"Fair enough, though it seems likely there will be cultural differences about how much of an escalation scratching is."

"I don't think most cats go for it right away, just if they keep trying and you can't get free . . ."

"Yeah, legit. It'll just take some adjustment for the twolegs who aren't used to thinking about it like that even though having behaved this way even to non-speaking cats wouldn't reflect well on them."

"Our Twolegs in particular are fine."

"I'm glad to hear it! How did you wind up in their barn?"

"I had to leave ThunderClan for personal reasons, and Barley let me stay with him for a while."

"And then we liked each other so much that we got rid of 'for a while'."  Barley presses his nose into Ravenpaw's shoulder affectionately.

"How about you, Barley?"

"I grew up in Twolegplace as a stray, woke up and decided I didn't really like it there, walked out, found the barn and stayed.  The Twolegs and me warmed up to each other after a bit."

"- 'woke up'?"

"Mmhm.  Everything just came together one day."

"Could you talk before then? I'm wondering if you ate the same catnip as Cricket."

"Don't think so.  I was smaller then, though, maybe two or three moons.  I think it's just part of growing up for cats."

"Nnnnno," Gorsepaw chirps in.  "I could talk a little when I was very very small, and got better at it not all at once.  And I wake up every day, from sleep, not - whatever you mean."

"Do you remember if you interacted with catnip around that time?"

"No.  It was years ago."

"Fair enough. I don't know for sure if it was the catnip anyway, it was a while ago for Cricket too." Scritch scritch.

Purrr.

"Don't know for sure what exactly was the catnip?"

"That made me able to talk, you nincompoop."

"I don't think cats who can't talk can become cats who can talk, except for that some kits take longer than others."

"I was four years old. You nincompoop."

"I suppose you were one of the slower ones, then."  Ravenpaw brushes against Barley in a nonverbal suggestion of leaving.

"Some adult cats do not talk, I checked. It seems like a child of talking cats is always a talking cat, as far as I have determined, but sometimes a non-talking cat becomes a talking one. I think talking cats are a fairly local phenomenon, even."