"Not me. I'm just repeating what it said."
Dade didn't believe him. "Impossible. All the cats in the city have been influenced by Lily. None of them would swear that viciously."
That cat clearly wasn't from Free City, but Annan had no way to explain that. "So what kind of swear words were they?"
"Just some... flower-related ones." Dade was too embarrassed to say them aloud.
How could flowers be swear words?
Annan was puzzled at first, then suddenly realized that flowers were a plant's... reproductive Organ.
That cat really did have a filthy mouth.
But why had it cursed at him? Or had he heard it wrong?
"What about this time?"
Annan meowed again.
"I love my mother, the roof licked its fur over my head and took a nap..." Dade saw Annan's confusion and explained, "You got it wrong again."
"Just changing the tone completely changes the meaning?"
"Animals don't have language. They can only use different tones to express what they're doing."
Apparently, memorizing a cat's meows wouldn't let him translate what it said.
With that approach a dead end, Annan tried another. "What about learning Animal Language through Magic?"
"Can't be done," Dade said, blocking that route too.
"Magic can do all sorts of incredible things, but it can't let me learn an animal's language?"
"Of course it can. It's just that no one knows how."
Animal Language was the sort of Magic that "the Academy didn't teach" and "no one used in daily life."
"Annan, you're only curious anyway. Why not buy a Potion?"
"That works too."
Annan couldn't be bothered to look for Lilith, though. Did he really need to make a cat one of his believers?
But that cat could pray...
Turning his attention back to the matter at hand, Annan looked at