"I'm glad mice did not turn out to be people here."

"Me too!  That was a pretty worrying half-day."

"Huh, I hadn't gotten the impression that many cats were anxious about it especially."

"I think most cats would be pretty upset if the number of deaths-that-mattered they were responsible for went from a pawful or so to all the paws of all the cats in all the Clans.  So maybe they just didn't want to think it could be true."

"Maybe! Though it did also seem like deaths were maybe only considered to matter if they were cats."

"Was this yesterday?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well, I learned¹ the word 'people' last moonrise when discussing the topic with my kits and hadn't heard it before then.  And it turned out they had just learned² it a little earlier in our conversation.  So it seems kind of hard to talk about it and maybe even to think about it, when the closest concept to that is just . . . 'cats'."

¹ The traditional meaning with which Cam was already familiar.
² The cat ghost magic kind.

"Oh, huh. Score one for Sapir-Whorf, I guess... that's a linguistic theory about it being easier to think about things you have words for."

"It was just a guess.  And I understood the importance before Stormkit mentioned 'people', the conversation just went more smoothly once he did."

"Do you guys just... change your names several times during your lives so you have the appropriate suffix? Like, you're all something-kit and then something-something and the leaders are something-star?"

"Apprentices are also something-paw."

"Is the first something always the same for a given cat's life?"

"Usually but not always always."

"Does the non-generic suffix usually get picked out in advance? Like, when you were, presumably, Graykit, was it understood that eventually you'd be Graystripe, or could you have been, I don't know, Gray...tree, or something."

"The Clan leader announces it at the warrior ceremony.  I guess in some cases it might be really obvious what the right name is ahead of time, but it's not declared until then."

"Huh. Is the first part chosen by your parents or also by the clan leader?"

"The leader, although parents often make suggestions."

"Huh. Where I'm from parents always name their kids and the name usually sticks entire except for a part some people change when they get married - uh, pick an intended lifelong mate."

...walk walk walk.

"My mate died last newleaf."

"- oh, I'm so sorry."

"Thank you.  And for - you fixed the river being poisoned - "

"I didn't actually, I can't remove things, just add them, but I restocked the fish..."