Mae was born to a human father and a Raven Faunus mother in a small cottage deep in the forest near Kuchinashi. Mae's mother worked as a huntress, taking job requests from the local town and protecting any merchants passing through. Mae's father worked as a trapper, and fur trader, selling what pelts he had skinned to the general store in town, while also keeping the meat he had acquired. On top of being rigorously taught the general education courses like math, English, and science by her mother, Mae was also taught how to hunt and defend herself from a very young age by her parents (mostly by her mom), who let her tag along when they were hunting smaller Ursas, Boarbatusks, and Beowolfs who had strayed too far from their pack, but still threatened their home. Mae's mother made frequent trips to town in search of textbooks and workbooks for the sake of Mae's education. Mae loved reading and writing, as it gave her something else to besides go out with her parents or garden, and would study for hours on end every day. Around the time Mae built her weapon--albeit a very rudimentary prototype version of it--her parents let her go out hunting for small animals and Grimm. She would spend hours wandering the forest and admiring the beauty of nature, although she would tend to get lost and into trouble while doing this.
As time went on in the forest, the young Raven Faunus got older and was helping her father hunt on a regular basis for big game, and big Grimm. Mae's mother continued to go on missions for the local town, but because of her age, she couldn't complete as many contracts as she used to. To offset this, Mae decided to look for a job as an assistant to a blacksmith, thinking the experience would help become a better weapon designer. When she looked at the board, there were no openings for such a position, but she did find an offering for an engineer's assistant. Desperate for work, she walked to the engineer's house to check in as their new assistant. When she knocked on the door, she expected a stereotypical old, and cranky man. She was surprised to see a middle-aged man--somewhere in his forties--open the door. He wore very casual attire, like glasses, a button-up shirt, pants, and sandals. He was kind and welcoming, if not a little snobbish. He introduced himself as Bashir Cooper, an Atlas engineer who wanted a quiet life near the great rural areas of Mistral. Bashir wanted to pursue his dream of being a custom weapon designer, and to do that, he needed someone to help him test his new inventions--which of course were prototypes and very unstable, possibly life-threatening. Mae agreed to test the weapons, but only on the sole condition that Bashir would help her on her journey towards being a huntress, whether that be helping her study or helping her make weapons and gear. Of course, Mae never told her parents about testing life-threating inventions.
Once Mae had turned 18, her parents were a little shocked to find out that she wanted to go Beacon Academy, as Mae's mother and other relatives had all gone to Haven. Mae explained to her parents that she wanted a change of scenery from the wide expanses of the forest, and wanted to experience what Vale had to offer. After a few days of consideration, Mae's mother gave her full support to her daughter's success. With the admission date a couple of months away, Mae trained and studied with her mother and Bashir more so than ever before. When Mae's mother was on a mission, Mae would go over to Bashir's workshop to study and test weapons. When the day came to apply to Beacon, Mae passed all of the admission tests with little difficulty, scoring relatively high considering her home-schooled education. She was scheduled to leave Mistral in two weeks, and in that time, she said her goodbyes to her old friends who were going to attend Haven Academy. Before boarding the airship, Mae said her goodbyes to her parents, who promised that Mae would always have a home in Mistral. Bashir gave an almost tearful goodbye and offered to send her some custom equipment if she ever needed it. She thanked him and her parents for everything before she boarded the airship to Beacon.