Ravenpaw is already stalking away, though he pauses when he looks over his shoulder and sees that Barley isn't following him yet.

"Huh, I never met any cat before who changed whether they could talk.  Except I s'pose myself, if it wasn't just growing into it."

"My suspicion would be that there aren't lots of ways for cats to become able to talk, so probably you and Cricket had the same one and he seems pretty sure it was the nip, but I could be wrong."

"Alright.  It was interesting to meet you."

"You too. I apologize that I have brought an ill-mannered cat with me."

"Yes goodbye."  Ravenpaw and Barley, the latter looking slightly amused, canter away.

"Did you have any other business with WindClan?" Tallstar asks once the loners have gained some distance.

"Don't think so."

"Would you like an escort back to Fourtrees or did you have other plans?"

Cam looks at Fireheart.

"You could perhaps fly there?  Or - if you're hiding the wings from other Twolegs I suppose the moors don't have much cover from the Thunderpath.  You could make a monster.  I don't have plans for the rest of today beyond meeting ShadowClan and maybe a bit more of ThunderClan."

"I'm not hiding the wings very carefully, but I'd rather not be flying around in broad daylight, especially carrying Cricket. I do have a small monster I could go get, we passed the campground."

"That would take many times longer than walking to Fourtrees, and we'd be trespassing in RiverClan.  And I don't know how far around you'd have to go in it before you found a way to get back to this Thunderpath."

"An escort sounds fine then."

"Mudclaw will lead you.  Thank you very much for the bridge; we look forward to seeing you in the future."

"You're welcome!"

The other three WindClan cats depart and Mudclaw leads Cam and Fireheart on the trek back to neutral territory.

"I don't think I quite understand the territoriality thing," Cam tells Fireheart. "I mean, humans have analogous things but it seems possibly different."

"That seems likely.  How do Twolegs do it?"

"Usual caveat that I'm from another world, but. You don't enter someone's house without an invitation, but that's actually hard to do, by and large, the doors and windows will be closed by default and often additionally hard to open past that. You can walk into their yard, if you have a reason, like because you're bringing them a delivery or something, but if you do it a lot without a reason they might start complaining about trespassing. Countries - like enormous Clans, I guess, though so enormous that there are qualitative differences - may have laws about how long visitors can stay and who gets to live there, but they're pretty - impersonal, I guess is the concept I want."

"That doesn't really sound too different except for how Clans have more cats than Twoleg nests have Twolegs, and our territory is bigger than their yards.  And that we think it's right to complain about trespassing on the first time without a reason."  Ear flick.  "Or sometimes even with a reason."

"Also, to me, at least, the boundaries aren't very obvious, and I can usually tell where a Twoleg property boundary is and can definitely identify a house."

"They're very obvious to us.  And the fact that most cats don't know where the other Clans' camps are is part of what makes them harder to invade."

"Yeah, maybe most of the difference is that I can't smell borders."

"And we teach apprentices where their territory is as part of their training.  Rogues or kittypets sometimes get more slack than other Clans do.  - Could you make yourself a better nose, or do you not feel the right way?"