[Valerianne Yul]

I woke up on an incredibly fancy bed with red curtains and lace sheets. As the world around me swayed a bit back and forth, I realized that I was probably still on the Rimmer ship. I felt very woozy. My head pulsated and my body chafed all over with pleasure.

“Fuck! FUCKING FUCKERS!” I started to swear, as my dream floated at the forefront of my mind.

Someone was cuddled into me. It was June. Both of us were naked. Just great. I tried to untangle myself from the foxkin. As I moved, her golden eyes opened and she looked at me with a yawn.

"Morning, Goddess!"

"Don’t call me that." I said with a deep frown.

"Oh hey, Yul. I guess Noxxy is sleeping now."

"Noxxy?" I squinted at her.

"My Goddess of the Night." June grinned, her eyes sparkling.

"Uhm. Do you like her or something?" I inquired cautiously.

June blushed.

"Gaia, why me." I groaned. "You like her a lot."

June blushed even deeper.

"This isn't what I signed up for." I muttered.

June cautiously licked me.

"Hey! No! No licking me! Bad fox!" I shoved her away.

"I can't help it." She grinned.

"Control yourself, damn it!"

"But it's so haaaard and you smell so tastyyyy." She whined.

"I'm not your… ugh. What are you with Nox anyway?"

"I'm her chosen Apostle in this epoch!" June smiled, radiating absurd amounts of happiness. I realised that I could feel her emotions. As if I didn’t have enough on my plate!

"What did I miss while I was out?" I asked.

"Lots of Voidtastic miracles!" June bounced excitedly. "Also she's way more awesome than your average nature spirit or a Dryad! She's like wow… I can't even!" She excitedly waved her hands.

"Try to even." I said. "I'd like an explanation, please."

“Okay so you told the Legate that you grew up on a farm, you must know what Dryads are like, yes?” June sat down onto a fancy leather chair, spinning in it.

“Yeah. Grew up on a farm with six brothers. I was... child number seven.” I said with a growl.

“Whoa there, girl. What’s going on?” June stopped spinning. “What are you so mad about?”

I wrapped myself up in a red bedsheet. “Fuck the Dryads! Fucking fuckers! The bastards have been using me! They bred me like some sort of a flower, guided me to the Void dungeon just so they could… infect me with their All-mother… Nox. All my life I thought that Nature spirits were just that… domain-locked spirits, uninterested in affairs of humans. It turned out that they were very VERY interested in me, the devious fucks! They were experimenting on my family and on me my entire life! They must have damaged the bridge that day, used forest paths to lead me right into the hole! Even when I got out of the Void dungeon, they must have been testing me for possessing heroic qualities while under the influence of Nox! I am just a pawn of the Dryads in some big millenia-long game!”

“Wait. The Dryads put Nox into you?”

“Yes. I bet they made that damn hole for me to fall right into too! Bastards played me for a fool! Argh!”

“Damn!” June said. She was far too cheerful, obviously not caring about my inner struggle that I was just some sort of a Dryad designed-human.

“Wait... How come you know all of this all of a sudden?” She asked.

I told June my dream. She nodded along and gasped at the revelations.

“Hrm.” June noted. “I didn’t know how human mainland farms worked. I only saw the meat and veggies at the merchant stalls. I didn’t know that the mainland cities were fed by Dryad-operated giant beasts.”

I sighed.

“Wait... If the Dryads made you to be the perfect, desirable container for Nox… then... Hooooooly Shit.”

“Eh?” I looked at her.

“It all makes sense now!” June stared at me. “You’re hot thanks to the Dryads! There’s Shadow and Void in my soul, I’m kind of like Nox that way, so I’m naturally drawn to you! I’m the sword for your scabbard. Holy crappers!”

“Gee thanks, that makes me feel so much better.” I said.

“But otherwise, yeah. This is some really deep shit.” She said. “The Dryads are definitely manipulative assholes.”

“No really! I’ve been misled, lied to my entire life!” I lamented.

“Who hasn’t been bamboozled by a powerful, ancient organization?” June shrugged. “Hell, I’ve been fooled by the Rimmers too. High five for being patsies!”

I didn’t high five her. This was a terrible reason for a high five. I somehow felt that June had butterflies in her stomach when she looked at me. She freaking loved Nox! What the hell did I miss?

“Come on, cheer up. You're totally unnaturally pretty and you still have a nice, loving family! So what if the Dryads bred you all or whatever? Don’t focus on that. Focus on the positive things in your life! Silver lining!”

“What positive things?” I growled. “I don't own my own body half of the time! There’s some kind of a Dryad All-mother thing in me called Nox! She literally threatened to exterminate my family in their sleep! She’s not any better than the damned Dryads!”

“Yeah, she’s a bit imperious.”

I gave June a look of disapproval.

“Okay, Nox is VERY imperious.” The foxkin shrugged. “But honestly, if you could get to know her you’d see how she’s really awesome!”

“Awesome in what sense?” I asked. “Are you sure you’re not just saying that because you’re addicted to her… err my body’s Voidtastic flavour or whatever?”

“Nu-huh! She taught me a cool Void spell - Darkness!”

I stared at the foxkin, expecting more.

“She told me a bunch of incredible stuff about how she made the biggest triskelion rune ever and then was betrayed and imprisoned by her followers. She keeps feeding me! She gave me sandwiches!”

“Uh-huh.” I remained unimpressed.

“We stole a lot of stuff from the crew of the Resurgence!”

“Not making a good case here.”

"Right, you wouldn't understand the bond that thieves share."

"Out with it! Why would you like a selfish megalomaniac like Nox?!" I demanded.

“I got to know her! See, there was this bottle of wine in the Captain’s desk. She drank like half of the bottle and she became… nice. She opened up to me, showed that she had feelings! Compassion, kindness, regret, friendship! This wine is some kind of a miracle-maker!” June pulled out a bottle of wine from the desk and showed it to me.

“Oggberry wine, circa 5984.” I read the label. “This is VERY expensive wine. Oggberries… Hang on… I collected these from Moosy! It was a pain in the ass, since these berries grow in the sacred groove, appearing inside luck-trees only once every 42 years. Very difficult to access, too. Lots of painful crawling through tight tree interiors. I was six when I had acquired a batch of Oggberries. Wealthy merchants love wine made with these, because they provide an amazingly high boost to charisma and luck. Good for making deals, writing contracts."

"Hand on. You were six in 5984! Your farm made this bottle of wine?!"

"Yes. The Moosy farm logo is on the base of this bottle. My brother brewed this wine!" I nodded, showing her the logo in the glass. "This wine is very poisonous in large doses. Side effects of the poisoning include uncontrollable emotional outbursts, extreme vertigo, blood clotting and death.

“Whoops.” June made a frowny face. I noticed that there were bites, hickeys on her neck.

“Did you get my body drunk so you could have your way with it?” I growled.

“Nox found and drank this wine herself! I didn’t know anything about Oggberries! I’m a thief not a wine farmer!” June whimpered.

“Vintnermancer,” I said.

“See! I don’t know any of your fancy names for wine makers!” June said. “What’s the problem though? You’re clearly fine.”

“I don’t feel fine! There’s fox teeth bite marks literally all over me! And they aren’t healing up that quickly!” I thrust my arm at her. There were visible bite marks on it. “See!”

“I thought you guys healed over instantly!” June blushed even further than before. I smacked her.

“Owww. Come on, you didn’t die!” She whined. I smacked her again.

“It takes only a single glass of Oggberry to kill a person, damn it June! Don’t let my body drink expensive, magical wines!” I growled. “It’s a miracle that I’m not freaking dead!”

“You’ve had a… ehhh… an internal gem of healing!” June pointed out.

“Well I clearly don’t anymore!” I smacked her again. “Cuz I’m not freaking healing! Where’s my amulet, June?”

“I don’t know! Stop hitting me! I took the bottle away from Nox as soon as I saw that she was acting drunk!” June whined.

I opened the bottle and turned it over. It was empty.

"Whoopsies," Junee made an apologetic face.

I rubbed my face, feeling one hell of a magical hangover. “Luck can't be bought, June. There’s another, very dangerous side effect to the magic of Oggberries, something that the rich idiots who buy this wine know nothing about. Something that Aloenna taught me. If you have too much of this wine and manage not to die from the poison, the Dryad magic of the berries will align everything to assist you, but once the luck ends, terrible misfortune will follow, depending on however much was achieved.”

“Shit. Captain Nicodemus had half a glass of this wine and he found you, his key to millions in Reius, a passed out Void mage on the shore of Amarylla! I know because I served this wine to him. He said it was a gift from some rich topside farm... Wait, did the Dryads send him this wine?! Great, now I’m thinking that the Dryads are controlling my every move too, thanks.”

“How’s Captain Nicodemus doing now?” I interrupted her complaints.

“Not good.” June muttered. “He’s totally screwed. Nox demoted him to cabin boy. Also, everyone hates him.”

“How lucky was Nox yesterday?” I asked.

“Very.” June muttered.

“What did she do exactly?”

“She erased my debt with Nicodemus, made me her Apostle, enslaved the crew of the Resurgence and… destroyed the Triumvirate’s Convent of the Light.”

“Fuck me! Fuck me sideways!” I put my head in my arms, trembling.

“What? Why?” June came over to me.

"Do you two morons not realize what you've done?!" I snapped at her.

"No?" She muttered.

"Only a clueless Rimmer could permit or maliciously contribute to the destruction of the Convent of the Light!"

"Huh?" June blinked.

“Were you not paying attention?! Kleinburg Convent of the Light was the central well of the White church! This was the Dryads’ long term plan all along! To use Nox and me to bring down the Triumvirate! If the well is gone, the entire network of White Towers is disrupted! The air-defence shield, the Judgement Dome of Europa is down!”

“Shit!... The Sextants!” June muttered, eyes wide.

“Yes. The Sextants are coming.” I nodded.