Eventually, Keilam and Blazerunner fell asleep, the shock from their current position, combined with the pain they shared basically knocking them unconscious. Hisahshenikk's anger kept him from shock, and he was used to pain. He alone remained awake. Even the little murmur of thoughts in the background died down to silence.      He fumed silently, wishing he could rid himself of these nuisances, but after a thorough inspection of his new body, decided that they were too well integrated. And his survival instinct was too strong. So he plotted, and waited, pretending to sleep with the other two, and sure enough, once their breathing had slowed and their motions ceased, a door opened in the wall. His eye was open a sliver, so he could see out, but no one else could see in. And when a single mage entered the room and studied him closely, he was glad he knew how to control his own physical and mental functions so as to appear asleep. The mage was armed only with a silly little phial in his hand, but the saurokk was wary. Something had hit him and knocked him out, he wasn't ready to give himself away so soon.      His patience was rewarded a moment later when the mage put away his phial and motioned for more to enter the room.      Good, Hisahshenikk thought, more to take out his vengeance on.      Three more mages came in, though he could hardly tell one apart from the next; the all wore the same thing and had the same faces. He could no better tell one desert-burrowing insect from another. They seemed to be arguing amongst themselves, though he also didn't understand what, even with his new pair of sharp ears.      The door was open. He saw his chance at both revenge and escape, and leapt up, only somewhat clumsy on his new hind legs, and snarled savagely as he raked his talons through the first body in his path. It screamed and fell, and he moved on, killing two more before the last mage standing took him down with another sharp pain and numbness. He hissed weakly as his world went dark. ***      The two other sentients he was walled in with were furious with him for his escape attempt.      "Your rash actions may have cost us our chance at freedom!" Keilam raged indignantly.      Blazerunner muttered at the saurokk in their shared voice "Never should've fallen asleep... can't trust one of your kind even when they're attached. They were right not to make me a guardian of the denn."      Hisahshenikk hissed his return and bit his own forepaw. The two cried out in pain, and he smirked.      To the mages watching, it was an intriguing development. "Why is it smiling after it bit itself?" one asked, taking notes on a device that looked somewhat notebook-like.      His companion shrugged, watching warily. He'd been the sole survivor of the attack yesterday, and didn't trust this at all. Insane creatures were more difficult to work with.      A third joined them just then, commenting thoughtfully, looking at another notepad-like device. "They seemed to have kept their individuality. Ever hear the myth of 'MPD'?" The two younger mages shook their heads, looking interested, so he went on. "It stands for 'Multiple Personality Disorder.' It was once thought that an individual could take on or make up a persona to hide behind when stress was too much to handle, or a traumatic event occurred. The theory was eventually disproved, but I believe that this creature has recreated the disorder, and come upon it honestly."      The two mages were even more interested, and took careful note of everything their experiment said and did for a long while. ***      They were ill, all six entities knew it, though the three NC hardly counted in the knowing. The three sentients had had a bit of trouble deciding what to eat. While their head seemed to be capable of eating meat, two of the three were disgusted by the thought of turning carnivorous, and even the little background thoughts didn't like the idea, so Hisahshenikk was voted down. However, it was his torso and digestive system they were using, and saurokk anatomy is not known for it's compatibility with fruits and vegetables.      They were getting thinner and weaker by the day, though none of them knew exactly how much time had passed since they'd been joined. They were dying. Even the mages knew it. They had taken to calling the three their 'patchwork' experiment, and after a while, didn't even bother to arm themselves before entering the room, or closing the door behind them.      The three were too weak from malnutrition to move much more than a shift of position. And then the strength for that too ebbed.      "It's alright," Keilam muttered once as they lay on the hard floor near the end, almost too weak to breathe, "I'd rather die than be seen like this."      "My denn would kill me out of pity," Blaze said mournfully, his voice a mere whisper.      Hisahshenikk remained silent. He knew a bit of meat would remedy the situation, and tried to eat it every time it was offered, but the other two were strong enough mentally, if not physically, and he was always forced to step aside, as it were. He seethed in his own mental prison, saving their strength. When the time came, he wouldn't simply starve to death, he'd kill them all, if it was the last thing he did. He'd go down in a bloodbath. ***      They didn't remember the raid on the mage camp, nor did they have any recollection of being moved from their room. The next thing they knew, it was dark, something that never occurred inside of their cell, and through Blaze's sharp senses, they could smell trees and hear voices. Siran voices. And a suva. What?      Blaze managed to rouse himself enough to open his eyes, and peered up into the worried face of a shimmering, white and lavender suva, a delicate spiral horn positioned between it's eyes.      "What?" Keilam said, confused, but he was shushed. The suva bent low and brushed their body with it's horn. Strength returned slowly, a soft warmth spreading throughout their shared, emaciated body.      Blaze gazed on in wonder as the suva straightened, letting a pair of kind looking sira cover them in a blanket. He was glad; it was a chilly night. The trees behind the large dragon swayed slightly in a gentle breeze.      The once beautiful miir watched with a mixture of wonder and fear, though he did enjoy being able to see and scent the forest again. He winced slightly to see how his body repulsed them.      Hisahshenikk was silently seething at the sight of his cousin-species, and the suva knew it.      "I should go now that he's awake," she said sadly, "I believe there may be some hostile feelings harbored for my kind." The sira pleaded for her to stay, but in the end they let her go and returned to the somewhat dubious pleasure of caring for their new charge. Even they didn't believe he would live out the night with how thin and pathetically tampered he was.      They ended up in a large city, though they didn't know that at the time. All they knew was that there were other tampered creatures, some, like them, changed past all recognition, others recovering and likely able to return to their lives, if not their families.      Blaze thought he'd heard of this place... it was a hospital run by sympathetic sira for the commonly called 'terminally tampered' creatures rescued from mage camps. Apparently, they weren't expected to live.