Pluto couldn't help but wander. His heart ached for what was lost, his limbs itched for what could be. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do, and had pledged himself to a pack that had done his wife so terribly. But it was a place she'd had influence upon, and for that, he wouldn't abandon it. Until there were other signs, until she came back, he would throw his efforts to Northfall.

But he couldn't help but wander.

Today, when the sun lifted above the horizon.... it wasn't really bright. Puzzled, growing cold, Pluto forged on; even Ember huddled against his back early on in the morning, and the God found himself avoiding what patches of snow he could to opt for dryer ground. Still, his pads ached with the cold, and he worried over the fragility of a mortal body.

But then he realized it wasn't as cold. He hurried forward, unfamiliar with the cackle in the air, drawn to the warmth. Then, past the trees; a faint purple glow. What in the name of the pantheon-

A flame.

An immortal flame, violet and humming with silent power, tucked along the icy shore, giving off a warmth that combatted the terrible cold spawned from the latest wave of plague.
Could it be used? Moved?

It wasn't alone.

A girl stood there beside it and as she watched, she turned her head up in song. Hades smiled and, as he approached, sang back.

Pluto had expected more notes of the song, a quiet moment of solidarity.

Ohhhhhhhhh lordy was he wrong.

The heather-colored girl jolted into action, her greeting loud and words not stopping as she hared in close to pounce around like a kid. Pluto closed his eyes against the spray of powder, amusement fluttering beneath an admittedly stony exterior. She asked his name -- easy enough!

I'm- he started, but she was already talking again, noting his pelt. She thought it looked like the sky -- and, he supposed, it was an apt observation for someone who had never gazed into the depths of the unholy styx. He just offered a polite, small smile, nodding. He started to offer a Thank-- but she started talking again, chattering like a happy little bird just pleased to have someone hear its song. Then she was up again, bounding around him, grinning like a right fool.
She was sort of funny, cute, even, in a childish way.

Why had he and Seph never had kids?

Liss went on quickly, blessedly keeping him from lingering on the thought. The fire, coming here from somewhere hot from a tunnel; Pluto thought she must've meant the ones Vitus had once talked about, and the only reason they hadn't used any on their way up to Northfall was because it was easier to just take the journey by foot. Sounded like perhaps she was new to the whole magic thing, one way or another, but she certainly didn't seem as off-put as some tended to be.
Then she went on about the dreams.
He bobbed his head in easy agreement when she asked if he got them, too; he'd been here long enough for several to touch his mind, but he didn't admit he'd cared very little for the ancestors of a place who'd stolen the light of his life and snuffed it out.

Magic does not follow the same rules, he asserted as she finally quieted, voice low, growling, but gentle, Eternal flames may do as they please, or someone might've placed them here.

Either way, he found them silent. Had they intelligence, they also had the coyness of the satyr, but he rather thought someone had put them here for the benefit of the inhabitants. Its color, frankly, was the only thing he didn't question: could've been its temperature, could've been magic.

I think it more likely it's been put here to help against the newest threat.

The cold.

He blinked at her, cracking a smile. She was a strange little beast, but he always had been the savior of the broken, the beaten and the damned. The oddballs, the black sheep, they were the others he always seemed to hold so near and dear to his heart. Someone, as Effie used to believe, had to help her break down his walls; and there always had been a certain fondness for those rejected by the rest of the world.
Like him and Ember, and so many of the other companions he'd taken under his wing for so many millennia.

What happened next? Hades turned his gaze to the flame, staring into its endless depths.

Where I'm from, fire like this was meant to spark unity, and civilizations rose with the flames as their heart. It represents what cannot be destroyed or controlled, but brought hope to all those who laid eyes upon it. It tied people together in a way unrivaled, even by the gods themselves. It represents strength, grace, prosperity.

And all that... it just seemed to coincidental, considering the dreams of doom they'd been getting.

I think we should see if it can be divided, moved. If we can take this sort of warmth back to our groups for the winter.....

He hesitated, thinking back to those dreams. Had civilizing not been.... the end of the last ancestors of Mythris?

I'm Pluto, by the way, or Hades, whichever you prefer, here, he rolled a shoulder, and Ember's bright face popped irritably from the shaggy fur of the gods nape where he, too, was trying to find more warmth, This is Little Ember, or Mikrós.

The bird gave the smallest of hoots and ducked once again to hide (miserably) against the fur of his companion.

The girl tested his names on her tongue, playing with them, morphing them together even. Pluto just smiled, tolerant, but not egging her on; admittedly, it felt a little like poking fun, but he swallowed the flutter of offence and told himself she was just having fun. He didn't know what to do with that, per say, but he could... allow it? Ignore it?
Maybe this was why he and Effie never had kids. Maybe she knew he wasn't patient enough, even if he didn't mind kids. She'd always been the one to just... know those sort of things. He couldn't recall ever speaking of children, frankly; they weren't something often planned by gods, as far as he was aware, and not necessary for lineage.

Most people use Pluto, these days, he mused gently, as if urging her to pick one of the... well, normal names.

She dared a poke at Ember, who gave an antisocial little hiss and merely tucked himself further into Pluto's dark fur. The god just huffed a laugh.

Liss went on to be amazed at his idea of carrying fire, speaking of her homeland, where infernos apparently often stole away the forests.... but it was meant to? Fuck all if he knew what she was referring to; perhaps she lived nearby a volcano, where its embers would spark flame often?
Then she devolved into questions about eternal fires, and Pluto's head was spinning.

They are all different, he admitted, trying to keep all of her queries in the front of his mind, Some can be separated, carried with a torch as you would normal fire. Most cannot survive away from its source. So his idea might've been a long shot, but he thought it one worth testing. If they were here to help against the cold, perhaps it could be split apart and shared. Just the same, some are alive, some are not; if this one is, it chooses not to acknowledge us. I don't believe it so, but I've been wrong before. Had he, or was that just something he'd learned to say to assuage the anger of a wife pissed off? Debatable. :)
But who put it here?
Pluto paused.

I could not guess who placed it. Someone who wishes to help, if nothing else. The voice in the dreams, perhaps, or even Mythris itself.

Though, if the land had created these whorls, perhaps they should be more afraid; what if they were lures for those few freezing souls the plague hadn't purged, destined to consume the stragglers?