"You think I didn't offer it back?!" Not his proudest moment, of course, but it seemed as wise a thing as any to buy everyone else time. Or to be rid of it. At the moment, he hadn't thought anything of it. Hadn't thought they'd force him into being their leader, into playing a role he loathes with everything in him.

"Death happens, Leliana. Right now it is happening slightly more often." People are dying- it is not the argument to make to an assassin. Death is death. Everyone dies for some reason or another, expecting him to become twisted about with guilt over not saving people he does not know and does not care about? Is foolish. She should know this. Or perhaps she'd bought the mask along with everyone else. "Make me an agent. Make this a little more plain for everyone else, yes? Put me on a leash and take me from rift to rift to seal them but do not pretend any of the choices I make matter. Find a willing puppet for your fucking throne."

Chain him and bind him but do it honestly. Duplicity is a requirement as an assassin, as a spy- but not as friends.

But he has so few of those left. Perhaps she'd never been.