After sending Iraniyan and his people to Ardhanari planet, Maya went into depression. She sulked in her home all alone where her people banished her to! It was a planet with the highest content of mercury. It didn't affect Maya as her body adapted to her new habitat. The betrayal of Iraniyan was too much for her to handle. She could not believe that her love took her rival’s side and insulted her love. It hurt her soul more than she had ever imagined. Until Iraniyan was born, for almost a hundred years, Maya did nothing but to look for him on other planets. And when finally she discovered him, he betrayed her for Theeya? 

The one thing she failed to understand was Iraniyan was not Aadhan himself. He is a new soul with no memory of his previous birth. The extreme control Kayalvizhi had on him felt like selfishness at its finest to him rather than love. The fear Kayalvizhi had for Theeya was a natural instinct in her because though Kayalvizhi had no past memories she is a part of Maya’s soul and she had the aversion for Theeya etched in her soul. She knew Theeya had bad intentions in her bones and she wanted to protect her love from falling for her tricks but she failed to validate Iraniyan’s feelings in all this tug-of-war between her and Theeya. 

Above all that, she compared herself with Theeya. If Theeya was evil, then Maya is equally evil as Theeya. When Theeya knew Aadhan would never love her, she took his life. If that was wrong, then what did Maya do differently? She cursed Iraniyan when she knew he had lost his love for her. The very thought of them being an equal enraged her. 

‘I have become a monster because of her!’ Maya told herself. 

The repetitive thoughts and her loneliness made her mad at Theeya. She thought that Theeya manipulated Iraniyan and hence it was not Iraniyan’s fault. Again the thought of punishing Iraniyan, for a mistake that is not his, killed her from inside. Maya struggled hard to control her emotions. On a celestial event, her powers grew exponentially in her that expanded her aura. The pain, agony, and anger in her aura made the asteroids circling around her planet go haywire. The gravitational pull that kept the asteroids with her planet loosened resulting in the destruction of another planet full of lives near her. The asteroids hit the planet in numerous places completely killing its life of it. 

The guilty feeling of blood on her hands overcame everything. She first wiped off her people by letting her emotions loose. She then cursed her love and now killed numerous lives in the name of rage. She decided to take her own life. She tried numerous times and every time it was a disaster. She dunked herself in water, she put herself in ice, she dug herself, she slit her throat! No matter what she tried, nothing happened to her. She breathed fine under water, ice did nothing to her skin, even after being under the ground for three days, she came out alive and well. When she tried to slit her throat, she felt tremors all over her body and she saw natural disasters in all planets that support life in her galaxy. 

‘Killing myself is nothing but bringing danger all over again. Killing her will liberate me. I should kill her to stop me from destroying lives.’ She understood that her life is connected to the life of all life-bearing planets in her galaxy. She started searching for Theeya but she could not see her no matter how hard she tried. It was like she was never there.

***

The collective prayers of the earthlings gave immense power to Theeya and transported her to the Ardhanari planet, the only planet that Maya never visits. As the earthlings worshiped her and made huge temples dedicated to her, she had a natural connection to earth which means she needed no device to travel to earth. So the only places Theeya could visit without the device of Pingalan were the ardhanari planet and the earth. 

But Theeya never knew that she could travel to earth. She spent her days in loneliness in the ardhanari planet while investigating all the places where the portals open and how to travel through it without Maya’s knowledge. 

Whenever she jumped from one planet to another, her love had always been there. Now Theeya believed that if she managed to escape this place and land somewhere else, Iraniyan would surely be born there. She desperately needed to move out of this place and her powers were diminishing every passing day.

“Aargh!” Theeya screamed at the top of her voice as she experienced a sharp pain in her chest that traveled all the way to her head. Vague scenes of giants and dwarfs in water flashed in her eyes. The big giants tried to carry as many dwarfs as possible up above the roaring waters. Kalinga was crying while hugging a huge tree trunk.

“Theeya! Come and help us!” He called for her while a huge wave washed over him and when the water settled there was no one! 

“Linga!” Theeya’s eyes poured. In the more than thousand years she had lived, she had never shed tears for anyone except for her love. She had never learned to love anyone but the unconditional love and devotion Kalinga showed her had changed her mind. The tears that poured out of her eyes fell to the ground opening a portal, sucking her in. 

When she woke up, she was on earth! A barren earth. As far as her eyes could see, there was water! There were numerous islands peeking out of the water but the vegetation were all washed up and destroyed. There were no signs of life. The huge temples the giants built sunk under the waters. Before, it was one large piece of land with plains and mountains covered with oceans on all the sides and now the land was broken into pieces and surrounded by waters. 

“Lingaaaa!” She screamed at the top of her voice and her voice echoed in the vast emptiness. She ran around the land to see a any form of life and all she saw was some plants trees trying hard to hold onto the ground. Small insects and critters were flushed out of their underground burrows. She saw many land dwelling animals struggling to stay afloat. She gathered everything that seemed lively on the pieces of land nearby. 

When she dived deep into the waters she saw many giants and dwarfs inside the temple hugging the lingam and the device that she used to come to earth. The unwavering trust they had on her moved her to a different state. She felt like she had failed to save them all. It was a torture to see them all dead. She fought with the humongous sharks and crocodiles who were eating the corpses. When she started pulling the dead people to the nearby land, she saw Kaalan and his family along with Meeval and other merpeople. 

“What had happened here?” She caught Kaalan’s throat.

“It was all Maya. she got very angry when the giants and the dwarfs started carving your face on the temple walls. She destroyed them all by summoning the water. I could not stop her.” He said in a hurry. “She went away telling  me that she is going to kill you so that you won't interfere in her love life anymore.” He added when he saw Theeya in silence. 

“She did this in my name?” Theeya asked, broken. Everyone here died because they thought she was their god? What did she ever do to them? Nothing! She did nothing to their betterment but to her own selfishness. They saved her life and fell for her tricks. She only mend the trouble that she pushed them into. 

All the times she had destroyed a whole life of a planet, the people there knew she was the villain. They despised her. They thought that even stepping on her shadows is a sin. They infuriated her. They tried to kill her. And so, when she wiped them off of the face of the mortal world, she felt no remorse. But this time, she didn't harm them but she felt their blood on her hands. She betrayed their trust. For the first time, Theeya thought about her death. 

“Then why didn't she come in search of me?” She asked Kaalan. She wanted to die to compensate for the loss of so many lives in her name. She had no courage to take her own life and hence she wanted to fight Maya. She knew Maya had control over the natural elements and was superior to her. 

“I don’t know!” He said while still trying hard to escape from her clutch. But she let him go when all the critters that she saved from the waters swarmed around her legs. Meeval looked at Theeya. She saw the genuine tears in Theeya’s eyes. She was already scared of Maya for she had destroyed all the lives that she met here and that pushed her towards Theeya. 

“We are not powerful like you or Maya. I had lost my friend for whom we came out of the water in the first place. Even now, I think you are responsible for all the misery she has gone through. I don't like you. But I can see there is far more history between you, my friend, and Maya who looked exactly like my friend Kayalvizhi and Iraniyan. Even though I don't like you, you are not scary unlike Maya. help us rebuild lives here.” Meeval spoke her heart out to Theeya.

“Yes, that is the only way you can feel better,” Kaalan added and Theeya determined at that moment to make things better for living on earth. 

She mated Meeval and her mer-friends with Maayon’s family to make more people. She nurtured all the animals and brought food for them. She helped them make more babies and raise them in a healthy environment. Slowly, the animals adapted to their environment and developed new features to survive without her help. All the trees and plants that she saved from the disaster were spread across the pieces of land making huge forests. She managed all the pieces of land using her teleportation power and surprisingly, she never got tired for thousands of years. Her power kept growing, making her stronger every century that she passed helping humans and animals settle in their habitat. 

The water started receding, bringing up the temples and pyramids that the giants built. The human beings who were much smaller than the giants were awed by the revelations. They saw Theeya’s face and the Lingam! They started to build more temples in smaller sizes and started worshiping the Lingam as it looked divine and otherworldly. Though they were mesmerized by her beauty, they thought that she is one among themselves as her features looked similar to the humans. So they admired her beauty but failed to worship her. Theeya never cared for it. She felt more powerful and was very proud of all the things that she had helped establish on earth.

After about 10,000 years, Theeya felt a tug in her heart. It aroused a feeling that she had long lost. A feeling that she had longed for and lived for all her life. But now it feels like those days are ancient history. 

“No! Don't fall for this feeling. It will bring back Maya. if Maya comes here and destroys what I have built so far, I would be broken. I cannot afford to lose anything on earth to her.” She kept saying to control her from running to the love of her life. 

“Maya never came for me in 10,000 years! Why would she come here now?”

“She would have felt the same tug that you have felt. She would come for Aadhan if not for you.”

“I have decided not to fall in love. I don't care if Maya came for him.”

“I can’t see him with anyone else other than me.”

“But I like being like this. No commitments. No hurt, no pain. I am powerful and happy helping others.”

“I can't avoid him! He is here around me! I should leave this place.”

“Can I really leave without seeing him?” 

Her debates within herself were neverending. But her love won over her rightful thinking. She decided to see him once before leaving earth. She teleported to the place where her love was living. She saw AMARAN! He was a tribal leader living on top of a mountain with his people. He was a 30 year old well-built man with long hair and beard. He was devilishly handsome. She could no longer leave earth. She wanted him.