He's in a forest.  Looks like there was a pretty bad fire here recently.  There's no summoner apparent at eye level, but the flash of orange darting off into some charred undergrowth probably makes him look down.

The circle around him is not very neat, to say the least.  It's in ash, some of it having sort of a watercolor effect against the forest floor where rain didn't wash it away, some of it tracked back on in tiny pawprints.

Also the two, largely-overlapping dialects he just acquired seem to be made up of . . . meows.

"........hello?" Cam... meows.

"Er, hello," meows presumably the flash of orange from under the burnt bush, sounding equally confused.

"Where am I?"

"In ThunderClan's territory."  The cat emerges.  "I didn't know any Twolegs could talk."

"That's unfair to parrots," says Cam blandly. "You summoned me, so now I speak your language, is how it works."

"I what?  - How is that unfair to parrots."

"I was making a joke. They have two legs and can learn to imitate sounds such as speech. Where I'm from, cats don't talk."

"Well around here, Twolegs don't talk either."

"Are you sure they don't just speak a different language?"

". . . I suppose not.  What did you mean that I summoned you?"

"It looks like it was an accident, but this arrangement of pawprints and whatnot here appears to constitute a summoning circle, that being a diagram which enables beings like myself to appear in response. Traditionally you would offer to trade me something in exchange for some sort of material object but I'm not wedded to that."

"I don't even know what sorts of things a Twoleg would want," the cat admits.

"I usually take media recommendations but you don't seem to be literate so I'm not sure what kinds of media you might have to hand. It's okay, don't worry about it."

"All right."  The cat gathers his resolve, shifting from a confused demeanor to a confident one.  "I'll escort you to the border, then."

"What border would that be?"

"The one with Twolegplace."

"You have a border with folks you can't communicate with?"

"I suppose it is a bit different than the kind between Clans."

"Do the twolegs not want cats around, or what?"

"We're not kittypets."

"Ah, I see. Those are a different - culture? Species?"

"Kittypets live in Twoleg nests and - eat food given to them by Twolegs.  Clan cats live in the wild and take care of themselves and each other."

"Can you talk to the kittypets?"

"Of course," he meows.  ". . . There are legends about cats who don't talk but I haven't ever met one."

Cam finds a cat video with plenty of meowing on his computer and plays it, trying to see if it makes sense now.

No.  The tom cocks his head at the sound.

"Okay, apparently the cats where I'm from do not speak this language, if they talk at all."

"Very disconcerting."

"I mean, maybe it's just that this cat speaks a different language, I don't know, but I thought I'd check. You guys are organized in 'clans'?"

"Yes.  I'm the deputy of ThunderClan, and there are also WindClan, ShadowClan, and RiverClan.  And StarClan."

"...that's it?"

"Well, there are rogues and loners too."

"Fair enough. And you have a philosophical objection to being fed."

"It's against the warrior code."

"What warrioring do you guys do?"

"We defend our territory and the cats who live in it."

"From?"

The tom looks around at the burnt forest surrounding them.

"Lots of things.  Or, try to."

"...like forest fires, or...?"

He dips his head.  "Like forest fires."

"I am trying to figure out how cats fight forest fires and I got nothing."

"Poorly," he mews, somewhat mournfully.  "We helped the kits and elders evacuate; I don't know how you'd go about fighting fire."

"Well, I'd do it with magic, but nonmagical twolegs use water sources, generally speaking, or other things that can smother fire."

"StarClan did send rain.  I still don't know how living cats would do it.  Squeezing out soaked balls of moss on the flames, if it were a very small one?"

"...StarClan are dead cats?"

"They're our warrior ancestors, yes."

"And by 'they sent rain' you mean 'it rained'?"

"Yes."

"I see. Well. - Would you recognize the twolegs' language if you heard a sample of it?"

"I know a few of their words."

"Words for what?"

"'Princess,' 'Smudge,' 'Henry.'  'Rusty.'"

Cam starts trying words for "Princess", starting with English.

"Yes, that's it."

"Okay, cool, that means I'll be able to talk to them, which is weird but convenient. Is there anything having a translator would be useful for?"

"I would want to talk to some other cats about that first."

"Sure. Can I meet them too?"

"Would you swear to stay here and not harm anything while I went and fetched them," he replies after a brief consideration.

"This'll take how long?"

"I'd be back well before sunset."

"...yeah, okay, I'll wait here till sunset at the latest." He makes himself a chair and produces his computer and starts looking through local written material.

The first thing he checks is in comprehensible English, at a glance.

"Do you swear it," interrupts the cat.

"Is that special somehow? I don't have a particular specialness associated with it."

"I already don't want to have to tell my Clanmates I left a talking Twoleg trespassing unescorted in ThunderClan territory, but more than that I wouldn't want to explain that I didn't even get him to swear not to go rampaging through it.  It won't change the minds of cats determined not to trust you but it's better than not."

"I can swear to it but I do want to be clear this is not a stronger commitment for me than announcing my intention to take it really seriously. I swear I will wait here for you until sunset."

"That's all I was asking.  It won't be quite that long," he meows, and trots off.

English mostly continues to be English (of the early 2000s variety, even), though he catches a few odd words and constructions here and there before he hears a bell jingling through the forest, somewhere off that way and low to the ground.

And what might this bell belong to?

Another cat, apparently!  Cam spots her before she spots him and she startles once she does.

"Hi?"

"Hello," she chirps back, sounding remarkably unsurprised.

"I'm Cam, what's your name?"

Now she looks surprised.

" - Princess.  You can actually talk, not just imitate cat speak?"

"Yeah, it's a whole thing. Nice to meet you, Princess."

"Nice to meet you too.  What are you doing just sitting in the forest?"

"Waiting for somebody. And reading about your local twolegs population."

"What's reading?"

"You can invent a marking that signifies a sound, or an idea, and then put lots of them together, and when you look at the signifiers in a row you can figure out what the sequence of meanings or sounds was, and thereby communicate without talking out loud."

"Wow.

You haven't seen any forest cats around, have you?"

"I don't know what makes a cat particularly foresty."

"They live in the forest instead of with housefolk?  Um, they don't have collars; they're usually skinnier; most of them are scary but the ones I'm looking for aren't . . ."

"Why're you looking for them?"

"I haven't seen them since the fire and I don't know if they're okay - their names are Cloudpaw and Fireheart - one of them's white and very fluffy and the other one's orange, both toms - "

"I can't actually identify cat gender on casual inspection."

"I always thought that when housefolk weren't being helpful it was because they couldn't understand what we were saying to them.  Are you avoiding the question on purpose?"

"I don't know if the people you're looking for want you to find them, so I don't know whether it would be good of me to help you."

"They're my kin!  You don't have to tell me where they are - I just want to know if they're alive - "

"Look, I've been in this world for like two hours, I have never spoken to any cats before today - well, intelligibly to the cat - and I don't want to go around leaking a lot of information without having clarified with anyone if that's okay."

Princess huffs.  "Okay.  Will you tell them I was looking for them if you do see them, though?"

"That I am willing to do! You said Cloudpaw and Fireheart?"

"Yes.  Thank you."  And she jingles off further info the woods.

Cam goes back to reading. Mostly about cats, in case the local humans know their cats are sapient.

They don't seem to.

The sun is still quite high in the sky when Cam's summoner (or at the very least a similar-looking cat who seems to expect his presence) approaches, accompanied by a light ginger tabby and a grey cat with a twisted and scarred hind leg.  The three of them take turns opening their mouths as if in silent conversation, then look at Cam expectantly for a moment until the orange one says, " - Oh, you have to talk down here like this or otherwise they can't hear you - greetings, Twoleg."

"Greetings. What was your name? I don't think you ever introduced yourself."

"I'm Fireheart, and these are Sandstorm and Cinderpelt.  What was yours?"

"Cam. If you can't pronounce that I can make something up though. Princess was by and looking for you."

"Who's Princess?  No I can't pronounce that."

"Specifically Princess was looking for Fireheart and Cloudpaw, not you. How's 'Bell', my name has a part that means that in my native language."

"Kittypets have a way of translating Twoleg names; that'd be 'Cam' - she's Cloudpaw's mother, my sister - she was here?  In the forest?  Did she go back to Twolegplace?"

"She went that way, I don't know what her ultimate destination was."

"She doesn't know how to navigate the forest safely; we'll have to go find her - come on Sandstorm; Cinderpelt you stay here."  Fireheart takes off in the indicated direction.

Sandstorm follows, after a pause.

"Well.  A talking Twoleg," comments the remaining cat, flatly.

"This is at least as weird for me as it is for you."

"Fair enough.  What's your story; Fireheart didn't supply a lot of details."

"I am a magical being Fireheart accidentally summoned and I am trying to orient to this new universe because the universe I'm usually summoned to hasn't got sapient cats to the best of my knowledge."

"That's still not really a lot of details."

"What kind of details were you hoping for?"

"If I had a good answer to that there'd be fewer things I needed to be told about!  But, hm, what sort of magical being are you; what's the place you're usually summoned to like; what's the place you're usually summoned from like; what do you even mean by 'summoning', really; what's it like being a Twoleg?"

"You know what, when you put it that way, being a twoleg is not great! Without the wings and tail I can hardly balance! Hands are marvelous though. I don't have a word in this language for the kind of magical being. Twolegs would say 'demon'. The place I'm from doesn't have anyone who can talk besides demons, and we can all make stuff whenever we want, so it has lots of stuff. Summoning is causing someone to appear in one world from another."

"How do you know what it's like without your wings and tail," she asks, sitting down and splaying her bad leg out to the side.

"Oh, I didn't use to have them, I used to be a non-magical twolegs and then I turned into a demon after that."

"How?"

"In my world it happens if somebody summons a magical being and then dies! I got murdered, specifically. I have no idea if this will happen to Fireheart."

"It would be nice to be able to talk to a StarClan cat outside of dreams, if we could summon him from there."

"I have no reason to expect that to be possible besides proof of concept."

"Oh.  Would he be able to make things like a Twoleg, if it did work that way?"

"It would not in and of itself give him either thumbs or engineering skill."

"Are those why they build their enormous nests and Thunderpaths and things?"

"Yes. I mean, the enormity of the dwellings is scaled to the size of the occupants, also, but yes."

"I think they're pretty big even given how tall you all are."

"Yeah, if it were just a nest and all it was for was sleep a house would be pretty excessive, I'll give you that."

"What else is it for?"

"Cooking, elaborate water-based sandbox-and-licking-oneself substitutes, privacy, shelter, storage."

"Cooking?"

"Altering food by combining ingredients and applying heat and stuff. Somewhat wasted on the feline palate as far as I am aware."

"It would be pretty nice to be able to have warm prey even if the warriors had to carry it a long way back to camp in the middle of leaf-bare!"

"Fair enough. Also I've heard cats like the taste of yeast. But I don't know that you'd benefit from spices or whatever. Maybe I'm wrong."

"Do you mean like herbs?  Cats definitely benefit from herbs.  Though not really in a tasting way for most of them, I suppose."

"Do you have medicinal ones or something?"

"Yes, lots of them.  I'm - ThunderClan's medicine cat, now."

"Is that a 'good for you' situation or a 'condolences'."

"Condolences."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you."

"I know a lot about twolegs medicine but very little about cat medicine."

"Are you a Twoleg medicine cat?  - A medicine Twoleg."

"Basically, but my training was pretty focused on using magic in the doctoring process."

"How does that work?"  She looks rapt.

"I can make things, which includes medicines but also organs and limbs to replace damaged or missing ones, tissue to heal wounds, and various machinery twolegs have invented to help people get better."

"With your thumbs and engineering skill?  Are those magic?"

"They are not, thumbs are these," he waggles them, "some cats actually have them but not usefully opposable, they make us very dextrous, and engineering skill means accumulated expertise at building things, including things with lots of steps because the parts also need to be built."

"I'm confused about what your magic does, then."

He appears a chicken nugget in midair and catches it and eats it. "That."

" - Oh.  That's - astoundingly useful - "

"It is, I like it a lot."

"You said it does limbs?"

"Yeah, if you've got somebody down a paw I can fix that, that doesn't require that much knowledge of cat medicine. Though if they don't want it to hurt I would have to look up some painkillers and dosing."

She sticks her leggy out real far.  "I got hit by a monster.  And I know how many poppy seeds to take."

"- okay, for that I would want to actually remove and replace the entire leg, and put you on something other than poppyseeds."

"Like what?"

"Lemme look it up." Computer computer. "...apparently lidocaine will work but can be risky in cats, though in a very small localized amount you'd almost certainly be okay. Also this is me assuming that you are like a non-sapient cat of the kind I am familiar with, pharmacologically speaking, which I don't know if I should be certain of..."

"I was mostly fine on poppy seeds the first time around.  How long would it hurt for, if you're putting a new one back on right away?"

"Oh, not long at all, but you do have to hold still so I don't miss and have your new leg joined up wrong."

"Well that's fine; I was afraid it was going to be a quarter-moon.  I really couldn't have done that, leaving ThunderClan without a medicine cat for any length of time."

"ThunderClan would not be without a medicine cat for any length of time. Do you want me to do this literally now?"

". . . It should wait at least until Fireheart and Sandstorm return.  Maybe longer."

"Sure thing."

"I appreciate the offer, though.  A lot."

"No problem."

"Tell me more about Twoleg medicine.  I bet we have a lot to learn from each other."

"You might have to be more specific."

"Hmm.  Diseases?  Do Twolegs get greencough?"

"Yes, and it's not all one disease, it's any bad enough lung infection."

"What do you treat it with?  We mostly use catmint, which works better than anything else, but we still lose a lot of kits and elders."

"Different things, you have to treat whatever the underlying effect is. Antibiotics if it's bacterial, antivirals if it's viral."

"I have no idea what you just said."

"Most diseases including greencough are caused by living things too small to see, and those come in broad categories, mostly 'bacteria' and 'viruses', and there are different classes of drug that can kill those without doing too much damage to the patient."

Cinderpelt has LOTS of questions about germ theory, enough to keep busy until the other cats approach.

Princess is now limping harder than Cinderpelt was on her way over.

"- whoa, Princess, what happened to you?"

"I smelt a dog and then I saw it and it was so big and it was tearing apart a bird really violently - " she hops up in Cam's lap " - and it didn't notice me so I ran away as fast as I could and I cut my foot.  And then Fireheart found me and I was so glad that he's alive but I still had to walk all the way back here."  The way she's being careful of one of her front paws is not a way that prevents her from getting a bit of blood on his jeans.

Is it polite to pet cats in this universe. "Let me have a look at your paw?"

The main pad and one of her toebeans have a moderate slice through them.

"Do you mind if I clean this up a bit and then close it with magic? It'll sting a bit but not for long."

"Okay."

"I want to watch!" meows Cinderpelt, standing up with her forepaws on Cam's knee, trying to get a good viewing angle and keep her balance.

"Suit yourself." He applies antiseptic and then pinches the cut closed and fills in the damage with fresh tissue attached on both sides, just a thin layer. "There you go."

Princess flinches a little but doesn't make any noise while Cam works, then shakes out her paw and stretches it.  "Wow, that's really all better, isn't it.  Thank you!"  She starts purring and rubs her face on him.

"Aw, you're welcome. Do you like to be petted?"

"Yes!"  Headbutt; biscuits-making.

Pet pet pet. "So do dogs definitely not talk or is it like twolegs where for all you know they could have their own language?"

(Cinderpelt removes herself from Cam's knee and pads over to where Sandstorm is whispering in Fireheart's ear.)

"I don't know how I would tell!  My housefolk don't have one and I don't see very many of them in more than passing."

"Maybe a dog can be convinced to complete a summoning circle and then we will know." Scritch scritch.

prrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

"My turn?" asks Cinderpelt.  To the other Clan cats: "He can fix my leg."

"In exchange for what," is Sandstorm's first question.

"...I don't really need anything, since I can make arbitrary material objects. Uh, general goodwill?"

"He appeared a weird Twoleg prey thing out of nothing!  And he's a medicine cat."

"What sort of things would you want with our goodwill?"

"Native guides? More summonses performed, possibly?"

"I would like to make it clear that we won't consider ourselves bound to do anything in particular if there are things you want from us that you're not mentioning."  She looks to Fireheart.

"Right.  We aren't agreeing to act wrongly or against ThunderClan's interests by accepting your help."

"...as I mentioned before, in my culture of origin agreements are not nearly so laden. I am not considering you obligated to anything specific, I just like being helpful and vaguely hope that you will look kindly on opportunities to be helpful back should they arise."

Fireheart nods.  "ThunderClan will look on you as a friend for this."

"Great, so how do we want to do this - if it's going to stop hurting immediately then I probably don't even need poppy seeds; they won't be helpful enough to make it worth how long they'll make me sleepy afterwards - "

"I'm going to give you a very very conservative dose of lidocaine, which will burn for a second but cut the sensation from the leg off temporarily, and then sterilize the surface of the leg with some stuff that shouldn't hurt a bit, and then I'm going to remove it above the point of injury with magic - I'll put a very thin layer of salt water across it, so it will stop being attached - and then immediately make a new healthy leg starting from there. The lidocaine should wear off quickly after that because it will mostly be operating in the removed leg."

"What if it does end up being poison for our kind of cat?"

"You don't seem obviously biologically different in any way. I could make a cat-body that didn't have a mind, if you like, and try it on that and see if anything bad happened."

"Isn't the mind the part that would make us different?"

"I'm not planning to give you psychoactive drugs. Checking drug reactions on mindless twoleg bodies works fine."

". . . Okay, if you say so."

Cam makes a basement dweller Cinderpelt and demonstrates the intended operation, then checks for any of the listed side effects.

It looks fine.

"What the fuck?" meows Princess, spotting the doppelganger and snapping out of her purrreverie.

"Uh, I'm showing Cinderpelt how I'd swap out her leg. On this unthinking physical copy."

She glances over at the forest dweller Cinderpelt, who isn't objecting to this process.  "Oh.  Okay.  Neat."

"That looks fine to me," declares Cinderpelt, lying down in a similar position to the basement dweller.  "Go ahead."

"Lidocaine going now, let me know when it stops feeling burny."

"Now, I suppose?"  She watches her leg.

He pinch-tests a toebean. "Working okay? - basement dwellers don't respond to pain, I can tell it's not having an allergic reaction but I don't know if it's doing its job."

"I felt that?"

"...oh dear. Okay. Uh, I can try a higher dose, I can try a sedative, I can make you some poppyseeds, I can try just doing it real fast..."

"How likely are you to make a mistake doing it fast?"

"Not particularly, if you hold very still."

"It twitches sometimes already . . ."  She sighs.  "Probably I should take at least a few poppy seeds.  And a stick to bite on."

Cam makes some poppy seeds and a stick for her. "Still want to go through with it?"

She separates a few seeds out and cronches them.  "Yes of course.  Just give me a moment for these to take effect."

It's not very long at all before she takes the stick in her mouth and mews assent around it.

"Okay. Three, two, one -" Leg goes, leg appears.

Cinderpelt braces herself, but not in a way where she doesn't hold her leg very still.  Once he's done, she spits out the stick and starts on investigating her new limb.  "Oh, that wasn't bad at all.  Almost didn't have time to hurt."

"I do my best!" He tosses the discard leg onto the basement dweller. "Okay if I burn these? I won't let it spread."

Fireheart goes through several very different illegible cat facial expressions in a very short span.  "That's fine," he mews, mildly, when the other two Clan cats look to him.

Assorted cat parts are instantly immolated; a ring of cold contains the flames.

Cinderpelt tries standing up, walking, and - if that goes well - running?

Her new leg should work good as new modulo some lidocaine!

It's still been half a year since she's been able to move with any speed; she trips and wipes out almost immediately.  But she's right back up, giving it another go, and the same is true after the next two times.

A bit out of breath, she turns back to Cam.  "Thank you.  Again."

"You're welcome!"

She yawns and flops down.  "Ugh, wish I hadn't taken those poppy seeds - suppose I don't know whether I would have moved without them . . ."

Sandstorm licks Cinderpelt's head.  "I recall we were originally going to discuss whether Cam should talk to other Twolegs on our behalf."

"Oh, would you do that?  I have so many questions for my housefolk and things I want to tell them!"

"I wouldn't mind! Conveniently humans in this universe seem to speak some of the languages I already know from mine. What do you want to say to them?"

"Why is Jackie so sad all the time?  She should not cuddle me so that I can't get away even when she is very sad.  I want to visit my kits who live far away, or have them come to see me.  And my other siblings!  There's a type of food I like that they stopped giving me a while back and I don't know why.  They should hang up the birdfeeder again."

"Well, I don't know how receptive they'll be to all those suggestions but if you show me where you live I can try to convince them that I am a cat whisperer. This might involve proving that I can communicate with you and vice-versa, like me telling you to do stuff that would have been too complicated to train you to do without talking or you reporting to me on stuff that's in another room."

"I can do that.  Oh, and you can tell them that Cloudpaw is alive!  They probably think he died."

" - Don't tell the Twolegs about the Clans at least until we've discussed it with more cats.  Please."

"...would reporting that Cloudpaw is alive constitute telling them about the Clans?"

"I think communicating anything from cats to Twolegs has a risk of putting us all in danger, because we don't know why Twolegs do almost any of the things they do which affect Clan cats, and anyone not involved in the decision to let them know about us would be right to be very angry that it was made without them.  Fireheart, why didn't you bring Bluestar here?"

"Bluestar is . . . occupied," he replies uneasily.

"Well.  In any case it should wait until after the next Gathering; all Clans should have input in something as big as this."

"When is the next Gathering?"

"On the full moon."

"Well, none of Princess's concerns sounded especially urgent, but it's possible I will want to talk to some Twolegs before that time, depending on what the moon is doing today and how long months are here."

"Wouldn't it be alright for him to say my things as long as they don't know forest cats exist."

"I don't see a problem with Cam speaking with other Twolegs in ways that don't draw any attention to us, right, Sandstorm?"

"I bet he'd be really good at that!  He wouldn't tell me anything at all about you even though I thought you and Cloudpaw had died."  She presses flanks with Fireheart and nuzzles him.

". . . It seems like your own business who you talk to as long the Clans don't come up," Sandstorm acquiesces to Cam.  "But if you fail to talk around it then, again, every cat in the forest will be correct in their anger towards you."

"I can understand why you would not want a bunch of twolegs previously unaware that you were people to become apprised of feral cats living in the forest! It seems like that could in fact end badly if it were handled wrong. Uh. Now that I think about it, what do you guys eat."

"Thank you for taking this seriously.  Prey?"

"And, uh, how sure are you that prey... is not people."

"By that do you mean whether they can talk to others of their kind?"

"Eh, most animals can do that without talking intelligently. But clearly you guys are people in the sense of having politics and medical expertise and names and suchlike, and the twolegs have not evidently noticed, so if songbirds and voles were people..."

She flicks the tip of her tail but doesn't verbally respond.

"Unfortunately I don't know how to tell, I didn't get a vole language for free with my summons, but, uh, if it would not be too far beneath your dignity to take food I make for you..."

(Fireheart is so uncomfortable on multiple levels!  He tries to hide it, and succeeds at only looking so uncomfortable on one level.)

"Why?"

"Look, I grew up eating animals, but on my planet the twolegs - who are so far as I know the only sapient species there - have phased out this practice because demons like me can make meat that's just as good, actually better on average, for cheaper, without hurting any animals, and those animals aren't nearly as bright as you! This planet by contrast observably contains some sapiences unbeknownst to some other sapiences, so if you can stand not catching the songbirds and voles while I try to figure out if this is even a concern, it would be a weight off my mind."

"You keep saying things that don't make sense."

"...I suppose I've been assuming that you guys are against murder. Are you not?"

"It's against the warrior code to kill cats under most circumstances . . ."

"Is it objectionable in any way to kill, say, me? Supposing this were feasible and you happened to feel like it for some reason."

"That would depend on what the reason was."

"What reasons would make it unobjectionable?"

"Well, if you were trying to kill me, for one."

"Apart from self-defense or the defense of the lives of others, anything?"

"Probably.  I'm not thinking of a specific one right now."

"Okay. Well. Because I can make arbitrary material objects including whatever food your hearts may desire, killing prey is not defense of your lives or those of others, because there are other ways to get food, and I don't know how many species on this planet are people and neither do you, so perhaps you could cool it with killing stuff till we know more."

"It's not my decision."

"You don't hunt?"

"Of course I do.  But I do it for the good of the Clan, and so it's not my decision."

"How long do you think it will take you to figure this out?" asks Fireheart.

"Uh, don't know. I can probably wrangle a mouse into completing a summoning circle but if that fails that's not conclusive for bluejays. Ideally I would not have to do it that way, especially since it's possible my being summoned here was a fluke of some kind and is not in fact reproducible."

"What would you trade us if we caught you some live prey for use in determining this?"

"I wouldn't! I would rather have minimally terrified live prey for this purpose and I don't think you're used to hunting to spec."

"How about for introducing you to some of the other Clans?"

"If there's something you want you can just ask me, making it would take less time than figuring out trade negotiations."

"Our Clan doesn't need anything more from you.  But if there was something you felt like offering, in trade, for help which we are positioned to provide, then of course it would be foolish not to accept."  He stares at Cam kind of intently.

"...whatever the cultural significance of this is is kind of lost on me, I'm sorry."

"Incidentally, you were correct that it would be beneath our dignity - and against the warrior code - to accept food from you."

"Would you folks like a month's supply of vacuum sealed assorted comestibles - I can figure out how to make it so you can open them - in exchange for an introduction to the other clans?"

". . . Well, that would be somewhat difficult, given our present relations with some of them, but your offer was generous enough that I'm sure we can improve on you trying to meet them alone."

"Fireheart, this is - wrong - "

"There's nothing wrong about making allies, Sandstorm," he meows quietly.  "Especially since you saw what he did to the other Cinderpelt.  And to the real Cinderpelt, for that matter."  (Cinderpelt is still lying down where she flopped, and though her head is up her eyes are closed; she doesn't particularly seem to be following the conversation.)  "This is what's best for the Clan."

Sandstorm turns to Cam.  "I don't like any of this, but a moon's worth is definitely too much for what you're asking.  Give us a quarter of that at most, and find something else you want after that if you really must."

"I had actually talked myself down from a year. A principle of trade is that things are often of different values to different parties and everyone wins by making the exchange; there's no objective fair price."

"A quarter-moon at a time, then."

"If you want it in installments that's... okay I guess."

(Sandstorm looks unhappy but doesn't actually object.)

"ThunderClan thanks you for your generosity."

"You're welcome. Where do you want the food? And what are everybody's favorites?"

"We're not taking you to ThunderClan camp," Sandstorm responds immediately.

"Here is fine; we can carry it back - I like finches and voles - " and he lists a variety of species which he knows particular cats to favor.  "Maybe one of us should try one to make sure it's alright before you make the whole batch."

"Sure." He makes a sample vole in a package that should open easily once punctured with a claw.

"What's this around it?"

"Plastic. Keeps it clean, so it won't rot even if you leave it in there for months."

"It smells bad."

"I'm sorry, you probably have a better nose than I do. Does it make the vole taste bad?"

Fireheart de-plastics the package and nudges Cinderpelt's shoulder with his nose.  "Cinderpelt, try this vole."

"Mmn?"  She cracks open an eye and after a moment of processing agreeably starts in on it.

The vole would taste normal, to a human who ate voles, but the packaging process was not devised with the feline palate in mind.

"Tastes kinda Twoleg-y," she declares after a few bites, and stops eating, and closes her eyes again.

"...I hope that means that many Twoleg-derived meals have touched plastic, and not that it tastes like a Twoleg."

"It tastes like all their - " she yawns "things smell."

"I think it smells fine," mews Princess.

"Well, you would."

"Plastic is very useful. Is this a serious enough problem that I need to find alternate preservation methods?"

"It is already going to be very difficult to convince the rest of the Clan to give up hunting, even for a short time."

"Yeah, I was afraid of that. Hopefully none of the prey are having politics."

"If you're facing trying to get all Clans to give up hunting forever, I should meet with them before introducing you.  I think this is likely enough to make a difference in how they receive the idea that it will be worth the delay even if prey animals are like cats."

"I'll defer to you on that."

"Would you meet me at dawn tomorrow?"

"Sure. Here?"

"At the edge of Twolegplace or in Princess's yard would be fine.  If we'll be seeing each other again so soon, I suggest you give us a day's worth of fresh-kill without any Twoleg wrappings, which we can eat all of before it turns to crowfood.  And a few for me to bring as offerings to the other Clans."

"Sure." He makes an assortment, unwrapped but at least initially free of any spores that will molder them.

"The other three Clans prefer to eat fish, rabbits, and amphibians and reptiles."

He can make samples of each. Salmon, bunny, frog.

"Thank you again.  At dawn."  He touches noses with Princess as a goodbye, and ignores Sandstorm's quietly-sour demeanor, and re-rouses Cinderpelt for their prey-laden walk back to camp.  She leans on him for much of the way, and he tries to focus on the joy of her healing instead of the guilt at the memory of the last time he helped his former apprentice home after a major reconfiguration to her limbs.

"Is it time to go see my housefolk?" asks Princess excitedly, positioning herself at Cam's feet.

"As long as that isn't understood to pose too much risk of the clans being discovered!"

"I think they said it was fine.  Pick me up!"

Scoop! Scritch scritch. "Which way?"

She points with her nose rather than stop purring to talk.

He carries her through the woods to her house.

"This one!" she says of a fenced-in backyard with a sliding glass door.

"Okay - I'm going to put on a coat so the wings don't startle people -" He doesn't have to put her down to do this but it does shift his grip a little when sleeves start existing. "And I'm going to go around to the front." He goes around to the front and knocks.

"Hello?"

"Hello, sorry to bother you, but your cat found me and wanted me to carry her home."

"Oh . . kay.  Thanks."  She holds out her arms for Princess.

He hands her over. "Also she had something she wanted to say to Jackie, are you Jackie?"

". . . Yes?"

"- do you want me to demonstrate that I can talk to cats before I pass it on?"

"I mean I can also talk to cats, here, watch.  Hey Princess, who's a good kitty?"

"It's me!" she squeaks.

"Yes, yes, and I can call spirits from the vasty deep, but I mean to say that also I can understand what she says and we can have elaborate conversations."

"Ah-huh."

"Like I said, would you like me to prove that."

"Why not."

"Suppose you give me a set of complicated instructions that, unlike inquiries as to the goodness of kitties, you would not expect Princess to be able to follow, and I relay them?"

"Well.

She normally wouldn't ever scratch me.  So that, I guess."

"...uh, are you sure? I was imagining something more along the lines of, like, bringing you a specific object or something."

"Yeah."

Cam sighs, and meows: "Princess, for unclear reasons Jackie has chosen as her means of proof that she would like you to scratch her."

Jackie snorts.  "At least you're committed to the bit."

Princess's eyes are enormous.  "But I would never!"

"Yeah, that's why she picked it, specifically because you would never. I guess you could extend your claws and approach her hand with them and look up at her and see if she nods?"

"Okay . . ."  Claws out, paw approach?

Actually Jackie is trying not to display any body language at all.  She's not even looking at Princess.

She sheaths her claws and makes a scratching motion without them??  When that provokes no response she extends them a little and moves her paw very gently, definitely not enough to break skin and with barely even enough pressure to leave little white lines.

"Huh."

"She said 'but I would never' if you're curious."

"One second."  She closes the door on him and locks it.