[Exalted] The Dragon's Spite

LXXII. I Guess I'm A Vipress

No. There isn't a reason for you to turn down his offer of alliance. He offers you so much. A way out of this cesspit of a city. A powerful ally who is much more to your tastes than Ukt Ghulah. And you barely know Inaan. No one who knows you really would say that you're a sentimental, sappy sort — which is why you don't let people see who you really are.

"Well, that is a handsome offer," you say, letting your voice take on a husky note so he fully understands your intent. "A very handsome offer."

Silk-and-Eye grins at you, with the self-assured, lazy smile of someone who knew things were going to go like this all along. "Of course. I'm quite proud of my sense of aesthetics."

"How did you manage to offer me so many things I wanted?"

"I just had to ask myself what I would want. Because you might have been born to Shape, but," he pauses, "well, you know how this goes. 'We're not so different', and so on and so forth. You want to be free of this city. I want to be free of this city. You want to escape this world of misery, death, and time — and that is something I also want with all my heart. You want me and I want you."

"You do know me."

For an ancient monster who claims to have seen the start of time, his charm is almost boyish. "You showed me your dreams. And dreams are the real self of you poor chained creatures. What you'd be without the sins of the titans chaining you down." He curtseys to you, his leopard-skin skirt flaring around him. "And so, pretty lady, beautiful lady; I vow on my name and heart to be your eternal ally, to love you, to lead you from this city of dry tears and together we will spread our freedom across the barren and chained land of Shape."

You swallow, and take a step closer. "And this I promise; I will love you. No more will you know the dying city of Cahzor. We will leave this place, and in love and alliance, we will free each other."

Silk-and-Eye raises his hand. "Upon my secret name, I am Arquma, the Silk and the Eye. In the name of perfect, incorruptible, pure Dharma, we swear eternal alliance — and let any who would break this more perfect union know nothing but ruin and desolation."

He waits for you. You glance over at Inaan. She appears to be in some hot springs. At least she's happy there.

"Upon my name, Ferem Odat Rena, I vow this," you say. A false name wouldn't mean anything anyway. Not to an ancient oath like this.

Light flares and falls upon you. It is not the oath. It is just Silk-and-Eye, Arquma, entertaining himself. But he looks so eager and so happy and so delighted.

"Freedom! Finally! Oh, my love, my Rena - together we will be rid of this place."

"I can't wait. There's a demon lord bound in the city who's trying to kill me," you admit.

"Oh! How exciting! One of the vile lords of Order is out to kill you! Why?"

You smile at him. "I burned his collection of demon prophecies that would have chained the future to his vision. Because fuck him."

"I knew you had good taste! Marvellous! Simply marvellous!"

It was the response you expected.

"Those two fools are still fighting," he says, glancing at the mirror that hangs from a wrist. "Well, we can leave them to it. It looks like they'll be at it for some time." He sprawls back on one of the seats, the lines of his body stretched out by his arched back, the softness smoothed away by his pose. "However will we pass the time?"

"I suppose we'll just have to consummate our alliance," you say with a knowing smile.

"Such a thought! It is almost as if that was the thing we both wanted."

Your glamour-gown of clouds and shadow shushes around you as you approach him, his eyes no longer human and full of hunger. The world around you shimmers as he sheds the dream he had been holding you in. He feels safe around you for you have sworn a terrible oath to him. And this means the pleasures that come now will be real.

He rises. He kisses you. His mouth tastes of cloves and the loose, floaty sweetness of dreamdust. It tastes of fantasy and the thoughts of lonely nights. His skin is warm, and smooth and softer than any mortal man's; his arms are weak but eager to hold you.

"So much beauty, even if wicked time has left its mark on you," he whispers between kisses. "We'll strip them away. All of them. You should never have to suffer such indignities."

You can feel him pressing up against you through the unreal fabric, his body heat up against you. His diaphanous shawl comes up, slithering down to the ground where it turns back into dry leaves. His kilt joins it soon. Now he is revealed to you in full, proud and eager, his sandy tail wrapping around to brush your thigh through the slits in your train.

"Look at you," you say, mouth dry. "So handsome."

"I know." He lets go of you, sitting down once again, legs spread. "Now, come, my love."

With a smile, you shed your gown. It is night and clouds, and so it easily comes away, pouring off you like quicksilver from a hand. It cascades down you and you step out of it in just your slippers. The little exhalation from him is nice. It's pleasing. Because you have seen his fear and hatred of time, and you know it has touched you in ways you wish it hadn't. You are older than you would like to look; you are softer in places you were once not. You have so many scars, and even more that cannot be seen.

But a handsome prince from the birth of the world still likes you like this, and it still brings a happy little tingle to your spine.

You straddle him on the seat. He is warm under you, and even sun-averse as he is he is still not as pale as you, a creature of the northern snows. His soft thighs are under your bottom; his hands are on your hips. You kiss him again, deep, strong, long.

"Oh, wait a moment," you say as you break.

"Mmm?" His hands are touching you, wandering over you, and you like to think he can't believe his luck.

"Need to take out my hair rods or they'll poke me in the back of the neck." You drive your hips forwards so he presses right up against you, lifting your hands up. Making a show of it. He likes it, and his hands rise up to cup your breasts.

Carefully you remove two of the hair rods keeping the mass of your long black hair in place. It slithers loose, falling down your front and back, framing your face. He grins at you, eyes widening in anticipation.

You lean forwards, kiss him, and drive one hair rod through his jugular and the other into his ear.

---

There really wasn't a reason for you to turn down his offer.

Unfortunately for him, you are a profoundly unreasonable woman at times.

---

What is one of the princes of chaos out in his natural environment? Even you are not entirely sure. You wouldn't be able to observe one, because the act of observation by a shape-born creature would impose constraints on what they are. Every step they take towards the Omphalos brings more and more rules weighing upon them.

In Creation, they are not so different from men. They shape themselves after them. They lie to order's harshness that they follow its rules, and realise too late that Creation takes them at their word.

Silk-and-Eye is a fox, and so he needs his heart to beat, his blood to flow. He needs his brain - just as a man. Just as a fox.

He bleeds so very much from the jugular. And the noise he makes is like a pig in a slaughterhouse.

But then the pain starts. It is like a knife down your spine. A knife, or a branding iron. Your back arches in agony, and your shoulders wrench as if you've just dislocated them. Your scream drowns out him as you topple off him, body convulsing; swearing, hurting. Swearing the oath may have had no great portentous signs, but breaking it?

The pain doesn't stop, but it metamorphoses from the mind-whiting scream of hot metal to the sharp constant consciousness of a fresh burn. And that means you can, at least, pull yourself up to all fours, back heaving, muscles aching, and then slump in a kneeling position, bloodstained and hurting.

This might be a new record for your shortest marriage, you think to yourself almost hysterically as you feel the cooling blood run down your body and drip from your hair.

A fresh pain makes itself known as little claws rake along your thigh, but it is nothing compared to your back.

"Idiot," hisses Sei.

"Oh. Hello you."

"Hello you yourself! You fool! You utter and complete idiot. You broke an oath sworn upon one of the shinma. Within a couple of minutes of swearing it. You went into an act of alliance sworn on the highest of powers intending to break it! If you want to die so much, just free me and let me eat you! It'll be less messy for everyone, you included."

"Why?" you echo muzzily.

"Yes!" He stalks up and down in front of you, tails waving back and forth in agitation. "Why would you do that?"

"I… I…" The pain has you asking that yourself. And the heavy, leaden ache of the pain. And the way it feels… wrong. Like you've been touched by something filthy. But that might be your lover's blood splattered all over you. Or something else. Why would you do something that stupid.

"... didn't like his face."

Sei whirls on you, and makes an utterly disgusted noise. "Liar."

You taste copper from where you've bitten your tongue. You spit red on the ground, and that motion turns into a hacking cough. "Didn't like his face. Or the way. He acted like he knew me. Like everything he'd done had put me in a situation where I had to do." Wheezing you wipe your brow on your bicep, feeling the cold sweat prickle all over. "What he wanted."

"Oh, you didn't want to feel like he knew you?" Sei sniffs. "I mean, that's understandable, but why would you swear and then break an oath like that? Do you know what you've done to yourself? Because I do. And anyone who sees that thing on your back will know what you are. Oathbreaker."

His words don't quite register through the haze. "Thing on my back?"

Sei sighs, and leaps up to Arquma's corpse to recover the little mirror he carried around. He considers how to get it off his wrist, and being Sei decides the expedient method is to unhinge his jaw and consume the fae's hand. You close your eyes before you have to see too much, but you can still hear the breaking of bokes and flesh before Sei hops back down, the bloody mirror in hand.

With its help, you can see the source of your pain.

You have a new tattoo. No. Call it what it is. It is a brand, a curse-scar that runs down your spine, its legs sprouting from each bone in the spine. It is in the shape of a centipede. Its tail head reaches for your neck, while the head curls into the small of your back. Corruption, decay, predation; impurity.

"Shit," you moan.

"Didn't you always want a willow there?"

"I did," you whine. "Not something like this."

"Well, maybe you shouldn't have betrayed an oath sworn on Dharma." His tails lash behind him, his little face screwed up in contempt. "And yet—"

"What?"

"You didn't just do this out of spite and malice. No, don't say a thing. I can taste the difference. The motive." His tongue tastes the air, and he pads around you. "Hmm."

"Stop that."

"Tell me why you did it."

"I told you the truth!"

"The whole truth."

"He was going to drain Inaan dry and I couldn't sit there and let it happen!"

Sei reappears around your other side, his head tilted in confusion. "Why not? You've done it before. Many, many, many times before."

"Yes. I know."

"So why do that to yourself?"

"I don't know! Because I didn't like his face and his attitude!" Your eyes blur with tears out of self-disgust at being so weak. "She better be grateful," you growl, trying not to break down completely. The feeling of something like this settling into your spirit, full of malice and pain, is deeply unpleasant. It changed your body. You didn't want that. "Have you seen anything like this before, Sei?"

A pair of little paws press against your back as Sei takes a closer look. You can feel his breath against the cold sweat. "No. Because I'm not an idiot who breaks Dharmic oaths for a girl who'll probably be dead in a few decades," he says coldly. "But… mmm. It's powerful. But it hasn't latched onto you quite right."

"What do you mean by that?"

"The oath's retribution was meant to bring destruction and ruin to everything you do and everything you touch. It… isn't doing that. As your familiar, I'd know. I'd feel it trying to bite into me. And it isn't. Maybe he didn't phrase it quite right."

"The tales say that Dharma is all-generous, all-good, and incorruptible," you say, wracking your memories to try to find anything of the obscure and often contradictory tales the fae have of the distant monads of chaos. "And sympathetic in spirit. Perhaps it felt sympathy because I was trying to save an innocent."

Sei sniffs. "I think it's more likely your idiot fey screwed up the wording," he says.

You have to agree, that sounds more probable than the idea that one of the distant ur-gods that the fae swear by might have smiled on you. "So I'm doomed, but we don't know what the nature of the doom is."

"Yes. You idiot."

You let your head fall into your hands. "Well. Crap."

---

The end of the story at the fae bait isn't much to talk about. With Silk-and-Eye's death, Blue shows up nearly instantaneously. You barely had time to clean most of the blood off and get dressed.

"My lady! Some dastard was mazing me! But the maze just collapsed! My failure, my errant ways meant I could not be there to protect you! Let me fall upon my blade and—"

"Don't be a fool, Blue," you snap, feeling haggard and drawn from the pain that still throbs in your back. "He was cunning and powerful. The fact he managed to hide you from me was just another of his tricks!"

"He's dead, then?"

"I killed him!"

"Oh, hurrah, my lady!" He wraps you up in a celebratory hug, lifting you up, and his hands only bring more pain. You endure it until he puts you down, and you can accept his kisses. "I have missed you so much! More days and nights I have sought to free you from this wicked sorcery, only to find you freed yourself! However can I make up for my failure?"

Your vision is blurred with pain. "For now… for now, find the other foxes here. Kill them all," you say, eyes narrowed. "All of them. There is one cataphract here — Ukt Ghulhah — I had to make a deal with her. We're allies. But all the others are enemies."

"I will bring you their heads!" Blue cheers, with a salute, and bounds off like a puppy.

Yes, you think, while you try to remember if you had any smokes left and really wishing you had them on you right now. An idiot like Blue is so much safer and nicer than someone like Arquma. Even if you regret the loss of the opportunities he offered — and even more regret that it got you fucking cursed.

Hobbling, feeling every day of your age, you find Inaan, lying there like a discarded doll in the underlayers. She is sleeping the sleep of the ensorcelled. Her mind wanders off with the faeries; that's what the commoners would say. You know better.

You're not sure how much she will remember of this. It'll be an interesting diagnostic note when you try to work out how much damage happened. You think you killed him fast enough, though. Nothing permanent. Not for her.

Only for you.

"Dragons fucking damn it all," you manage, a heaving sob bursting up. Oh, fuck this all and fuck this city. You didn't deserve this. None of this. It hurts and there's a corrupted, misfired curse sunk into you, sworn on a being so powerful that it may not truly exist — and yet still had all this effect.

All you wanted was a couple of days in a fae trap. If they'd been normal, sensible fae, they'd have been willing to nibble on the souls of your companions and then you could have just been on your way. But no, no, of course they all had to be high-strung drama fiends. Which is in their nature, but there's a difference between their nature and the entire place being one woman away from self-destruction. You being the woman.

Picking Inaan up below the armpits, you slowly and painfully lug the lump up out into the surface layers.

Time has come to them too. Faded are the paintings, and gone are the fine cloth hangings. The windows are barren and bare, and a hot wind blows through them. The cruel sun stares down through the holes in the ceiling with his uncaring gaze. The baths are dry and though something of the gardens remain, the wyldlife is shrivelling and dying moment by moment.

This little pocket of faerie magic and wonder where the rules of the world could be held off has faded, and now reality returns with a vengeance. How you hate it so!

You lie Inaan down on the tattered, sandy rug of what had been her bedroom, where a skeletal bedframe holds the mouldering remnants of sheets and cushions, and flop down yourself. The glamour gown is already bleaching in the light, but maybe you can save something of it. It is beautiful, even if you can only wear it at night, and perhaps with some strength from Sei or Blue you might be able to repair the damage it has already suffered without a dreamer.

You are tired. And you are scarred. And you are old. And you can still smell the blood of someone who loved you and would have banished all three from you. Because you murdered him. For a girl you barely know. And for the damnable pride of an old woman who has fucked up her entire life. Who didn't need a curse from Dharma to be a doom to everyone she has ever loved.

Misery holds you tight, and does not let you go. You cannot escape from its brooding pit, and the sound of footsteps and the scrape of something on stone barely draws your eyes.

Cut up, wounded, but smiling a hyena's smile, Ukt Ghulah pokes her head in. She is dragging the mutilated, flayed corpse of a fox behind her. "You have done your part. I will not hold you to the fact you slew Arquma. Only the distraction of his death let me get the upper hand over Dae." Her eyes are bright. "This was a fight for the centuries. I have not felt so alive in a very long time."

"Bully for you," you croak.

"I know! Now I will hang his corpse up for the night, and devour him once he is lovely and rotten. But, ah, I smell something rotten in here." Her pale eyes close, and she sniffs the air. "You. You are thick with rot. Laden with it. Filthy. Unclean." She relishes the words. "Oathbreaker. Traitor. You swore to love him and ally with him, and murdered him before the echoes of your voice had faded."

Your heart pounds in your ears. You reach for your hair rods.

"Beautiful. A rotten, sullied lady to serve, just as I too am rotten and sullied." Her breath steams. "You will not remind me of the beauty I lost. You will not rub it in my face."

"So?"

"We will see how I feel when Dae is rotten and in my stomach. But you are a pestilent, unclean thing. And I like that."

Her praise only makes you feel less clean. But you hold your tongue as she passes by, dragging her rival's skinless body behind her.

---

The group that manages to repair the sails and limp onto the next sandport is lessened. You are not exactly in the mood to cheer up others, and many of the travellers are showing the exhaustion that comes from dream-theft and the awkwardness of emerging from a land of the fae and remembering everything you did.

Oh and of course, two sailors got eaten by the fae, but only the crew are sad about that, so you don't particularly care. Not when you have a fever and barely have the strength to move.

Sei is an asshole who says it's not the curse, it's you having a panic attack over the fact you have a doom looming over you, but what does he know? He's not the one who's cursed. All you have the energy to do is to lie there, alternating between being too hot and too cold, and every time the landship lurches you have to fight back waves of nausea.

A rap comes at the door.

"Meira?" Zia asks, his voice soft and nearly lost under the creak of the mast. "How are you feeling?"

"Come in," you croak. "And awful."

Zia looks little better than you feel. His silks are blotted and rumpled, his eyes have dark circles under them, and even if he is clean-shaven he hasn't paid a fraction of his usual attention to his appearance. His dark blue hair hangs limp and sweaty and formless around his pale skin. "Me too."

"You look it."

"You could have told me I never looked better," he manages with a flinch, sitting down on the built-in wooden bench next to your cot.

"I feel too shitty to flatter anyone."

That draws a giggle from him. "Gods! Gods! You're not wrong."

The silence drags out as the ship bounces and the ropes creak and the sailors do their thing up on deck. "I haven't thanked you yet."

"For what?"

"Personally, I mean. You and your man Blue saved us all." He massages his temples. "We were nearly all eaten by the fae. And it was only because you were here that we're alive. Or not stumbling husks."

"Yes."

He hugs himself. "How have we missed this before?" he says, voice shrill. "I've travelled this route plenty of times. How did we never fall for it before?"

"I don't know," you say, sitting up slightly with a grunt. "It's hard to say. Maybe we're off course slightly. More likely they only lured people in when they were hungry. How many times do you take this route?"

"A few times a year. Why? And, uh—" he begins.

"Then maybe you just got lucky," you say brutally. "After all, if they can prey on other travellers, they wouldn't go after you. It's nature."

"How can you say that?" Zia retorts.

"Because that's what these fae lures do. They're like a predator in its den; they don't eat all the time. A wolf doesn't kill everything it comes across; it hunts when it's hungry. It's in its nature to feed when it needs food. Just like one of the princes of chaos."

He shakes his head, trying to put those thoughts out of mind. "We… we really have to agree to disagree about those monsters! And, uh, I was going to say, but by sitting up, uh, you're… exposing yourself."

You glance down. Oh, right, you're topless under the covers in your convalescence. You shift the sheet up to cover yourself, but don't lie back down. You're feeling better sitting up. Maybe because you don't have your weight on your branded back. And yes, maybe because you have something to distract yourself. "Thank you."

He nods, and nervously clears his throat. "Though. Uh. I… I'm not sure exactly what happened. Your man said that I was… I was somehow being used as a puppet?"

You explain exactly how a fox was draining his dreams and his shape, wearing his form to make trouble for you, confessing his love and trying to seduce you, and Zia gets greyer and greyer as you listen to him.

"I dreamt that," he blurts out. "I dreamt it was me saying that. And I hoped it was just a madness, just a… just a…"

"A dream?"

"Yes. Because…" He trails away, but the look in his dark blue eyes tells you everything you need to know.

"Because you wouldn't have the courage to say it yourself, but a fox was using you as a glove and so your own lack of courage to confess the fact you find me attractive meant nothing to the faerie," you say, not unkindly.

He turns bright red and turns to leave. "I didn't—"

"Oh, sit back down, you big silly," you tell him sharply, and his legs fold under him like you cut his tendons. "I am sorry if it hurt you. You know, when I hurt the fox. But I had to drive it off and—"

"No no no I… I knew you were doing it for my sake. Well, uh, I know. I thought it was a nightmare when I woke up. But…" he chews his upper lip, "a… uh. A nice nightmare."

Oh, so he likes to be dominated. Well, that's not surprising. The pain, a bit more so, but not all that much. "Zia, I've known since that party at the Kinzara estate that you're attracted to me. Why haven't you made a move?"

"First you were involved with that scoundrel Hilmi, and he'd have run me through!"

"That was months ago!"

"Yes, but then you have your two men! That birdman savage and the swordsman!"

"Does it disgust you? Because I'm not married to either of them!"

"Yes…" He sighs, and his shoulders slump. "No, no, I have to be honest. Yes, I would like your heart, but I already have seen you. And I know what my mother is like. Some women can never give anyone all their love. But… but you would never love me back."

You frown. "That doesn't—"

"No, hear me out! This is… this is hard to say. And you might hate me for it. Because… because you don't know this ugly… defect in me. You are not from here. M-my peers know, and Sadia is kind enough that she doesn't say a thing, she defends me, but those brutes in the duelling cults, people like that, they all know! But you turned down Yasmine ak-Kebez! You are… are not interested in the body of women!

"Meira, I was born wrong. In the wrong body. And—"

You reach up and silence him with a finger to his lips. "Is that all?"

"All?"

"Zia, do you think I care that the gods made a mistake when they made you? I am a sorceress — of course I prize my will over what the gods say. And more than that… Zia, I saw immediately in you and your sister that water dominates your natures. And the Immaculate Dragon of Water herself, Daana'd, was the same! The gods are not infallible, Zia! Their plans for our destinies are far from foolproof!"

The cough comes back at the worst possible time, and you jolt forwards, coughing and hating your weakness.

"... if… if you say you are a man, you are," you manage weakly, your speech entirely ruined. "And damn anyone else who says otherwise."

Zia just sits there like a damn fool. He doesn't even help you, as you grab for a handkerchief and dab at your mouth, other hand on your chest as you try to settle your breathing.

"Do you mean that?" he eventually says.

Zia is soft, weak in spirit, and self-centred. Self-pitying. But he is also one of the people in this wretched city who has been nicest to you, and he is much less dangerous than Sadia. And of course, his family owes you twice over for this. Even if you were not already of the opinion that the gods are incompetent fools, you would tell him this. And you are of the opinion that they are fools. So Zia has been their victim too? He can join you in that.

Hell, even the Immaculates would agree with you, and for all that you have plenty of strife with them, you were raised Immaculate.

"Of course I mean it," you say weakly.

His eyes well up. "You're just too kind," he burbles. "It's not far how nice you are. Or how brave. Or how strong. Or the fact you saved all our lives and now you're sick."

"Yes, yes, I know," you say. "But you know it is. When you're a dragon-child, you have to be better than other people."

That draws a wry, snotty look from him, and you sigh and pass him your handkerchief. "There, there. Dry your eyes. And clear your nose." He obeys, likely following the diktats of a long-ago nurse. "Good."

"I thought you'd hate me. For lying to you," he says softly.

"You weren't lying. That's what I said. So what if the gods made a mistake? Damn the gods."

"Yes," he says softly. "Damn them."

"Good. Good. Now… now, I'm exhausted. So take care of your sister. And once I'm better, we can talk further about things. It is true that I'm not into women's bodies, but that doesn't change that you are one of my closest friends in this city."

"Thank you, Meira," he says softly. "I… you can always consider me your friend. No matter what. For saving me, and my sister, and all your kindnesses."

"Well, aren't you a good boy?" you say with a smile. "Now, shoo. I need to rest."

He leans in to kiss you on the forehead in respectful departure, and then takes his leave of you. You lean back in your cot, and manage to find one of the cigarillos you pestered Amigere into making sure was close to you. Lighting up with relief, you inhale and then exhale blue smoke into the air like the dragon you are.

Well. You're somewhat surprised you missed that, because the clues were there, but for example if he hadn't always been such an obsessive about his looks and dress, you would have noticed that there was never any sign of stubble. And his soft, rounded features you simply ascribed to the fact he was a bookish noble who never did anything to exert himself. He is better at passing than perhaps he thinks. Maybe some of it is that you don't know exactly the way men in Cahzor are meant to act, but at least in a Cheraki way he passes quite well as a soft, delicate, bookish man.

Never mind that. You are now heading to the house of the lady of the Sawahir, having saved the life of her two children, and with her older child vowing eternal friendship to you. If the next season doesn't turn out very well for you, you aren't half the woman you think you are.

And maybe Zoruni might have something on the cursebrand that tingles on your spine.

---

Article:

You have reached the end of arc 6. And with that you have 1800XP to spend, in plan format. You can spend the XP on the following Styles:

Viper Style - Adept (Crippled) (0/1600XP) (Wood)
Peacock Style - Adept (Crippled) (0/1600XP) (Air)
Graceful Willow Style - Adept (Crippled) (0/1600XP) (Wood)
Fleeting Breeze Style - Disciple (Crippled) (200/800XP) (Air)
Fume Serpent Style - Adept (0/1600XP) (Fire)

XP Vote - Allocate 1800XP
[ ] Plan Vote

Article:

Rena has broken an oath sworn on Dharma, and the Cursebrand of the Centipede now sits atop her spine, a mark of this broken oath. She thinks something misfired or went not quite right in the oath, likely because of Fume Serpent Style and how she is touched by the wyld and her fate is not quite something that can be latched onto, but it is clear; she is cursed.

There may be power seated in this curse, but let it be clear; it is a curse, and though she doesn't know exactly what it does or when it will trigger, it is a doom that hangs over her.

OK, looks like — despite what @Omicron insists — once again any XP vote results in much less interest than a regular vote. So let's just close it now and offer up the charm pick vote.

Article:

Rena is now a Master of Fume Serpent Style.

Pick One Charm
[ ] Chaos Coaxing Trick
The wyld can be lulled and bargained with, as one might sedate a hive of bees with a puff of smoke. With the proper ritual actions or negotiations with creatures of chaos, Rena can influence the Wyld and wyld-polluted land. She can reshape it as a minor wyld creature can or influence how it manifests. With greater difficulty and strenuous effort, she can cleanse one area by moving the pollution elsewhere, or shield small areas from a wyldstorm.

[ ] Ground Fire Obfuscation
How easy to miss the flames under a layer of mast, or to miss that Rena is a real threat rather than a self-centred dilettante. While using this technique, other characters struggle to see Rena as a source of violence or fear. While they can still despise her, they will overlook blood splatters, pass over a drawn weapon, and not consider that she might harm them (which may not always be to her advantage). Strong willed or perceptive characters can resist this technique, and it is easier for someone to push back if they dislike her or see her carry out a violent act.

[ ] Fanning the Flame of Need
Desire is a flame that can be nurtured from an ember. Rena feeds an existing desire or want of her choice of another character with spiritual fuel, briefly super-charging it. A strong-willed or temperate character might feel a brief but controllable spike of ambition or urge to punch a disliked character; a weak-willed character will find themselves led by their desire until it burns out. This requires Rena to be able to touch the character, and is exhausting to use.

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As she has reached Master rank in Fume Serpent Style, she receives an additional bonus charm pick. As the charm tree is not a combat tree, it will not be a form charm, but is instead a milestone charm

For her time spent trying to contest Silk-and-Eye's illusions, plus a human lifetime of seeking power from the wyld, she has picked up the ability to — if not as well as a native — influence and control dreams.

Dream Apiculture Technique - Rena now has the ability to perceive the dreams of a sleeping character as a fae can, although it is much harder to see the dreams of a strong-willed character. She finds it much easier to know if a dream is prophetic or otherwise influenced by an outside force. Additionally, through ritual and will she can attempt to contest control of a dream or dream-like space. It is easier to fend off outside influence of her own dreams than take control of someone else's.