. . .
"Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen."
—Orhan Pamuk.
. . .
They round a corner into a small back alley, with Alastor tilting head up a bit to be able to better track the scent of one William Veil.
The winds were cold, if not feeling a bit damp... maybe it rained or it was going to rain soon enough? It smells of drying leaves and rotting trees here, but he supposes it is to be expected since it is already autumn in Japan.
Hey, maybe if he's really lucky, he'll get to experience the first snowfall here with Winters. Now, wouldn't that just be romantic?!
It's also a good thing since both he and his mate had the sense to dress appropriately for the expected weather... well that, and from what he can tell, her clothes were typically coats and long sleeves.
"He feels everywhere but nowhere..." Alastor remarked.
"You mean like Schrodinger's cat?"
At the obvious look of confusion Alastor was so sure he's sporting right now; Winters was quick to explain:
"In quantum mechanics, Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment that illustrates a paradox of quantum superposition. It illustrates what he saw as absurdities in the views that other physicists had about quantum mechanics, which are later labeled as the Copenhagen interpretation by applying them not to microscopic objects but to everyday ones. The thought that the experiment presents is about a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event."
Alastor stares blankly at her.
What...?
"So, to put it simply, 'Schrodinger's Cat' was just a teaching tool invented to try to make this fact more obvious by reducing the observer-driven notion to absurdity... however, a lot of popular science writers in continue to publicize the misconception that a quantum state, and reality itself is determined by conscious observers."
"Right," Alastor nods, even if his brain had done an automatic shut down in the midst of her explanation, "Animal cruelty is not cool."
"What?"
He absolutely has no idea what Winters was talking about (something about experimenting on an... undead cat?) but she sounds so smart, so he digs it. "That we shouldn't experiment on cats, but rats are somehow okay."
Winters stares at him, "...do you even get what I was saying?"
He gave her a thumbs-up, "Yup!" Nope.
Not a damn thing.
She sighs, before looking ahead.
"He should be somewhere around here..." Winters muttered beside him, looking around with narrowed eyes, as if expecting her brother to just pop right out of the next corner.
"The kid's probably just ahead or something," Alastor assures her with a gentle squeeze on her shoulder, taking note of her furrowed brows and stance, "I'm not really sure if it's because of you but I'm positive he's near... or somewhere around the area at least."
Her gaze lingered at his hand still in his shoulder for a moment before meeting his gaze, "What does it got to do with me?"
Alastor reluctantly pulled away, trying to think of how to word it, "Well, since you two are—you know..." she raised an eyebrow but otherwise did not voice out her real relation to William, "It throws me off a bit since your scents are kind of similar with one another and essentially the same thing, but otherwise different enough up close. It's just... kind of a challenge when both scents are in two entirely different directions when I'm only tracking one of them while the other is with me."
