The counterpart is dead.
Seeking to understand the host creatures, it coded shards to emulate them. Those shards now provide the entity with it's first emotion.
Shock.
The entity is still, unmoving, conserving energy in face of the threat. But the end of the cycle cannot be fought. It is inevitable.
Denial.
The entity searches through the different realities for any hope of the counterpart. Through worlds both devoid of life and home to billions of hosts it searches finding no trace of the counterpart.
Isolation.
The entity is alone. It's counterpart is dead and now only grief remains.
Warmth.
The entity is confused. This is another new feeling. But where did from where did it originate?
Comfort.
The entity feels a presence approach from across realities. It is immense, greater to him than the entity is to the hosts. This is not one of the entity's own species.
Query: Identity.
He that is Alone.
The entity is confused. How would the Solitary One propagate without another to continue the cycle?
Query: Propagation.
Amusement.
Confusion persists. The entity fails to understand, but the other speaks once more.
Demonstration.
Destination.
The destination is another version of this planet yet not. This new destination may provide more information and the key to a new cycle.
Agreement.
Trajectory?
The proposed trajectory appears to travel both far and not at all. Realization strikes. It lies eons in the past.
Agreement.
Space and time seems to twist and fold as the other brings the entity to the new destination: a disc shaped world in a void, lit only by the light of two trees. The original host species were in stasis, unwaking, even as a similar group was awakening.
The other had transferred the entity's shards which now began to attach to new hosts.
The entity looked to the future, finding that the small population of this world meant that, even if it's counterpart yet lived, shard saturation would not be achieved until long after it's lifespan.
Anger.
The other had tricked the entity, leading it to a place where it would not survive.
The entity gathered itself to strike-
Warmth.
-and felt the light of the two trees. It was a pure energy, more than enough to sustain it nigh-indefinitely. There would be no need for the cycle. It could thrive for the equivalent of innumerable cycles in this place.