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Athene glanced at his patrol companion for the evening, "Sorry to drag you into this" he said quietly, because whilst he had thought that it would be nice for Selinur and Liryn to formally meet, dragging Selinur out to investigate the local pumpkin patch that supplied the vegetable stall at the periodic farmer’s market hadn’t exactly been part of the plan.

Apparently a few pumpkins had been disappearing from time to time from the patch and some of them had been turning up smashed, with their carcasses left strewn around close to the patch–

And whilst Athene personally had thought that it was probably bored teenagers playing not particularly funny pranks, Liryn had been pretty insistent that it was more than that and had stumbled across rumours that he was following up on.

Purplish eyes glanced at the blond haired senshi from his perch on Athene’s shoulder as he said cheerfully "Evening Selinur, it’s nice to finally officially meet you."

Because whilst Athene had mentioned that Selinur was staying over at the apartment in the spare room that he and Ida kept for just such a thing, between one thing and another he hadn’t yet had a chance to meet the other.

He turned his attention back to Athene for a moment "I told you, there’s been rumours about the last few pumpkin thefts" okay not main news type rumours - but he had seen a couple of things online "Apparently some people have mentioned seeing a bear in a pumpkin-like mask stealing the pumpkins."

Well okay, more like maybeee a bear. A small skinny bear that may or may not have been malformed–

Liryn had simply substituted maybe a bear for maybe a youma - and whilst he knew that Athene would have gone with him anyway, despite his dark-haired friend’s doubts, three sets of eyes were so much better than two.

"I don't know - but there could be" Liryn admitted, "The bear in a pumpkin mask reports made me think that it might be a youma - especially since youma attacks are often reported as 'animal' attacks in the news."

And whilst he'd not heard of a pumpkin-stealing youma before personally, there was always a time for firsts and that was something which to his mind merited an investigation–

Not least because if there really was a youma running around then it was better that they did their best to try and handle it before a civilian got hurt.

"There's also the fact that it's holiday season and Destiny City can get a little weird around the holidays."

Athene nodded with a small sigh, because truthfully Liryn was right on all counts. "Youma attacks do get reported in the news as being animal attacks" he said quietly "Which makes it awfully confusing as to whether it's an escaped animal or a youma - but the mask does make it sound more like it's more likely to be the latter."

He smiled wryly "And I can always power down and call animal control if it turns out that it was some sort of escaped animal after all.”

Athene's smile faded as he continued "And yes the city can get awfully weird around the holidays. We had giant spiders one year around Halloween."

He remembered the spiders unfondly - although it wasn’t surprising given that he'd ended up getting sick after one had bitten him.

Liryn gave Selinur a curious look from his perch on Athene’s shoulder "What's your homeworld like?" He asked, even as a part of him wondered if Selinur would be up for taking visitors - namely himself.

It wasn't particularly a secret that he enjoyed travelling to homeworlds and wonders and that if he could he would visit all of them–

Although in the absence of being able to see all of them, Liryn was willing to settle for travelling to as many homeworlds and wonders that he could wrangle invites to.

"And Athene and I are happy to share what we can about the war - including on youma" he said, knowing that Athene wouldn't mind that he'd pretty much volunteered his dark-haired partner and friend.

"I can tell you that youma seem to come in different shapes and sizes" Athene said quietly, "Well at least the ones that I have come across have come in varying shapes and sizes. Some Negaverse officers seem to be able to summon them too, although it may be something linked to rank - kind of like how their Captains and Generals can teleport." Because he didn't think that he had ever seen a Lieutenant summoning a youma.

"And weird things seem to happen, sometimes it’s things like the spiders and there was another year when it was giant bats I think" Athene continued quietly "Although the crystal snowflakes that mysteriously appeared one year weren't that bad."

He sighed as he admitted "But the one thing in common is that these things mostly seem to happen around the holidays."

He nodded when Liryn volunteered him up to share what he could about the war "I'll do my best" he said quietly. "There are things that I wasn't around for." He added "And yes, I'll let you know about the weird events that I've been around for too."

Because Athene wasn't always in Destiny City during the holidays "It seems to be a Destiny City thing though, rather than an everywhere else too thing."

"It sounds a little like Iðavöllr" Liryn said cheerfully. "There always seems to be snow there too" he paused, a thoughtful look in his purplish eyes for a moment before he added "Well at least there's always been snow there when I've gone."

Because he'd only been there on a few occasions - and not nearly as many times as he would have liked.

"There are flowers there too and they don't seem to mind the cold." It was something of an easy guess given that the frosted star-shaped flowers seemed to be quite happy growing in the snow.

Liryn's purplish eyes shifted as Selinur touched the snowflake pendant that hung about his neck, his purplish eyes openly curious "That's a neat looking pendant."

Athene listened quietly as Liryn spoke about Iðavöllr, his friend's words pretty much all that he knew of his cousin's Wonder since he hadn't been able to quite talk to his cousin about it–

Or about anything powered really.

It wasn't that he didn't want to, because he did, but...

He frowned as he heard the sound of what sounded like crashing, the frown deepening as the sound repeated.

"Did either of you hear that?"

It sounded like it had come from up ahead.

"Iðavöllr" Liryn said as he repeated the name more slowly. "It's a Wonder on Polaris."

He brushed up against Athene's neck gently for a moment, not sure how much his friend and bonded had told Selinur about the Polaris knight before adding "Iðavöllr and Athene are cousins."

In truth Liryn personally thought that the pair needed to spend some time talking - really talking - rather than the whole dancing around the elephant in the room that the pair were currently engaged in doing–

But Iðavöllr was being stubborn and he knew Athene well enough to know that Athene wasn't going to push.

He glanced at Selinur, ears cocked in interest as the other explained the source of the pendant.

But he had been interrupted by the sound of crashing as he opened his mouth to admit that he hadn't met the alien that arrived in summer.

"Yes we should totally check that out" he agreed as he leapt off Athene's shoulder and trotted forward in the direction that the crashing appeared to be coming from.

"Hey, Liryn wai.." Athene started, and then sighed as he followed after Selinur and the small mauvian, because in truth he was kind of used to Liryn's tendency to charge into potential danger–

Even though he wished that the small mauvian would be a little more cautious at times - or at least notice that he was in fact a small cat (well at least in cat form) and not a one-cat army.

The sound sounded like it was coming from the part of the pumpkin patch closest to the woods that ran parallel to the fence on the furthermost edge of the patch–

And then Athene found himself picking up his pace as the sound of crashing was joined by the sound of something splintering.

It looked like the conversation that they had been having would have to be parked, at least for now, as the broken bits of pumpkin that he kept coming across suggested that they were getting close.

Not that it took much longer for them to come across the source, which it seemed was currently in the process of adding to the bits of broken pumpkin.

Liryn skirted a couple of the larger bits, as he kept slightly behind Selinur, purplish eyes flitting towards the splintered pieces of what looked to have once been a fence "I think that that may have been the cause of those splintering noises" he said as he pointed towards some of the broken pieces of wood, before summoning a little silver whistle from his subspace.

He glanced at the pumpkin thief, took in the way that it resembled a bear - albeit one that was underfed - as the thief continued to ignore them.

"But it doesn't feel like a youma."

Athene frowned as he came up and stood next to Liryn as he glanced at the small whistle in curiosity for a moment "You're right" he said quietly, because he'd come across enough youma in his time as a senshi–

And he wasn't picking up on a chaotic aura from the bear-like creature.

But even with the lack of aura there was something that seemed.. Off about the thing as it continued to ignore them in favour of smashing another pumpkin.

Well at least Athene thought that it was ignoring them.

And then, almost as if the thing had picked up on his thoughts the bear-like creature paused and looked up at them with a malicious stare before it picked up one of the larger bits of broken pumpkin.

There was a look that was almost.. Calculating before the bear-like creature chucked the piece of pumpkin in Selinur's direction with a bellow.