01. video

[firealone]

[This is a bit of a struggle, but Firepaw is doing his best. A very under-sized Litten is trying to put himself in frame, but he's a little awkwardly close.]

Um... hello. Can everyone hear me? My name is Firepaw, I'm- I was an apprentice of ThunderClan. Oh- and I used to be a cat, before I came here. A lot of you know me already, but... yes.

[Just going by his voice, it's pretty clear he's a kitten. Public speaking feels incredibly bad, even without a visible crowd.]

A few of you Twolegs - humans - have four legs now, and I wanted to offer help with getting used to that. I can teach you how to hunt and fight, or at least step lightly. I don't know much about our new powers, but we might be able to practice those together too. I can also help with learning different scents, since I think humans can't smell as well as cats, or... Pokemon. That might make gathering herbs and berries easier, too.

[One more thing which... feels like blasphemy for a cat, but he needs to do it.]

And... if anyone knows how to swim, I think I'd like to learn. If another storm comes with new folk, I want to be able to help them get to shore.

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[moondregs]

[ Junpei considers his plush paws. ]

I don’t know how useful of a fighter I’d be. I don’t even have claws.

[firealone]

You don't have claws?

[Even dogs have claws. Why would a large animal not have claws? The mind balks at such a concept.]

Do you have teeth? Maybe you need to focus on biting. Or... the big ferret that used to live around Pokemon, he might know what powers you can use instead.

[moondregs]

I do have teeth ... but I'm so small now ... do you really think that will be enough?

[firealone]

Cats can do plenty of damage with their bite, and we're only about a tail-length tall.

[Firepaw, that measurement means nothing to anyone.]

Actually, I was taught not to bite during battle unless it was absolutely necessary. Even our medicine cats have trouble healing the infections from our bites. I'm sure your bite can be just as dangerous.

[moondregs]

Infections?

[ He regards his mouth with one paw. ]

So ... before I came here, I fought with what we call a shikigami. It could poison people with its tentacles. I'm not really used to doing the fighting myself.

[ Sure, he was pissed enough to give Shota a punch to the gut and kick him while he was down, but it had only been after he was pushed to his emotional limit. ]

[firealone]

Yeah, um... I don't know much about infections, but they make you really sick if they're not treated.

[He doesn't know what tentacles are, but it sounds gross and terrible. Lucky for Junpei, unlike a lot of cats from his world Firepaw is very understanding about other creatures not wanting to fight to survive.]

We have similar things- well... snakes. I don't know how similar they actually are. Snakes don't have paws, but they have venomous bites that can easily kill a cat. My friend Ravenpaw caught one a few moons ago, and I'm still not sure how he did it.

[He sends along a mental image of Ravenpaw, a scrawny black kitten, holding a full-grown common adder in his mouth.]

[moondregs]

Snakes exist in my world, too.

[ Living in the city, Junpei doesn't come across them often. There are, however, plenty of stray cats. ]

Well, cats are excellent hunters. Where I live, they're actually the most detrimental invasive species to small wild animal popu --

[ Then he remembers he's speaking to a cat. A cat who thus far has been very kind to him, and he changes course. ]

Er, what I mean to say, is I can see a cat catching a snake. I've seen cats make big dogs scared with one look.

[firealone]

[Honestly, Firepaw doesn't know all of those words but he takes the sentiment as a compliment. He likes the idea of being a detriment to the small animal population.]

ThunderClan cats try to stay away from dogs - even the small ones seem dangerous. But I bet any cat that can scare away the big ones is really cool.

[Every dog he's personally met has been terrifying, but he was a tiny kitten the last time he saw one up close. Maybe he'd be braver now.]

[moondregs]

Well, there are dog Pokemon here … like Mightyena. But I don’t think you need to be afraid of her.

[ He’s only seen her around briefly, but she’s a guild leader so it wouldn’t make sense for her to be confrontational. ]

[firealone]

That's true - I don't think Mightyena is scary, but I haven't gotten very close to her.

[Partly because he's not a fan of the Mightyena smell, but he would never say that.]

To be honest, though, I am getting more used to spending time around all sorts of different creatures. At a certain point I stopped really thinking of the other Pokemon as 'not cats', since they can all speak.

[moondregs]

Yeah, I guess it does make a difference when you can communicate. It's hard to think of you as a cat like I know back home, since they can't speak. Or, at least, not in a language I can understand. I remember reading somewhere pet cats developed a lot of sounds specifically to get the attention of humans, that they don't use them with other cats.

[ Not that he's given much thought to cats before this, he's a movie nerd not a cat nerd. ]

... thinking about something with the same intelligence level as me as a 'pet' feels wrong, though.

[firealone]

That's true - at least, I did when I was a housecat. It was just sort of instinctive. I kept meowing at different pitches until I found one that got my housefolk's attention, and then stuck to that. The cats in ThunderClan meow sometimes, but mostly when our leader is calling everyone to a Clan meeting.

[The rest of the time they're speaking... vague cat language? The books are unclear.]

The Twolegs back home talked, but it was all garbled noises. Here, it sounds to my ears like everyone is speaking cat. Um... in my world, cats also talked a lot about Twolegs being dumb, since they couldn't talk like us, so I guess it's normal to make that mistake.