The brace of rabbits thumped against his hip as Mir threaded his way out of the underbrush and onto the path that would lead him home. His mind had wandered to his husband, as it was most often wont to, and a small smile had warmed his cold features. The memory of Lei laughing brightly as he examined the Leys to see how much effort it would take to clean them was still fresh and new for Mir to enjoy. It hadn't even taken the dragon an afternoon to sing the corruption out of existence, his warm voice vibrating in the key of magic that had resonated even in the blackened bones of a former Dark Lord.

  Mir had married the most mystic being in all of creation, and he'd fight anyone that suggested otherwise. What a smitten fool he'd become. Now here he was, hunting rabbits with the intent to skin them and line his husband's new winter cloak with the softest portions of said fur. After all, the Long Night was coming soon, and it was tradition for lovers to exchange gifts before spending the whole of the dark hours tangled in each other.

  His warm musings were interrupted by the sight of the messenger waiting at the edge of the demesne's wards. Most fortunate for the messenger, it was always better to deal with Mir when he was in a good mood. There was no way for the sulfur-scented entity to know that, though, and it was already nervous enough, judging from the way it kept raising its hand to knock on the air and announce itself, then thinking better of the action.

  "What business does an Emissary of Hell have in this place?"

  The fiend didn't flinch, but every muscle locked, the tips of its pointed ears quivering. Its tail had gone rigid, and a tremor rippled through its flesh for a long moment before it slowly regained enough control to turn. A pit fiend, Mir's favorite, the third most aesthetically pleasing race in all Hell. Well, when they weren't in their battle forms attempting to remove your spine through your mouth, they were quite ugly in those moments. This one, however, looked a little familiar.

  "Do I know you?"

  The fiend finally recovered, folding his hands into his sleeves and bowing lightly. "My uncle adorns your eastern wall, Dark Lord."

  Ah. Family resemblance. "Are you here to request him back? I'm afraid if he's part of my Keep, then that's a likely impossible ask, and no, I don't do trades." The fiends that were part of the stonework were there by their own foolishness. Those contracts weren't just binding, it was likely this fiend's uncle no longer remembered that he had an identity beyond being part of the stones around him.

  "Black God's blood, no. The shame he brought to our family is barely cleansed by the fact he's now one of your fixtures, Dark Lord." The fiend drew himself up, hands smoothing his uniform, the insignia of Evil glinting lightly on the collar. "I am here on behalf of the Most Low God, he who oversees Evil and commands us a-" The word 'all' caught in his throat as he saw Mir's eye narrow, remembering clearly that a certain Dark Lord had killed the previous Most Low God and then casually tossed the office to another. Like a discarding a cloak that was no longer in style.

  "I'm sorry, what were you saying?" Mir's smile did have mirth in it, but it was a sharp sort, the kind that invited you to cut yourself on it so he could laugh at you bleeding.

  "Ah, the Most Low God sent me to respond to your message." The scroll was produced with a neat snap of fingers, unfurling in the Emissary's hands and tilted just enough so that Mir could see nothing was being paraphrased or taken out of context.

  'Vladimir,

  It is after careful thought that I am willing to give my agreement to the use of your powers, provided you meet two conditions. Firstly, I authorize only discreet spells and spell work, something I do not believe you will find overly burdensome. There is little point to your continued secrecy if your magic itself does more to reveal you to the forces of Good than whatever issue is prompting this.

  Secondly, come and get your damn dogs.

  With Undying Hatred,

  Zelcizoth, God of All Things Dark and Vile'

  It was notable that the Emissary did not speak the name of the unholiest of all evils out loud. That would absolutely have drawn attention from Good that nobody needed. After all, the upper echelons of the Holy Divinities might know that Mir was alive and well in this rural place, but the rank and file absolutely didn't. All it would take was one eager celestial monitor sounding the alarm to undo the handshake agreement that had brought the mortal plane the past ten years of peace.

  "That's it? No fine print? No invisible ink. No tricky clauses or trap phrases?" Technically, there was one. If Mir was caught mid-spell by Good, he could be held responsible, whether the spell had anything to do with being revealed or not. That was fine, that was practically the status quo as it was anyway.

  "That's everything, Dark Lord. Those hounds. They really have been quite the problem. The blue one especially, she ripped the throat out of His Unholiness favorite helldrake two days ago, dodged the following smite, and drug the carcass off." The fiend had a tense expression.

  Vladimir Grimm had a secret that was known to only a scant few individuals, and the roster grew smaller as time took them and the Lifestream recycled their energy into new individuals. He was very, very fond of Hellhounds. They were warm. Loyal. And the most ferocious battle companions a man could ask for. Right now, his chest was flooded with an appreciative warmth at the description of the incident. "That's my girl. She loves smoked helldrake."

  The Emissary's smile was very brittle, the fiend very much put off by the thought that a hellhound could defeat a helldrake with such regularity to get a taste for the meat. That was like suggesting a mouse could develop a taste for eagle. But if anyone could breed, raise, and train an eagle-eating mouse, it would be Vladimir Grimm.

  "How many of the pack are still left? I know Flarb and the Shadow Gang have been recovering my pets over the past week. Have they made any attempts to collect any of them?" The hellhounds should have been easy to reacquire. He'd left them in Zel's kennels as a personal gift to the God. Mir assumed, especially since it seemed Zelcizoth wasn't particularly happy with them, that the moment Flarb showed up, Zel would have been only too happy to hand them over.

  "Ah, yes, well. Some goblins did show up not long ago, offering to take them back, and they did remove most of the pack. However, there was a minor "incident", when they attempted to remove her and her guardian, and they decided not to provoke her."

  Mir pinched the bridge of his nose. "You could have just said two." Why did people make things more complicated than they needed to be? He didn't need to know all these extra details, he just needed to know how many of his hounds were still in Hell. "Well, I can't exactly travel to Hell right now, so unless you're authorized to open a portal right now an-" His eye narrowed at the way the Emissary's face lit up. "You're authorized to open a portal?"

  "Yes! His Unholiness was most emphatic that the hounds should be collected with all expediency! I believe his exact words were 'You are allowed to bring Hell to his very doorstep if it suits him'. So as you can see, I have come fully prepared for just this situation, Dark Lord!" Another flourish of his hands with their slightly too long fingers, a circle of black wax appearing in his cupped palms. A portal seal, one-time use, to create a discreet gateway. Unlike simply casting a portal spell or using a weave to rip open a connecting portal, using a medium like blood o a pre-prepared portal seal, like the one in the fiend's hands, would disperse the magic enough that its casting wouldn't draw undue attention.

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  "You really did come prepared. Still, I can't just go to Hell without letting my husband know. He'll worry."

  "Oh, I'll worry?" Leifr's amused voice shot through their conversation like an arrow, the dragon wiping clay from his hands with a cloth as he made his way down the path. He caught Mir's gaze, an amused expression on his handsome features. "Don't look at me like that, darling, I'd have to be blind to not sense a pit fiend at the edge of my wards. I just got curious enough to come and see what all the fuss was about." He came to a stop, leaning his head on Mir's shoulder and eyeballing the Emissary. "So, what is all the fuss about? Why are we discussing you going to Hell?"

  His husband smelled of potting clay and wildflowers, and Mir couldn't resist burying his face in the dark waves of Lei's hair, breathing in deeply to ground himself. "A certain God of Evil responded to my letter. Long story short, if I want him to sign off on using my fun magic again, I need to go recover my hounds."

  "Can't the Shadow Gang do that? Or is the requirement that you go in person?" Lei didn't like the idea of Mir going to Hell. He'd smell like sulfur for a week.

  "The Shadow Gang recovered most of them, there are just a couple left to bring home." His eye returned to the Emissary. "Does that portal go straight to the kennel?"

  "It goes straight to their den, yes, Dark Lord." The fiend's fingers were rubbing the edges of the portal seal, a vibrating eagerness rippling through his flesh. "All expediency, that was the order."

  Mir looked at Lei, gesturing. "Just let him open his little portal, I'll call the hounds to me, it'll be quick. Minimal exposure to the smell." It wasn't as though Mir enjoyed the air on the plane of Evil either. Whoever had thought that sulfur was the proper scent for dark magic needed to be scourged with a black fire whip. Mir had made it a point early in his working career to strip the 'smell' from his magic. The Keep had not become less intimidating for the lack of the rotten egg aura in the air.

  Lei held out for exactly a half minute longer before sighing deeply. "Fine. But I'm standing right here and watching this happen."

  With a noise of joy, the Emissary snapped the black wax seal like a biscuit. The portal took quick shape but what it revealed wasn't a kennel. It was a small, narrow opening in the foundation of some building, something that might have started as a crack but had been purposefully widened. The average man could have fit through with a bit of wiggling, which made perfect sense considering hellhounds were the size of a medium pony. Blackened streaks were scorched into stone and soil from the fires on the beasts' bodies, and cracked bones littered the area, the sign of many meals.

  Mir stepped to the edge of the portal, leaving a few feet of distance between him and the opening, and sharply whistled. He punctuated the end of the whistle with a firm pat to his thigh, the call to heel. For a moment, there was nothing, silence. Perhaps the hounds were not in residence at the moment?

  Then a head and shoulders popped out of the hole, the hound they belonged to struggling to get free. It had tripped in its excited haste and was now stuck a bit, wriggling, before getting loose and racing over to dance in small, tight circles around Mir. Its flames were a clear, bright orange, all light and no heat as its body shivered and shuddered in joy. Mir reached out a hand, scratching directly between those pointed ears. "Mayhem, I should have figured. You'd follow Miracle off a cliff if she jumped."

  Which of course meant that the figure now slowly exiting the den could only be Miracle, his most prized beast. She'd been raised at the foot of his throne, and the bones of the finest Heroes had been her idle chew toys. She was less performative than Mayhem, her tail swaying lazily, and she took only a step from the den mouth. It wasn't hard to see why.

  "You neglected to mention the puppies." Mir's eye flicked to the Emissary, who was standing off to the side of the portal, attempting to be out of sight and out of mind.

  "There are puppies?!" Lei's voice rose an octave, his hand rising to press fingertips to lips, whole face was suffused with a bright, stunning joy. There was nothing the dragon adored more than cute baby creatures. Even if they were ostensibly evil.

  Mir snapped a finger and pointed, Mayhem instantly planting his haunches in the guard position. Then he removed one of the rabbits from his hip, offering it in Miracle's direction. She didn't hesitate, trotting over from her den to take the offered carcass, snapping it down in a few ravenous bites. "That's why she killed the helldrake. She needed her strength. What were you feeding her before? The flesh of sinners? That's not good for a whelping mother." He tisked, hands running along her sides carefully. "I give him my favorites, and he can't even take care of them properly. I might as well have turned them loose like I did the dreadsteeds."

  The Emissary shuddered. "Yes... The Plains of Perdition will never be the same thanks to those beasts. Your minions were thankfully efficient about recovering them. Ah, speaking of recovery, are we done now?"

  "Of course not. Lei, could you set up a warm box next to the stove? Hellhound pups need warmth and heat. Oh, and could you put a blanket over it, they like it on the dark side as well. Makes them feel safer." Mir had already taken his cloak off, spreading it on the ground as he continued to scratch Miracle behind the ears. He tapped her on the snout a moment later. "Go get them. Go fetch me your whelps. They don't belong in a hole in the ground."

  It had been ten years. Ten years since he had left her in the kennels of the Most Low God. Ten years since he'd come as close to shedding tears as he ever would. But at the time, the demsene hadn't been established. The foundations of the life he had now hadn't been laid. He couldn't justify bringing his beloved hounds with him into his retirement. He'd truly thought it for the best to rehome them. It turns out that Vladimir Grimm really was quite bad at doing good things.

  Thankfully, his faithful hound seemed willing to forgive him as she fetched her puppies one by one, laying them out on the cloak that smelled of him. They were still small, their paws still pink, their eyes still closed, and their flames not yet kindled. They looked like any other puppies with milk-fat bellies. He gathered them up, listening to them yip and squirm, and didn't bother to check if the Emissary was properly closing the portal. Mir would clean up any residue later.

  He had started the day with a pair of rabbits, intending to make his husband's cloak just a little bit warmer. Now, instead, he had an armful of puppies that he was about to lose all his husband's attention to.

  There were worse Long Night gifts, he supposed.