400,000 years later, at the edge of their family's territory until the next communal roost rearranges holdings, a young adult member of Earth's future first non-microbial interplanetary species fixes together a fire-starting implement, two strikeable rocks, a stopper, fletches, and a stick. Dropped from an altitude to light tinder, or the stick itself, its origins can be traced to an early game played even before the diversification of tool use beyond stone "shovels" and bone splinters used to extract root plants, insects, and burrowing creatures from the tundra, in which groups would drop rocks from high places and try to land them on top of one another. Eventually, they noticed that some of these rocks, when they collided, created sparks, and their species, the hybridized descendants of Crows and Ravens in the North American Arctic and Subarctic, began a long journey, one that would take them higher than any single one could have imagined on a quiet, chilly morning at the edge of the grand southern deserts, in what was once known as Michigan.