Mackenzie (Mack) Smith was born in 222EM in Floran City. Her parents are Marshall and Eve Smith. She is the youngest of four girls. Anne, her closest sister, is two years older than she.
Mack’s parents were strict disciplinarians who taught all of their kids to follow the rules set in place by society, and that value in life was found punching a clock. Their idea was that dreaming led to failure and poverty, while saving and working led to security and peace of mind. The most important things in her parents’ lives were paying the bills and saving what was left. They lived in a house that proved their ideals in every way. It was modest, with little decoration or color, and never upgraded from the day they built it.
From a young age Mack’s accomplishments and talents went almost entirely ignored. Her sisters excelled in school debates and ran for positions in the school government, performed solos in concerts and choir, or helped with the family business. Though she showed an uncanny ability to create things out of anything around (making her own toys when she was three), her parents didn’t see the potential value of what she was doing.
As she grew, little changed in the home. Mack spent more and more time outside in the forest behind the family house with her best friend, Ellie. There, she would build forts and tools, toys and trinkets-anything she could think of. Ellie couldn’t do much to help, but when they were done playing the pair would run to Ellie’s house where her parents would feed them both treats. Ellie’s parents were affluent artists and were more than happy to let Ellie play with Mack, and to feed them both when they came back hungry. The two got along brilliantly.
By the time Mack turned 12, her oldest sister Deborah was doing well in college The next oldest, Maddie, was performing in the Atla Junior Philharmonic, while Anne was class president in junior high. With little attention paid her, Mack spent most of her time away from home building machines or studying. Engineering and math were her best subjects in school and she won every science fair she entered-in school or out. Even in Floran, a city known for its creativity and ingenuity, Mack stood out from the best. Kids from schools throughout the Province came to know Mack as the quirky genius. Ellie, already showing signs of being a fantastic painter, supported Mack in everything she did, often testing the prototypes of new machines.
When Mack turned 16 she created her first invention that captured the attention of the entire nation. It was the time of the annual regional science fair for all the high schools in Floran. This annual tradition took place at the end of the school year during the last week of Vos. Though she had won the junior high events, this was to be her first foray into the high school science scene. Eight months (always one to get an early start) she had an epiphany. It had been a rough week, one without any progress towards a new idea. One afternoon she walked to the park at the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Isle of Despair in hopes of clearing her mind. There, she took notice of all the birds gliding overhead, seeming to float in one spot as they caught the updrafts rocketing up the cliffs from the ocean below. At once she knew what she had to do-fly.
Unfortunately, flight proved more elusive than she had hoped. One invention after another failed miserably, something she wasn’t used to. For months she kept at it, hoping to be the first to build a sustained flight machine. As time went on, depression overcame her and worsened with each failed attempt. Even Ellie could do little to pull Mack out of her despair. This was the first time Mack had known defeat was certain. With the fair now a short two months away she gave up on powered flight entirely. Her next idea, a mere ghost of her former idea, was to build a glider.
Dejected and upset that she couldn’t sustain flight, Mack took her project, one she called Glide-Wings, to the Floran City University where the fair was being held. She knew victory was impossible. All she had done was build a glider, it would only plummet to the ground unless there was a strong wind, and even then could stay aloft for only a few minutes. So when it came time to demonstrate her invention, she strapped herself in to the massive set of wings, tied the safety rope from the cliffs to the frame, and jumped.
The crowd, from judges to students, all gasped in horror as they watched a young girl kill herself by jumping off the cliffs. So when Mack suddenly appeared rocketing up above the cliffs, gliding on a stiff breeze, they nearly fainted. Mack’s wings weren’t just a massive kite. She was able to ride them and control her flight. For seven minutes she flew back and forth along the cliff edge, gliding high and low, amazing the onlookers below. While the safety rope was only 200 meters long, everyone knew had it not been for that she could have sailed clear to the Isle of Despair.
When it came time for the results the decision was unanimous, Mack and her Glide-Wings took top honors. Mack was stunned to the point of paralysis. When she finally made it to the stage, between tears of joy and sheer wonder, all she could say to the crowd was, “I promise never to stop trying again, whether I succeed or not!” After the near crippling depression for months before, the feeling of joy was life changing. She knew now that defeat was only mental, and moving forward despite any setbacks, was all she could do.
Shortly after the science fair, captures of Mack soaring through the air circulated throughout the entire nation. She was a minor celebrity and didn’t even realize.
When it came time for Mack to go to college her parents demanded she attend Tru Dahn University for a business degree. She refused and her parents kicked her out. Immediately after leaving she enrolled herself into the Floran University and immediately received excellent grades…when she was in class. She found great friends with some professors and enemies with others–though none could doubt her intellect and talent.
Looking to go into engineering and turn her love of making gliders into something more than a hobby, Mack used what she learned and applied it to her prototypes. As her progress quickened she began skipping school for weeks at a time when the class goals didn’t meet hers–though she still managed good grades.
When the national push for powered flight began, Mack figured she was just the person to answer the call. And when the government began sponsoring programs to help design flying machines through the universities by offering research grants to select students and teams her dreams came true. However, despite her brilliance and willingness to work she never received any money. Her professors refused to allow her into the program due to poor attendance and a ‘difficult temperament’. When she confronted the department advisors and even the dean, she was denied permission at every step. Though her grades were still good (missing over half the semester while maintaining a 3.0 GPA), it couldn’t make up for her otherwise poor behavior-truancy.
On course to finish her third year at the university, Mack dropped out before finals. She was denied the very thing she wanted most–the chance to create something amazing–and figured the university was only holding her back.
With the little bit of mig she had made selling inventions and a bit of help from Ellie and her family, Mack moved to a tiny cabin in the foothills of the Alpine Mountains (on the Arodil side). Ellie’s parents were more than happy to let Mack stay there as long as she wanted. They wanted to see her succeed in building a flying machine perhaps more than Mack herself. And the cabin, once used as a repair shed for local farmers, had all the scraps and tools she needed. So she settled in and started inventing immediately.
Not more than a month into her new life, on one of her daily walks through the forest, she stumbled upon a wounded owlet. The tiny owl, not more than a few days old, was being pecked, nearly to death, by a large hawk. Mack rushed over, shooed the hawk away and picked up the baby owl.
It took two weeks before the owl was healed enough to hop around. And it was evident as the days passed that his wings were too damaged to fly. Though she was a solitary person, she often got lonely in the cabin. And the little owl certainly couldn’t survive on its own. So she decided, without hesitation, that the little owl would now be her best owl friend. She named the young owl Brickington Smith (because he was family, after all) and took to calling him Brick for short (he couldn’t fly, after all).
By the time the half year anniversary of Brick’s Finding Day arrived, the pair were inseparable. Brick, not one to miss out on anything Mack was doing, was just as intent on flying as she was. Both of them were flightless creatures who knew in their hearts they were meant to fly. And they would work together, doing everything they could, to make it happen.
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