Nihilism and Jars of Blood
Cheshir knew this isn't going to end well. They'd known as much since they resolved to return to Kelador nearly two months ago, and it hadn't even so much as slowed them down. Theronna had thrown caution to the wind as soon as she saw Sebastian, to whom she was united in being the old king's only other ward. Now, she teased him about things she wasn't supposed to know and showed up in the heart of the castle without explaining how she got there.
They were both going to die.
That was fine. After everything else that had happened, dying was probably the least of Cheshir's many, many problems.
They sighed, looking at their arm, then what could only be described as a spigot. They needed to test their blood and there weren't many ways to do it, but this would hurt, and they couldn't use magic to clean up the mess it would leave behind.
"Dah-hhk," they groaned, before cutting a small opening in their arm and sticking the spigot in. They tilted their arm to let the blood flow into a tiny jar they'd prepared for the purpose.
The jar filled. They tilted back, eased the spigot out, and wrapped the wound in bandages. It was a bad plan and a worse execution, but they had to know if they were carrying the same plague that had ravaged the fehlme'ehr community of Fourwall. If they were contaminated too... well, they'd cross that bridge when they came to it.
They slumbed into the hard back of the chair they'd wrangled Theronna into stealing for them, staring vacantly at the jar of their blood. They'd have to do something with it soon, but all Cheshir wanted to do now was alleviate the light-headedness of bloodloss. It wouldn't do them any good to cast a complicated diagnostic spell with their head spinning. They'd probably have to do the whole thing over again, and already the sight of the spigot made them sick.
Cheshir lost track of time.
.
They woke up in the middle of casting the spell. After asking all visitors to provide some blood, not only had they dramatically reduced the number of visitors to the quarantine hall, they'd also practiced the diagnostic spell so many times that they could, apparently, do it in their sleep. Or their unconsciousness. It came down to the same thing, nowadays. Not that it hadn't always been so; Imoryth had dragged them to bed after fooling around with spells into unconsciousness too many times already. Cheshir's cousin would probably do the same now, were they there to try it.
The spell relaxed, the impetual phase complete.
Now, the wait.
They folded their arms on the table, prepared to lay their head down and settle in for the long haul when there was a green glimmer at the center of the jar.
Cheshir leaned closer, closer, until their nose was almost touching the glass.
The green expanded and expanded until it subsumed the whole of the crimson mass within the container. There was nothing but the sickly green glow of a positive result staring back into Cheshir's eyes.
They fell back, out of the chair and onto the floor.
They really were going to die.
