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Zach didn't have much of an agenda himself. The past week he'd been isolating himself, trying to deal with the constant irritation that seemed to have flared since his last change. It was difficult to pinpoint the source of it, and in the end he couldn't do much except throw his hands up in defeat and hope he could control himself in the face of equally embittered islanders. Their knack for treating him subhuman was infuriating, but it was growing steadily more common.

Finished in the cafeteria, he aimed to return once more to his dark duplex to think. It was his unbreakable focus in brooding over those past incidents of ridicule that took his attention away from what was in front of him. He didn't see the other, furry man until he'd bumped into him, and immediately recoiled and stepped backward, tail lashing.

"Hey!" he growled, moving his worn-looking top hat back upright, hooked over his horns thanks to holes that appeared to have been torn straight into either side of it. Evidently, 'sorry' was nowhere near the tip of his tongue.

"Whatever," he said curtly, annoyed by the staring despite doing a little himself. Zach arched his neck downward ever so slightly. It was beyond him what sort of animal the other man was becoming. He'd never seen this furry islander before, at least as far as he could remember. They sure didn't seem to know him. Clenching his jaw made his frill fan around his face, an action that had become second nature to him. He couldn't stop himself from snapping at the unfortunate individual, even after their gaze was finally off of him. Just because he was a dragon didn't mean that everyone had to eyeball him like that. "The hell are you looking at?"

After a pause, Zach crossed his arms, face relatively expressionless. He'd been expecting some sort of rebuttal, and a chance to take out some of his pent-up frustrations without having to stop to think. That opportunity was gone now. The apologizing made him want to wince. It was familiar, and yet something he desperately wanted to forget about. It was distracting enough at least to quell his anger for the time being, if only out of confusion.

"It's Dr. Duvert's design," he stated simply. There was no hint of loathing in his voice. Rather, he sounded proud of it. He studied the expression on the other man's face, but it seemed cryptic. He'd met only a handful of people who didn't get infuriated by the mere mention of the staff, namely one eccentric doctor, and odds weren't too high that this guy would be one of them. In response to the man's last statement, he added flatly, "Not a lot of people do."

"So, since you've already guessed what I am, care to tell me what you are?"

He shrugged. "Never heard of a dhole either. Odd name."

"And yes, 'him'. Dr. Duvert. But wait - let me see if I can figure this one out. You..." Casually he unwound one of his arms from where they were crossed to jab a clawed finger in the furry man's direction. His voice became eagerly derisive, and a smirk played on his snout. "Hate the fact that you're here on this island, and everything else associated with that. Is that it?"

He was above sinking his claws into people, but most things outside of physical violence didn't seem to carry repricussions. Making jabs was a perfect outlet for his anger. He was sick of all the people who wouldn't or couldn't accept how pointless it was to hope for escape. Why bother trying? No one ever had, and no one ever would. Even if they returned to civilization and by some miracle of science could regain their appearances, there would still be a primal beast in all of them that no amount of surgery could remove. Pointless. Not that he minded it here himself, not any more.

"Just checking." The finger was lowered shortly after he'd pointed, and his arms went back to being crossed in front of him. The dhole's words had little effect on him, even mentally. There was no truth to them, he felt. Thoughts that had once seemed insane to him before had slowly become his opinion, and from there warped into what he felt was fact. Himself, a mere guinea pig? Hardly. He was worth more than that.

"These experiments aren't pointless," he added sharply, as if to reassure himself in the face of logic more than to prove a point to the furry man in front of him. He shrugged his left shoulder. "If it wasn't for this place I'd never have gotten back the arm I lost. They're trying to help people. What they learn from all of us can help others. It's a small price to pay for scientific and medical progress."

He gave the dhole a wistful look in regards to the suckering being mentioned, soon replaced once again by annoyance. "Why dwell on it? You can't change the past."

He leaned his head to the side a little at the other man's guilt-ridden words, showing his teeth a little as he listened. "Oh, very altruistic of you. How do you live with yourself like that?"

"They'd find a way to make it useful. I mean, I wasn't the only amputee out there. I don't know how any of this works. That's better left up to the scientists. " It was probably a good idea that he didn't mention this was only speculation on his part. In all his ranting, Sabin had never said Zach was anything more than something akin to a live trophy - it was just an assumption that there had to be something more to it all. He paused to gather his thoughts, tail swishing from side to side fretfully.

"It's... only a trap if you consider it one. I think it's a hell of a lot better than anything you can find back in... in the rest of the world, like the U.S., or wherever you might have come from. You spend your whole life working your a** off for paychecks that go straight to your bills and rent and taxes and whatever else you've got to cough up money for, and you don't get to step back and really enjoy what you've got until you're sixty-five and over. What kind of a life is that? A carefree life doesn't exist there, but it does here. Becoming a dragon is a small price to pay for this kind of freedom."

"I guess, if they've done anything to warrant it," he said idly. He wasn't too fond of his one surviving family member and the two deceased for some... past issues. Just bringing his sister to mind made him wonder what she'd heard about his disappearance, and he really, really didn't want to be thinking about that here and now of all places. Too complicating.

All the while that the dhole spoke, Zach bit his lip, though lightly enough that his sharp teeth did't draw any blood. The prospect of those things being true was not comforting. In fact, it was quite bad, mainly for his ego. Was he so worthless that even being a dragon amongst animals was nothing but a short-lived ego boost, over when something more interesting came along? The accident that had taken his arm a good while back had been what really twisted him, leaving him desperately craving pity and to be wanted. The changes that had taken place on the island were skin deep. In retaliation against the words that had just been spoken, his brain did the only thing it could think of to save face - deny, deny, deny. It seemed perfectly rational to him that the dhole only said those things to provoke him, to test him. He stepped back from the fur-covered arm and shook his head with a smile that seemed to betray his sudden bout of nervousness. "And why should I believe you?"

And again with the voicing of some of the things even Zach admitted he wasn't pleased about. But there were perks to living on the island, things that in the real world weren't so easily found when one struggled and floundered near the bottom of society. He was of the opinion that the other man simply couldn't understand what he had here. "You wanted to work? How old are you? Look, I don't know what they told you in kindergarten, but not everyone gets to be what they want to in life. The cost of living nowadays is pretty high, but here? You don't have to worry about scraping by between paychecks. Stop pitying yourself and give up on your dreams, because this - becoming a dhole - is the reality for you now. I'd like to see you change it."

"I do," he retorted afterward, though his bristling conversation partner had dropped their gaze. He didn't honestly know what drove him to it - he just wanted to get angry. The pet comment stung. Where was everyone getting this notion? Befriending someone didn't make you their pet! He bared his teeth in an ugly grimace. Maybe he'd have to stop taking offense to the comment and roll with it for once. He could be above their views of him. "And I will. Give it time, you can't stay annoyed forever."

Without bothering to wait for the dhole to respond, he shoved past, back to his duplex and the prospect of sleeping away the long hours.