How the Earlymen came to be
Before there was a first tribe, there wasn't a tribe at all. No fire. No shelter. No name for what came next.
Then came the Earlymen. The first, and for a long time, the only. They didn't wait for permission, because there was no one to ask. They touched the flame before anyone knew to fear it.
They weren't early because they beat somebody else to it. They were early because they were first, period.
Now the fire has a new shape. And the Earlymen are early again.