"I thought you were happy for me!"
He had been happy for her. Of course he had been happy for her—at first he'd been thrilled simply that she wasn't killed on the spot. Then he'd been excited to think that he would be best friends with a Grey Warden of all people. How many dusters could say that? But then she'd left. And then she'd been gone. And she'd...not been there. And he'd tried to go about his life as he always had, but he couldn't because she wasn't there, and she'd always been there before, and it had been like losing an arm or a leg and...ancestors damn it all, it had hurt. But of course he couldn't say all that. Not with Jarvia beside him, just waiting for him to slip, waiting for an excuse to put her poisoned dagger between his ribs. So he lied. Again. He pretended he hadn't cared. That he hadn't been lost and hopeless after she was gone. That he hadn't had nightmares for months after he had heard of the fall of the Grey Wardens at Ostagar. He lied to save his own life, and perhaps hers as well, and he prayed that someday she would forgive him.