"Oh, my one, sure, I can show him." Cam brings up a text file and writes Can you read this? on it and shows Snowkit.

It takes maybe a minute of staring and tail-thrashing but he does eventually look up at Cam and open and close his mouth again.

"- Er, he said yes," clarifies Brackenfur after a beat.

"Cool!" Cam adds to the file, I am going to make a machine like this that cats can use to make words like this!

While Snowkit puzzles:  "I don't know how one would go about explaining pitch to him.  He can say quite a bit to other cats."

"I could probably rig something up on my end to pitch his voice down but it'll make all other things harder for me to interpret. I guess it might come in a chiplocked version with playback..." He can't look through possibilities on his computer while Snowkit is still looking at it though.

Brackenfur relays, "When?"

"When what?"

After some back-and-forth with Brackenfur making a lot of incomprehensible-to-Cam body language, Snowkit says and is repeated down a few octaves, "When can cats make words like this?"  He poke poke pokes the chiplock.

"As soon as I make it but I need to know where it's supposed to go! I am still waiting to be shown!"

"We should probably head back to camp and let everyone know he's alive anyways."

"Quite." He writes to Snowkit, Would you like me to carry you?

It still takes him a while to read that, but he might be getting a touch faster?  "Why," he asks, still via Brackenfur.

"Because you were injured and it might be more comfortable? I don't know how good a job I did patching you up, it might still hurt."

Snowkit doesn't quite rub on Cam's legs, once he gets the meaning of that, but he does go stand quite near them.

Cam reaches down in case Snowkit wants to climb into his arms.

It seems he does!

So Cam will carry Snowkit and follow Brackenfur.

Snowkit starts purring before too long and has absolutely no volume moderation about it.

Brackenfur's glances back over his shoulder look pretty uncomfortable but he doesn't object out loud.

Probably there is cat politics about being carried, or something. Cam is not going to pet him unless asked.

He is not asked.  Snowkit stops purring when he catches one of Brackenfur's looks and adjusts his weight uneasily, but starts up again after a few minutes.

They approach a dry ravine with a dozen or so cats inside it; contrary to what Fireheart said it looks like Cam could fit in it just fine.  One of them is a pale tabby surrounded by a few other cats and crying, in the human sense of hitching with sobs rather than wailing the way Snowkit was before.  "Mama mama mama mama," Snowkit repeats urgently in Cam's range of hearing once he spots her.

Cam puts Snowkit down right next to the apparent mama mama mama mama.

It turns out that these cats are more capable of producing tears in response to overwhelming emotion than the ones Cam's familiar with.  She wraps her forelegs around Snowkit and licks fervently behind his ears.  Both their motors are going full force.  All of the other cats are watching them or Cam and murmuring amongst themselves.

...he will take this opportunity to find out what there is in the way of pitch-adjustment hearing aids and stick one in his ear.