Re: [Dream Training]
Hannah was listening, but it wasn't just the words she was hearing. Body language, tone, even the shift of Eames' eyes as he spoke, and she got the feeling that this was more than instruction for her benefit. It felt like a performance, and she blinked curious cornflower and tipped ear to shoulder. She waited until Eames was done with his speech, and it was kind of like the play and rehearsals, and then she turned her attention to Arthur, because it was his turn, and Eames had handed over the spotlight. She was good and obedient and listening, listening. She tried, in her head, to determine what Arthur was going to say about Eames' performance, and she thought the vague praise was fitting, at least for what she knew so far.
"How is there an architect if the dreamer dreams the dream? Aren't they architecting the space?" she asked, genuinely curious, body showing all the signs of curiosity: Her eyes went wider, she leaned forward, and her shoulders went back, open, listening and tell me because I want to learn. She'd been in earnest when she'd told Arthur that she wanted to learn, that she'd help him if he taught her, and that was before she'd realized she was going to end right here, right in this place. She wasn't sure yet how this dreaming could help her, but learning was always good, and there was power in knowing things. Just like there was power in appearing vacant.
She replayed Arthur's words in her mind, though it was a flawed and very human replaying. She had no abilities that allowed recall, and she was limited just like anyone else would be limited. "I don't think it's me he's worried about," she said of Eames, and she turned and smiled at him as she let Arthur poke at her arm, which felt completely human. "Are you saying we change things when we're in there? The architects? And you never said why you wouldn't be coming." Her attention was back on Arthur's face, and he was much harder for her to understand. She knew he was cunning, canny, and distrusting, but Eames was those things too, and he only appeared more friendly and congenial.
"If you're trying to gain information, which is what I think the dreaming is about, isn't a controlled setting better? Where we can control it? Like the prototype? Or is the idea that it's easier to get things from a person's mind than it would be if their mind was in a construct?" Curious, curious, and Alice tipped her head and glanced from Cheshire to Rabbit, and she waited, not wincing at all when and if the bite of a needle came.