Vexen Styne

## Vexen

**Vexen Styne** is one of the many characters in *Nightmares,* the tritagonist of the trilogy and general mascot of the series.

She and her twin brother are the first of Mathilde's peers and permanent traveling companions. Having inherited her father's beastblood, she's also known for her ability to turn into a ferocious wererat, and utilizes these powers for her own desires.

## Physical Appearance

### Human Form

Vexen stands at an average height and average weight and visible muscle definition. Due to her frequent shifting, Vexen is covered in faded stretch marks all over her body--especially around her thighs. She has her mother's light skin color and hair color, groomed eyebrows, and a very red-colored eye, with the other one totally missing and covered in scar tissue as well as only being a gaping hole. In her younger years, before it was lost, this eye was silver.

Her hair is auburn but coarse, and according to her, very unruly. She typically keeps it in a ponytail of varying height and has sideswept bangs. When down, her hair length is considered medium, just reaching below her collar bones. She keeps her makeup usage minimal, but has been shown to use dark-tinted lip stain and brow pastels on occasion.

Her daily attire consists of a plain white button-up shirt, loose grey-brown trousers, and off-black midcalf flat boots with laces. Variations to this outfit exist, such as wearing a dark grey waistcoat with stripes, a grey-black vest, thigh straps, archery gloves, or even just rolling up the sleeves. Vexen wears brief-like undergarments and what appears to be light binding material as a bra, possibly to prevent bouncing during her physical activities. For sleep, she dons a simple white dressing gown. and flat slippers.

### Wererat Form

As a wererat, Vexen becomes much taller, and is even more muscular than before. Her body becomes mostly covered in dark grey hair, save for areas such as her arms, lower legs, and chest area. A fleshy ringed tail erupts from her back, and she grows black claws that she can make longer. Her hair stays the same, albeit much messier, and her eye glows an evil shade of red. She additionally gains fangs, including two long upper incisors similar to a common rat's. Her face resembles a werewolf's snout, and her lips pull back, making it seem as though she's constantly smiling. Vexen's ears also change to resemble a rat's, and can freely wiggle.

The added changes cause her to stand somewhat hunched over, which makes it easier for her to be bipedal or quadripedal. Her clothes rip off after a transformation due to her increase in size, but she may rarely keep remnants of her sleeves or undergarments. Her stretch marks also stand out more and become darker.

## Personality

Vexen has a bit of a "feral" personality, which makes her somewhat wild and unpredictable at times as well as impulsive. Her morals are skewed and she isn't hesitant to lean towards the dark side to get things done, although she isn't considered evil and more or less chaotic neutral. Her state of mind also changes in her wererat form, as she becomes much more impulsive--though she is still completely capable of acting serious and sane, implying she chooses when to behave normally.

She also engages in simpler pleasures such as reading novels and playing chess with her brother. Vexen may also yet have an innocent side beneath her "ferality", as seen when her mother found an old dress of the former's that she didn't want visible yet didn't want to get rid of either. She also treats her daggers as a mother would to a child, and sleeps with them sheathed under her pillows.

Despite this, Vexen seems to have untreated trauma--she doesn't enjoy talking about her missing eye, and chooses not to think about how it's affected her. Lyon's death also caused many "what-ifs" for Vexen and has also left her bitter towards romance in general, to the point that even remembering her relationship with him no longer brings her joy.

## Biography

*For more information, go to Vexen Styne/History*

## Powers, Skills and Abilities

### Powers

* **Therianthropy:** Commonly referred to as beast blood, Vexen can turn herself into a powerful werebeast called a wererat. Immediately after she transforms into one, she gains enhanced strength, speed, and semi-paranormal durability, which lasts as long as she stays in the form. She can stay transformed for a very long time before suffering from fatigue (which will force her to change back) and can often change of her own will. Her born powers also grant her smaller boons that carry over to her human form. Vexen displays an expert level of control over this due to having embraced her other nature from a young age.
* **Therianthropic Infection:** Though she has yet to attempt it, theoretically, Vexen could potentially turn humans into wererats by blood-to-blood or saliva-to-blood transmission.

### Skills

* **Language:** Vexen can speak German in addition to Common English.
* **Weaponry:** Vexen is highly adept with long-range and close-range weaponry such as guns, knives, and brass knuckles, though she prefers using daggers as her main weapons.
* **Cooking:** Vexen knows how to prepare basic meals for herself and others.
* **Athleticism:** Vexen is athletic and sports basic muscle definition. Her physical hobbies also helps keep her from fatiguing as fast.
* **Horseriding:** She hasn't had the chance to do this many times in her life, but Vexen possesses average skill at riding horses.

### Abilities

* **Healing Factor:** Like all werebeasts, Vexen possesses an enhanced healing factor that allows her recover from injuries much faster, sometimes even instantly. It also gives her a stronger immune system, making it harder for her to get sick. Additionally, despite her being unable to heal her eye completely, the healing factor prevented any silver from reaching her brain and thus saved her life.
* **Enhanced Senses:** Vexen can temporarily enhance one of her five senses thanks to her beast blood. She can very easily use this boon to detect wildlife from up to half a mile away, minimum. Her night vision is better than a normal person's as well, though these all come at the risk of overstimulation.
* **Claw Retraction:** Like all mammalian werebeasts, Vexen can turn her nails to sharp claws at will. They are partially made of bone material and keratin and grow over her normal nails.
* **Fang Retraction:** Like all mammalian werebeasts, Vexen can make her canine and front teeth sharper at will.

### Weaknesses

* **Silver:** Vexen, like all werebeasts, can be severely injured or even killed by even the smallest amount of silver due to the nature of her beastblood. Silver is considered holy against "unholy" magic which the original curse was based on. Silver-related injuries barely heal, if at all, and the affected area is left numb and permanently scarred.
	+ In fact, this is how Vexen lost her eye, and the reason it can't be mended.

* **Diminished Sight:** Though she has since adapted, for the first months after losing her eye Vexen's field of vision was greatly diminished to a monocular view rather than binocular. As a result, she could be totally ambushed from her left side. She also has issues with depth perception and occasionally has to re-test her vision.

* **Lack of Pain:** Though she personally doesn't see this as a weakness, Vexen's pain tolerance is abnormally high, and almost doesn't feel physical or internal pain, unless it's a silver-related injury. Medically, this is a dangerous predicament as it means Vexen could be unable to see or identify serious risks to her health.
* **Pipe of Hamelin:** Vexen has never been exposed to the pipe of Hamelin before, but would likely be affected by it since her father was a surviving rat from Hamelin.
* **Magic Severance:** Vexen cannot channel arkana or utilize organic magic in any way due to her werebeast nature, though she can still sense it.

## Trivia

* During early developments of her character, Vexen was male.
* Vexen's signature flowers are lilies, which signify innocence, purity, and rebirth--which are the opposite of her characteristics.
* For more formal situations where she can't show her missing eye, Vexen probably hides it with her bangs or with a lily.
* Vexen's favorite color is purple and her favorite food is cheesecake.
* Vexen dislikes skirts.
* Vexen used to "date" [[Lyon Wolf]] before he died.