Mary Katherine Bomba (Queen)

Mary Katherine Bomba (or MK for short) is the main protagonist of the 2013 Blue Sky Studios film Epic. She is Nod's love interest and soon becomes his girlfriend at the end of the film.
==Background==
Mary Katherine lived together with her father and mother for the first years of her life. Eventually, her mother became tired of her father's obsession with miniature people that she didn't believe existed and left him, taking Mary Katherine with her. They lived estranged from her father for several years until her mother passed away. Before her death, Mary Katherine promised her to move back in with her father and try to live together with him.
==Personality==
Mary Katherine, who prefers to be called "M.K.", is a 17-through-21-year-old, who had issues dealing with her father due to the fact that he was obsessed with his work. Additionally her mother, his wife, recently died, placing her under a lot of emotional stress. She moved in with her father because she promised her mother she'd try to repair their relationship, which fell apart because of his obsession with the leafmen. After their adventure in the forest she became more open having found what he had discovered about the Leafmen was true. She plans her sense of adventurous and bravery over the course of the adventure. She has a love interest in Nod and in the end shared a kiss with him. They still maintain connection, although the view of their relationship with their natural size differences remains unclear other than friends. MK is smart, pretty, levelheaded, feisty, witty, loving, and independent.
==Appearance==
Mary Katherine shares her father's red hair and dark green eyes and freckles. She also possessed several characteristics from her mother. She styles her hair in a ponytail, with framed bangs, and grey earrings. Also she wore a hot pink cordovan hoodie, paired with a grey striped t−shirt, a black miniskirt, black capri leggings, and brown combat boots. Later wore a pink t-shirt. In some people's imagination for a sequel, if MK were a queen of leafman, she would be dressed in Queen Tara's gown
==Role in the first film==
Mary Katherine returned to the Bomba house, her childhood home, to live with her estranged father. Though absentminded, he greeted her warmly and scrambled to reintroduce her to the house and to his work, though she didn't approve of his hunt for "tiny people". She tried to impress on him a need to be more normal but as he was too preoccupied with the oddities in the forest, he ran off with a promise to talk later. M.K., completely disheartened, decided to leave. She repacked her bag and left Bomba a note, then tried to call a taxi only to find she had no service. While she pondered this, Ozzy the dog ran off into the forest and she gave chase.
M.K. unknowingly came across the battle of the Leafmen and Boggins, just in time to see Queen Tara falling from the sky. As she tried to understand what she was seeing, the mortally wounded queen shrunk her down to Leafman size in order to entrust her with protecting her royal pod imbued with the Life of the Forest. Her task was to to take it to Nim Galuu, instructions M.K. didn't fully understand.
Ronin arrived to the scene and after watching the queen pass on, he heard M.K.'s explanation of Tara's request. At this point, M.K. finally processed that she had just been shrunk down and proceeded to panic, demanding Ronin change her back to normal while he tried to take the pod from her. Mub and Grub stepped in, forbidding him to rip the pod away from her as it had wrapped its roots around her, a sign that it trusted her. Mub also took the opportunity to flirt with her, only freaking her out more to her situation. Ronin got them back and track and, load the whole group onto his hummingbird, though it was quickly apparent they would need another bird to carry them all.
They go to a bird-racing pit to take one but as M.K. shows no skill in driving birds, Ronin accepts help from his student, Nod, who'd quit the Leafmen that day. M.K. rides with Nod on his sparrow and the journey to Nim Galuu becomes faster, though he startles her with his trick flying. Nod's recklessness gets them noticed by a boggan patrol group and they must flee, him and M.K. landing down a hole together. There, they are approached by a mouse who M.K. finds cute until it reveals itself as an honest danger. Nod easily jumps out of the hole and beckons her to follow, which she initially thinks is impossible. However, once she realizes how high she can jump in her tiny form, she becomes overeager and accidentally knocks herself out. Nod tries to protect her from the mouse, but both are rescued by Ronin. When she comes to, she thinks she's talking to her father about the "weird dream" she'd had, only to realize it was all real.
They continue their journey, though Ronin has changed the seating arrangements so he can watch over M.K. while Nod gets the slugs. She asks the general of why he wanted Nod along and he explains the philosophy of Leafmen that no one is alone, not her or Nod.
The group finally reach the tree of Nim Galoo where many of the jinn have come to seek answers. Inside, they witness Nim's floor show but also his stumble when trying not to tell everyone the queen has died. They go to meet him and together, they go down into the Rings of Knowledge to find information on how to care for the royal pod. They found a scroll which mentioned the Pod must be kept moist (as stated by the Slugs) and that it must bloom in the light of the full moon at it's highest peak. There was also information ripped from the bottom of the scroll which Nim blamed on termites. Satisfied with what they found, the group moved to leave but M.K. asked Nim if something in the scrolls might help her grow again. He gave her one which showed a flashback to when she met Tara and let her properly hear the queen's message, telling her that if she would stay with the pod when it bloomed, she would be returned home.
Ronin was occupied with sending a message to the Leafmen and the slugs took over watching the Pod, so M.K. went to talk with Nod. He invited her for a mini adventure and showed her a deer passing by the tree, on which the two went for a ride. But while they were gone, Mandrake stormed the tree, kidnapped the Pod and slugs, and took them away while Ronin was too late to stop them. He blamed Nod who he put on direct orders to stay with the Pod, and when M.K. came to his defense, Ronin said he expected her to be the mature one. Nod declared they should sneak into Boggan territory and get it back but when Ronin mentioned they had no Boggan armor to disguise themselves with, M.K. had an idea and took command of Nod's bird to lead the way.
Her plan involved sneaking into her house and taking the boggan armor her father had collected for his studies. Professor Bomba was in his office, looking sad, but the Leafmen made fun of the man as a clumsy giant who they had been tricky and misleading for years. M.K. stood up for him and revealed to Nod that she is a stomper too, information Ronin already knew of. Nod made an ill-adviced joke that made her storm off and she went to examine Bomba who was looking over an old photo of his family, thinking M.K. had run away from him and apologizing to her image. M.K. tried to call up to him, wanting to tell him he was right about the Leafmen, but she was spotted by Ozzy who wanted to like his now-tiny master to her terror. She fled, forcing Ronin and Nod to grab the boggan gear and run, especially when Bomba saw them, too. Using one of his gadgets, he vacuumed up M.K. but when he saw it was his own daughter, he fainted. The jar shattered and M.K. was set free, while Ronin insisted they leave fast. Before she left, she kissed her father's forehead and moved a pin on his map to show him right where Moonhaven truly was.
Dressed in the boggan armor, remarking on the foul smell, the trio entered Wrathwood. Ronin revealed himself to the boggans as bait and in the confusion, M.K. and Nod found the slugs and the pod. To escape, the slugs used their stickiness to walk across the ceiling while M.K. and Nod hung onto them by their eyestalks. They almost got away with this until a midair battle with boggans alerted Mandrake of their intrusions. He sent the entire army after them but Ronin stepped in to buy them more time, at what looked like the cost of his own life. The human, Leafman, and slugs fled on Nod's bird.
The party arrived to Moonhaven and found Nim already there, where he delivered the pod to the room where it would bloom. But just as the moon was shining in on it, bats ridden by Mandrake and his army filled the air above to block the light. As they discovered earlier, if the pod should bloom in darkness, it would become his heir. The leafmen fly out to battle the boggans M.K. wanted to join them, even if it meant she couldn't stay by the pod or return to normal size. When Nim pointed out her unlikely success in battle, she realized her father might have something she could use. She mounted a hummingbird (unintentionally taking it from Grub) and flew off to find her dad.
She found him already on his way towards Moonhaven, haven seen the pin on his map and realized it was her doing. He tried to have a heartfelt moment with her but with she urged him forwards to Moonhaven. Once they arrived, she tried to explain her plan about using his recordings of bat noises but the slowness of his human form frustrated her so she jumped into his pocket and turned on the sounds herself. As she had hoped, the bats are attracted to the noise and chase after Bomba who runs through the forest, leading the animals away which clears the skies for the pod to blossom.
By the time M.K. returned to Moonhaven, the battle was over and Mandrake had been defeated, thanks to Ronin (who survived), Nod, and the leafmen. The Pod had also blossomed when she was away, gifting it's power to a marigold jinn and naming her the new queen. Though M.K. had lost her chance to get big again, Nod was ready to welcome her to the leafmen world. However, the new queen revealed to have the same powers as Queen Tara and thus could send M.K. back. She shared a kiss with Nod before being swept away by the magic and returned to normal size. She wandered through the forest until she was found by her father and Ozzy, happy to reunite as a family.
Some time later, M.K. became her father's assistant, relating to him all she'd learned about the Leafmen. She recieved a call on one of the monitors and it was Nod, as usual. Their conversation was cut off by Mub who also wanted to talk to M.K., sparking a fight between the two admirers which ended with Mub chewing on Nod. M.K. was disgusted by this and demanded Mub spit Nod out, though it was clear she'd have to physically intervene. Her dad offered her the helmet he made for her and she invited him to come along. Joined by Ozzy, they all ran into the woods to visit their friends.
==Trivia==
*She is the first and only princess in a Blue Sky Studios film.
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