Kai had the sensation of taking little falls. Over and over again, he could feel his pit swing with the falls. A slow up followed by a sharp down... and was that rain? He feared to open his eyes, afraid they may roll out of his head, along with the rest of the world. Slowly, around the consistent barrage of rain, he heard noises. It sounded like nothing he had heard in his life before. There were so many guttural sounds as to be vulgar to the senses. Whatever these were, they were no Neander.

Doing his best to concentrate through the foreign sensation, Kai struggled to listen to the sounds. If they were people, they sounded like they whispered every other sound, and all of the noises came from the chest and throat. Kai never even knew something that looked akin to him could make noises like that. Quickly, the noises of the Not-men were drowned out by the crashing of the waves, the crack of thunder overhead so loud that it sounded like the whole of the earth split in one great crash. The drops slowly building to a roaring crescendo, thundering on and around him. The waves slamming into the beast they rode threatened to drown him, if the rain did not.

The rain eased long enough for Kai to open his eyes, the swaying and lunging of the boat intense. It reminded Kai of the Mountain Father’s hunger, how it would rumble and roll, making the ground look as terrible as this water in an instant. The thundering overhead rose to a fever pitch as it seemed all the sky was awash with the zigzagged lines of fire-veins. The veins pulsed like the heart of a giant beast. Each flash came with a new roar, showing Kai the horror found himself in. Every direction water, every direction fire-veins.

”What are those Not-men pointing at?” Kai thought to himself. With horror, he looked in the direction they pointed, only to see the silhouette of a new monster. This one dwarfed the one they rode in. The beast rose out of the water like a mountain, huge and imposing, with even more Not-men than there were Neander in Kai's entire mine. The roars and flashes left his head spinning, and the monster threatened to make his heart burst from his chest. Kai could feel the earth leaving him and fainted.

Kai startled awake and did his best to feel his pit. The rolling sensation was gone, the ground as solid as any other time he awoke. The sound was still there, just more distant. The crash of the waves and those voice-noises. In some ways, it reminded Kai of the sound of far off Horn-noses, ruffling grunts with the occasional sounds of braying. He rolled up, placing his bare feet on the dirt floor. The floor was newly cut and packed flat, dug with a tool that, to Kai's eye, was impossible to fathom, like a shard was used to cut fine the room. The lines were so straight that they hurt his eyes and forced him to look away. The proportions were wrong: the door too tall, the floor too cramped. Even for a cell, this was tight. His cell in the Earth-mine was even wider than this. Kai felt like his shoulders couldn't fit through the door-even if it weren't barred.

Beyond the door was a portal to a place Kai never thought possible. The light, bright and pointed, bursted through the doorway, followed by an overwhelming wave of sounds and smells. Kai was hit with the call of birds and animals, both foreign and familiar. The smells of spices so pungent and hot, he wanted to sneeze and cover his nose. He was assailed by sour scents and sweat on levels he didn’t know were possible, even in the hottest of earth veins. Worst of all was the differing foul smells of animals, types that Kai never thought possible. So many animals in cages made Kai dizzy with remorse and sadness. No animal is caged, only Ush are caged and that is so no other has to. This village was huge, many of the family villages he was raised in could fit inside its walls with room to spare. There must be hundreds of Not-people. The overwhelmed neanderthal fainted again, slumping slowly to the floor as his eyes lost focus.

Kai woke in his third different bed in as many wakings. This place was quiet and, most thankfully, dark. His eyes scanned the room around him, finding it to be simple but not bare. He released his breath, not realizing he had been holding it to that point. The smells were still pungent and loud, but there were not as many of them. He could smell some dried herbs from the areas around his outpost, along with some dry, acrid smell he never experienced. Kai could feel his nostrils dry with every sweet inhale. A burning plant was all Kai knew it was and, past that, he could only imagine the place it came from.

Kai sat up like the last time he awoke, this time slowly standing when his feet touched the stone floor. Looking down, he saw it was cut in a way unlike he had seen before, much like the cell. The stone had red and gold flecks and sparkled in the lower light. He smelled the other Neander before seeing him. The person addressed Kai with a high, clear voice.

“Welcome to open-sky, Ush, though I'm not sure this is what you had in your skull when you set out that night.” The other man came from behind a wall Kai hadn't noticed, with all the straight lines distracting him.

“ You look small, boy. Bah! Not surprised. We never did feed your kind.” Kai started, realizing this wasn't a fellow Ush. He went to prostrate himself on the floor in submission. In the time before he could, the better-fed Neander pushed him back onto the bed and laughed.

“ Not of matter here, Ush. These Not-men don't follow our ways. They call us Trolls and Orcs, for making you do animal’s work.” Kai shrunk back, unsure if he was to be struck or attacked. Memories of years of abuse were quick to make his muscles jump and twitch. He knew he didn't have much energy to fight, but he would try. In his clouded mind, it took him until he was handed a bowl of rich smelling soup to act. He only ended up leaning back, away from the soup as it was set at a side table, with what smelled like a chunk of bread beside it.

To Kai, the meal seemed a feast after living on gruel or bugs he found while hammering.

Kai eyed the soup, the smell drifting into his nostrils. He knew better than to move or even imagine eating the soup. His mouth watered as his greater stood in front of him looking down.

“I was like you, stuck in the Way. I have been here for many seasons.” Kai’s eyes rose with that, wide and in wonder and at last he spoke. His voice soft and high, crackling from disuse.

“The Not-men are not beasts who ride monsters?”

This time the other Neander laughed a happy, booming laugh, one Kai hadn't heard since his childhood. “No, no, little ash-heap. I think you safest you have ever been in this life.” The Neander nodded while smiling, as if agreeing with his own statement. “You eat, I sure you have many asks. I have one question for you this day. What is your Mother-given name?”

Kai looked up, partially stunned and partially angry to have this strange Neander even mention his most personal thing, Greater or not. The only thing his mother was able to give him. Years of him being abused came back, cowing him, and he shook the dull anger out of his voice before answering.

“My name is Kai.”