Seth really had been enjoying that presentation, though he already knew most of the things she was saying. No not specifically anything about Earth, however the scientific facts were rather easy for him to simply infer from the little information he did have, as well as the information Shade had silently shared from his own observations. But he really had enjoyed learning about.. that cool Earth thing that happens… in that Earth place….

Ok, so maybe he had only been pretending to fully listen to the presentation and instead focused himself on trying to analyze his surroundings and captors. He was literally being held captive, obviously his focus was going to be on how to best survive and escape this situation. Unfortunately, he had taken too long trying to figure something out, and now the older child had reined the younger back to interrogating him. Yay.

They are definitely going to ask for proof of me not being from this planet, I can feel it he thought to himself, still having no idea what he would provide if they did ask him to prove himself.

“Ok, lets get this one out of the way fast- What were your intentions in coming here?” Meg questioned him, glare still ever-present on her face. At least she had finally given up on trying to intimidate him with her rudimentary weapon and had switched to just fidgeting with it.

“My intentions? None, I had and still have absolutely no desire to be here right now, I just am.” Both children seemed to pause at this, not sure how to react to that answer.

“So, why did you come here then? If you had no desire to be here?” Abby seemed genuinely curious now, where before she had seemed a bit bored at the idea of continuing the interrogation.

“Like I just said, I didn’t choose to come here, I just am here now. I was traveling blind and ended up here… somehow, I’m not really sure what exactly went wrong.” That part was only partially true, he kind of did know what went wrong, he just wasn’t sure exactly how badly he had fucked up his calculations when he panicked. But these two didn’t need to know that, he just needed them to stop seeing him as a threat so he could start figuring out how to unfuck up those calculations and get himself off of this planet.

“Wait, so you’re like, lost?” Abby asked, excitement beginning to show on her face where one would usually expect something like concern.

“Uh, yeah, that’s a good way to put it, I guess. I am very, very lost.” Barely letting him finish answering, Abby immediately excitedly turned towards her sister, bouncing in place and moving her hands back and forth rapidly.

“MEG! This is amazing! Not only have we got a real actual alien in our home right now- but he’s lost! Which means we can help him get back home!” Seth bristled at the wording, he had a few… complicated feelings around the word “home”. However, this did seem to be a good direction to go in, if he could use this misunderstanding to get them to both let him go and help him return, well then he could push through the awkwardness around the idea of going “home”.

“Abby, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, we still have no idea if he is telling the truth or not, though I am inclined to believe this one, he seems to be the type to make that kind of mistake…” Meg placed her hands on her sisters shoulders, attempting to recenter her focus once more on the task at hand. Seth wanted to object to her assessment of him, but really she was correct. He was the type to make that kind of mistake, even if there were other factors involved. But they didn’t need to know he was a wanted criminal, and seeing as defending himself might eventually lead to that little bit of information being revealed, he couldn’t exactly say anything.

“Ooookay, next question then,” Abby turned back to Seth, a more serious expression settling on her face, “How do we know you aren’t lying to us?”

And there it was, the question he’d been dreading the entire time. He’d half-hoped they wouldn’t ask it. Because, the answer to that question is that they can’t. They cannot know that he isn’t lying, he could say anything, give any reasons and it still wouldn’t be enough for them to be sure he wasn’t lying to them. They did not know each other. Knowing that someone isn’t lying to you depends on trust, something you can’t really put much of into someone you don’t know. Not to mention he did, albeit completely unintentionally, break into their home. So what little trust one might have put into a stranger was already completely gone before he even had a chance to use it. And he knew from experience that once trust was lost, no matter how much of it existed to begin with, you could never get it back.

“That’s- That’s a bit of an unfair question, isn’t it?” Seth responded to her question with one of his own, “I mean, how am I supposed to prove I’m not lying here? I can tell you over and over that I’m not, swear it on anything you want me to, but the truth is that you won’t ever truly believe I’m not lying to you because we don’t know each other well enough to make that judgment and mean it. There is not a single thing I can say or do that would convince you that I’m telling the truth about who I am and what I’m doing here.”

The two girls stared at him, seemingly at a loss for words. Which made sense, what he said was a bit harsh but true. He was starting to get the feeling that these children were quite a bit more- sheltered than pretty much every other person he’s ever interacted with in the past, they didn’t seem super jaded and distrusting of the ‘other’ in the way he was used to seeing. Yeah, the older one didn’t like him and didn’t seem to think he had good intentions for being there, but it wasn’t a deep seeded disgust or fear, it just seemed to be a common distrust of someone you didn’t know the intentions of. Something that could easily be swayed if he simply had the ability to convince her that he wasn’t a threat. The simple fact that he knew he had a chance at convincing her of that was more than enough to make him feel out of place here, more than anything else he had encountered thus far.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

So he wasn’t going to feel anything about it. Quickly shutting away whatever that was for later, Seth focused his energy back on the conversation at hand. He had a couple of children to somehow convince he wasn’t a threat to them. Piece of cake.

“Look, nothing I say is going to convince either of you that I’m telling the truth, you have both very obviously made up your minds on that particular topic. So, instead of continuing this nonsensical avenue of questioning, how about you ask me stuff that I can actually provide real tangible evidence of being true, and we put this particular topic to rest until we’ve gotten to know each other a bit better? Sound fair?” The two children turned towards each other for a moment, wordlessly exchanging a serious of questioning glances, before turning back and nodding at him.

“That does seem like the only fair way to resolve this particular issue, so I don’t see any problems with that solution” Abby responded, donning a faux serious expression on her face and attempting to act nonchalant. She was quiet for a moment, thinking through her next line of questioning.

“Alright, then how about you tell us how you got here?” The question she finally landed on was an easy enough thing to answer, but Seth didn’t really want to answer it. Still, if he wanted to earn even a little bit of goodwill here he needed to be willing to compromise on some things.

“My scarf.”

He had barely finished answering when Meg let out a furious yell and launched herself in his direction, fully intent on strangling him.