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"Don't worry about it. It was... complicated." Cass peered down at her steaks idly. They were cooling, and she liked them just warm, but she hadn't even really intended to stay in the cafeteria this long.

If she'd known she was going to sit down with someone, she would have grabbed a knife.

"It's nice of you to say so, but I guess these things happen." She smiled faintly; it still hurt to think about. "Not much I can do."

"I guess so." Cassidy fidgeted a little. "It's... trees are comfortable, is all. They feel safe. Sometimes I wonder if I should even be encouraging it, if one thing won't lead to another, but so far... it hasn't."

Except that wasn't true. There had been that lizard she had nearly eaten. She had just been looking at it, and had lunged. Missed, fortunately; the lizard had been luckier than whatever it was she had eaten two weeks ago.

"Mostly," she amended. "I guess I mostly like to sit in high places these days. But from what I've heard, I seem to be adapting... better than some."

Cass, with a curious tongue-flick, though she'd never seen anyone look so nervous as Zach did right now. "But how are you adjusting?"

Cass shook her head. "There's this guy. Jamal. I haven't actually met him, admittedly, but from what I hear he's tried to attack a few people. Both staff and other islanders. I dunno. Maybe he was always unstable, maybe just always unbalanced. Maybe it is the serum. I don't know. I know that I'm not, as yet, inclined to try eating people. I hope I never am."

She gave a wistful glance to her steaks. The point of ordering a steak blue was to have it warm and bloody, and now it was only bloody. Cassidy told herself firmly that she could hold out a little while longer, no matter how hungry she was.

"What are you turning into? Do you know?" Granted, she was no expert, but lizards generally did not have horns. Mind you, neither did hawks, usually, and Greer was certainly proof of strange thought processes up in the labs. "Some sort of lizard, I'd guess."

Cassidy counted off on her fingers. "That's... wow, that's seven animals. You've sure got me beat, I guess." Some snake, too? Well, he didn't look it, and for that she was immensely grateful. "I wish I could understand their logic for some of their decisions." Her tongue flicked irritably. "I don't care what Duvert said. I'm a snake with wings, for chrissakes. That's nuts. So is seven animals..."

As he dropped his fork, she trailed off. "Zach? Is everything all right?"

"He told me something like that." Cass shook her head. "Back when I started sprouting feathers, it was so weird, I just marched--well, not marched. Rolled. I was in a wheelchair, for a while--up to the labs and demanded answers. And Duvert just grinned at me and bubbled over about this Quetzalcoatl thing. He's very... very strange."

Her gaze had drifted irresistably back down to her steak, but now she glanced back up at him in surprise. "A dragon? That's what they're trying to do with all that DNA? That's nuttier than I thought. Dammit, what is this supposed to prove? I suppose, from a theoretical stance, it's all very interesting, but what does turning you into a mythical animal and me into a weird copy of a god hardly anyone's even heard of have to offer the scientific community?" Cassidy let out a small hiss, despite herself. "I think they're crazy. And I'm well aware they're probably listening, and I don't care. I know a bit about mental illness. Psychopaths, the lot of them." She grunted, and punctuated it with the flick of her tongue.

"Kill you?" Cass's voice rose an octave. "They did this to you. How can they justify killing you if they feel that that they made a mistake? This is just... just ********." She paused. "Pardon my French."

It crossed her mind that really, there was no point in keeping any of them around, if they ever finished whatever process they were putting them through, if there was an end to it. Why shouldn't they dispose of the finished experiments to make room for new ones? She certainly had no idea what it was they were studying, if it were chromosonal or psychological or what.

She certainly couldn't say that aloud.

Cassidy rested an arm on the table, careful not to break her feathers, and laid her head down on her arm, beside her plate. "The wheelchair wasn't so bad. It was while I was getting used to my prosthetics. It was a pretty nice one. At least I'm independantly mobile, now."

"Watching for what?" Cass raised her head again. "They better actually help, you know. Instead of really carrying through on that death threat, I mean. Their fault. Not like any of us asked for this. And to be quite honest, I really would have liked someone to tell me flat out just how Aubrey was attacked. I know I ate something that night. Something big enough that I haven't really had a proper meal since then. I don't even know what it was. That bothers me. How was I supposed to know that I didn't swoop down on Aubrey and try to choke her to death?" She shook her head. "It's not fair to hold you accountable, even if you did do it."

She poked at her steak. It was cold, by now, but it still smelled good. "I was perfectly normal, when I came here. Average. Less than, really. At least these days, when I find myself waking up in trees because the staff's up to stuff, I don't have to head back home on my knees."