Melody Fairfax

Melody was born in Stornoway, the largest town in the Scottish Hebrides, on St. John's Eve of 1971. Her father, Gregory Fairfax, owned a successful fishing trawler, while her mother Patricia was a competitive free diver. When Melody was five years old, her father moved the family and his fishing industry to Brighton in southern England, in protest of the British government's backing down in the Third Cod War and consequent loss of British fishing territory in the North Sea. Melody would remember little about her time in the Hebrides, but it left her with a hint of a brogue she couldn't suppress.   Growing up in Brighton, Melody was a rowdy and rambunctious child, though she usually preferred bending the rules rather than breaking them. Melody was categorically a tomboy. She flouted most typical 'girly' activities in favour of sports, especially football, 'adventures' around Brighton, and the occasional bit of roughhousing. She also usually preferred the company of boys or other tomboys with the notable exception of her best friend Emily Colorado. Melody and Emily were 'family friends' to begin with: their fathers had become good chums, thanks largely to Gregory's frequent patronage of Emily's father's workshop owing to the unreliability of his trawler, and so the two girls were often forced into entertaining each other until they became close friends. Though Emily was "soft and nerdy", as Melody diplomatically put it, she was surprisingly willing to accompany her on 'adventures' including on her father's trawler, and Melody appreciated the common sense and practicality that many of her other friends seemed to lack.   Melody was somewhat envious of her best friend's ability to 'escape' into the world of literature, something she personally had no interest in. While she lived a comfortable life, she grew increasingly bored with the sleepy seaside town of Brighton, wishing to go out and see the wider world. She enjoyed accompanying her father on fishing trips, but this also lost its lustre as fish rarely congregated in exciting places. Hoping to one day see the world, Melody was ultimately able to convince her parents to fund piloting lessons for her at the nearby Brighton City Airport, and soon developed a love for being up in the sky. She soon became committed to pursuing a career in aviation, which came at somewhat of an expense to her schhol grades in her senior years, though she was able to graduate. In her teenage years, Melody also became interested in boxing in this period and took classes, which she was somehow able to convince Emily to also attend. She was also coached in diving by her mother, becoming a talented free diver - something she was interested in pursuing further when she eventually got to more interesting marine environments than the English Channel.   After graduating from school and securing her pilot's license, Melody began looking for work in the sector. Though she wanted to see the world, she wasn't overly enthused at the prospect of being an airline pilot considering the long and frequently tedious hours. Conveniently enough for her, a friend of her mothers' had a cousin in The Bahamas who ran a small seaplane business and was looking for new pilots. The job involved ferrying private passengers between Nassau and the country's smaller islands or 'cays' by seaplane, usually catering to rich people travelling to their or their friends' private islands. The pay would not be as glamorous as the clientele, but it would give Melody a job in an exotic location with plenty of free time and plenty of beautiful Caribbean locales to spend it in. She jumped at the chance, and was soon headed to Nassau. After a years of her admirable service, broken up by the occasional freediving competition she competed in, Melody was informed by her boss that he planned to retire and sell his seaplane. Melody was ultimately able to convince him to sell the business and the plane to her (with financial assistance from her parents), and has been flying her own plane around the islands ever since. Her work is well-paying enough that she can frequently take large breaks to enjoy the Caribbean, enter diving competitions, or visit her friends in whatever far-off locales they find themselves in.