“Oh, so are these edible?” Sarra had grabbed another similar mushroom from a nearby patch. I glanced at it carefully. It was very similar to the one I had grabbed; it’s stem, size and shape identical, but unlike the mushroom I was holding, its head had a few more white splotches than black.

“I would not eat that if I were you. You would be foaming at the mouth within a minute-“

“Ah-“

“-Hey, don’t just chuck it away.” We could still use it. Clearly she had never heard of these before…it’s childish of me, but I guess I should mess with her a little, this way she won’t dare play too many tricks on me later. Grabbing the mushroom she had just dropped, I added it to my hand of mushrooms and…

“Hey! Why did you eat it?!” She roughly grabbed me by the shoulder and started shaking me backwards and forwards. Hey stop it! You’re making me dizzy! “Spit it out! Spit it out! Spit it ouutttttt- wait a minute-” Suddenly releasing me, I took a moment to steady myself. She stood back with a thoughtful expression. “You must be tricking me…. you wouldn’t kill yourself suddenly…either you are immune to it or… you lied to me?” Straining my ears, I barely heard the last mutter. Now would be a good time to clear things up, the joke had gone along far enough- that’s strange…since when did I make practical jokes like this…? It would seem my time with the two have been influencing me…

“Ok, calm down, let me explain. Firstly, I didn’t actually eat the one you plucked, I secretly swapped it with the one I plucked when went I bent down to pick it up. See, this is the one you plucked.” I had learnt this sleight of hand by watching the adults at the bars and taverns. The amount of drunkards who had been unknowingly cheated by a simple body block or diversion was astounding- although the amount of naive pickpockets pummelled to death was equally shocking, not to mention the picket pockets who were too busy stealing that they got stolen from themselves.

“Ah, I see…I didn’t expect you would play prank on me like that.”

“I’m sorry, please stop glaring at me like that.”

“Fine, so tell me about this mushroom. There’s something special about it right?”

“Yes. I’m not sure about elsewhere, but our tribe used to call this a gendershroom. The reason being that the mushrooms look identical when they are younger, but when they mature, they decide a gender.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“A gender?”

“Right. When they are young, the splotches on their head are perfectly equal between black and white. But once they mature, they have slightly more black or white splotches on the head. See this one, this is a male, and this one is also a male, oh and this one is a female. Notice how this one is more white and this one is more black?” I looked up at Sarra, but she was busily squinting at the mushrooms I had pointed out. I started collecting the nearby mushrooms carefully dividing them into two piles.

“So more black splotches on the head is female, and more white splotches are male…but they all look the same!” Ah…that reminds me of when I was little. I said the exact same thing to Mother...I miss you…

“Don’t worry about it and just watch. It takes a while to pick up the difference-“

“Yeah, so what’s up with the genders than? Is there a difference between the two?”

“Definitely. You see, whilst the mushroom tastes like a normal delicious mushroom, if you happen to eat one of the wrong gender-“

“-You foam and die?”

“Right. That’s why we only ate these during celebrations or special occasions and only the adults were allowed to go out and pick.“

“Why would you eat something potentially so dangerous?!”

“Well, it’s tasty and if the collector is focused and diligent, nothing bad will happen.”

“Hah…. maybe I’m just too much of a princess to understand… So, the two separate piles…” I nodded at her. “Why are you collecting the male mushrooms as well?-“

“-Because these mushrooms can be just as toxic to us as to monsters and animals. Although I don’t know how to split the toxins, if we stuff both the male and female mushrooms into a monster, it’s bound to die; might come handy if we run into anything dangerous later on.”

“Ah, that’s a good idea. But is it not toxic to touch?”

“No, only if you ingest it whole, so help me out would you? Look around and bring over the nearby gendershrooms and make a pile over there.”

Working under the pale moonlight, Sarra brought the mushrooms over whilst I separated them, putting the female ones straight into my sack and the male ones into the now empty spice pouch. Thinking back, the spices were probably worth a fortune- but our lives were definitely worth more and the King would surely reward us. However that was a problem for the future and for now, our current survival took priority.

The blue moon was already beginning its second cycle over the night sky and the white moon was already directly above in the night sky when we had finally finished. The local area had already been cleared of it’s population of gendershooms and a sizeable amount had been gathered in our sacks.

“Let’s head back shall we. I’m hungry for some apples and we don’t want to scare Shiara by being late right?”

I started walking back, but hearing no response I glanced back to see the princess fidgeting. Now that was unusual… “Is something the matter?”

“Say, I know this may be too early and a bit presumptuous of me, but would you be interested in becoming a personal maid for me when we get back? That is of course, not part of your reward for returning me and I mean of course you will be paid and all…and um…”

Hmmm…. now that was unexpected…