Aolo was too amazed by what he had thought to be the Holy Ring of Maria’s clan to do much more than follow the thick-armed man and the one who brought the towels. How they cleaned themselves differed from clan to clan, from tribe to tribe, but everyone did it to some degree or other. Man was closer to Cat than to Dog in that respect, Aolo thought. He often thought he himself was much like Cat, happiest alone or with little company…<br/><br/>He marveled at the many stone chambers, the massive doors. Nobody had ever tried to build something like that – nobody he knew, he corrected himself. Earth and Sky stretched much further than he had thought just a moondance before. He wasn’t sure anymore what he had thought before. He hadn’t thought there was an _end_ to Earth and Sky like there was an end to a stick or a raft or a man’s arm, but he had assumed it would just go on, like Sea went on, never quite the same but never quite different.<br/><br/>Aolo was alone in the chamber now, and he had understood that they were lending him clothing. That was unusual, but with so much obvious wealth around him, it couldn’t be a total surprise. He stood, transfixed, staring at the floor rushes. Someone had completely changed the rushes very recently. He pushed them aside with his feet. There was wood under, but it didn’t give way under his weight – maybe they had harder trees here, or they had just stacked… no, that couldn’t be, there was a chamber under this one (a scary idea). So they had found a way to put the wood together… he had seen rounded trunks in the room below, they must be what kept this up… and there was probably some support by the wall, too. Aolo wanted to meet their Makers. They were true friends to the ancestors…<br/><br/>Snapping out of his musings, Aolo dressed in the clothes he had been given with some difficulty. The leggings were affixed to the vest with bindings of a material he didn’t know, but the points of them were made of horn, he recognized. He managed to get it done, combed his hair and walked out. The thick-armed man with the lovely children was waiting. Aolo would have liked to shave, but knew it would be hard to make the man understand what he wanted. “Onliheet-o jedisc,” Aolo said with a slight smile. He was getting hungry.