Third Guide. Third Guide, I am, but I have lost, lost this. I have failed my kin, and I have failed sacred oaths, taken long, long ago, by my ancestors.

Slytherayaim swam in a riverbed, treading water, far below the surface of the port, as he noticed his burns, noticed them as only a Nari could.

He had failed. And yet, as thoughts processed in his mind, as possibilities and eventualities both, became clear, Slytherayaim exposed his fangs.

Slytherayaim exposed his fangs, but that was the Nari equivalent of a smile.

He let himself crouch down, by the grasses growing upon the harbors bottom, and looked up at the tiny ships, far above. The Princess’s blast had thrown him here. Thrown him dozens upon dozens of feet, to the river.

She had proven to be something different. A chink, in the otherwise perfect pattern.

But still, Slytherayaim exposed his fangs in triumph. He might have failed, personally, but, eventualities, they were inevitable. The Makini would dispose of Mai, as a part of their normal cycle. They had been his backup, just as he intended.

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He might have failed, but the tapestry continued to weave itself. And, as Slytherayaim had prepared for his failing, and had determined he needed to do nothing, in order to rectify it all, he had not really failed, at all.

He had been assigned, by the First, and the Second, to kill Casari is Koranor, as well, but now, due to the pattern, things would go away oh, so neatly. The Makini would dispose of him, as well.

I was a preemptive failsafe, nothing more, nothing more. I have failed, but even in failing, I have succeeded.

To use a human phrase, the deck was stacked; it was stacked from the beginning. The turns and twists, that prey uses to try to evade the pattern, they, they make life interesting.

But prey cannot evade the pattern forever. It is the pattern, that I and my kind are forever bonded to wield. The pattern has been built for millennia, and even without my help, it will not falter now.

Slytherayaim might have liked to stay underwater for several more hours, nursing his wounds, but he had duties to attend to. He swam for the surface, knowing that the First and the Second would be waiting for him.

The pattern is fate. Casari is a fool for love. He always was. And so, Casari and Maiako will die by Makini hands, in Xiater.