Moira and Rodric Carmichael met at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, when they were both students there. It's the typical story, they met, fell in love, married, moved back to Corpus Christi, and shortly soon after they had a daughter.
Fiona Mackenzie Carmichael.
Moira, who was going to become a Marine Biologist in her own right, decided instead to forgo the career and stay at home with her daughter. For this reason, Fiona never had traditional schooling in the beginning. From the time she could walk and talk, she was being taught. Moira ensured that Fi knew all the basics — reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, history — but she also shared with her a love for the water and the ocean.
Often, they would go to see Rodric out on the ships or in the Gulf as he studied the aquatic life around Texas.
Everything in life was absolutely idyllic for the Carmichael family.
Until Fiona turned thirteen.
On her thirteenth birthday, Fiona's parents told her that she'd have to take some formal schooling so that she could attend university. This did not sit well with the young girl who had, until now, much freedom with how her days were spent — hours of study, followed by hours in the pool or at the beach, followed by her own little bouts of research into aquatic life by studying her fish at home.
The only thing that allowed Fiona any sort of peace, was the fact that she would still have weekends for her own, and those? Well she spent those in the water as much as possible.
Her first day at the Incarnate Word Academy — the all girl's school to which her parents enrolled her — was miserable. Most of the girls at that school had been there since they were three years old, so she was coming in ten years late. They all had friends that they'd had for ages, they all had their cliques, and so the 'poor homeschooled girl' was left on her own in a jungle of petty Catholic schoolgirls.
After complaining to her parents, they told her she just had to find her 'niche'. There was only one thing that Fiona was good at beyond classroom work — swimming.
She joined the swimteam, and there she found friends — or at least other girls of like mind. Soon, her days were back to normal. Study for a few hours, swim for a few hours. Her visits out to where her father was working on the coast had to be put on hold until the weekend, but she didn't mind so much any more. She got to be in the water every day, and that's what mattered.
Things started looking up. Soon, Fiona was bringing friends home from school. They'd hang out in the pool, or head out to Ingleside on the Bay to hang out at the Dolphin Connection. For only $25 they could spend an hour or two playing with the dolphins from within the boat.
Shortly after her fourteenth birthday, Fiona fell in love. First with the dolphins and swimming in the bay, and then with one of the cute older trainers. With promises of sneaking her and a few girls from the team into the bay after hours for free, he lured Fiona back. How could she resist the opportunity to spend time with her beloved dolphins, and the boy she had a crush on?
Unfortunately, it was a trap of sorts.
The boy, who's name she only knew as Jack, was leading her there under false pretenses. He was a werewolf from the Tak'n'Ta Pack, and had heard stories about how her father would sometimes disappear on nights when the moon was full, not to return back until morning — even if his team was out in the middle of the ocean. So he took the girls out on the boat, and dropped them off at one location, and then coaxed Fiona aside with sweet words and promises.
The fourteen year old girl was just all giggles and blushes, until he sped off in the boat, leaving the swimteam behind. When they were further out in the ocean, he confronted her about what her father was — teasing her, insulting her, and then he shoved her off the boat.
On the way into the water, Fiona cracked her head on the anchor. When Jack saw the blood, he panicked and turned the boat around to go collect the other girls. He obviously didn't mean to kill the younger girl, just scare her a little.
Fiona wasn't dead, but as she sank in the water, she was well on her way to unconsciousness. One of the dolphins in the area swam up to her, helping her back toward the surface. Fiona latched on to the dorsal fin and up they went. By then, the boat was gone, she couldn't tell which direction the Dolphin Connection dock lay in, and she was bleeding into the water. The concussion was settling in, and she began to lose her grip on the dolphin. She slid down into the water, and then suddenly she burst back to the surface.
She had no fear, she was no longer bleeding, she was just free.
The rest of the night was spent swimming down the coast with her dolphin friends, playing and doing flips high into the air before crashing back into the Gulf. By morning, tired and exhausted from the playing, Fiona found herself awake on the North Beach in Corpus Christi, not far from where one of her father's stations were. She found an old rain slicker and threw that over her, and started trekking back to the house.
There were a lot of police at the house when she got to the door, but she didn't care. She opened the door with a smile, and explained what had happened. That she and 'Jack' had gotten in a fight and he pushed her and she fell overboard. When she thought he wasn't coming back for her, she started to swim until she could find shore.
It wasn't wholly the truth, but it was as much as she could tell anyone.
Determining that their "missing person" wasn't really missing, the police eventually left. Though it wasn't before telling the Carmichael's that they could press charges against this 'Jack' character if they wanted to.
Fiona didn't want to press charges. Not because she still cared for him, but because of what he said he was. Her parents, trusting that it was an accident and nothing malicious, agreed to not press any charges provided he was reprimanded for taking underaged girls out into the water after hours without supervision from his employers.
When everyone but her parents were finally gone, all Fiona said to either of them was, "I'm a dolphin." Then she went upstairs to sleep. When she awoke later, her mother was at her bedside, and explained to her about their two-naturedness, and Fiona told her all about this Pack and what Jack had said to her about her father.
From that point on, her parents ensured that every month around the full moon, Fiona was out of school and working on a 'special project' with her father. This wasn't a lie, as she had to do all of the work to show for it or be removed from the school program that allowed it.
Fiona began to spend a lot of time at the aquarium, and got a summer job as a tank cleaner — donning the wetsuit and ensuring that the ecosystems were stable, and the glass was clean. This evolved into getting a job as a lifeguard at the beach when she was seventeen, learning all the proper first aid, and floatation systems.
Just after graduation, she was recruited by UTD for their swimteam, and offered a full scholarship for their Marine Biology program. Wanting to follow in her parents footsteps, and only mildly disappointed she didn't get into Scripps she accepted. She got a small apartment off campus, and found a job working as a lifeguard at the Fitness World, where she also teaches CPR courses.
