"You're soft! And decent company even without a language in common. Cats and Twolegs originally began hanging out because Twolegs collect a lot of plant matter to eat in one place and that attracts rodents and those attract cats."

"I am so soft.  I'm glad you all mostly seem to like us instead of being envious?  Or do you like your bodies alright; I guess hands seem pretty useful although I'm not sure that'd make up for the rest of it.  For me.  No offense."

"I wasn't actually aware that you could fully appreciate your own softness! It seemed like it might get in the way of itself. Twolegs usually like our bodies all right but there's people who want specific alterations - not necessarily cat-themed ones, to be clear, I have wings and a non-catlike tail for instance."

"Brightpaw" (he says the name like it's bookended by sparkle emoji) "says I am.  And it's not like my tongue's soft."

"Humans don't like to experience fur texture on our tongues, so I guess that hadn't occurred to me."

"Hm.

You can pet me as long as you don't tell anyone."

"I wouldn't dream of it." He stops walking for a moment to pet Cloudpaw.

He is so soft!  Surprisingly so for someone living outdoors although not as much as Cricket.  He arches his back into Cam's hand.  "I guess I also should have made you promise not to steal me but it doesn't really seem like you would."

"I do not need to kidnap any cats! I already have wound up with more cats than I was planning on because Cricket decided he wanted me to bring him out of the shelter!"

"Taking me back to the shelter is what I'd be worried about!  If I were worried at all."

"Oh, were you there?"

"Yeah, that's where I met so many dogs!  And then the Twolegs who brought me to their nest had one too."

"Shelter dogs are probably barkier than usual. You ran away from the Twolegs? I hope they aren't too worried about you, they probably think you got hit by a car."

"They saw me get rescued.  I guess I could have gotten hit in the meantime."

"Rescued? Some Clan cats met up with you and led you to the woods?"

"Fireheart and his mate - Sandstorm, I dunno if you've met her - did.  The Twolegs let me out a bunch but it was so far from here that I couldn't find my way back, and then I guess some barn cat named Ravenpaw saw me or scented me or something, and mentioned it to Fireheart, and then they came and got me."

"I didn't even know Fireheart had a mate. Ravenpaw I've met, he seems nice."

"I'm not sure Fireheart knows either, honestly; he's awfully mouse-brained for how smart he is."

"...how would he not know, is 'mate' here being used in a really loose sense?"

"I don't know how tight a sense Twolegs usually use it in?"

"Twolegs actually usually don't say 'mate' about one another, we have a bunch of more specific words, except in dialects where 'mate' just means 'friend', but if we are using 'mates' to talk about pairs of other species, it tends to mean they're going to have kids together."

"That's not what it means for cats.  I mean, it can, and I bet those two'll have kits together eventually, but you can have kits with someone and not be mates or be mates without kits.  What are the Twoleg words?"

"Most Twoleg cultures have a formal ceremony of some kind you can do and then the parties who have done it are 'married' and are each other's spouses, or for gendered versions husband and wife; before that if they're planning on getting married they're fiancés, before that if they're just in a relationship of that genre it's usually 'boyfriend' or 'girlfriend' or 'partner' or something sorta cutesy."

"Huh!  That sounds like an awful hassle to keep track of but also kind of lovely.  What about when some Twolegs are romantically together but one of them wants to have kits with someone else?"

(Cloudpaw is missing a very neat notch out of the tip of one of his ears.)

"It's not typical but you'd use all the same words for the romantic Twolegs and the outside source of kid contribution would be called a 'donor'. Or maybe a 'coparent' if they were all raising the kids together. Twoleg children are not called kits, we chose to borrow the name for baby goats instead."