Sorry it's been forever - the holidays are always busy and time consuming. But enough excuses, onward!

Chapter 14: The Temple

The memory world vaporized and blended into a merging swirl of dark colors that swallowed her whole. Astrid was suspended in the darkness for only a short moment. She felt the floor come back underneath her as her soul reunited with her body. She opened her eyes to see Lydia sitting across from her, a tired look on her aged face, as though she had just woken up. Had she seen exactly what Astrid had seen? The reminiscent look on her face told her that she had.

Astrid was leaning backward, cradled in Hiccup's arms, resting her head against this collarbone. She could feel the beat of his heart and she could hear a whisper of a thumping. The warmth of his chest was comforting but she knew she couldn't waste time. She sat up. Her hands were still tightly clasped in Lydia's.

"I think I know what to do." Astrid said to Lydia's curiosity.

"You do?" Lydia asked, relieved and cautious.

"What is it?" Hiccup asked.

Astrid heard him, but kept her attention directed at Lydia. "Do you think redoing the ceremony would reserve things? Like apologizing?"

"I suppose it is possible." Lydia said.

"Like appeasement?" Hiccup added.

But again, Astrid didn't answer him. "What do you think happened to the people inside the temple? Are they alright?"

"This, I do not know." Lydia shook her head darkly. "The malice is thickest within the temple. It was sealed inside to protect the village, the island. It seeks only to destroy, to create more malice. It is impossible to know what has become of those trapped inside. However, it is unlikely that they have survived. If they have, they are beyond lucky."

Astrid nodded. She understood but still felt horrible about the girls trapped in there, for Esol. She knew Chuck would be devastated if she was indeed dead. She remembered that horrible moment when she believed Hiccup to be gone. It felt as though the ground had fallen, her heart torn out and frozen, a knife stabbing through a place that she couldn't see, and she would wish that utter desolation on anyone. It was because of this that she wanted Esol and the others to be alive.

"Are you sure?" Lydia asked.

"Yes." Astrid stood up. "This needs to be done as soon as possible."

Lydia nodded and she and Hiccup both stood up with her. Lydia opened the door to the small room but Astrid hadn't moved.

"What is wrong, dear?" Lydia asked.

All of her visions of the temple had been riddled with spirits. Nonchalant and quiet spirits, but displaced spirits nonetheless that could very well see her as an unwanted intrusion. Astrid turned to Lydia, again pushing Hiccup's stare out of her mind, and swallowed.

"If the malice is the danger, and the malice is thickest inside the temple," Astrid said, turning to look at Hiccup, "Then I should go in alone."

"What? No." Hiccup's reaction was what she expected. His brow furrowed immediately, his mouth curled into dissatisfaction, his eyes narrowed darkly. "I'm going with you."

"Hiccup," Astrid said his name firmly. "This is beyond you. I can do it alone. It will be filled with possibly dangerous spirits and I am better able to deal with them than you are."

"Astrid, I can help." he argued, his tone mixed with anger and annoyance.

"Berk is relying on us, the world is." Astrid said. She took hold on his hand and squeezed it. "I know you want to help but there is a very real chance that I won't make it out. Berk needs you, more than it does me, and you at least, have to return."

Hiccup opened his mouth to argue but Lydia interrupted him. "She is right, child. I believe it best if you remain here."

"Please, Hiccup." Astrid pleaded.

Hiccup looked between them, angry at their joining against him shining in his eyes, and he closed his lips tightly together. He nodded, murmuring a low understanding. He looked defeated, and mad about it, but Astrid pushed it from her mind. She would worry about it after the current disaster was dealt with.

Maybe she would die and then she wouldn't have to deal with it after all. Astrid laughed darkly to herself. What a horrible thought that was.

Astrid followed Lydia back down the stairs to the hearth where Chuck greeted them. Astrid quickly relayed their plan and he looked a bit more hopeful than the rest.

"I need to go." Astrid said. Lydia went to the door and began to whisper to it, unseal it for the brief departure.

"Good luck," Chuck said as Lydia opened the door.

Astrid stepped through, back into the cold, and didn't turn back as the door closed behind her. She didn't want to see it close.

A good outcome of her visions was that she knew the outline of the temple. She knew how to get to the caverns below. She did not, however, know how to get to the temple through these winding village streets. The village seemed larger than Berk, or at least their houses seemed more clustered, and taller. She wished that Stormfly were there and she could fly above the houses and reach the temple in seconds. But, Astrid reminded herself, she wasn't there, and she would have to travel the old fashioned way. On her own two feet.

After what seemed like hours of wandering the half-frozen streets she finally found the temple's front gate. She hadn't seen a single spirit, or a person, only fog and silence. Her own footsteps and breath were the only sounds.

Just as chuck had said, the doors were shut tight. There was no way she was getting in this way. She thought back to all the time she had spent in the spirit world's version of this same temple. There had to be a way inside.

Then it hit her. There was a secret door through the priest's room. He had showed it to her. Astrid glanced around through the walled gardens of the temple. She climbed over and followed the plants until she saw the familiar garden with the simple shed against the temple's outer wall. She slipped inside the little shed and ran her hands along the stone wall, searching for anything that would open the secret door.

Just when she was above to give up, she found it. It was a small level hidden behind a bucket of some sort of seed. She pulled it and it took most of her strength but it finally clicked. A latch was released and the small door could be opened. She knelt down and dug her fingers into the fresh opening and pulled on it with all her might. The stone was heavy but it gradually gave way. On the other side was a narrow walkway, stone on both sides, that lead into darkness. Astrid ducked inside and began to crawl through. She left the door open for an easy escape route.

She crawled through the darkness, feeling her way along the stone walls, and when she finally came to the other side she felt a moment's panic. How did the other side open? She felt around the darkness and her hands scrapped what felt like a latch. She pulled, and heard a corresponding click. She push on the door and when it didn't give in she began to pull. It slid toward her and she pulled it open just enough to crawl through.

A dull light met her on the other side. It was the priest's room, lit by hundreds of candles burning all around the room. They were lit with the same strange yellow flame that Lydia had used. It did not consume the candle and didn't burn. Even despite the malice that surrounded it they did not go out.

The malice. She could feel it. It was heavy, cold, and empty. She shuttered, but took a step into the room. A crunch beneath her feet startled her, sending her back toward the door, but she quickly composed herself. Looking down, she saw what she had tread upon. A hand raced to cover her mouth as a gasp tried to ease out.

On the floor was a man, in priest's robes, a dagger through his chest. His skin and insides had been eaten away by the malice and it looked as though he had been there for fifty years. But Astrid knew he hadn't. This was the high priest. He wore the same ancient robes that the man in Lydia's memories had.

Astrid shook his encounter from her mind and headed to the room's door. It lead into the corridor, which she could follow to the study rooms and into the hall, which lead down into the cellars, which she could then access the spiraling staircase that would lead into the ceremony space.

She walked carefully through the darkened halls. She could hear the ambient spirits lingering, moaning, crying out. As a limping woman walked out of a room and into the hallway, Astrid slid into a nearby closet space, and watched with held breath as the ghostly woman passed by. She waited until the woman's uneven breathing was more than a few steps away.

These were the majority of the spirits that she encounter. They weren't aggressive, albeit terrifying, and she was able to keep their attention away from herself. However, that wasn't the case as she entered into the hall. Between the empty tables and pillars a murmuring man and standing haphazardly, his dark eyes scanning the room, his hands twitching.

"No…not here." he mumbled. "Not me, he says."

Astrid carefully inched he way through the shadows along the wall's. If she could sneak around him then he shouldn't be a problem. He wasn't looking toward where she needed to go. And all she had to do was be quiet, like a ghost. She tiptoed her way across, keeping her breath still, but it didn't do her much good.

The man's head jerked toward her, dark eyes pinning on her like a hungry nightmare, mouth gapping in a shrill shout, "The sound! Too much sound! Make it stop!"

The ghoul of a man darted forward, throwing his arms out at her with a vicious indent. Astrid ran from him but his arm reach out and grabbed her by the wrist. Even though he was only touching the fur that covered her arm, it felt as though his icy fingers stabbed through it, penetrating her skin. He hit her with his other hand and it felt like he'd reached inside a punched her soul, throwing her entire body into a dizzying spin, darkness threatening to swallow her.

Malice seeks to destroy, to create more malice. Lydia's words rang in her mind.

Astrid wrenched her arm away from him, twisting it painfully, and as soon as she was free of his grip she darted to the other side. She bolted through the hall's doorway and into the kitchens, and nearly threw herself down the stairs to the cellar. Out of breath, she ducked into a pantry and slunk down behind a stack of barrels. She listened as she caught her breath and settled her racing heart.

His anger presence had faded, and she couldn't sense any immediate spirits, but then again, this entire malice had been messing with her since they'd arrived. It was as though she was surrounded by spirits, one giant spirit, hiding unknown numbers of smaller spirits within it.

When her breath returned and her heartbeat calmed she exited the pantry. She tiptoed to the spiraling stairs. The stairs were black. She searched the cellar for a torch and spent an untold amount of time trying to lit it. She'd gotten used to the steady supply of dragon fire. She hadn't realized how spoiled they'd become with dragons.

But even with the torch's light the darkness was thick and grew thicker with even step downward. It would only reach a few steps ahead before the darkness would block it out. Carefully she wound her way down to the ceremonial cavern. She'd been walking some time when she was sure she was being follow. She gripped the torch, ready to run, and turned around quickly.

Behind her, a young girl squealed in surprise. "I'm sorry!"

"Oh," Astrid said. The girl didn't seem aggressive and anger. And she wore the robes of a shrine maiden. Suddenly, Astrid's eyes widened as she realized who the girl was. She was the maiden that had died, the girl that she had seen in the temple in the spirit world. "I didn't know it was you."

"Me?" the girl asked. Her voice sounded distant, but clear.

"I've seen you. Do you remember me?" Astrid asked.

The girl looked at her for a moment. "I Think…yes. I do know you."

"Great! But I don't have a lot of time to explain, but I need to get to the ceremonial chamber. I think that if we redo the ceremony like it was supposed to be done then this whole mess will be reversed." Astrid said.

"And the malice will go away?" the girl asked.

"I think so."

"Then come on, I know the way!"

The girl began to run down the stairs, through the darkness, and Astrid gave up her trepidation and ran after her. They came to the end shortly which opened up in a wider cavern. It was made naturally and Astrid could see the marks on the stairs where they had been carved.

"This way!" the girl called, waving Astrid along.

She went after her but stopped when the girl stopped. She was looking down a narrow little waterway that had been carved into the cavern wall by a natural waterfall. Astrid felt it too, people, and strained her eyes and ears through the water. Astrid set the torch down and jumped down into the water. It was cold on her skin and quickly soaked through to her skin. She crawled through the waterfall and on the other side she saw what she had hoped.

The shine maidens, the remaining four of them, were huddled together at the back of the small cove. At the sight of Astrid there was a resounding panic.

"Wait! I'm not a spirit, I promise!" Astrid said with her hands exposed, which she realized was a silly gesture since ghosts didn't carry weapons. But it seemed to give the girls a sort of measurement. One of the girls Astrid thought she recognized as Esol, but she wasn't sure, as she'd been unsure about what Chuck had looked like.

"Esol?" Astrid asked, and the brown haired girl with the pleasant face piped up, and in relief, Astrid smiled.

"Do I know you?" Esol asked.

"Yes, kind of, I'm Astrid."

Esol's confusion vanished and she laughed, "Have we been down here that long?"

They all looked beyond flustered and exhausted. Not to mention hungry and terrified. It didn't take long to explain about Chuck's letter. Astrid left out all the things that had happened in between his letter and her arrival, those things didn't matter.

"I think that if we redo the ritual like it was supposed to be done then we can reverse things." Astrid told them.

"Hold on," said one older girl, her face twisted in disbelief, "Even if you help, we're still one girl short. And you don't know the ritual."

"I do know the ritual. I've watched it enough time to do it in my sleep." Astrid said. "And you aren't a girl short."

"But Alva's…gone." Esol said. "He killed her."

"True." Astrid said. "But she can still help."

"How?" Esol asked.

"Come on, I'll show you." Astrid motioned for them to leave their little nook in the wall. They did, reluctantly, and at the sight of Alva's ghost in the cavern they were between fear and grief.

"Alva?" Esol asked. "Is that really you?"

"Yes." Alva nodded. "But we must hurry."

"She's right." Astrid said.

The five maidens and Astrid made their way down into the central chamber where the malice was thick, and made it feel as though they were walking through water. Astrid stepped into the center maiden's place and the girls positioned themselves around her, just as they had in the visions, and like oiled cogs they began.

Astrid could feel the malice reacting, lightening, the spirits were paying attention. She was beyond relief at this. She didn't know if this plan would even work but it would appear that it was. With each step, twirl of a hand, the malice thinned.

"It's oddly, beautiful, you know?"

The dance came to a halt. The malice halted, but did not thicken, and the darkness had loosened enough so that Astrid could see the intruder's face. She shakes her head in denial as the girls look to her for some sort of explanation. They are as confused as she is.

"What are you doing here?" Astrid demanded.

Through the darkness she could see his shape, tall and skinny, but his voice wasn't his. Hiccup's metal leg clanked against the stone where as his boot was muffled.

"I came to help you, darling," Hiccup said, a twist on his tongue.

X

If you felt this chapter was rushed, don't worry, I felt it too. But the whole trip through the village and into the temple was honestly a boring thing and I got bored writing it, so I went with the shorter and less boring version. I also skipped the proofread because my hand is killing me - I've been writing most of the day - and it needs a good rest. So does my brain.