Valkyrie Concept

Your Name: Maddie (Unfortunately)
Link Your Steam Profile: Bow at the might of the Space Egg.

Character Name: Freyja Arosdotter (Formerly Elin Olafsdotter)
Character Alias: Valkyrie
Character Age: 27

Character Appearance:
Freyja is described as slight and dainty, struggling to put on serious muscle mass but makes up for it with agility. Prior to her mutations, she was dark-haired and plain, with little to speak to her remarkability. The mutations subjected to her during teenagehood caused a radical change in appearance, the biggest of those being the pair of large, downy white wings that sprout from her shoulders, each two meters across. Her skeleton has dramatically changed to accommodate them, with her scapulae, spine, ribcage, tailbone and skull some of the major areas affected. Here's an interesting diatribe on what, roughly, Freyja's bone structure would appear to be. With the slight tweaks to her bodily structure, she was a very different girl than the one who went in to be mutated, both physically and psychologically.

Following Freyja's escape from Iceland, she bleached her hair white to help with disguising herself. She is almost always wearing the Lucifer Suit, tech designed to help her fly and hide her wings, except when in the privacy of her home.

Freyja, Suited As Valkyrie
Freyja, Day to Day, Wings Hidden
Freyja, Pre-Mutation


Character Equipment:

• The Lucifer Suit: A souvenir from her development, Freyja has in her possession an experimental piece of technology that she stole following her escape from captivity. The Lucifer Suit was constructed specifically for her breed of mutant, built to accommodate her wings and offers a number of helpful features. The suit is thin enough to be worn as an undersuit to other clothing, and most notably allows for Freyja's wings to be 'cloaked'-- Appearing totally invisible and non-existent --to the unenhanced Human eye. The illusion is ruined if the wings move too dramatically, making the cloaking technology impractical for flight or other uses beyond infiltration. The suit is also able to regulate body temperature, assist her body in handling the G-force pulled during flight, and offers moderate protection, though a knife or bullet could easily piece it; it was built to be light and flexible, not overly strong.
  

Character Powers/Skills:

• All His Angels: A result of extreme genetic mutation by Iceland's government, Freyja has the ability of flight and extreme speed thanks to the large white wings she grew. With a wingspan of over 4 meters, Freyja is able to glide for hours without breaking a sweat and perform aerial feats that no drone or spacecraft could. Her reflexes are incredibly fast due to the newfound lightness of her skeletal structure. She's trained for years to have precise control over her wings, able to manipulate them like a second set of limbs.
  
  
• Wherever You Go, Build A Pack: Freyja was trained to have the uncanny ability of,
  oddly enough, friendship. She was practically raised to be likeable to anyone and everyone, appealing to all types as whatever they'd like her to be; a maternal or sisterly figure, a romantic partner, or just a shoulder to lean on. This was meant to be a manipulative tactic in order to make inserting her into specific scenarios and situations easier, but it's evolved into something much more than that. It's incredibly easy for Freyja to form partnerships and attachments, and for those around her to align with her.
  
  
• Keen Wit: Alongside her mutations and specialized training, Freyja also received a very good education courtesy of the Icelandic government. She's smart but doesn't let it show too often, playing this particular card close to the chest. She also holds a doctorate or two in law, and is a licensed lawyer in the United States.
  

---

Freyja was born Elin Olafsdotter, in a small village outside of Reykjavik, Iceland, to a loving family of farmers. Their town was miniscule compared to Iceland’s capital, only having a population of 30 or so at any given time. That’s not what made this nameless hamlet unique, however. What made them unique was the town’s deep rooted fanaticism, with a focus on witchcraft, wicca, and ancient beliefs dating back to 1000 AD, though they originate from far beyond.

When Iceland first converted to Christianity, the nation was granted three exceptions to the cardinal law. The first exception was that the population could consume horse meat, a practice that has continued into the modern era as its still wildly available at butchers and grocery stores.

The second exception was that ritual sacrifice was to be carried out in secret.

And the third was the primordial ritual of bera út - Leaving a child to die of exposure.

Needless to say, the last two exceptions were purposefully lost to time for the majority of Iceland’s population due to their barbaric and obviously illegal nature. But such rites were not erased everywhere. Freyja’s village still willingly participated in the three exceptions to honour their ancient ancestors, and when she was just an infant, the village leaders preached that she be left in the caves by the beach so fairies may take her, blessing the village with good harvest and good health. According to their beliefs, Freyja would be well-cared for by the changelings who lived in such caves and would live forever as one of them.

That’s not quite what happened.

The bera út just so happened to coincide with a geological initiative conducted by the Icelandic Authority on Research into Occult Sciences, abbreviated to I-AROS for ease of speak. I-AROS studied many of the ancient Icelandic folklore in their country, seeing if they held any basis in reality. The ridiculous mission statement of the Government-backed organization served as an excellent front -- I-AROS was one of the many highly militarized and top-secret arms of the Icelandic military, specializing in translating myth into reality. A team had been dispatched to the caves on the beach to see if, well, fairies really did live there. All they found instead was an abandoned infant offered up to mute gods.

The field commander had a choice. Leave the child to her predestined fate, or change a tiny life for the better. He chose to take the baby with them back to I-AROS’ headquarters in Reykjavik, insisting that she could be of use to the agency’s operations. After all, he argued, they now had someone they could shape into whatever they wanted. Freyja wasn’t registered with the Icelandic Government as a citizen legally, and it wasn’t like her family was going to wonder where they went or what she was doing. She was with the fairies now.

I-AROS’s leadership eventually agreed and placed the infant in Project Morgunstjarna -- Project Morningstar. Originally the initiative had been sourcing children from various orphanages around the capital so the sacrificed baby was a perfect fit. It was within the program she received her new name -- Freyja. She had never had time to get attached to the old one, after all. It was within Morgunstjarna that Freyja would undergo a full education, combat training, and in the end, genetic mutation.

Project Morgunstjarna’s goal wasn’t to just make elite forces.

It was to birth angels.

---

Mutation was, and is, a tricky business. It helps when you have highly classified government-licensed technology and personnel on your staff, to be sure, but to irreversibly alter the Human genome is a difficult and painful process. Especially for the subject. Morgunstjarna had had previous candidates for alteration but none had managed to survive or even thrive from the extreme stress put on the body, but many people were hopeful for their next subject. Freyja had been raised, up until this point, in various governmental facilities masquerading as troubled youth homes but was always acutely aware of I-AROS and what her purpose was within the agency. It came as no surprise to her when, at the age of 16, she was brought to a remote research facility for the process to begin.

It would take half a year for the mutation to complete-- Growing bones takes time, after all, growing foreign biological material took even longer --and during that time Freyja was in and out of medical wards, fake residences, and even isolation chambers for when close monitoring was required. She thought she was cursed, that an angry god was exercising wrath upon her for something she couldn’t explain.

By the end of the process, Freyja had sprouted a pair of wings, her body anatomy forever altered by the modifications needed to accommodate them. Her wingspan was 4 meters wide, and it was speculated it could grow even larger as her body finished growing into itself. The pain faded once the operations were complete, and Freyja was one of the few mutated individuals in the world. Utterly horrified both in herself and the people she had trusted and put her faith in, she drew inward, awkwardly trying to adapt to her new appendages.

I-AROS would put her through many more courses of training after her enhancement was complete, trying to teach her to use her newfound abilities of flight, though she often outright refused. They were bulky and uncomfortable, causing her considerable back pain before she learned how to deal with the new, literal weight upon her shoulders.

---

Escape was always at the forefront of Freyja’s mind. And, she soon came to realize, escape would mean utilizing her newfound limbs. If she cooperated and listened to their instructions and training, and if she got good at it, perhaps they would let her outside and she could fly far away from everything. Slowly, I-AROS began to see a change in their first successful Morgunstjarna candidate; she became amenable, practising faster and harder than before, and achieved a true session of flight by 19.

Three long years had passed since her mutation, and Freyja had come to learn how to live with the wings. Dressing was still awkward, but she had come to learn a few tricks to help, and the wings were able to fold quite closely to her body. They were still very noticeable, but thankfully, her government overlords would have something to help with that.

The Lucifer Suit was another on-the-nose-named project built by I-AROS for their Morgunstjarna initiative. It was an outfit constructed specifically for the winged products of genetic mutation, and had a few extra bells and whistles that proved invaluable to Freyja. Primarily, they featured localized cloaking technology -- They could make her wings appear invisible to the unenhanced Human eye, allowing her to wear the suit as a glorified set of long johns and appear like a relatively normal person. Enough movement of the wings would break the cloak, however, which meant flying with the tech on was out of the question -- It was best suited for initial infiltration and for disguising her avian appendages. The suit would also regulate her body temperature at high altitudes, account for G-force pressure on her new avian skeleton, and provide moderate protection against enemy armaments.

With the help of the Lucifer Suit, Freyja staged her escape attempt shortly after her 20th birthday.  And failed. She was being paraded before members of Iceland’s military high command, the first successful product of genetic mutation, and was to represent all the possibilities they could have, and would perform an aerial demonstration of her abilities much like a zoo animal. Freyja literally bolted during the show, prompting fighter jets to be scrambled after her, and a helicopter would be the one to bring her down as she was nearly eviscerated in the rotors. It forced her to land, where capture was easy. Fleeing was not going to be as easy as she thought.

Dragged back to I-AROS’ remote facility in metaphorical and literal chains, Freyja was imprisoned and deemed a liability, her loyalty to the program had already been shattered and now she was a mutated loose end. Whilst she was living proof the program’s viability, her own individual usefulness was quickly being outlived. But it seemed fate had different plans for Freyja, and she was given a window of escape that she would take wholeheartedly.

I-AROS had arranged for Freyja and everything related to her to be shipped to a blacksite, but during transport she found an unlikely ally who agreed to help her -- The very same field commander who had saved her from sacrifice as a baby. He’d been assigned to her security detail, and took pity on the mutant for what his actions had resulted in. Helping her to escape, he provided her with the Lucifer Suit, a few starting resources such as money and water, and wished her luck on finding a purpose in her strange and new life.

Whilst the field commander provided an adequate distraction, Freyja stayed her escape -- She flew away from the convoy under the cover of darkness and didn’t stop flying until daybreak, managing to covertly enter the capital city with the infiltration knowledge and education I-AROS had given her since childhood. And, with the help the criminal underworld she had been trained to tap into, Freyja even acquired her new and current identity. Freyja Arosdotter was born, perhaps a little on the nose in terms of choice of a last name but it felt like the right one. She didn’t know the name of her father, but she did know the name of the organization that had parented her, and chose to both honour them and stick it to them at once. Briefly living among the other residents of Reykjavik for a time, Freyja used the money she had collected to pay for a plane ticket, wishing to go anywhere else, to escape the people she knew would search for her -- And landed in Los Angeles, in the good, ol’ US of A. It was a terribly fitting place to wash up.

With the Lucifer suit able to help in obscuring her wings, Freyja attempted to adapt and integrate, as she had been trained to do. I-AROS had provided Ms. Arosdotter with a fine education and she put that to work, manipulating her way into positions of power with every workforce she joined. The identities she had purchased held up flawlessly, and it certainly helped that the Icelandic Government didn’t want to acknowledge her true existence lest their illegal experimentation be exposed, and her immigration to the USA passed without a hitch. Eventually, the secret mutant would begin studying law, passed ‘the bar’ with flying colours, and became employed at a pharmaceutical company as a legal retainer. It was mostly depressing work; handling class action lawsuits filed against the conglomerate and informing claimants that they were not responsible for damages. It struck a chord in Freyja, but she persevered to make a living, and a fine living at that. Her work would take her all over the country, which provided many opportunities to stretch her wings.

But it also gave her an opportunity to do some good.

---

A benefit of Freyja travelling meant she was never around in one place to become a familiar face. This played heavily in her favour as she could, theoretically, commit vigilante actions and put her training to good use, help more of the common folk she had to turn away at her day job, without being recognized.

No. That’s stupid. Who would do that?

Whenever she was home in L.A., she started small. Taking flights out with the Lucifer Suit and hiding among the skyscrapers, observing and eventually stopping petty crime with the help of her wings. It didn’t take long for the city to realize they had a Guardian Angel among them.

The notoriety didn’t suit her well. But, she embraced the people’s role in her side hobby, even taking on a moniker -- Valkyrie. It was suitable, appropriate, another callback to her origins, and it didn’t take long for her to become a popular superhero icon among the L.A. aesthetic. Let’s just say that angel iconography was-- and still is --in vogue.