The air around them was fragile, glassy, and Beauty felt that any harsh movement or one misplaced word would cover them in cutting shards. She was holding her breath, and when she realized it, she carefully, carefully let it out. Her teacup sat forgotten on its saucer, balanced gently on her knee between two index fingers.
He didn't tell you.
Errol had painted a very vivid picture for her, given her enough of a broad-sweeping vision to glimpse the horrors he'd gone through -- but specifics were left to her imagination. She'd not pressed. She hadn't been able to, not with the way she'd seen his hands shake, not with the way his eyes had deepened with bone-deep shame. Yes, there were many things Errol hadn't told her.
"He... I'm not sure..." And her voice was very little more than a whisper, "... He said the Grammaton Clerics were elite hunters, searching out those pockets of resistance against the world that Prozium created." Sense offender. Errol was a sense offender. Perhaps that meant that he was part of the resistance. Perhaps that's what Clerics called them.
The man in front of her was struggling; she saw that much plainly. And she almost didn't ask -- she almost didn't press. But it was Errol. Did she leave it at this? Could she?
"Your job...?" she finally asked, oh, oh so carefully. Her fingertips curved harder around the rim of that china saucer.