed Mackenzie to her.
"Wait!"
The Lia looked at the human man with annoyance.
"Wait till the storm clears at least. A peaceful send off. Is that too much to ask."
This was the request that saved her little heart from beating no more. The Lia aggreed to wait out the storm, it was too dangerous to go above deak anyway. Martin waited till they all went to bed, he waited till his wife fell asleep, baby Sandi in her arms, and stole the Lia's personal ship. He braved the storm in a boat made for calm waters, holding for dear life onto his daughters fragile body. Eventually his hit his head after suffering a fall onto the deck and passed out cold.
Miraculously, Mack was allowed to live. They washed up on the shore of riverfall. Martin awoke with a deathly cold baby girl in his arms. She didn't cry, and her breathing was faint. He wrappered her up hin his shirt to keep her as warm as he coul and then made his way into the city, begging for a doctor. Kenzie was in a bad shape, but they saved her. Martin was given a place to live and told he must either find a job or leave the city, this of course meant he could not look after Mackenzie himself. She was given to another family, and Martin would come to visit after work he'd found at the Docks. As such Mack grew up speaking Tukant and Common tongue.
Her life in riverfal was certainly not bad. She had two elder midnight-skinned foster brothers who both became quite protective of her, and one sweet younger sister of Konti Decent. Their names were Rhyani, Kirtos and Mina. Her brothers were bostrous, and all keen to become warriors. Mack just wanted their attention and so she tried to join them. She threw her little fists at them a lot, though she couldn't hit very hard she got very good at dodging, otherwise she'd be knocked cold and the fight would be over before it began. Her foster-sister, Mina, was a healer, and she taught Mackenzie what parts of the body to target that would cause the most pain, and even death. She was good at many things. Mack and Mina used to cook together. Mina had a very musical voice, so she also taught Mack to sing. She refused to sing in front of anyone else, and still does to this day.
Mackenzie developed a lot of pride, and she also developed a distance from her father, who was trying so desperatly to win her back. The man longed for the open sea, and he wanted to take her out to see her herritage, but Mackenzie barely remembered the man growing up he was working so hard and long out on the sea. She had so many questions, but he was so afraid to tell her the truth of her birth, and the identity of her mother, she Mackenzie grew to dislike spending time with her blood, and prefur spending time with her fostered family.
She was a troublemaker, that's for sure. She did a lot of stupid things for pride. Life was great until her brothers were required to pass their rite, and kill a Zith. It was all Mack wanted to come with them on that hunt, so see them take down the great rats of the skys, maybe even to help, but alas that was forbidden. Of course Mack followed them at a pace behind anyway, that was just the stubborn person she was.
Things went bad after that, when the Zith they were hunting found Mack before it found the hunting party. The creature swooped down its claws racking accross her stomatch as it went to pick her off the ground. The party heard her screams and in the attempt to rescue her, Kirtos was killed. Rhy couldn't forgive her. He accused her of murder, or cowadice and disobeadiance that lead to death. His word against her, as well as the aggreance of the rest of the party got her put into the Gideon Combat Arena agains Rhyani.
Even with Mina's instruction, it was obvious Mack had no chance of a win. She remembered her father begging her to forefit so that Rhy couldn't kill her. Mack listened to him for once, submitting to the akalak her service for a season. He was not kind to him, and she was treated much like an abused slave. Every now and then she was allowed to see her father and it was in this period that she grew a little closer to him. As it turned out he'd gotten sick, and was dying. This brought her closer still to him, and it brought her more pain than she could imagine at how much she missed when she ignored him. She was finally told the story of her birth at the age of 18. And it made her furious, arngry, confused and most of all, worthless. Instead of thanking Martin for saving her life, she decided to take those emotions out on the dying old man.
"You waited till your dying day tell me I'm a reject who should have died at birth? Oh, how poetic!"
She returned to Rhy for the last 10 days that she had to serve him, and then left Riverfal by means of stoeing away on one of the trade ships. She was lucky the saliors didn't throw her overboard when she was discovered. Unfortunatlly they stopped at Sunberth and chucked her off then with and evil chuckle, and so began the next chapter of her life.
Newly off the boat, she made her way with jelly legs, into the city. The men tossed her her stuff before she left, they also tossed her a knife and left her the miza she had stolen from her father.
There sheer luck saved her. Whilst stumbling through the city, half ready to surrender herself to death, half holding onto her survival instincts, she met a healer who worked at a very small clinic in the commons that fixed people for a very affordable fee to make ends meat. She saved the woman, who turned out to be a cook at a local tavern, from being used by a raper, and in turn all she asked was a job.
After two whole years of ajusting and learning and puking at horrible injuries, Mack was doing okay, and was keeping her head above water in the city of sunberth, choosing to hide everything of the people she knew and the things she'd seen behind a permanent cheeky grin. Maybe one day she would go looking for her past, but she was comfortable enough. She did wonder about her twin sister, though. Maybe Sandi was out there looking for her.