( she thinks, here is the moment where she lets it go: the anger, the betrayal, the crushing weight of how sure she had been, ranting furiously to astarion about her humiliation, that every good memory could no longer be trusted. but she looks at him, his hand in his hair, the horror writ on his face, and some fist that had clenched itself around her heart releases,

she had been so sure he wouldn't feign this to hurt her. the first thing she had been sure of was that he wouldn't do that. )

We both said cruel things, ( she says, at length, ) because we hurt each other. I struggled very clumsily with things you couldn't understand, and you—

( the time when she had wanted him to hurt because she was hurting feels so far away. now it would be so easy to twist the knife in his unprepared underbelly, and she palms it, instead, says: )

Sometimes the Fade just takes rifters back. You didn't die, you were just gone one day, no rift, nothing. You were one of the rifters who'd remained the longest; I'd almost forgotten you could.

( a hesitation. then: )

You were the first person to treat it as a good, my elfblood. You learned my language and you made me laugh and a lot of the time, you had more patience than I had really earned. So I don't— that chapter ended, a way. Please don't feel, I don't know— beholden to sorrows.