Tirina was riding one of the new District Six Crosswains, a long, open cart pulled by a dromad and which sat 14 people comfortably. She was riding home from a night spent tending to her plot of rot farm, the dark soil still under her fingernails and the cuffs of her pants damp from wading through the district's reclaimed water. It was early enough in the day that this new method of conveyance through District Six didn't hold many people. There appeared to be just a few market merchants on their way to commerce and, if she had to guess, a Simic researcher.
The ride went along peacefully, the cart gently jostled by the odd bit of debris on the Grand Promenade that crossed through every precinct in the district. The first songbirds began to chirp and tweet as the rays of the sun peaked above the horizon. Only the sounds of nature, and very little else to give away that they lived in a bustling city that seemed to know no end; Tirina enjoyed this little reminder that life's circle persisted despite civilization's insistence otherwise.
A small chain of coughs coming from her right broke her out of her minute moment of meditation. Before she looked over, she knew the sound of the coughs; she herself suffered a cough about a month prior and it had gotten worse, but it had started just like this one. She looked over and saw the Simic researcher break out into another fit. She slid over on the open bench to be next to him.
"Here," Tirina said to him as she reached into a pouch affixed to the waistband of her pants and pulled out a tin. The lid of the tin read, "Poriskium Party Poppers," but when she opened the lid, no more little ball-bearing sized orbs of metal powder packed into a wrapping of tissue paper remained; revealed were slices of a dried morel. She picked a slice out and held it out to him.
"What is it," he asked.
"Take it. It will cure your cough."
He took the piece of dried fungus between two fingers. He brought it close to his eyes and turned it back and forth, regarding the shriveled surface of the fungus. He then put it under his nose and sniffed.
"Consume it," Tirina said a bit louder and with a tinge of insistence.
The Simic carefully put it in his mouth.
"Do not chew, it will dissolve," Tirina informed him, closing the tin and replacing it in the pouch.
The Simic left the piece of morel on his tongue, and felt it rehydrate with his saliva. It grew until it once more resembled a piece of slimy fungus. But after another moment, it collapsed into a thin ooze that slid around his tongue and gums, and made him swallow that which wasn't readily absorbed into his system.
"That should take care of your cough," Tirina told him.
"Thank you," the Simic said back to her.
They sat in silence as the cart simply rocked back and forth. After heading forth a few hundred yards, the Simic leaned over to her.
"I'm Phaux," the Simic said to her quietly.
"Well met," Tirina replied.
And they said no more for the rest of the trip.
The next morning, Tirina boarded the Crosswain by the Labyrinthine Steps to get to her apartment in Precinct Eight. It was so far from her rot farm plot in the Undercity, and she could live in some cramped space provided by her guild, free of charge; but she had found the deed to this apartment in the Quiska'ar neighborhood wash up into her plot, and in Ravnica nothing trumped possession. Sure, Quiska'ar was dark and dingy, ever damp due to the nearby Simic Zonot, and seemed to be the place where the Dimir did most of their dirty deeds, probably how the deed had come to her; but it was perfect for a Golgari rot farmer.
The cart was filled with the same passengers as the day before, including the Simic researcher. Though she chose not to sit next to him, she did note that he did not suffer the cough as he had the day prior. Before the cart could start off, the researcher came and sat next to her.
"Hello again," he said.
"Hello," Tirina replied, still staring at the city slowly going by.
"I'm Phaux, remember? And you are Tee…"
"Tirina."
"Yes, Tirina. I want to thank you for yesterday. What is it that you gave me?"
"It is a fungus that occasionally grows on the rot farms down in the Undercity."
"You're Golgari?" Phaux asked.
The question caused Tirina to raise an eyebrow as she looked upon him; "The Simic are lucky to have you. But don't most researchers live at the Zonot?"
"Thank you, but only the senior researchers live at the Zonot. I had a presentation yesterday with the rest of my research pod, and had I been coughing and hacking through the whole thing, I would have resigned myself to a life of a junior researcher, living in this hovel in Precinct Four with my three ne'er-do-well roommates. But thanks to you, I have a one-on-one meeting with my supervising researcher tomorrow, with the hopes that he may put me in charge of my own research pod. And if that happens, I will have my own private quarters in the Zonot's dormitories."
After saying this, Phaux leaned in closer to Tirina; "And with my own quarters, I would be able to entertain guests."
Though it had not happened to her since her teenage years well before she had joined the Golgari guild, Tirina recognized that this young man, who looked to be her age, was flirting with her. One of her acquaintances in the guild, another human female a few years older than her, was in a relationship with an Azorius arrester and even lived with him; and while she did enjoy hearing her stories, never gave thought about entering into a relationship herself. But she did like that this young man, not unattractive, in his jumpsuit with a neat shawl wrapped about his shoulders, thought enough of her to want her company.
She briefly laughed without mirth; "I'm sure whoever you invited to entertain would be fortunate, indeed."
"Indeed," Phaux said.
They each turned their heads away from the other, but they both rode on with a smile on their faces.
Tirina got on the Crosswain by the Labyrinthine Steps the following day, but did not see Phaux on the tram. She was a little disappointed, but figured that he had occupied his new quarters and entertained. Just as the cart was about to depart, Phaux appeared, his shawl done up higher around up his shoulders, covering his face and neck. He bound up onto the conveyance just as it started to roll of.
"Good morning," Tirina said as Phaux took a seat next to her, a smile creeping onto her face. She did not turn to look at him, instead keeping her view on the passing city. "How did it go for you yesterday?"
"We can talk about that later. Right now, I have something more pressing to ask you."
Tirina expected this; for Phaux to ask her out, to be invited back to his new domicile and to be entertained. She was flattered, and she had spent some hours the night before, when she would normally be sleeping, thinking of actually accepting his offer; after all, how many times was a young, Simic researcher going to come into her life? But she decided that she was not going to accept his offer, for even if his interest in her was more than fleeting, eventually his life as a senior Simic researcher was going to consume so much of his time that she would become an afterthought. Now, the only thing left to do was to formulate the words to let him know that, while she appreciated his advances, she would nonetheless have to turn him down.
"Phaux," she began; "just please know that…"
"You never meant for this to happen?" he asked, cutting her off.
"What?" Tirina said with confusion.
Phaux unwrapped the shawl and Tirina gasped. The bottom of his face and the entirety of his neck was colored a reddish-purple with his skin bunched into thick cords crisscrossing the strangely colored area. Tirina instantly knew; he resembled the morel as it grew in the rot farms.
"Oh, Phaux! You're correct; I never meant for this to happen." She reached out to touch his once handsome face.
"I will make this right," she told him. "Where can I come and find you? At the Zonot?"
"Sakes, no! I can't afford anyone at the Zonot to see me like this; they'll treat me like just another experiment. I will be at my apartment in Arshuwana, Karlov Street, fourth floor, above the indoor market."
"Go home, then. I will come find you and make it right."
Phaux rewrapped the shawl about him and jumped off the moving tram before it left the district. Tirina watched him go and felt a tinge of sadness. She might not have wanted to date the young man, but she didn't want him to turn into a mushroom, either.
As soon as the Crosswain reached the stop in Precinct Seventeen, Tirina jumped off and ran to her destination.
Later, as the sun was starting to set in the sky and the heat of the day reached it's most severe, a tall, hulking man with a hard face and scowling visage ducked to step through a doorway and closed the door behind him. He looked down the stairs as Tirina came bounding up. He looked her up and down and sneered at her.
"What do you want, death cultist?"
Tirina looked back at him, noticing his mining gear and the Rakdos insignia on him; "You're one to talk! I'm looking for Phaux. Is this his place?"
"You're looking for him," the miner said incredulously.
"Is he here, or not?"
"Don't get your fungi in a bunch, Kraul lover; he's here. He's been hiding in his room the whole day."
The man pushed past Tirina and walked down the stairs. Tirina glared at him as he went down, and then walked into the apartment, not bothering to knock.
She walked into a small common area with low stools set around a table to her left, and a small hallway to her right that contained five doors. Three of the doors stood open, with buzzing and crackling coming from two of the rooms while the third was a bathroom. She walked between the two closed doors, one which Tirina assumed was Phaux's, while the other belonged to the behemoth Rakdos miner. She looked down at the floor, noting the assorted footprints set into the dirty floor, and walked to the door that had the cleanest floor before it.
The room was dimly lit with a device in the corner that consisted of an electrical arc suspended between two points that gave off a soft blue glow. One end of the room was taken up by a desk, covered with papers with assorted scribblings on them. While the end of the desk nearest the window had the palm-sized electrical lamp, the other end held a combination aquarium and terrarium with a little crab inside. The opposite side of the room held a bed with a sheet-covered person sprawled out on it. Tirina turned the chair at the desk to sit before the bed.
"Phaux?"
"Tirina? Why have you come?"
"I have come to make this right."
The sheet was pulled down and Tirina gasped again. Phaux was stripped down to his waist, and he seemed to be afflicted all over. Sections of the morel flesh pulsed and exuded moisture, beading on the surface.
"Tirina, thank you for coming, but I don't think this can be corrected."
"I was afraid, also. I went straight to the Selesnya and they gave me a potion that should counteract the fungus. Here."
"Tirina, it's too late. I feel my body giving out. Just sit with me until I cease to be human and then take me to the Simic so they can figure out what happened to me."
"Phaux, don't talk like that," Tirina said, the odd tears escaping from her eyes. "Please, just take the potion."
Tirina fished a small vial out of her pouch, unstopped it and poured it into his open mouth. The liquid sated something in Phaux and he swallowed. He started to sweat more and the heat in the room increased.
"Please, Tirina, carry out my wishes."
"Quiet, now. Just rest."
The image of the culture on the slide refracted through a series of lenses to be portrayed on the opposite wall.
"The spores remain dormant until they come into contact with live animal tissue. That is when they start to, not only multiply, but transform the host it feeds off of. And rather quickly, the transformation is completed."
The slide was removed and replaced with another, which appeared to be different cell types suspended in a liquid.
"The fungus doesn't affect you because, in the rot farms, you have been subjected to spores of many different fungi and have therefore conditioned your system to respond to fungal invasions of your body."
Tirina walked to the wall showing her blood culture and ran her hand over the different cell types.
"I just wish that you had kept that vial with the potion the Selesnya gave you, found out how they counteracted the fungal spores in my body."
Tirina crossed the space of Phaux's quarters and he handed her a glass of brandy as she stood next to him. They clinked their glasses and smiled at each other. She briefly looked over at the crab jumping and dancing around in his habitat and it made her laugh.
"Thank you for saving my life."
"Thank you for still offering to entertain me."
"You sure I can't entice you to stay?"
"Flattering Simic senior researcher, I work by night. And you should prepare for tomorrow about how you will divide your junior researchers. And you also have to decide if you're going to explain to them why your research will focus on fungi."
She finished her drink and set the glass down. Then she put her hands on Phaux's chest, leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
"I'll come by in the morning to drop off the samples from my plot."
She made for the door.
"Good night, Phaux."
"Good night, Tirina."