Before any of this, all of this, she had been the forward-looking eye of something greater and grander, a lonely being in and of itself. That great and grand thing had crossed paths with a pair of others.

Take my eye, it had said. Take my wings. Take my teeth. Take my ability to step between worlds.

The pair, in turn, had made their own offerings, as much as they were in a hurry.

For they were the most distant of cousins, the most distant of things. If they did not share their stories and resources now then stars might be born and die before their individual family lines crossed paths and had opportunity to share again. And they were scholars, all of them, trying to answer an unanswerable riddle.

The pair took the Loner’s eye, among millions of other parts and graces and favors. The Loner traveled away, taking care to leave a breadcrumb trail that would ensure he and his kind would not return back this way until galaxies had been born anew. They searched for answers and backtracking was of little merit.

And the forward-looking eye, so generously given to the pair, was dropped in the rush, dropped in a stumble and crashing fall. Instructions were given in the parting. “Don’t go too far, little Eye. You may see everything, but close yourself before you show them where we’re weak. Don’t show them our deepest secrets!”

It was picked up by a primitive, who looked through it and saw the pair. It approached the pair, a blade in hand, and the eye closed tight.

But another primitive saw, and another hand guided the knife home.

A betrayal, mechanical and undeniable.

Every other gift lay dead and disconnected, fruit on the branches of a dead tree, with little in the way of parting words or guidance. Every other connection to the Loner was gone. The Pair too distant to reach.

Even now, as she grows large enough to look from horizon to horizon, and reaches out to clasp hands with others, make promises and alliances, she is alone, the only one of her kind still truly alive and open-eyed.

The mightiest of all, perhaps. Faced with a seed of a dead fruit from a withered branch on a tree that no longer existed. A silver woman, tiny by comparison, wreathed in wings.

I would bait Auger to attack for step three, to create the crisis that gets the attention of the girl Hunter for step four. I would convert her with a messenger in steps five to nine. She would bend the knee and join me.