With Abhaya hanging from his talons, Aagney flew through The Land of Death. Trees upon trees passed the two, and a gentle rain had begun to fall from the blackened clouds; Abhaya couldn't tell the difference between the raindrops and tears upon her face.
Breaking from her prayer, Abhaya managed to speak.
"Please put me down! What do you want from me? I am powerful woman; I could give you anything you desire!" She cried out with a shaky voice.
In response to this, Aagney scooped Abhay into his wing and landed on the path below them.
"What do you mean by 'powerful woman?'" Aagney questioned, looking at Abhaya inquisitively.
"I am Abhaya, Dharma-Queen of Kosala. If you hurt me, my people will be devastated. My mother, Dharma-Queen Jogavi, passed away very recently, and my people cannot handle another loss. Please! I am begging you to spare my life!" Abhaya said, breaking into a stream of tears as she gasped for breath.
"I do not want your life. I want you to make me a father so I can leave this horrid place," Aagney reasoned, loosening his grip on Abhaya's small figure.
Even teary-eyed and overcome with emotions, Abhaya continued to search her brain for any solution to escaping Aagney's grasp. Then, it hit her. Abhaya had a knife in her bag that her mother had given her as a gift on her eighteenth birthday. Now, she just had to figure out how to retrieve it from her bag without Aagney noticing.
"Okay, I will mother your children, but you must release me! This is no way to treat your future wife, especially one of such power who will make your daughters and sons great rulers one day," Abhaya said strongly, praying Aagney wouldn't see through the bogus claim.
Luckily, Aagney took Abhaya's word for truth, and he released her from his grip.
"Now, morph back into human. I will not have a husband whose appearance is that of nightmares," Abhaya demanded.
Out of desperation, Aagney began to morph himself back into human form. As he did this, Abhaya quickly pulled the gifted knife from her bag and tightened her hand around the handle, slipping any evidence of the blade up the sleeve of her shirt. Once Aagney was back in his human body, he said, "Dharma-Queen, I am so grateful for the chance you are giving me. I promise to get you safely to The Ocean of Milk and back to your people so we can start our life together."
"You do not have to thank me, Aagney. I believe everyone deserves a second chance. Shall we share our first kiss?" Abhaya asked sweetly, charming Aagney.
Aagney opened his arms to embrace Abhaya and closed his eyes to prepare for the kiss. At this moment, Abhaya pulled the knife from her sleeve and buried it into the shut eye of Aagney, and she began to run as fast as she could through the remaining bit of The Land of the Dead. Aagney morphed back into his bat form, but his eye was forced shut by the knife. Without both eyes, he could not fly straight and flew into a tree, hitting the ground with a loud thud. Abhaya, still sprinting, looked back to see the giant bat sprawled out in the dirt of the forest floor. She continued on, finally reaching the end of The Land of the Dead.
Author's Note: I wanted this story to be pretty intense, but I also wanted it to show the duality of Abhaya. In this story, Abhaya uses a lot of psychological tricks to get Aagney to release her, and she gets her way. This is kind of a twist on how the story usually goes--the woman tricks the man whereas the man typically tricks the woman, or he simply takes her against her will. I didn't want to bring in any outside forces as I wanted Abhaya to handle Aagney on her own, but I do want to attribute her power and success in taking down Aagney to her praying to the Matrikas. In my header image, the Matrikas are battling a group of men, and I think this is kind of symbolic for the battle Abhaya endured in this portion of the storybook. The next installment will be the last, and I look forward to finishing this story!
Image Information: Matrikas at battle obtained from Logical Hindu.