At the beginning of To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, Kira inadvertently connects with the xeno for the first time and faces disastrous consequences when she accidentally kills her fiancé, Alan. As she cannot free herself from the xeno, she decides she needs to learn to control it. However, until she is willing to trust the xeno completely, she is not able to fully integrate with it or cooperate to use their combined power to create instead of destroy. In the end, she realizes that when she relinquishes the need to control anything but herself, she and the xeno can cooperate fully—and together are capable of nearly anything.  

Kira is terrified of the xeno’s potential and her inability to control it. However, after she injures the Wallfish passenger, Sparrow helps her understand that she needs to control her own emotions because the xeno is merely responding to them. Accordingly, Sparrow designs their training to instruct Kira herself instead of the xeno. After a time, Kira is able to control her emotions, which leads to a shift in her perspective and an acceptance of her limitations: “She wasn’t going to allow herself to get worked up over things she couldn’t change.