"Only because they know none of us had time beforehand to agree on a story," Jingyi says, taking another spoonful of sludge and leaving his wrinkled nose as his only comment for the moment on the state of given supplies. His tone was a bit dark, mostly because it's the problem he'd felt the whole time, and not something easily set aside.

"They can't even guarantee this committee will listen. Did you get them to talk about anything related to us? All the abducted?" He frowns, looking back to Jake to stall on taking another spoonful of slop. "We're so weird to them they had no answer for how to help or do anything about us coming or going. Maybe that's a thing their elders know, but I think it might just be something no one understands."