Character Information

[thehardesttask]

Name: Matilda Ekhorn
Nicknames: Matti (only by her mother), Tilda
Age: 25
Sex/Gender: Female

Personality: Shy and introverted, Matilda is a bit of an idealist and hopes, on some level, for the best and that people can be good or better than they are. She does not usually say this, or not outright, and most of the time she's probably not even aware that this is the underlying reason for the way she acts quite a lot of the time, but it is there. She's actually braver than she feels or thinks herself to be, taking risks and acting on people asking her to, out of a desire to help.
She's not entirely without wariness and carefulness, but she tends to take risks a lot (bordering or diving headfirst into outright recklessness), at least if they involve other people and their well-being, if she can help. It is mostly an immediate lack of awareness of possible manipulation and that not all people mean well, as her wariness and carefulness mostly applies to new situations, surprises and having to deal with that, which she isn't very good at and prefers (or tries) to keep things familiar around her as much as possible.

Despite this strength, she's not good at arguing and tends to simply stop, more out of frustration at her inability to formulate her arguments properly, if she gets upset or angry enough, or is being steamrolled. It might seem like agreement or an inability to stand up for her opinion (which, in a way, it is), but she hasn't actually changed opinion - she has just stopped defending her position.

Relatedly, she does not like being angry or fighting or arguments in general. They make her feel uneasy and unhappy, mostly because they come with raised voices - this is a leftover from her parents arguing when she was little, before they divorced. Quite often she can deal with her frustration and fits of temper by getting petty (refusing to listen/help, etc) and holding a grudge, which can last longer than her actual temper does.
She does have her breaking point, after all, despite being very patient otherwise, but her anger usually runs hot, swift, and dies out quickly, leaving her tired and, as she never likes, crying, both from the anger itself, having been angry, and the exhaustion of the same. It's quite embarrassing to her. Things that can set her off are bullies, animal cruelty and cruelty for cruelty's (or amusement's) sake, but she can otherwise be rather shockingly practical, in situations or ways one might not think she otherwise would be.

Matilda is very insecure in her looks - something which, after her transformation, turns into a feeling of alienation, impostor syndrome, and slight disgust. She knows she suddenly looks very pretty indeed, beautiful even, but while it's still her face she was also merely 'average' at best before the transformation, so it very much doesn't feel like 'her face'. The more 'perfect' body and features the transformation has given her has turned her insecurity into a case of impostor syndrome (I am not actually this pretty, you're all being tricked), and unsettled that even her face is not as it was.
The transformation has left her with a severe case of impostor syndrome of her own body and mild disgust and body horror, and trying to deal with all the changes; her hands being not what they were, walking having been difficult to re-acclimatise to, there's a tail and horns in the way... all of it conspires to make Matilda try to make herself as small as possible, a new, more severe development of what was only a rather mild case of shyness before.

Aside from that she's definitely introverted and likes keeping any gathering small.

She's neuroatypical (autistic).

History: Growing up an only child in an apartment complex in a near-city suburb to Stockholm, Matilda's life was pretty unremarkable until tensions between her parents started to show when she turned twelve. At fifteen, they had divorced, and Matilda mostly lived with her mother. If she healed a little faster than others, or was sick less... well, she just had a good immune system, didn't she?

At 24 she was working as an assistant librarian, living in an apartment of her own. A visit to a friend in London before Midsummer turned things on its head, however. Waking up to being surrounded by unknown people and the tingle of an unfamiliar energy in the air, Matilda didn't have much chance to question what was going on - instead the energy, the magic, pierced and changed her. It was a long, drawn-out process that, partway through left her screaming with a grief she didn't even understand at first. And when she did, understanding that she was losing mortality and could feel her flesh dying around her even as the magic continued to change her, she cried as well.
When the magic stopped, all she knew was that everything was wrong, though there wasn't much time to understand what had been done; one of the figures approaching with something gold in their hands had her instinctively staggering to her feet and fleeing.

Or trying to, but despite the fact that she had a hard time walking now, even more so running, she still got out of the rundown barn they'd apparently been in. Collapsing at a nearby lake and knowing she needed to run further to actually get away, the sudden appearance of a hand offered in front of her to help her up was startling. Barely getting a view of the tall woman who tugged her to her feet, they were running - and then she was picked up and simply carried.
Waking up in someone else's home isn't a pleasant situation, but Matilda was stopped in her tracks when trying to leave when her apparent rescuer came in with a cup of tea and said it wasn't every day she ran into an attempted resurrection of a faerie queen. And that was when Matilda realised the extent of the changes, after her confused denial had the woman lead her to the hallroom mirror. And also when she found out the world was both bigger and more magical than she'd known, and that she'd probably been chosen both for opportunity, because she was 'pure', and had some small amount of innate magic.

She also couldn't stay in London, Rhona said, commenting it'd be safer if she went home. Since she had a flight home and all she needed to do was get her things and say goodbye to her friend, she did so - with Rhona in tow, saying she wanted to visit a friend in Sweden herself, while offering some protection if the faeries came back for her or tried to get her before she left.
They didn't, and back home, Matilda was introduced to Rhona's friend - a bäckahäst to match Rhona being a kelpie.

A bit of a shock, that. Even more so that no one who wasn't already familiar with the supernatural, was something non-human themselves, or used to seeing things most would rather not look at, didn't see the changes she'd gone through at all. A relief, of course, but incomprehensible, considering how vast they were. Though apparently not as great as they could have been; both Rhona and Johannes pointed out that the reason she probably wasn't a properly transformed unicorn was that it was impossible to change something like a human, no matter how reasonably fitting in criteria, into something as magical and immortal as a unicorn.

Despite these shocks, life... sort of went back to normal after that, even if she now could see the "cracks" in reality and notice where there was magic and where the supernatural community had their gathering spots. She stayed in contact with Rhona after she went home, and Johannes showed her around to a few cafés and other meeting spots. That, could, maybe have been that, except as the months crept on into winter, Matilda started seeing magical creatures who definitely weren't native here, but otherwise looked human. In fact, they felt very much like the people who'd been around when she'd been transformed.
Running to hide with Johannes and calling Rhona, asking if she was just paranoid or something being up, Rhona asked for some time to figure things out and call back.

She didn't call back - she came back to Sweden two days later and said that the resurrection hadn't been just an "attempt"; it had been a successful one, and for some reason, the faeries were now apparently interested in her again.

Powers:
-Purify liquids
-Heal/cleanse disease or poison
-Healing in general, which, theoretically, could even stretch to resurrection
-Opening locks - or, more correctly, an ability to very easily escape if hunted
-The horn can pierce nearly anything if thrust into something
-Understanding any language, though that doesn't mean she can necessarily speak what she's being addressed in (she can only speak in languages she actually knows)
-Immortality (not just of the "doesn't die unless killed" flavour, but she's also very, very hard to kill at all)

While Matilda does have all (or nearly all) the powers of a unicorn, but not yet impeccable control over them, though most of them are such that it's not noticeable - what she mostly has issues with is her new strength, though one will hope she doesn't have to use the poison/disease cleansing powers in a critical situation without having become proficient in using them, that is, actually activating them as this is a necessity for her. Probably partly because she's not in full unicorn form, and partly because she's not a born unicorn.
The ability to purify liquids is something, however, that seems to be in the "on" position to such a degree she hardly needs to touch a container for it to be purified, which is actually somewhat dangerous when it comes to alcoholic drinks.

Looks: Matilda is short, around 1.5m/4'11", with a heart-shaped face and where she previous to her transformation had slightly wavy, dark brown hair that was usually braided, after the transformation it's white and has gained a lot more length than previous. It is, in fact, long enough to drag the ground, but manages to keep itself curiously clean - though sticks and leaves do get stuck quite often. She now carries it either loose, in a high or low tied tail, or, sometimes, braided. Usually if she has help; she's not very good at such work with her hands yet. Both hair, the feather at her wrists and ankles and the hair at the end of the tail are wavy and has more volume than it looks like it might have.

(She's definitely beautiful, but certainly wouldn't necessarily be attractive to every single person - she'd often at least be noted as aesthetically pleasing in that way some people just are to a lot of others, even if not considered attractive.)

Her hands have been part-way transformed into hooves, which means she has two fingers and a thumb on each hand, and her legs have turned digitrade, with her feet replaced by deer-like unicorn hooves, which are silver like her horn and her nails. Her eyes are gray, though prior to transformation they weren't pure gray, which they are now. Further, her ears are long, slender and pointed, somewhat like a deer's ears, but distinctly different. Unlike her tail (ending with a long, wavy tuft of hair that makes it look similar to a lion or cow's tail, is quite long - about half her own height), which she can control consciously with some concentration, the ears are completely instinctive.

Matilda's skin is silvery (and usually with shadows in pale purple, making her skin look very much like pale grey clouds during sunset or sunrise), though on her lips, inside of her ears, nipples and the vulva, the skin is pink.

Voice inspiration is Carly Rae Jepsen, or Noel Wells as Lord Dominator in Wander Over Yonder.