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((This rp is set just after the events of Blighted Garden))

The building looked like it had once been a shop of some kind.

Once, but not now.

Now the building lay empty - had been abandoned for a while - well at least for as long as Athene could remember...

Which coincidentally suited his purposes for the evening, well at least for this part of the evening, given that he wasn't planning to stay for too long.

He leaned against a wall as he summoned his senshi phone, fingers moving to open up the messaging app.

Liryn had been the one to send through the message to the list of contacts that the two of them had put together - messaging mutual contacts in the hope that one of them might know where Ida had gone.

It had ended up a dead end - one of so many dead ends - but at the time of its sending Athene had still had hope.

The loss of hope had come later.

It had been slow at first, but the more that his attempts continued to hit dead end after dead end was the more that his hope had continued to die - until at last Athene had come to the only conclusion that was logical...

No make that, that he had thought logical - because Liryn had never seemed to doubt and had never given up - the small mauvian's faith that Ida was out there unwavering and seemingly unshakeable.

Athene tapped out the message into his phone.

Liryn was the reason why he had eventually ended up asking for his cousin's help with the apartment-

Was the sole reason why he had agreed to her request in turn and had - with great reluctance - finally agreed to briefly go back to the UK in order attend his father's wedding in return.

He had received the message that Ida was still alive when he had powered up the first time after returning from the UK.

Athene could still remember the sense of shock, the feeling of disbelief, the feeling similar to the one that he had felt when he had come across Elvira's flyer and recognised that the childish-looking figure on the paper was Ida.

But it was only when he had gone back to the apartment and noticed that someone appeared to have been around the apartment whilst he had been away and not just to feed Lola that he had slowly started to believe...

And something that he might have noticed sooner if he had gone straight back to the apartment on his return rather than staying over at his cousin's for a week.

Athene read the sentence that he was typing out, before frowning slightly and deleting it.

He typed it out again, rewording it slightly.

Elvira had been the first person he'd told, because whilst the information that he had wasn't much, Athene felt that he had owed it to her to let her know...

And more than that he had owed her an apology - and not just because it turned out that both she and Liryn had been right after all.

A part of Athene couldn't help but wonder if he had not lost faith, if he had just tried a little harder - had stayed out for just a little longer each night - whether he would have been able to help Ida.

But for now, he tried to ignore the guilt that even now simmered as he finished off the last bit of his message.

And it was simple - just as the message that Liryn had sent out had been simple...

Because whilst for the most part Athene had decided to leave it up to Ida to let people know that she was alive, there were a few people - like Elvira - who he owed it to pass on the information that he'd been given.

One final last skim of the message:



Then Athene hit send on his senshi phone sending it out to Ganymede and Maia and to Chariklo and Thraen-

And whilst Ash was missing from the list, Liryn had promised to make sure that the Burmilla was updated.

Athene lingered for a few moments after the message was sent out - used the few moments to send his senshi phone back to subspace...

Then he slipped back out of the building leaving it once again empty as he slipped out and away into the October night.

-- 775 words --