The view, in the estimation of Eames, was not splendid. It was cinematic and it was sweeping. It undulated in a way that was beautifully bleak but it wasn't his dream. The placement of the dreamer at the triptych of the landscape was precise. The sweater confirmed his suspicions: somewhere that spoke a thick brogue as an impenetrable sort of normality and Eames loathed heavy wool. It was shapeless and it was usually muted colors that belonged on the animals that grew the original product. If you were going to wear wool, you might as well commit to the Italian, finely woven and excellently cut form of the stuff.
The man that was Eames for the duration of this little sojourn didn't say a scrap of this. He didn't even look like he thought it. He took three steps toward the man with the wild curls and paused there, his presence a finger-stroke along the surface of the tension but not close enough to break it. The earth was stirred, it clung in thick chocolate to the sides of his walking shoes. If it had been Eames, and the dirt truth, perhaps he would have made something of a production of scraping them. But the man in the walking coat looked like he belonged. That was the point, darling.
"Quite," the man who was Eames agreed. The accent was clear-cut. It had the sloped sounds of an education that balanced precisely between 'expensive' and 'ordinary' with the flattened vowels of a southerner and without the crispness that said 'foreign'. His face held gentle respect for the landscape which was visible, discernable like liquid through glass.
There was nothing of the softening Eames expected in dreamers. No boxes, no locked doors, nothing but the cottage and no blurred lines and heart-throb smiles. Everyone was a little prettier when they dreamed, darling, unless they really tried. It was perspective and dreams forced a narrowing until what you saw was contained within one head rather than a multitude. That was of course, unless you were somebody else. Eames was, frequently.
The cottage was what held anything interesting, if there were secrets to be had. It couldn't all be wuthering moors and changeable weather. The light scent of mist in the air dusted the overcoat and the man in it looked as if this dampness was to be expected, even welcomed.
"They remain," the man agreed in the inoffensive voice. "So very much more than who pass in or through or under them." It was a truism, but it was delivered in the soft thoughtfulness of someone turning over a new concept or a new coin, whichever was more interesting.
"Are you?" The returning smile was as gentle as everything else. Eames had a startling suspicion that if you moved too swiftly in here, the entire edifice might collapse. What layer they were in, he hadn't a clue.