Forgiveness from Neria was more than Cullen had ever hoped for. As much as he loathed the person he'd been between the fall of Kinloch and the birth of the Inquisition, as difficult as he found it to let go of that past, he struggled to imagine that anyone he'd hurt would be willing to grant any absolution. Hawke's hostility and telling a whole new world of what he'd done was more comfortable, in some ways; it felt like what he deserved, and was therefore easy to accept. That Neria would forgive him was simultaneously wonderful and terrible. It felt good to have the changes he'd made acknowledged and accepted, and it brought a rush of awful shame to know that he was being treated with mercy by someone he had once been not nearly so good to.
But Neria Surana never had been like anyone else. Cullen supposed he should have expected that she would continue to be more kind than he deserved. And those complicated feelings were all things that he needed to manage in a conversation with Andraste, not to put on Neria's shoulders.
"I don't know if I would say that I have forgiven myself, but I've made a certain amount of peace with my mistakes," Cullen said. "I thank you for your willingness to listen. That, and your forgiveness, mean a great deal to me."