The stars swirled slowly through the bright mists of galaxies, stirring up the heavens into a whirling pool of future possbility. Into this turbulent mixture, a single delicate mote was hurled. Her size was not great, but within she carried incredible potential; a seed, tossed carelessly aside from infinity, now planted in the fertile soil of constellations.

She grew into a celestial tree, flourishing swiftly, and bore bright, glowing fruits which fell into an eternal dance about their mother, twirling about forever in their preordained paths. Her children, too, had children, but they were as different from their mothers as her own had been, now taking the form of still tinier spheres, beginning to hold their own entire family trees of children. Generations later, their young began to move as they wished, and multiply, and grow strong. The great mother smiled upon them, and everything seemed to be well.

Some among her distant descendants grew very powerful indeed. She decided that it was time for them to come back a little to their ancestry, and she paired each of them with a little sister who would grant them the powers of those who had come before, anxious to see how they would react.

They began to relearn the skills that their mothers possessed. It made her overjoyed to see them start to imitate each other, gradually discovering their birthright. They grew nearly as powerful as if they had been of the first generation, but they were too different from their mothers to be understood. Finally, a decision was made to merge the most powerful among them with their elders, thus allowing them to act as liaisons between the little ones and the great mother.

For a long time, all were satisfied.

One day, however, they began to quarrel amongst one another, and tried to harm the little sisters of the others. This displeased her immensely, as it did all of her children. Between themselves, they decided to create a means of protection for the little sisters, so that no one would be tempted to harm them, and their solution worked perfectly.

But something had gone wrong. One of the earliest mothers' children had become lost and confused, and had started to drain away her energies. She could not understand this, but was powerless to prevent it, for she was anchored in place too firmly to act. Yet something had to be done.