"I knew her long before she was Justinia," Leliana replies. There is a calmness in her tone that could be genuine, or could be akin to stepping on ice under the impression that it had some strength to it— a moment of calm before the strike of something more calamitous. "Do not think I could ever forget her, Cassandra. Do not think me so capricious as that."

Calm, still, but with a strange preciseness to it, something walking the same line as sharpness without yet falling into it.

She has two sets of teachings from Justinia. The first which bade her give up arms, and the second which begged her to take them back up. Leliana had known full well what it would mean to take up the mantle of Left Hand, and she had chosen it regardless. Ultimately, even in her idealism, she knew that ruthlessness was necessary for some things.

"All the changes I have made to myself have been to serve her, Andraste and the Maker. I wish to see peace as her legacy. Any cost to me is for the benefit of Thedas and its people. That she would understand."

That she had not asked for, but she had needed, and Leliana had gladly committed to it.