Xiumin came into being when a small girl gathered powdery snow into her tiny hands, packed it into a ball, and jabbed two small black pebbles into it.  She proudly showed her prized creation to her older brother, who scoffed and smacked it out of her hands, and she watched in horror as her lovely new snow pet got smashed against the ground into a formless nothing.

Unbeknownst to her, Xiumin did not "die" right then, but instead fell into the depths of hell.  The girl's older brother was going through a rebellious age and had uttered a newly learned swear word when he spitefully knocked Xiumin to the ground, cursing him to hell.  So Xiumin fell into a dimension that was invisible to the human eye, and he knew he was doomed, done for, a lost cause, so he spent the last seconds of his remaining life before he melted and evaporated into true nothingness to think about the wonderful life he lived, thankful for being created by an adorable human girl and being able to witness her innocent smile for the few minutes that was his lifespan.

But as Xiumin fell in the suffocating heat, a figure materialized beside him, falling down with him, though the figure seemed more to be flying down than falling.

"Well, hello there. What do we have here?" a deep voice drawled from the figure, who could now be seen more clearly as a lanky red being with horns and a tail, lit at the ends with flames.  Xiumin could tell immediately that it was a Fire Demon, who was leisurely lying on his side with his head propped up by a clawed hand and eyeing Xiumin with a bemused expression.

"We haven't had a snowball cursed to Hell in ages," the Fire Demon said, watching Xiumin shrink as his outer layers melted and sizzled away.  Xiumin didn't know why the Fire Demon was here, and if he just wanted to enjoy Xiumin die in agony, he could do so, but the snowball didn't have anything to say to him, so he just closed his eyes and waited for the end to come within the next minute.

"Well? So, do you want to live?"

Xiumin's eyes popped open as he stared incredulously at the Fire Demon.  Did he just ask Xiumin, a snowball stuck in hell, if he wanted to live?  Was that even a choice?  A possibility?

"I know you can talk, even if you weren't given a mouth," the Fire Demon remarked impatiently. "You've got.. eh.. about 20 more seconds to decide before you become a puddle and evaporate and make this place even more humid than it needs to be."

Xiumin couldn't believe his unformed ears, but if this Fire Demon wasn't just pulling his nonexistent leg to make his demise that much more miserable, there was no question he'd ask to live.  The surface of the fast-dwindling snow left below his pebble eyes caved in to form a mouth and for the first time, the snowball spoke.

"Uh, I.. ahem.. I'd like to live... please," Xiumin managed to squeak out, scrambling to hold one of his pebble eyes in place before it slid off.

"Took you long enough. I was beginning to think you wanted to float around in Hell as air particles at the rate you were going," the Fire Demon grumbled, as he drifted closer to Xiumin and pulled out something from behind himself.  He stabbed what he was holding into Xiumin's head, and for a second, the snowball thought he was being killed for the second time.  Whatever it was, there was two of it that penetrated deep into his meager snowflakes and the pain made Xiumin see white like the heavens he came from.

"S-sorry, it hurts, doesn't it," a soft voice filled Xiumin's mind.  Xiumin was enveloped in a sense of such peace and gentleness that he thought he had surely died and gone to Heaven.  But when he opened his eyes, he was greeted by the same vision of himself and the Fire Demon falling endlessly into the pits of hell.

"I-I'm alive?" Xiumin hesitantly croaked out.

"Yup, with full-bodied snow and all," the Fire Demon smirked and motioned back at Xiumin, who looked around and saw that he was encased in some kind of white, translucent bubble, and that he indeed had grown back his full body of snow like when he was first created.

"B-but, how?" Xiumin blubbered, curiously extending an impromptu arm to reach out to the boundaries of the bubble, only to hastily withdraw it when he found that he melted outside the sphere.

"Careful. Luhan can only protect you for a short distance around you. If you try to go beyond it, you'll just melt. So keep Luhan on you if you want to live," the Fire Demon cautioned.

"L-luhan?" Xiumin asked, completely dumbfounded.

"Yeah, Luhan. The antlers I put on your head. You'd already be vaporized by now if I hadn't put him on you," the Fire Demon said smugly, crossing his arms with an expectant smile.

"T-thank you?" Xiumin indulged him, warily eyeing the cracked lava land they were fast approaching. "Uh.. sorry to ask, but are you gonna save me from getting smashed against the ground down there, too? I'd prefer not to have to go through that twice."

The Fire Demon rolled his eyes and muttered to himself, "This is why Loved Ones get abandoned. They're so high maintenance." He turned to Xiumin with a pointed look. "Do you think I would have gone to all that trouble to give you a rare item like a Loved One's Artifact just to keep you alive for a couple of seconds and then let you get smashed into smithereens right afterwards?"

Xiumin responded with a hesitant but hopeful, "No?" before witnessing a group of flames appear below his bubble and grow larger to propel him upwards, counteracting against the gravity pulling him down.  Xiumin's fall decelerated exponentially and he reached the dirt covered ground without any impact, the flames below his bubble extinguishing just as he stepped onto the ground.  Well, the bottom of his snowball didn't actually touch the ground, because he was still floating in the center of his little white bubble.

The Fire Demon smoothly landed next to him and again crossed his arms, swishing his flame tail and peering down at Xiumin with a self-satisfied expression. "So? You're alive, aren't you?

Xiumin did not hesitate to express his gratitude to his unexpected savior. "Y-yes! Thank you! I don't know how or why you did it, but thank you so much for saving me!"

"Well, I just happen to have a liking for Loved Ones and their Artifacts, and I just happened to have Luhan on me, so you were pretty lucky that I happened to be there when you were falling into Hell," the Fire Demon retorted. "By the way, I'm sure you're dying to know and was just waiting for the right time to ask, when you're not falling to your death or anything, but I'm Chanyeol. I'm a Fire Demon."

"Y-yes, I could tell, with your flame tail and horns, and everything," Xiumin responded. "S-so, what exactly is this.. Luhan you speak of?"

"Not 'what,' but 'who,'" Chanyeol the Fire Demon corrected him, "or else Luhan would get offended. Why don't you introduce yourself, Luhan."

Xiumin looked around, trying to see if there was any other being around the two of them, but the vast area around them was deserted, as far as he could see.

Suddenly, the soft voice he had heard earlier piped up, but this time it wasn't inside his mind but resonated from the things stuck in his head.

"Hello, I'm Luhan. Or, well, I used to be Luhan. I was a reindeer when I was alive. But then I was hunted and killed for my antlers, and after the hunters cut them off, they decided they were too small, so they threw them away, cursing me to Hell," the antlers from atop Xiumin's head vibrated. "Lord Chanyeol found me during my Fall and has kept me ever since. I'm glad I could be of use to another Loved One unfortunate enough to be cursed to this place."

Xiumin understood that the soul of the reindeer must have been absorbed into his antlers, which was why the antlers were addressed as the reindeer himself.  But he couldn't fathom how the antlers were keeping him safe from the excruciating heat of hell or what all this talk about "Loved Ones" and their artifacts were about.

"Oh, I can explain that," the antlers spoke up again out of nowhere.

"Explain what?" Chanyeol asked, mirroring Xiumin's confusion.

"Xiumin was confused about Loved Ones and my power," Luhan explained, but Xiumin was again flabbergasted.

"Xiumin?" Chanyeol frowned, and then uncreased his eyebrows when he comprehended the situation. "Oh, is that your name, Snowball?"

"Uhh.. yes, it is," Xiumin answered, freaked beyond belief, though he figured he should already accept that things wouldn't be normal here.

"Oh, sorry, I don't mean to do it, but I keep on reading your mind," Luhan the antlers offered apologetically. "I am plugged into it, after all."

So that's what it was.  It all made sense to Xiumin now and he eased up tremendously.

Luhan continued his explanation. "So, Loved Ones are those that have received love from humans before being cast into Hell. You're a Loved One, because your human creator loved you while you were alive up there. And that love kept you alive for longer than the Forsaken Ones would have lasted, even during your Fall. Love creates a protective barrier, but it only lasts for so long here. I... I was a Loved One, too. I grew up on a ranch and my owner gave me so much love, but.. one night the ranch caught fire, and my owner released all of us out into the forest so we could survive."

Luhan broke off, and Xiumin could tell he was getting emotional.  The antlers released a heavy sigh and resumed.

"My owner saved his wife and daughter from the fire.. but he didn't make it. He visited me as a spirit, giving me his blessing, before he left for Heaven. And then I was hunted." Luhan's voice grew hard. "I was killed for my antlers, so my soul transferred to them. We call parts of Loved Ones that are left behind and imbued with the Loved Ones' soul their Artifacts. It doesn't happen often, but when it does, the Artifacts are imbued with special powers. Mine have to do with creating barriers and my specialty is snow, because that was my favorite thing when I was alive as a reindeer."

"So Luhan is like your own personal freezer," Chanyeol stepped in. "You'll have no problem generating snow and keeping nice and frozen as long as you're in his protective barrier. You can be your own snowglobe! Puhahahahahha!"

The Fire Demon doubled over in laughter and exaggeratedly slapped his knees, finding his own joke to be hilarious and not giving a squat whether anyone else did.

Xiumin grew tired of waiting for the demon to regain his composure so he raised his voice to ask, "So does that mean I can continue to keep M-mister Luhan with me as long as I'm here?" He still doubted that a demon in hell would give help without asking for anything in return.

"Just 'Luhan' is fine," the antlers answered instead, speaking directly into Xiumin's mind. "And you can trust Lord Chanyeol. He can be scary when he punishes Hellseekers, but he's got a soft spot for Loved Ones and treats us well. It's probably because he's actually in love with a Loved One. Oh! I'm sorry I just realized I was reading your mind again."

Xiumin tentatively tried responding back with his mind, "I-it's okay, Luhan. I guess it can be convenient for times like this to be able to talk to each other without anyone else hearing. By the way, thank you for protecting me with your barrier."

"Oh! It's my pleasure!" Luhan excitedly buzzed, happy to find a companion he could get along well with. "Lord Chanyeol pulls me out to talk to me sometimes, but he's got a whole lot of other Artifacts in his collection and he tries to spend time with all of us evenly, so it can get lonely while we're in there. The Artifacts don't talk to each other much, you see."

"Why not?" Xiumin asked curiously.

"Well, partly because Lord Chanyeol doesn't like it when his collections start getting too loud, but also because we Artifacts all have pretty depressing backgrounds and that's all we can talk about when we do speak with each other, and then it becomes one terrible , sobbing fest, so we try to stay away from that." The antlers chuckled, but Xiumin thought it sounded sad and empty.

Xiumin was so absorbed in his telepathic conversation with Luhan that he didn't notice the Fire Demon pulling something else out from behind himself.  Before he knew it, Chanyeol had grabbed one of the antlers and was tying something on it.

"There you go," Chanyeol said, once he finished his task and stepped back to survey his work.

"W-what did you do to me?" the snowball trembled, scared that the Fire Demon might have changed his mind about saving him.

"Relax," Chanyeol replied coolly, unoffended by Xiumin's continuing suspicion toward his good intentions. "Why don't you try hopping up and down."

"What? H-hop?" Xiumin didn't know if he was already losing his mind, but the Fire Demon's instruction sounded completely random and ridiculous.

"He tied a bell on me," Luhan explained out loud. "That's why he told you to hop."

"Aw, come on, Luhan," Chanyeol whined, "Why'd you give it away? I wanted to see how long it'd take the little paranoid snowball to realize that."

Luhan laughed and apologized, while Xiumin pouted but nevertheless obliged and hopped once, hearing a tiny jingle from atop his head.

"Why did you put this on me?" Xiumin asked, trying not to sound accusatory because he truly wanted to start trusting the Fire Demon.

"It's one of Lord Chanyeol's special bells," Luhan offered. "I've only heard about it before, but I can feel the power from it. I heard you could call Lord Chanyeol with it."

"That's right," the Fire Demon continued. "If you hop three times and say my name with each ring of the bell, a large flame will rise up above you and alert me of your location. It's like a signal flare so you could call me if you're in a dire emergency and need my help. And the other demon lords should be able to recognize that it's my bell, so they'll either help you or at least leave you alone. That is, unless they wanted me to unleash my phoenix on them."

Chanyeol laughed maliciously and rubbed his hands together, seeming to have a particular demon in mind that he'd actually like to set ablaze.

Xiumin shuddered at the thought and was glad the Fire Demon happened to be so partial towards Loved Ones, or else Chanyeol would have been Xiumin's worst nightmare.  But now that the snowball had been kept alive for a while and he knew he was no longer threatened by death by melting, thanks to Luhan, Xiumin had a moment to think about his situation.  What was he going to do, here in hell?  How was he going to live here?

"Um, if I could make a suggestion," Luhan quietly interrupted his thoughts telepathically, "we could go exploring and look for other Loved Ones or their Artifacts."

"Other Loved Ones?" Xiumin echoed out loud, forgetting to reply through his mind.

"Hm?" Chanyeol asked, thinking the snowball was talking to him.

"Oh, ah, sorry, I was talking to Luhan in my head," Xiumin nervously answered, worried that the Fire Demon might get offended that he was being excluded from their telepathic conversations.

"Oh I see," Chanyeol nodded matter-of-factly, and Xiumin sighed in relief. "So what was this about other Loved Ones?"

Xiumin decided to open up and share his worries with his savior. "I was thinking about what I should do from now on, because I have no clue what to do with myself here. But Luhan suggested we go out and look for other Loved Ones. I would have thought you would know where all of them are already, though?"

"Well, I try to be the first one to welcome them when they Fall into Hell, and normally it works out where they end up staying at my place or with one of the other demon lords. But sometimes I don't get there fast enough and someone else does, and the Loved One or the Artifact can end up in a bad place, in bad hands." Suddenly, the Fire Demon grew somber and a regret-filled expression washed over his face.

"So we'll go searching for them!" Luhan announced, trying to cheer him up. "I mean, if that's what you want to do, Xiumin."

"Um," Xiumin paused, slowly getting used to the idea, and then looked up at the Fire Demon. "I guess I have nothing else to do, and I really do appreciate you helping me so much, so it'd be nice to try to help anyone else like me."

"And, if we come across an undiscovered Artifact, we'll have hit jackpot!" Luhan added excitedly.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute," Chanyeol cut in, "Most Loved Ones or their Artifacts will have already been claimed by someone else. If I understand you correctly, are you saying you want to go and steal them?"

"Of course not!" Luhan retorted, slightly indignant. "We'd just help them get away if they're being kept against their will. I'm sure not every demon treats their Artifact collections and Loved Ones well like you do, Lord Chanyeol."

"That's true," Chanyeol frowned, contemplating the idea. "But it will be dangerous. You could get kidnapped and confined yourselves. Are you sure you want to do this? Xiumin? You're just a snowball in Hell. What can you do?"

Perhaps it was the fact that Xiumin felt safe within Luhan's barrier, but he was beginning to grow confidence in himself and truly wanted a purpose in his existence here.  He knew what it meant to be a snowball in hell, and he didn't expect to last long in the first place, but if he could survive, he wanted to prove himself, to show that he could make a difference, despite his precarious existence.  He wanted to live, not just survive, and if that meant going on a dangerous adventure like the one he was considering, he would do it.

"You're right. I probably have a snowball's chance in hell to succeed in this, but why not? If there's a chance, I'll take it. And you've given me that chance, you've given me Luhan," Xiumin stated determinedly. "And if I do manage to find anyone else, I'll bring them back to you."

Chanyeol let out a long sigh, but eventually relented. "Okay, fine. But if you do find anyone that needs rescuing, just call me with the bell and I'll come get you." He hesitated before continuing, "A-and, if I could ask you, could you keep an eye out for someone in particular? He's a Loved One, his name's Baekhyun and he was a Light Guardian. Even if you hear anything about him, call me. Please."

"O-of course," Xiumin assured him, wondering what this was all about.  Luhan whispered into his mind, "I'll tell you about it later."

"And, please, be careful," the Fire Demon warned, "Luhan's barrier can protect you from a lot of things, but not everything. Remember, you're not invincible inside that bubble, so don't go looking for trouble and putting yourself in blatant danger. Okay?"

"Yes, sir," Xiumin replied gravely, feeling the tension and anticipation build inside himself.

"Alright then. Keep him safe, Luhan," Chanyeol put on a grim smile and nodded to them.

"I'll try!" Luhan cheerfully called, as the antlered snowball watched the Fire Demon produce ash out of nowhere in his hand and toss it into the air.  Immediately a flame appeared from the airborne ash and rapidly grew into the size and shape of a gigantic bird.  Xiumin then realized there was an actual phoenix within the flames when the Fire Demon mounted onto its back.

"Good luck," Chanyeol told them as a parting greeting and then he was off, rising into the air and soaring away so fast that the bird engulfed in flames disappeared from sight in a matter of seconds.

"What an exit," Xiumin muttered to himself, while Luhan chuckled nervously.

"Boy, am I glad I don't have to ride that thing anymore."

"Why? Do you get motion sickness or something?" Xiumin asked.

"No, because I so much prefer traveling by ground. Heights are really not my thing," Luhan explained embarrassedly.

"Whoa, then you must have been pretty miserable when we were falling earlier," Xiumin remarked sympathetically.

"Uh, yeah, I really wanted to pass out but it helped being connected to you. I guess your non-fear of heights affected me, too," Luhan surmised.

"Non-fear of heights?" the snowball repeated amusedly, and then the two of them fell into a fit of giggles. "Well then, let's show 'em what a snowball and a pair of antlers can do in hell."

Luhan cheered and the antlered snowball began gliding towards the rocky hills in the distance.