Sort of a mythological accident AU… I don't even know what to describe this as.

This story has been churning in my head for a long time and has had several strains of inspiration that I need to acknowledge: First, during a sermon way back in 2012, my pastor reminded me that God created the temple as his meeting place for humans. I'd known that, but it sparked ideas hearing it in so many words. (Sacrilegious to get fanfiction ideas in church, I know.) Then MsFrizzle and I were talking about the creation of portals and how it seemed like they almost required a human sacrifice (Vlad and Danny turned to halfas) before starting up and connecting the two worlds. Next, I saw the perfect image of what I was picturing in my head in Oro Elui's The Portal as posted on DeviantArt. And lastly, Dash and I had been exchanging weekly prompts there for a while in hopes that one might spark something and so when she gave me "sacrifice," I knew I finally had to do something with this idea.

So… now that it's more than a year later, ahaha, everything came together and I am finally able to present this to you.

Sacrifice

January 9, 2014

Danny, Sam, and Tucker walked through the woods eagerly. Taking the hidden trails they knew by heart, they passed the clearings and crags in which they spent most of their sunny afternoons. From the stream, they began to climb uphill, fingers raking through the aromatic pine needles to catch hold on the knobbly roots that gave them handholds to continue on their way.

Soon, Sam took the lead, keeping the sound of water rushing over rocks in the gorge on their left. The terrain was different up here than they were used to closer to home. The pine trees gave way to smoother trunks with lighter green foliage whose leaves danced in the sunlight. Sam paused for a moment to admire the view before her friends urged her onward. Taking stock of their current location, she finally nodded and struck out away from the stream entirely.

Walking through the middle of the trees as the forest grew denser, they saw vines starting to creep down the branches and small bright flashes of color beneath the moss and the underbrush start to disappear until everything was green and brown. Deep, intense colors that soon made it hard to breathe. They walked for at least another hour without seeming to come to a different place. Everything around them looked the same.

Tucker was just about to put his foot down and demand to know if the raven haired girl actually knew where she was taking them when Sam lead them past tall stone pillars that seemed to spring out of the earth, with deep set runes in it that Danny thought his parents might be able to decipher if given enough time with the notes they had been able to compile on their history.

Seeing the evidence their ancestors had left was the only reason the two boys did not start questioning Sam's sense of direction when she led them still further and further on, deeper into the woods and the stifling oppressive heat until they were sure they would never be able to find their way back home.

No wonder Danny's parents hadn't kept it a secret what they were doing out here, rebuilding the temple after all these centuries. It was too far away from the town and too well hidden by the forest for anyone to stumble across the right place unless they knew exactly where to look. No one would be able to find it unless they had Danny's inside knowledge picked up from notes on discarded papers left on the table before bed and Sam's innate sense of direction anywhere in the forest.

But it had been the talk of the town, the way the Fentons had finally accumulated enough of the history of the place and pieced together enough of the long forgotten chronicles to understand what had happened so many years ago when disaster had struck the city and the survivors of plague and drought and failed harvests had managed to carve out a meager existence for themselves in the valley against the bank of the stream before it grew into a river.

They had known that when the city was prosperous, when the crops were plentiful and the trade with neighboring countries bounteous, that the stone white city had been occupied by men and women seven generations their ancestors now. That they had fled when disaster struck, taking little with them but useful necessary tools for survival in their new harsher world.

Only one withered man, Danny only knew of him through the legends and the one painted picture of him on cracked parchment with this long white beard and swirling purple robes, had thought to preserve the history of his people, taking with him no trowels or rakes but as many delicate scrolls as he could stagger away with piled atop his back.

Not many people had been learned enough to decipher the cramped scrawlings of the scribes, even in their own day. It had taken the Fenton family years to reteach themselves the dead language and carefully pour through every fragment of information they could get their hands on until, finally, they had uncovered the true story of what had happened, understanding for the first time in generations the difference between fact and fiction.

There had been a god, but not, as the stories made him out to be, a heavy handed one, prone to anger and calling down his wroth from the heavens when he simply felt like leveling the town. This was a minor god, still powerful, of course, but not with enough power to destroy his people in one fell swoop as they had all believed he had done. It turns out that he hadn't done anything at all, according to the old man who had protected the histories, or at least, none of what he had been accused.

This god, his name had been lost long ago or perhaps had never been recorded, was their god. He protected them from the jealousies of nearby cities who wanted their white halls and fertile ground for themselves. Their god kept enemies at bay, looking out for the cares of the people who worshipped him.

He did it all covered in the dark of night, so that he did not interfere with the lives of his people, distract them, or put them in harms way.

This meant, however, that he was rarely seen. Only one picture existed in the chronicles, the likeness of a shaky man's hand showing a youthful face, bright green eyes, and hair whiter than anything found in nature.

And when things happen by forces seemingly unseen, the witnesses begin to rationalize the events even though the cause is staring them in the face.

Over time, the people began to think that their good fortune was due to their own cleverness and abilities to till the earth. They began to think of their trips to lay their tribute along the steps of the temple as merely tradition of their fathers and then later, as a waste of perfectly good food and materials. And if their good fortune began to waver, well, there were bound to be years that were worse than others. It pointed to the inability of the so-called god of the forest to provide for them as he claimed to. So they stopped.

The temple lay forgotten but by the oldest and wisest of the town, but once they were gone, no one thought it meet to continue laying provisions out for their protector. No one believed there was one. The building became tangled over with deep green vines and no one saw the need to clear it.

Years with bad harvests became more frequent and troubles with their neighbors were a growing concern yet no one thought to turn back to the being that had only sought to provide what was best for them.

He was forgotten and his home neglected. In turn, he seemed to ignore his people.

It was then that the stories began, that the whispers told of how he wasn't there to protect them at all. That he was just there to take their hard earned bread from their mouths. That their god couldn't protect them, or worse, was actively trying to ruin them and destroy the life they were trying to build.

The stories grew darker until the god became a figure to fear. One who brought wrack and ruin once the sun had gone down. Cloaked in darkness with only the glowing of two green eyes to give any warning before he struck you down. He was blamed for every misfortune, every accident, and his home either evaded or ransacked by foolhardy youths trying to prove that they could not be cowed by a story.

None of their legends said how the downfall of the city came about exactly. But most of them were sure that the malevolent god was behind it, furious that his ministrations had been denied. Every version of the story said that that night was full of shadows and screams and the cracking of the very stone that served as the foundation for the place where they lived.

They all fled as their homes collapsed. Cried as the crops burned and their vanities smashed in the rubble. Carrying only the necessities of life with them, the survivors moved to the valley, as far away from the scene of the destruction as they could move, burdened as they were, until they dropped from exhaustion to make camp for the night.

Whatever the cause of their troubles had been did not seem to follow them so they did not leave, but began to build a new life for themselves near the stream. Starting over from scratch. Surviving for generations on sheer determination and hatred of the phantom figure that had stolen their lives from them.

All except the wizened old man who read with failing eyes the history of the beginning of their community when the temple still stood intact.

And until the Fentons had finally pieced together the ancient chronicles and offered an alternate history, one in which the god of old may have been a force for good at one point in time. Perhaps it had been the people who had fallen away from him and not the other way around. For, without his people, what power does a god really have?

They thought that maybe, after all this time, the best course of action would be to return to their roots. To return to the ruins by the temple, to rebuild their old lives when they had been prosperous.

No one in the small town had thought much of the idea, but there was not much they could do. The Fentons had always done what they had wanted, from piecing together the dust laden scrolls to experimenting with the food supply (to ill effect which had earned them the wroth of the community's leaders) and now, apparently, trekking back to the town's ill fated beginnings. The scene of so many crimes.

No one stopped them over the next months as they abandoned their tinkering in favor of clearing the space so many believed haunted or cursed. As they referenced the old man's scrolls and drew up new plans of their own to restore the place back to its former glory, the plan became more elaborate and more and more of their neighbors raised their eyebrows and distanced themselves from the family they believed were sprouting nonsense. Complete and utter drivel, no matter that they could point to the runes on the wrinkled pages that proved that they might be onto the right track.

The theory was that if they could retrace their steps and reopen the connection with the god, then perhaps he would once again favor them with his protection. After all, if the old chronicler was correct and the reason he had left in the first place was because the people had abandoned him, he may yet be there in his home, just waiting for someone to return and restart the connection.

The Fentons thought it was worth a shot.

And spent most of their time in and around the abandoned city, repairing as much as they could, although not daring to touch the vines that covered the cracked and broken walls of the temple itself. The first time they had tried, Jack had returned home with his arm in a sling.

Undeterred, however, they pursued their plan, knowing that if they succeeded that everyone would be grateful to them in the end for making life so much better for the town.

But months had gone by and when they had done all they could do, and stood before the temple steps and called out for the god, there was no answer. No rustle of wind disturbed the heavy green leaves laced with light. No voice had answered their own. No one had appeared out of the depths of their long lost protector's residence. Nothing they did produced any results and finally they were forced to admit that there was no more to be done and that they had, in the end, been wrong. That there was no going back to the life described in the scrolls they had deciphered for most of their lives.

Their trip back home took much longer on that night of failure than it ever had. They dragged their feet until the darkness had long since descended and even the lamplight had begun to fade. The door opened slightly to let them return home to a welcome warmer than they believed they deserved.

Although they did not broadcast the news of their failure, by the end of the next day, everyone on the surrounding town knew what had happened and stopped by to make sure the Fentons knew that they had known all along that it would never work. It was a dark time for them as they had to endure the taunts of everyone to whom they opened the door.

Finally, they stopped opening it.

And that was why their son and his two friends were now traveling through the woods, bound to find the place and explore it for themselves. They knew that they were no geniuses, but it couldn't hurt to have three more pairs of eyes searching for what had gone wrong, could it?

They knew the place as soon as they found it. The yawning cavernous archway towering above them and completely covered with leaves until they could barely tell that it wasn't made of foliage in the first place. Then, turning toward the sun, they found the white steps leading upward to a stone tunnel that stretched out in front of them nearly as far as the eye could see. It seemed completely untouched since that day, the dust having settled in a thick layer that showed exactly where Jack and Maddie had thought there was no need to journey further on.

The gifts of food and clothing and the only thing of value they had owned in their household— a golden statue made to resemble his father— were lying disregarded in a pile that looked very small indeed against the vast empty space they saw.

Catching each other's eyes, the trio stopped, suddenly wary to continue on now that they had arrived at their destination.

"Well, go on," Sam said, giving Danny a little shove on the shoulder. "It was your parent's project, after all."

Tucker gulped nervously. "Are you sure? I… I mean… the place is supposed to be haunted. This is where… the thing lives. We don't really…. We don't really want to wake it up, do we?"

Danny looked to him and set his shoulders. "That is why we came here. To take a look at the place, isn't it?"

"I know, but…" Tucker trailed off.

"I sure didn't spend all afternoon sweating just to lead you two here so we could turn around and go right back because you think the place is haunted," Sam huffed, crossing her arms and glaring at her friend. "If you wanted to talk us out of this, why didn't you try that earlier? And why did you bother coming with?"

"It's okay, Tuck," Danny assured him, clapping a hand to his shoulder before tentatively placing a foot on the first step. "Can you imagine what it must be like in there? Nobody's stepped foot inside for centuries. It's the closest thing we can get to seeing a whole 'nother world!"

With that, he walked into the tunnel and their world shattered.

There was a cracking sound so invasive that they felt more than heard it and a bright white light flooded the clearing, burning their eyes even when they had brought their hands up to cover their face.

They had no idea what had happened, but they were absolutely sure that Danny had been in the middle of it.

"Danny? Danny!" his friends shrieked before the flash had cleared and they were able to see again. "Danny, are you okay?"

Picking themselves off of the rough moss covered cobblestones on which they had fallen, they fumbled forward into the tunnel, heedless of the fact that doing just that was what had gotten Danny into whatever mess he had gotten himself. They stopped short, however, when they saw him standing in front of them a few yards away.

"Oh, Danny, you scared us," Sam heaved in relief.

"Man, what was that?" Tucker asked him in a wavering voice, hoping that as the son of the two people who had been looking into this sort of thing, he would know what had just happened.

But then Sam got a good look at Danny and held Tucker back with a quick hand to his arm. They both stared at the white haired figure that looked down its nose at them from what had to have been Danny's face, because it looked exactly like him and who else could it be. But at the same time, it couldn't possibly be because Danny's hair wasn't white and the eyes currently looking at them were green and glowed with a cold light.

"Danny…?" she asked hesitantly, almost scared to break the silence, but she had to know what was going on.

The figure straightened and shook his head as if trying to clear it, then jerked and stumbled to its knees.

All caution was thrown aside as Sam and Tucker ran forward to help their friend up because they knew that something was definitely wrong. When they finally reached him, his hair was black again and blue eyes fluttered open to look at them dazedly.

"Wha- what happened?" he asked, arms flailing to find purchase on the stone beneath him. Then he groaned. "Why does my head hurt so much?" One of his hands slipped through his hair to cushion the bruise but his hand went limp with unconsciousness before he had found the jagged cut on the back of his head.

Sam and Tucker stared at each other over the prone form of their friend, not understanding what had happened but realizing that they needed to get him help and the only way to do that was to get him home, back through the woods they had tromped through for hours.

Swinging one of his arms over each of their shoulders, they began the difficult descent down the stone steps, not daring to look back at where they had been. But as soon as they were out of sight and taking their first break of the journey, they exchanged a long helpless look.

Because what on earth had just happened?